Which U.S. founding document begins its Preamble with the words “We the People”?

The United States Constitution begins its Preamble with the words “We the People.”

The Preamble introduces the Constitution's purposes: forming a more perfect Union, establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing liberty for present and future generations. It identifies the people as the source of the document's authority.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. The document then required ratification by conventions in at least nine states before taking effect. New Hampshire became the ninth ratifying state in June 1788, and the new federal government began operating the following year.

The Preamble itself does not grant specific governmental powers and is not a separate list of enforceable rights. Those powers appear mainly in the Constitution's articles, while individual protections were added through the Bill of Rights in 1791.