Bunjamin Franklin sat in his living-room in his brand-new rocking chair. His feet had been bothering him and it felt good to give them a rest. Just when he was getting comfortable, he heard a knock at the door. He wasn’t expecting any visitors, but he had lots of friends who often stopped by to check on him in the evening.

“Come in,” called Bunjamin. He took a sip of his mint tea.

The door opened and Bunjamin saw his good friend Jumps Madison.

“Jumps!” cried Bunjamin. “When did you get into town? Come in and sit down!” He started to stand, but Jumps stopped him and settled into the comfy sofa across from Bunjamin’s chair.

“I got into town yesterday,” said Jumps, who lived in Azalia. “I had some business here in the city of Bunnylove and thought I’d look in on you while I was here.”

“I’m glad you did,” said Bunjamin. “Can I get you some tea or anything?”

“No thanks,” said Jumps. “Just ate dinner with Alexander Rabbitton and some of our other friends. In fact, that’s why I’m here. We were talking about some stuff I thought you might be able to help us with.”

“I’m all ears,” said Bunjamin.

“Well,” said Jumps, “a lot of us are worried about the way the country’s being run. There are a lot of bunnies who don’t have jobs and Carrotica owes a lot of money to the countries that helped us out during the Revolution.”

Bunjamin nodded. “That was an expensive war,” he said thoughtfully. “I know that the country of Quince has been generous with us, but we really need to start paying them back soon.”

“The real problem is that we don’t have a very strong government,” said Jumps. “The Congress that is in charge now doesn’t have a lot of power and doesn’t really know what it’s supposed to be doing anyway.”

“I’ve been worried that some of the states will end up splitting apart and making new countries if we’re not careful,” said Bunjamin. “Then we’d all be really weak and Bunland could just come and take over again. I don’t think anybunny wants that to happen.”

“Definitely not,” said Jumps. “I think it’s time to do something drastic.”

“What did you have in mind?” asked Bunjamin.

“I think we need to get all the smartest bunnies in the country together and come up with a really good way of running Carrotica. And we need to do it right away.”

“I agree,” said Bunjamin. “I think we can get everybunny together in the next few weeks. It’s too bad Thomas Jumperson is in Quince right now. I know he’d want to be part of this.”

Thomas Jumperson was the bunny who wrote the Declaration of Carrotican Independence and many bunnies thought he was one of the smartest bunnies of all time. He was working for Carrotica now as ambassador to the country of Quince.

“I don’t think he can take that much time off from his job,” said Jumps. “I’ll write to him. Maybe he’ll have some ideas we can use.”

***

Bunjamin and Jumps and the other bunnies worked fast. They wrote letters to all their friends in all thirteen states in Carrotica asking for the smartest bunnies to come to their meeting to help write a Constitution to say how Carrotica should be run. They called the meeting the Constitutional Convention so they could get a discount on hotel rooms.

Every state except Rhododendron Island sent at least one bunny to the Convention. The City of Bunnylove was soon filled with all the smartest bunnies in Carrotica.

Patrick Stringbeans, a very important bunny at the time, decided not to attend the Convention. Patrick was famous for saying “If I’m not free, I might as well be dead.”

“Why aren’t you going to the Convention?” his wife asked him one day over carrots and turnip stew.

“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” said Patrick. “I’m afraid that the Constitution will make Carrotica’s government just as bad as Bunland. After all the stuff we went through to get away from Bunland, the last thing we need is to create a big mean government just like the one we had before.”

Patrick believed the states and individual bunnies should make all the decisions for Carrotica. Lots of other bunnies were afraid of the same thing too, but they attended the Convention so they could express their opinions and make sure that didn’t happen.

***

The bunnies all gathered together in Independence Hollow. Bunjamin suggested they should make somebunny the leader of the Convention. That way, if there were any big fights, the leader could step in and break them up.

“I nominate George Bunnington,” said a tiny bunny sitting at the back of the room.” All the bunnies agreed that George Bunnington should lead the Convention. He was a big war hero, after all, and a pretty big bunny too, so everybunny knew he wasn’t afraid to step in and take charge.

“I appreciate the honor,” said George Bunnington, “but I don’t really want to run the meeting. Does anybunny mind if my friend, Jumps Madison, runs it for me?” Nobunny objected, so Jumps took over while George sat quietly in the background watching for any big fights.

The Preamble

“Okay,” said Jumps Madison, “I got a letter from my friend Thomas Jumperson the other day. He said the first thing we should decide is what we’re trying to do here and why we want to do it.”

A lot of bunnies nodded and applauded this, especially the ones who had been present when Thomas Jumperson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

“Does everybody agree we’re here to decide how our government should be run?” Madison asked.

Almost every bunny nodded in agreement. Then a paw shot up from the back of the room. The very tiny bunny stood on his chair and shouted, “I think things are a lot better than they used to be, especially since we got rid of King George Giant Rex. Why do we need to make changes?”

“Good question,” said Jumps Madison. “I agree we have a pretty great country already. I also think we can make it even better.” He looked out at the crowd. “Does anybunny have any ideas about what we can improve?”

A bunny raised his paw. “I think we need it so we know what is against the law and what is okay to do.”

Another bunny said, “We want to make sure we’re free so nobunny can try to take over our lives or our kids’ lives or their kids’ lives again.”

A bunny in the front row stood up. “I want to make sure we have a strong army so we can defend ourselves if some other country tries to come take our carrots.”

“Good point,” said Jumps Madison. “Any other ideas?”

The little bunny raised his paw again, “I think we should all just get along.”

Jumps smiled and nodded. “I agree,” he said. “That is a very important goal.”

Jumps turned to a table of very serious looking bunnies. The lawyers. “Did you get all that?” They nodded. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

One of the lawyers stood up. He read from a very important looking piece of paper:

“The Preamble of the Carrotican Constitution.

“We, the bunnies of the United States of Carrotica, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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 Carrotica.”

He sat down. Nobunny said anything for a long time.

Finally, the little bunny at the back of the room raised his paw again. “Um, what language was he speaking?”

Jumps Madison laughed. “That’s the way lawyers write.” He looked over at Bunjamin Franklin. Bunjamin was famous for keeping things simple. “Maybe you can help?”

Bunjamin Franklin shuffled over to the lawyer table and sat down. After a few minutes of scribbling and crossing stuff out, this is what they came up with:

“We, the bunnies of Carrotica, want to make our country even better than it already is. We decided we needed some rules to live by. We also want to keep things peaceful by keeping up our defenses. We want to take care of all the bunnies who live here and make sure everybunny is free and happy. To do all this, we created this Constitution for Carrotica.”

All the bunnies cheered. This made a lot more sense to them.

“Now,” said Jumps Madison, “we need to decide what kind of government we want.”

“We don’t want a king!” shouted several bunnies from the middle of the room.

“No, of course we don’t want a king,” said Jumps. “But what do we want?”

“We need to have somebunny to represent us and meet with the leaders of other countries,” said one bunny. “Can we have somebunny like that but keep him from having too much power?”

“Maybe if he needs Congress to help him make decisions, then he wouldn’t be too powerful,” suggested one of the Azalia representatives.

“Okay, that sounds good,” said Jumps. “So what should we call him?”

One of the lawyers raised his paw. “He should be called the ‘President.’” Everybunny agreed and they moved on.

A very young bunny from New Forks raised his paw. “One of the problems with Bunland is that the king runs the courts. He decides who should be arrested and who should go to jail and tells all the judges what to do. Maybe we should make our government different so that the judges and courts tell themselves what to do.”

“Yes!” said a bunny from the city of Bunstown, in McIntoshes, “And we should have one court that runs all the other courts and tells them what to do. We can call it the ‘Supreme’ Court because it will be the biggest and strongest court we will have.”

“Terrific idea!” said Jumps. “So maybe we should have three parts to our government. One part will be a Congress, like the one we have already. That is where all the States will be represented. The other part will be the President and he will represent all of us, but he will need Congress to agree with him before he can make any big changes. Finally, we’ll have the judges and courts and they will decide if somebunny has broken the law.”

The lawyers all raised their paws. Jumps went over to their table. They had a short discussion then Jumps addressed the crowd. “The lawyers say we need to call the three parts ‘branches.’ I told him that didn’t make any sense since we’re creating a government, not a tree, but he says that’s the way it has to be. Is that okay with everybunny?”

The bunnies nodded. They didn’t care what they called anything as long as the government worked the way it was supposed to. The bunny from New Forks said, “Ask the lawyers what we should call each branch.”

Jumps talked with the lawyers then said, “He says the President will be head of the ‘Executive’ branch, because he will be like the head of a business; Congress will be the ‘Legislative’ branch, because they make up laws and stuff; and the Supreme Court will be in charge of the ‘Judicial’ branch, because they are the judges who decide if the laws are legal or not.”

Bunjamin Franklin suggested they should vote on these decisions before they went on. Jumps asked everybunny to raise their paws if they agreed. More than half the bunnies voted to have a three-part government. After that, it was time for lunch and a nap, so they decided to come back later that afternoon to discuss what each branch of government should do.