Here is my Constitution (a work in progress).
1. Know the layout. The typical layout of a constitution looks like this.
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[center][b]Title[/b][/center]
[center][b]Preamble[/b][/center]
[center][b]Articles[/b][/center]
[center][b]Amendments[/b][/center]
2. The Title (Optional)
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If you want to add a title to your Constitution that's fine. Know that there will also be a title on your factbook. I opted not to put on into mine but if you want to, make sure its bolded, centered and says something like "The Constitution of @@NATION@@" or "The @@DEMONYMNAME@@ Constitution" You may also choose a custom for your title, make it creative.
3. The Preamble
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One of the most crucial components of your constitution. The Preamble, the preamble should state the real reason you are creating a constitution and an introduction to it. Spend some time doing this, this is the first thing people are going to see when they view your constitution. Heres an example from the United States of America's constitution.We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This is a prime example of a preamble for a constitution. It lists the reasons for creating it "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" and summarizes how and why they are forming it. Try and list at least 3 reasons for creating the constitution. You can also choose to add "We the people of @@NATION@@" at the start to indicate a democracy. I wouldn't recommend it if you are trying to be original.
4. The Articles
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The articles are the all the ingredients for a constitution. Articles layout the laws and boundaries on how to establish the government, rules for the government, and the correct procedures for events that might happen in government (vacancies, tied vote, etc.) Most of your time drafting a constitution should go towards this part. Let's break it down.
Articles should have something they describe. For example, Article 1 of the US Constitution describes congress, article 2 describes the duties of president and vice-president, article 3 describes the court system, so on and so forth. Before you write anything, decide how many articles you're going to have, and what each article is going to address. Be creative and feel free to do whatever you want, make your constitution original, don't copy.
Once you have the articles laid out, decide what the content is going to be, again, make it about establishing the government, rules for the government, and correct procedures for events that might happen in government. Optionally, you can break down these articles further into smaller "sub-articles" called sections. These are even smaller articles, try to categorize laws in your constitution into sections kind of like articles. Again, a great example of this is the US Constitution, look at it before you write ANYTHING.
Try to follow this template:[center]Article #.[/center]
Section #.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris ullamcorper mi ut massa egestas fermentum. Ut semper tristique lacus eu volutpat. Donec commodo finibus dui, eu facilisis augue semper ac. Nulla hendrerit justo vel tincidunt convallis. Suspendisse suscipit nulla eu accumsan dictum. Sed id lectus vitae ipsum vulputate placerat nec a ligula.
Take note though, that many countries also have a bill of rights in their constitutional articles. In some constitutions like the United States', they have an entirely different section for this called Amendments. Which is Directly down below this section of the post.
5. Amendments (optional)
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The Amendments is the cherry on top. It provides rights for citizens in your nation. AGAIN, the US Constitution is a great example of this, tons of amendments for the nation so go ham. For Example:
Amendment 1.
All citizens have the right to vote in the national election.
Do as many amendments as you want.
This is completely optional though as only the United States has amendments. Many other countries simply do not have a bill of rights or it is featured in their articles. Remember, look at other countries constitutions
to get a general baseline of how this should look.
6. Table of Contents (optional)
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This is a table of contents, this is completely optional but its definitely something you might want to put into your constitution. Make sure you put this part after your title but before your preamble. Use this template, make sure you delete anything you haven't put into your constitution.
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[box][floatleft][b]Table of Contents[/b]
[url=REPLACELINKHERE#Preamble]The Preamble[/url]
[url=REPLACELINKHERE#Articles]Articles[/url]
[url=REPLACELINKHERE#Amendments]Amendments[/url][/box][/floatleft]
Make sure when you put this in you add anchors like this.
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[anchor=EXAMPLE]Example[/anchor]
7. Helpful Sources
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US Constitution:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/ ... transcript
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... nstitution
WikiHow:
https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Constitution
