As you know the colonies in America won the Revolutionary War (the War of Independence (1775—1783). After that they became free and independent states, but they had a problem: they needed one strong national government. That's why in the year 1787 all the states sent their representatives to Philadelphia where they wrote the Constitution. The Constitution is the highest law in the United States which describes the powers of the national government and the powers of the state governments. Ш 62. The US government is like a tree with a strong trunk and three branches. The trunk is the people. It holds up
the tree: without the support of the people there can be no government. People choose the men who make American laws.
The first branch on the tree of government is the Congress. The Congress is a meeting of representatives from all states. The people elect those representatives. The Congress makes the laws that everybody must obey. The Congress meets in the US Capitol in Washington, D. C. The Congress is divided into two parts, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Every state, no matter how large or small, sends two people to the Senate. These people are called senators. There are one hundred senators in the Senate. A senator's term is six years. Each state also sends

people to the House of Representatives. They are called congressmen or congresswomen. The number of congressmen from each state depends on the number of people who live in the state. The larger states have more congressmen than the smaller states. All in all there are 435 congressmen in the House of Representatives. A representative's term is two years. The Constitution gives many powers to the Congress. One important power of the Congress is the power to declare war.