Constitution of the North American Confederation

The Constitution of the North American Confederation is the supreme law of the North American Confederation. The Constitution, comprising of nine articles and a preamble, delineates the frame of the Confederation's government. Article One outlines the bill of rights, a list of the most important rights to the citizens of the country. Article Two outlines the cultural identifiers and national designations. Articles Three, Four, Five, and Six embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the government is divided into four branches: the Legislature, consisting of the unicameral Senate; the Sovereign, consisting of the Emperor and the Imperial family; the Executive, consisting of the Prime Minister and their Cabinet of the North American Confederation; and the Judiciary, consisting of the Chief Justiice and other inferior courts. Article Seven establishes the procedures and organizations of the Imperial Guard and the Guard Council of the North American Confederation. Articles Eight and Nine outline the superiority of the Constitution above all other laws and the requirements for amending the document. Since the Constitution came into force in 2018, it has been amended a single time, in order to meet the changing needs of the nation.

Background
In the history of the Confederation, there have been two ratified Constitutions. Each was the result of a long period of compromise, struggle, and crisis.

The First Constitution
The first Constitution was formed in 2010, during the Meek government. It was the result of a compromise between the governments of the New Europe, the Eniarku and Ohio. As a result of this compromise, this first Constitution was a collection of checks and balances that made authority difficult to manage or determine, effectively granting a great deal of centralized authority between the Emperor and Prime Minister. Despite the difficulties, this system seemed to work; though only so long as there was no great crisis between either office. When the Emperor announced his abdication during the height of the Micras crisis, the Constitution was useless in helping to determine how to properly fill in the void left over by the Emperor's absence. As a result, near unlimited power was vested in Prime Minister Aaron Meek|Meek, who quickly attempted to assert control over the Confederation. This effort failed when the Republic of Ohio, a hotbed for the now-defunct Liberty Party, refused to accept the Emperor's abdication as valid and declared the Prime Minister's actions unconstitutional. With New Europe gone and Eniarku and Ohio in the middle of a constitutional crisis; Prime Minister Meek soon declared the North American Confederation dissolved, leading to governmental chaos for all citizens left out of the decision. Upon the collapse of the Meek government, the first Constitution was effectively defunct - leading directly to the crisis of the Interregnum.

Interregnum and Provisional Governance
During the period of chaos that was the Interregnum, there was no effective governance for any of the territory left over from the secession of Eniarku and New Europe. In 2013, there was an attempt by the Empire of New Europe to make a claim on the former territories of the Confederation under the New European constitution. These efforts were for naught, as the government of New Europe fell apart soon after when the Emperor joined up with the United States military. It wasn't until 2015, when Emperor William I made an agreement with the retired Ohioan politician, Rev. Joseph Marx, to restore the Confederation. Agreeing to use emergency powers, William reclaimed the throne and named Rev. Marx, the 2nd Prime Minister of the North American Confederation. Prime Minister Marx soon began the process of creating a provisional government to restore order to the nation. The first actions of the new administration were to restore territorial claims and a degree of government fail-safes and checks between himself and the Emperor. This period is sometimes considered to have been a period of an uncodified constitution, or the Provisional Constitutional Acts. These acts restored the powers of the monarchy, formalized a line of succession to prevent another abdication crisis, created a provisional legislature to help in the drafting and determination of a second codified Constitution, and formally provided the protocols for foreign relations. Through these uncodified Constitutional Acts, the restored North American Confederation soon established the nation as a powerful and influential member of the micronational community, even creating a series of alliances between the Confederation, the Grand Republic of Delvera, and the Karnia-Ruthenia.

Constitutional Convention Failures and Delveran Integration
Despite the apparent success and political strength of the provisional government; behind the scenes, systemic problems with these Constitutional Acts began to have a detrimental effect upon the administration of the government. At the heart of the problems was a necessary reliance of mutual agreement between the Emperor, Prime Minister, and the Provisional legislature, as the schedules of all parties involved made meetings to discuss politics incredibly difficult to achieve, often leading to weeks of inactivity or miscommunication between various branches. Efforts were made in late 2017 to draft a Constitution, as each state in the Confederation was asked to submit a constitutional proposal. These proposals would then be combined and modified at an official convention to flesh out a document that could be agreed on by everyone. While such proposals were submitted, the systemic inactivity made planning a single convention almost impossible and the Constitutional project remained unresolved. Beyond the systemic issues of the Constitutional Acts, outside influences had also begun to impact and shift the goals of the Constitutional project. Following the Congress of Colo, Delvera and the North American Confederation began to consider the possibility of admitting the Confederation as a Delveran province.

History
Around February of 2018, Rev. Marx began the long and arduous process of drafting a Constitution that could properly deal with the flaws of previous administrative practices, as well as take into account the numerous political ideologies of the various Confederation and Delveran citizens that would be impacted by such a Constitution. As it was the Prime Ministers intention for this new constitution and political structure to "wipe away" the previous legsilative and political structures of the nation, he named his new Constitutional project Operation Tabula - derived from the Latin phrase Tabula rasa, meaning "blank slate". Operation Tabula utilized many of the aspects which had been proposed in earlier Constitutional proposals, including drawing heavily from the Illinois and Greene proposals. Rev. Marx also took heavy inspiration from the Constitution of the United States, the Delveran Constitution, the Ohio Empire's Universal Rights of Man and even the Great Law of Peace, the oral constitution of the Haudenosaunee. With help from numerous citizens, the Emperor, and even the Consul of Delvera; the second Constitution of the North American Confederation was completed on the 26 June 2018. It would later be ratified and accepted by the mutual consent of Rev. Marx and Emperor William on the 26 June 2018.