The purpose of the United States Constitution is to protect the rights of United States citizens, by limiting the powers of their government. President Ronald Reagan explained it like this:
“The culmination of men’s dreams for 6,000 years were formalized with the Constitution, probably the most unique document ever drawn in the long history of man’s relation to man. I know there have been other constitutions, new ones are being drawn today by newly emerging nations. Most of them, even the one of the Soviet Union, contains many of the same guarantees as our own constitution, and still there is a difference.
The difference is so subtle that we often overlook it, but it is so great that it tells the whole story. Those other constitutions say, ‘Government grants you these rights’ and ours says, ‘You are born with these rights, they are yours by the grace of God, and no government on earth can take them away from you.”
The following is the preamble to the United States 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.