Constitution of the United States

The  — sometimes styled United States Constitution or, formally, the Constitution of the United States of America — was the foundational document of the government of the United States of America. It was a major point of contention during the American Civil War because it had legalised slavery in only the southernmost states of the country.

The people of South Carolina felt the government of the United States had "frequently violate[d]" the Constitution, especially on the issue of slavery. Therefore, they laid out in the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union the specifics of their belief that the Federal Government had violated the Constitution, justifying their secession from the Union. (PROSE: Blood and Hope)

The Constitution could be amended and some of those amendments had to do with personal civil liberties. Rapist and murderer Oswald Danes, for instance, once argued that the state of Kentucky was abridging his Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights by keeping him imprisoned after the state failed to execute him on Miracle Day. (TV: The New World)