Constitution of the United States of America

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. It was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later ratified by conventions in each state in the name of "the People"; it has since been amended twenty-seven times. The Constitution has a central place in American law and political culture.

United States Constitution in The Disunited States of America
In one alternate, the United States never adopted the Constitution. In the early 19th century, the Union ceased to exist.

United States Constitution in Southern Victory
In the Remembrance culture, the United States Constitution and the freedoms it protected were suborned by the United States' driving need to defeat the Confederate States. After the Great War, the country retreated some from the more authoritarian tendencies of Remembrance.

The Confederate States Constitution was heavily based upon the US one, often quoting verbatim from the older document.

United States Constitution in "Must and Shall"
After the Great Rebellion, the United States Constitution was amended to prevent the descendents of the former rebels from enjoying full citizenship in the US.

United States Constitution in Worldwar
The Race did not fully appreciate the functionality of United States Constitution. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, Fleetlord Atvar gloated that the US would collapse shortly after. Instead, the line of succession in the Constitution permitted Secretary of State Cordell Hull to take the oath of office (Vice President Henry Wallace had been killed in action the previous year).

In 1964, the Constitution worked to the Race's benefit. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of United States Constitution reads "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]." President Earl Warren understood the Free Exercise Clause to require him to assent to Fleetlord Atvar's request that the Race be allowed to set up shrines to the Spirits of Emperors Past in US territory, making the US the only independent Tosevite not-empire to honor this request.

Known Amendments to the Constitution in the works of Harry Turtledove
In the majority of Turtledove's work, the Constitution is the exact same document as in OTL until the 19th or 20th centuries. Listed below are the known changes and/or relevant amendments of the U.S. Constitution that are dealt with in Turtledove's writing.

First Amendment
This Amendment is the same throughout all Turtledove works with a Point of Divergence after 1791. As described above, the Free Exercise Clause played an important role in Worldwar.

The Reconstruction Amendments: Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
The so-called Reconstruction Amendements were adopted in the aftermath of the American Civil War. These amendments are present in all Turtledove works with a Point of Divergence after 1865. One exception is "Must and Shall", (POD 1864), where strong evidence exists that these reconstruction amendments, plus additional amendments, were ratified.

In The Guns of the South (POD 1864), references are made to the fact that the thriteenth amendment was not gaining momentum in the U.S. Presumably, given the change in circumstances, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were not ratified, if ever introduced.

In Southern Victory, the United States had outlawed slavery by 1881. This does not indicate in and of itself the ratification of the thirteenth amendment, as much of the white population was indifferent to slavery, if not hostile to blacks. The remaining amendments also do not appear to exist in any recognizable form, although the voting rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment do seem to have been adopted either by the individual states or the country as a whole at some point.

The Sixteenth Amendment
In OTL, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified in 1913, granting Congress the power to tax income. It appears in this form in any POD after 1913.

In "Must and Shall", this amendment was one more Reconstruction Amendment. It disenfranchised all white descendents of those who fought for the Confederacy.

The Nineteenth Amendment
In OTL, the nineteenth amendment was ratified in 1920, and granted women the right to vote. It exists in this form in all stories with a POD after 1920.

In Southern Victory, the nineteenth amendment provided the same rights, but was passed in 1928.

The Twentieth Amendment
The twentieth amendment was ratified in January, 1933, but went into effect that October. It moved the beginning of the President's term to January 20th at noon and the Congressional term at January 3rd at noon.

In Southern Victory, a constitutional amendment, (number unspecified but probably the 20th), does the exact same thing, save for moving inauguration day up to February. It was also ratified before 1933.

The Twenty-Eight Amendment
As of this writing, the U.S. Constitution has been twenty-seven times in OTL, although there are several proposals for additional amendments. The short story "Elder Skelter" addresses one possible Twenty-Eighth Amendment, a balanced-budget amendment.