text: Migration of the free or "importation" of indentures and slaves could continue by states, defining slaves as persons, not property. Long-term power would change by population as counted every ten years. Apportionment in the House would not be by wealth, it would be by people, the free citizens and three-fifths the number of other persons meaning propertyless slaves and taxed Indian farming families.


title: History of the United States Constitution

text: In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson sent a message to the 9th Congress on their constitutional opportunity to remove U.S. citizens from the transatlantic slave trade "[violating] human rights". The 1807 "Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves" took effect the first instant the Constitution allowed, January 1, 1808. The United States joined the British that year in the first "international humanitarian campaign".


text: In the 1840–1860 era abolitionists denounced the Fugitive Slave Clause and other protections of slavery. William Lloyd Garrison famously declared the Constitution "a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell."


text: In ratification conventions, the anti-slavery delegates sometimes began as anti-ratification votes. Still, the Constitution "as written" was an improvement over the Articles from an abolitionist point of view. The Constitution provided for abolition of the slave trade but the Articles did not. The outcome could be determined gradually over time. Sometimes contradictions among opponents were used to try to gain abolitionist converts. In Virginia, Federalist George Nicholas dismissed fears on both sides. Objections to the Constitution were inconsistent, "At the same moment it is opposed for being promotive and destructive of slavery!" But the contradiction was never resolved peaceably, and the failure to do so contributed to the Civil War.


text: Roger Sherman (CT), although something of a political broker in Connecticut, proved to a pivotal though unlikely leader at the convention. But on June 11, he proposed the first version of the convention's "Great Compromise". It was like the proposal he made in the 1776 Continental Congress. Representation in Congress should be both by states and by population. There, he was voted down by the small states in favor of all states equal, one vote only. Now in 1787 Convention, he wanted to balance all the big-state victories for population apportionment. He proposed that in the second 'senate' branch of the legislature, each state should be equal, one vote and no more. The motion for equal state representation in a 'senate' failed: 6 against, 5 for.


text: After these defeats, the delegates who called themselves the "old patriots" of 1776 and the "men of original principles" organized a caucus in the convention. William Paterson (NJ) spoke for them introducing his "New Jersey Plan". Roger Sherman (CT), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was with them. Supporters explained that it "sustained the sovereignty of the states", while the Edmund Randolph (VA) "Virginia Plan" erased it. The convention had no authority to propose anything not sent up from state legislatures, and the states were not likely to adopt anything new. The "nationalists" answered, The convention could not conclude anything, but it could recommend anything.


text: "Patriots" said if their legislature knew anything about proposals for consolidated government, it would not have sent anyone. "Nationalists" countered, that it would be treason to withhold any proposal for good government when the salvation of the American republic was at stake. Three sessions after its introduction, the New Jersey Plan failed : 7 against, 3 for, 1 divided. For nearly a month there was no progress; small states were seriously thinking of walking out of the convention.


text: Then June 25, the "original principles" men finally won a vote. The 'senate' would be chosen by the state legislatures, not the people, passed: 9 for, 2 against. The basis of representation for both the 'house' and the 'senate' re-surfaced. Sherman tried a second time to get his idea for a 'house' on the basis of population and a 'senate' on an equal states basis. The "big states" got their population 'house' win, then his equal state 'senate' motion was dropped without a vote. The majority adjourned "before a determination was taken in the House." Luther Martin (MD) insisted that he would rather divide the Union into regional governments than submit to a consolidated government under the Randolph Plan.


text: Sherman's proposal came up again for the third time from Oliver Ellsworth (CT). In the "senate", the states should have equal representation. Advocates said that it could not be agreed to, the union would fall apart somehow. Big states would not be trusted, the small states could confederate with a foreign power showing "more good faith". If delegates could not unite behind this here, one day the states could be united by "some foreign sword". On the question of equal state representation, the Convention adjourned in the same way again, "before a determination was taken in the House.".


text: On July 2, the convention for the fourth time considered a "senate" with equal state votes. This time a vote was taken, but it stalled again, tied at 5 yes, 5 no, 1 divided. The Convention elected one delegate out of the delegation of each state onto a Committee to make a proposal; it reported July 5. Nothing changed over five days. July 10, Lansing and Yates (NY) quit the Convention in protest over the big state majorities repeatedly overrunning the small state delegations in vote after vote. No direct vote on the basis of 'senate' representation was pushed on the floor for another week.


text: With delegates unable to reconcile their differences, the Convention elected one delegate from each state to the First Committee on Representation to make a proposal. Unlike debate in the Committee of the Whole, the membership of the committee, led by Elbridge Gerry and including Sherman, was carefully selected and was more sympathetic to the views of the small states. The membership of the committee made a compromise amongst delegates more likely. After meeting, the Committee reported its proposal on July 5. The Committee proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the House and equal state representation in the Senate. As a concession to large states, all bills raising revenue had to originate in the House.


text: Nothing changed for five days until Lansing and Yates (NY) left the Convention in protest over the large state majorities repeatedly overrunning the small state delegations in vote after vote. No direct vote on the basis of 'senate' representation was pushed on the floor for another week. But the Convention floor leaders kept moving forward where they could. First the new 'house' seat apportionment was agreed, balancing big and small, north and south. The big states got a decennial census for 'house' apportionment to reflect their future growth. Northerners had insisted on counting only free citizens for the 'house'; southern delegations wanted to add property. Benjamin Franklin's compromise was that there would be no "property" provision to add representatives, but states with large slave populations would get a bonus added to their free persons by counting three-fifths other "persons".


text: On July 16, Sherman's "Great Compromise" prevailed on its fifth try. Every state was to have equal numbers in the United States Senate. Washington ruled it passed on the vote 5 yes, 4 no, 1 divided. It was not that five states constituted a majority of twelve, but to keep the business moving forward, he relied on precedent established earlier in the Convention that only a majority of states voting was required. The First Committee on Representation and the Connecticut Compromise became the turning point of the convention. While some of the large-state delegates discussed leaving the convention, none did. Debate over the next ten days developed an agreed general outline for the Constitution. Small states readily yielded on many questions. Following the Compromise, most remaining delegates, large-state and small-state, felt safe enough to chance a new plan.


text: The Constitution innovated two branches of government that were not a part of the U.S. government during the Articles of Confederation. Previously, a thirteen-member committee had been left behind in Philadelphia when Congress adjourned to carry out the "executive" functions. Suits between states were referred to the Congress of the Confederation, and treated as a private bill to be determined by majority vote of members attending that day.


text: On June 7, the "national executive" was taken up in Convention. The "chief magistrate", or 'presidency' was of serious concern for a formerly colonial people fearful of concentrated power in one person. But to secure a "vigorous executive", nationalist delegates such as James Wilson (PA), Charles Pinckney (SC), and John Dickenson (DE) favored a single officer. They had someone in mind whom everyone could trust to start off the new system, George Washington.


text: After introducing the item for discussion, there was a prolonged silence. Benjamin Franklin (Pa) and John Rutledge (SC) had urged everyone to speak their minds freely. When addressing the issue with George Washington in the room, delegates were careful to phrase their objections to potential offenses by officers chosen in the future who would be 'president' "subsequent" to the start-up. Roger Sherman (CT), Edmund Randolph (VA) and Pierce Butler (SC) all objected, preferring two or three persons in the executive, as the ancient Roman Republic had when appointing consuls.


text: Nathaniel Gorham was Chair of the Committee of the Whole, so Washington sat in the Virginia delegation where everyone could see how he voted. The vote for a one-man 'presidency' carried 7-for, 3-against, New York, Delaware and Maryland in the negative. Virginia, along with George Washington, had voted yes. As of that vote for a single 'presidency', George Mason (VA) gravely announced to the floor, that as of that moment, the Confederation's federal government was "in some measure dissolved by the meeting of this Convention."


text: The convention was following the Randolph Plan for an agenda, taking each resolve in turn to move proceedings forward. They returned to items when overnight coalitions required adjustment to previous votes to secure a majority on the next item of business. June 19, and it was Randolph's Ninth Resolve next, about the national court system. On the table was the nationalist proposal for the inferior (lower) courts in the national judiciary.


text: Pure 1776 republicanism had not given much credit to judges, who would set themselves up apart from and sometimes contradicting the state legislature, the voice of the sovereign people. Under the precedent of English Common Law according to William Blackstone, the legislature, following proper procedure, was for all constitutional purposes, "the people." This dismissal of unelected officers sometimes took an unintended turn among the people. One of John Adams's clients believed the First Continental Congress in 1775 had assumed the sovereignty of Parliament, and so abolished all previously established courts in Massachusetts.


text: In the convention, looking at a national system, Judge Wilson (PA) sought appointments by a single person to avoid legislative payoffs. Judge Rutledge (SC) was against anything but one national court, a Supreme Court to receive appeals from the highest state courts, like the South Carolina court he presided over as Chancellor. Rufus King (MA) thought national district courts in each state would cost less than appeals that otherwise would go to the 'supreme court' in the national capital. National inferior courts passed but making appointments by 'congress' was crossed out and left blank so the delegates could take it up later after "maturer reflection."


text: The Constitutional Convention created a new, unprecedented form of government by reallocating powers of government. Every previous national authority had been either a centralized government, or a "confederation of sovereign constituent states." The American power-sharing was unique at the time. The sources and changes of power were up to the states. The foundations of government and extent of power came from both national and state sources. But the new government would have a national operation. To meet their goals of cementing the Union and securing citizen rights, Framers allocated power among executive, senate, house and judiciary of the central government. But each state government in their variety continued exercising powers in their own sphere.


text: The Convention did not start with national powers from scratch, it began with the powers already vested in the Congress of the Confederation with control of the military, international relations and commerce. The Constitution added ten more. Five were minor relative to power sharing, including business and manufacturing protections. One important new power authorized Congress to protect states from the "domestic violence" of riot and civil disorder, but it was conditioned by a state request.


text: The Constitution increased Congressional power to organize, arm and discipline the state militias, to use them to enforce the laws of Congress, suppress rebellions within the states and repel invasions. But the Second Amendment would ensure that Congressional power could not be used to disarm state militias.


text: Taxation substantially increased the power of Congress relative to the states. It was limited by restrictions, forbidding taxes on exports, per capita taxes, requiring import duties to be uniform and that taxes be applied to paying U.S. debt. But the states were stripped of their ability to levy taxes on imports, which was at the time, "by far the most bountiful source of tax revenues".


text: Congress had no further restrictions relating to political economy. It could institute protective tariffs, for instance. Congress overshadowed state power regulating interstate commerce; the United States would be the "largest area of free trade in the world." The most undefined grant of power was the power to "make laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution" the Constitution's enumerated powers.


text: As of ratification, sovereignty was no longer to be theoretically indivisible. With a wide variety of specific powers among different branches of national governments and thirteen republican state governments, now "each of the "portions" of powers delegated to the one or to the other ... is ... sovereign "with regard to its proper objects"". There were some powers that remained beyond the reach of both national powers and state powers, so the logical seat of American "sovereignty" belonged directly with the people-voters of each state.


text: Besides expanding Congressional power, the Constitution limited states and central government. Six limits on the national government addressed property rights such as slavery and taxes. Six protected liberty such as prohibiting "ex post facto" laws and no religious tests for national offices in any state, even if they had them for state offices. Five were principles of a republic, as in legislative appropriation. These restrictions lacked systematic organization, but all constitutional prohibitions were practices that the British Parliament had "legitimately taken in the absence of a specific denial of the authority."


text: The regulation of state power presented a "qualitatively different" undertaking. In the state constitutions, the people did not enumerate powers. They gave their representatives every right and authority not explicitly reserved to themselves. The Constitution extended the limits that the states had previously imposed upon themselves under the Articles of Confederation, forbidding taxes on imports and disallowing treaties among themselves, for example.


text: In light of the repeated abuses by "ex post facto" laws passed by the state legislatures, 1783–1787, the Constitution prohibited "ex post facto" laws and bills of attainder to protect United States citizen property rights and right to a fair trial. Congressional power of the purse was protected by forbidding taxes or restraint on interstate commerce and foreign trade. States could make no law "impairing the obligation of contracts." To check future state abuses the framers searched for a way to review and veto state laws harming the national welfare or citizen rights. They rejected proposals for Congressional veto of state laws and gave the Supreme Court appellate case jurisdiction over state law because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The United States had such a geographical extent that it could only be safely governed using a combination of republics. Federal judicial districts would follow those state lines.


text: The British had relied upon a concept of "virtual representation" to give legitimacy to their House of Commons. According to many in Parliament, it was not necessary to elect anyone from a large port city, or the American colonies, because the representatives of "rotten boroughs", mostly abandoned medieval fair towns with twenty voters, "virtually represented" them. Philadelphia in the colonies was second in population only to London.


text: "They were all Englishmen, supposed to be a single people, with one definable interest. Legitimacy came from membership in Parliament of the sovereign realm, not elections from people. As Blackstone explained, the Member is "not bound ... to consult with, or take the advice, of his constituents." As Constitutional historian Gordon Wood elaborated, "The Commons of England contained all of the people's power and were considered to be the very persons of the people they represented."


text: While the English "virtual representation" was hardening into a theory of parliamentary sovereignty, the American theory of representation was moving towards a theory of sovereignty of the people. In their new constitutions written since 1776, Americans required community residency of voters and representatives, expanded suffrage, and equalized populations in voting districts. There was a sense that representation "had to be proportioned to the population." The convention would apply the new principle of "sovereignty of the people" both to the House of Representatives, and to the United States Senate.


text: Once the Great Compromise was reached, delegates in Convention then agreed to a decennial census to count the population. The Americans themselves did not allow for universal suffrage for all adults. Their sort of "virtual representation" said that those voting in a community could understand and themselves represent non-voters when they had like interests that were unlike other political communities. There were enough differences among people in different American communities for those differences to have a meaningful social and economic reality. Thus New England colonial legislatures would not tax communities which had not yet elected representatives. When the royal governor of Georgia refused to allow representation to be seated from four new counties, the legislature refused to tax them.


text: The 1776 Americans had begun to demand expansion of the franchise, and in each step, they found themselves pressing towards a philosophical "actuality of consent." The Convention determined that the power of the people, should be felt in the House of Representatives. For the U.S. Congress, persons alone were counted. Property was not counted.


text: The Convention found it more difficult to give expression to the will of the people in new states. What state might be "lawfully arising" outside the boundaries of the existing thirteen states? The new government was like the old, to be made up of pre-existing states. Now there was to be admission of new states. Regular order would provide new states by state legislatures for Kentucky, Tennessee and Maine. But the Congress of the Confederation had by its Northwest Ordinance presented the convention with a new issue. Settlers in the Northwest Territory might one day constitute themselves into "no more than five" states. More difficult still, most delegates anticipated adding alien peoples of Canada, Louisiana and Florida to United States territory. Generally in American history, European citizens of empire were given U.S. citizenship on territorial acquisition. Should they become states?


text: Some delegates were reluctant to expand into any so "remote wilderness". It would retard the commercial development of the east. They would be easily influenced, "foreign gold" would corrupt them. Western peoples were the least desirable Americans, only good for perpetual provinces. There were so many foreigners moving out west, there was no telling how things would turn out. These were poor people, they could not pay their fair share of taxes. It would be "suicide" for the original states. New states could become a majority in the Senate, they would abuse their power, "enslaving" the original thirteen. If they also loved liberty, and could not tolerate eastern state dominance, they would be justified in civil war. Western trade interests could drag the country into an inevitable war with Spain for the Mississippi River. As time wore on, any war for the Mississippi River was obviated by the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and the 1812 American victory at New Orleans.


text: Even if there were to be western states, a House representation of 40,000 might be too small, too easy for the westerners. "States" had been declared out west already. They called themselves republics, and set up their own courts directly from the people without colonial charters. In Transylvania, Westsylvania, Franklin, and Vandalia, "legislatures" met with emissaries from British and Spanish empires in violation of the Articles of Confederation, just as the sovereign states had done. In the Constitution as written, no majorities in Congress could break up the larger states without their consent.


text: "New state" advocates had no fear of western states achieving a majority one day. For example, the British sought to curb American expansion, which caused the angered colonists to agitate for independence. Follow the same rule, get the same results. Congress has never been able to discover a better rule than majority rule. If they grow, let them rule. As they grow, they must get all their supplies from eastern businesses. Character is not determined by points of a compass. States admitted are equals, they will be made up of our brethren. Commit to right principles, even if the right way, one day, benefits other states. They will be free like ourselves, their pride will not allow anything but equality.


text: It was at this time in the Convention that Reverend Manasseh Cutler arrived to lobby for western land sales. He brought acres of land grants to parcel out. Their sales would fund most of the U.S. government expenditures for its first few decades. There were allocations for the Ohio Company stockholders at the convention, and for others delegates too. Good to his word, in December 1787, Cutler led a small band of pioneers into the Ohio Valley.


text: The provision for admitting new states became relevant at the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France. It was constitutionally justifiable under the "treaty making" power of the federal government. The agrarian advocates sought to make the purchase of land that had never been administered, conquered, or formally ceded to any of the original thirteen states. Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans would divide the Louisiana Purchase into states, speeding land sales to finance the federal government with no new taxes. The new populations of new states would swamp the commercial states in the Senate. They would populate the House with egalitarian Democrat-Republicans to overthrow the Federalist Party. Jefferson dropped the proposal of Constitutional amendment to permit the purchase, and with it, his notion of a confederation of sovereign states.


text: After nearly four months of debate, on September 8, 1787, the final text of the Constitution was set down and revised. Then, an official copy of the document was engrossed by Jacob Shallus. The effort consisted of copying the text (prelude, articles and endorsement) on four sheets of vellum parchment, made from treated animal skin and measuring approximately by , probably with a goose quill. Shallus engrossed the entire document except for the list of states at the end of the document, which are in Alexander Hamilton's handwriting. On September 17, 1787, following a speech given by Benjamin Franklin, 39 delegates endorsed and submitted the Constitution to the Congress of the Confederation.


text: Massachusetts' Rufus King assessed the convention as a creature of the states, independent of the Congress of the Confederation, submitting its proposal to that Congress only to satisfy forms. Though amendments were debated, they were all defeated. On September 28, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation resolved "unanimously" to transmit the Constitution to state legislatures for submitting to a ratification convention according to the Constitutional procedure. Several states enlarged the numbers qualified just for electing ratification delegates. In doing so, they went beyond the Constitution's provision for the most voters for the state legislature.


text: Delaware, on December 7, 1787, became the first State to ratify the new Constitution, with its vote being unanimous. Pennsylvania ratified on December 12, 1787, by a vote of 46 to 23 (66.67%). New Jersey ratified on December 19, 1787, and Georgia on January 2, 1788, both unanimously. The requirement of ratification by nine states, set by Article Seven of the Constitution, was met when New Hampshire voted to ratify, on June 21, 1788.


text: In New York, fully two thirds of the convention delegates were at first opposed to the Constitution. Hamilton led the Federalist campaign, which included the fast-paced appearance of "The Federalist Papers" in New York newspapers. An attempt to attach conditions to ratification almost succeeded, but on July 26, 1788, New York ratified, with a recommendation that a bill of rights be appended. The vote was close – yeas 30 (52.6%), nays 27 – due largely to Hamilton's forensic abilities and his reaching a few key compromises with moderate anti-Federalists led by Melancton Smith.


text: Following Massachusetts's lead, the Federalist minorities in both Virginia and New York were able to obtain ratification in convention by linking ratification to recommended amendments. A minority of the Constitution's critics continued to oppose the Constitution. Maryland's Luther Martin argued that the federal convention had exceeded its authority; he still called for amending the Articles. Article 13 of the Articles of Confederation stated that the union created under the Articles was "perpetual" and that any alteration must be "agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State".


text: However, the unanimity required under the Articles made all attempts at reform impossible. Martin's allies such as New York's John Lansing Jr., dropped moves to obstruct the convention's process. They began to take exception to the Constitution "as it was", seeking amendments. Several conventions saw supporters for "amendments before" shift to a position of "amendments after" for the sake of staying in the Union. New York Anti's "circular letter" was sent to each state legislature on 26 July 1788 (the same date on which that state's legislature voted to ratify the Constitution) proposing a second constitutional convention for "amendments before". It failed in the state legislatures. Ultimately only North Carolina and Rhode Island would wait for amendments from Congress before ratifying.


text: Article VII of the proposed constitution stipulated that only nine of the thirteen states would have to ratify for the new government to go into effect for the participating states. By the end of July 1788, eleven states had ratified the Constitution, and soon thereafter, the process of organizing the new government began. On September 13, 1788, the Congress of the Confederation certified that the new Constitution had been ratified by more than enough states for it to go into effect. Congress fixed the city of New York as the temporary seat of the new government and set the dates for the election of representatives and presidential electors. It also set the date for operations to begin under the new government. This occurred on March 4, 1789, when the First Congress convened.


text: The membership of the new Congress was decidedly federalist. In the eleven-state (minus North Carolina and Rhode Island) Senate 20 were Federalist and two Anti-federalist (both from Virginia). The House included 48 Federalists and 11 Anti-federalists (from four states: Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia). On April 6 the House and Senate held a joint meeting to count the electoral vote. George Washington was unanimously elected the first president, even receiving the electoral vote of ardent anti-federalist Patrick Henry. John Adams of Massachusetts was elected vice president. Both were sworn into office on April 30, 1789. The business of setting up the new government was completed.


text: Anti-Federalists' fears of personal oppression by Congress were allayed by twelve amendments passed under the floor leadership of James Madison during the first session of Congress. The ten of these that were ratified by the required number of state legislatures became known as the Bill of Rights. Objections to a potentially remote federal judiciary were reconciled with 13 federal courts (11 states, plus Maine and Kentucky), and three federal riding circuits out of the Supreme Court: Eastern, Middle and South. Suspicion of a powerful federal executive was answered by Washington's cabinet appointments of once-Anti-Federalists Edmund Jennings Randolph as Attorney General and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. What Constitutional historian Pauline Maier termed a national "dialogue between power and liberty" had begun anew.


text: Since the beginning of federal operations under the Constitution in 1789 through the beginning of 2013, approximately 11,539 proposals to amend the Constitution have been introduced in the United States Congress. Of these, thirty-three have been approved by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Twenty-seven of these amendments have been ratified and are now part of the Constitution. The first ten amendments were adopted and ratified simultaneously and are known collectively as the Bill of Rights. Prior to the Twenty-seventh Amendment, which languished for 202 years, 7 months, 12 days before being ratified (submitted for ratification in 1789 as part of the Bill of Rights, but not ratified until 1992), the Twenty-second Amendment held the record for longest time taken to successfully complete the ratification process – 3 years, 11 months, 6 days. The Twenty-sixth Amendment holds the record for shortest time taken – 3 months, 8 days. Six amendments adopted by Congress and sent to the states have not been ratified by the required number of states and are not part of the Constitution. Four of these are still technically open and pending, one is closed and has failed by its own terms, and one is closed and has failed by the terms of the resolution proposing it.


text: Much of opposition to the proposed Constitution within several states arose, not because the machinery of the new frame of government was considered unworkable or because strengthening the union between the 13 states viewed as undesirable. The debates in the state ratifying conventions centered around the absence of anything equivalent to the bill of rights found in several state constitutions. George Mason, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, refused to sign the document because he felt it did not specifically spell out or protect individual rights sufficiently. He also opposed the constitution when it was brought before the state for ratification. He acquiesced and the convention voted narrowly to give its assent only after it was decided that a list of twenty proposed amendments be sent along with the state's resolution of ratification. Delegates to Massachusetts' convention had many of the same concerns, and along with its notification of approval made a request for nine alterations, the first among them being "that it be explicitly declared that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved to the states to be exercised by them." New York, not to be outdone, appended a list of thirty-two requested amendments plus a lengthy statement of "impressions" and "explanations" about the new Constitution to their affirmative vote.


text: The sharp Anti-Federalist critique of the Constitution did not abate after it became operational, and by the time the First Congress convened in March 1789, there existed widespread sentiment in both the House and Senate in favor of making alterations. That September, Congress adopted twelve amendments and sent to the states for ratification. Ten of these were ratified by the required number of states in December 1791 and became part of the Constitution. These amendments enumerate freedoms not explicitly indicated in the main body of the Constitution, such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, and free assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, security in personal effects, and freedom from warrants issued without probable cause; indictment by a grand jury for a capital or "infamous crime"; guarantee of a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury; and prohibition of double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights reserves for the people any rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution and reserves all powers not specifically granted to the federal government to the people or the States.


text: Amendments to the Constitution subsequent to the Bill of Rights cover a wide range of subjects. Several have added significant content to the original document. One of the most far-reaching is the Fourteenth, ratified in 1868, which establishes a clear and simple definition of citizenship and guarantees equal treatment under the law. Also significant are the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth, which were enacted to extend the right to vote to persons previously considered ineligible and also to protect their exercise of that right. One Amendment, the Eighteenth, which criminalized the production, transport and sale of alcohol nationwide, was later repealed by another, the Twenty-first. Nine ratified amendments (11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, and 25) have explicitly superseded or modified the text of the original Constitution.


text: In the early twentieth century Lochner era, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional various state laws that limited labor contracts. The Constitution was criticized as putting the government at the beck and call of big business.


text: More recent criticism has often been academic and limited to particular features. University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson wonders whether it makes sense for the Connecticut Compromise to give "Wyoming the same number of votes as California, which has roughly seventy times the population". Levinson thinks this imbalance causes a "steady redistribution of resources from large states to small states." Levinson is critical of the Electoral College as it allows the possibility of electing presidents who do not win the majority, or even plurality, of votes. Five times in American history, presidents have been elected despite failing to win a plurality of the popular vote: 1824 (John Quincy Adams), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison), 2000 (George W. Bush) and 2016 (Donald Trump). The current impeachment powers do not give the people a quick way to remove incompetent or ill presidents, in his view. Others have criticized gerrymandering.


text: Yale professor Robert A. Dahl saw a problem with an American tendency towards worship of the Constitution itself. He sees aspects of American governance which are "unusual and potentially undemocratic: the federal system, the bicameral legislature, judicial review, presidentialism, and the electoral college system." Levinson and Labunski and others have called for a Second Constitutional Convention, although professors like Dahl believe there is no real hope this would ever happen. French journalist Jean-Philippe Immarigeon wrote in "Harper's" that the "nearly 230-year-old constitution stretched past the limits of its usefulness", and suggested key problem points were the inability to call an election when government became gridlocked, a several month period between the election and when the president takes office, and inability of the lower house of Congress to influence serious foreign policy decisions such as ending a war when faced with a veto.


text: University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato advocates an amendment to organize presidential primaries. Sabato details more objections in his book "A More Perfect Constitution". He opposes life tenure for Federal Court judges, including Supreme Court justices. He also writes that "If the 26 least populated states voted as a bloc, they would control the U.S. Senate with a total of just under 17% of the country's population." Sabato further contends that the Constitution is in need of an overhaul, and argues that only a national constitutional convention can bring the document up to date and settle many of the issues that have arisen over the past two centuries.


text: In United States history, four periods of widespread Constitutional criticism have been characterized by the idea that specific political powers belong to state governments and not to the federal government—a doctrine commonly known as states' rights. At each stage, states' rights advocates failed to develop a preponderance in public opinion or to sustain the democratic political will required to alter the generally held constitutional understanding and political practice in the United States. At its adoption among the people in the state ratification conventions, the "men of original principles" opposed the new national government as violating the Whig philosophy generally accepted among the original thirteen colonies in 1776. According to this view, Congress as a legislature should be only equal to any state legislature, and only the people in each state might be sovereign. They are now referred to as the Anti-Federalists in American historiography. The proponents of "state sovereignty" and "states rights" were outvoted in eleven of thirteen state ratification conventions, then thirteen of thirteen, to "ordain and establish" the Constitution.


text: During Andrew Jackson's administration, South Carolina objected to U.S. government's "tariff of abominations" collected as federal duties in Charleston Harbor. The Nullification Crisis ensued. Justification for the nullifiers was found in the U.S. Senate speeches and writings of John C. Calhoun. He defended slavery against the Constitutional provisions allowing its statutory regulation or its eventual abolition by Constitutional amendment, most notably in his Disquisition on Government. The crisis was averted when President Jackson, a former Major General, declared he would march a U.S. army into South Carolina and hang the first nullifier he saw from the first tree, and a new negotiated tariff, the Compromise Tariff of 1833, satisfactory to South Carolina was enacted. Despite this, a states-rights-based defense of slavery persisted amongst Southerners until the American Civil War; conversely, Northerners explored nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Abraham Lincoln kept a portrait of Andrew Jackson above his desk at the U.S. War Department for the duration of the American Civil War as a clear symbol of Lincoln's intent and resolve as well as to draw attention to an executive precedent for Lincoln's actions.


text: In the mid-19th Century during the administrations of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, the United States suffered a tragic passage through the Civil War and Reconstruction. An important survey of the philosophical and legal underpinnings of "States Rights" as held by secessionists and Lost Cause advocates afterwards is found in the speeches of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Davis defended secession by appealing to the "original principles" of the Founders' 1776 Revolutionary generation, and by expanding on William Blackstone's doctrine of legislative supremacy. By the elections of 1872, all states which had been admitted to the United States in accordance with the Constitution were fully represented in the U.S. Congress.


text: Following the Supreme Court 1954 holding in "Brown v. Board of Education", President Dwight D. Eisenhower used National Guard and U.S. paratroopers to enforce the rulings of the Federal Courts as they pertained to the Constitution. The "States Rights" doctrine was again appealed to during the mid-20th Century resistance to racial integration in the schools, notably in Arkansas' Little Rock Nine, Alabama's Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, and Virginia's Massive Resistance. Public schools in every state are now racially integrated by law under the authority of the U.S. Constitution.


text: The tradition is seen in many shorter episodes of limited minority protest against the United States. During the War of 1812, Federalists conducted a Hartford Convention proposing New England secession during wartime to reopen trade with the declared enemy of the United States. It led to accusations of treason and the demise of the Federalist Party as a force in American politics. In 1921, the Maryland Attorney General sued to block woman suffrage. He argued in "Leser v. Garnett" that state legislatures were Constitutionally the sole determiners of who should vote in what federal or state elections, and that the 19th Amendment was improper. The Supreme Court's judicial review of the state court findings held that the 19th Amendment was Constitutional, and that it applied to the women's right to vote in every state. Women now vote in every state under the authority of the U.S. Constitution.


text: One exceptional example of "states rights" persuading overwhelming majorities in a democratic and sustained way, and so transforming the nation came in the John Adams administration. Fear had spread that radical democratic sentiment might turn subversive as it had in the French Reign of Terror. But the Federalist-sponsored Alien and Sedition Acts meant to preempt the danger led to suppression of opposition press. The political reaction in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions sparked public opposition against the Federalist policy and led to twenty-four years of Constitutionally elected Democratic-Republican Party rule through six administrations of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe.


text: In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, opponents of federal laws prohibiting the sale and possession of marijuana have based their objections partially on states' rights grounds, as have opponents of federal laws and regulations pertaining to firearms. States' rights under the constitution has also been recently raised as an issue on a number of other occasions, most notably regarding Common Core, the Affordable Care Act, and same-sex marriage.


text: At first, little interest was shown in the parchment object itself. Madison had custody of it as Secretary of State (1801–1809) but having left Washington, he had lost track of it in the years leading to his death. A publisher had access to it in 1846 for a book on the Constitution. In 1883 historian J. Franklin Jameson found the parchment folded in a small tin box on the floor of a closet at the State, War and Navy Building. In 1894 the State Department sealed the Declaration and Constitution between two glass plates and kept them in a safe.


text: The two parchment documents were turned over to the Library of Congress by executive order, and in 1924 President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the bronze-and-marble shrine for public display of the Constitution in the main building. The parchments were laid over moisture absorbing cellulose paper, vacuum-sealed between double panes of insulated plate glass, and protected from light by a gelatin film. Although building construction of the Archives Building was completed in 1935, in December 1941 they were moved from the Library of Congress until September 1944, and stored at the U.S. Bullion Depository, Fort Knox, Kentucky, along with the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. In 1951 following a study by the National Bureau of Standards to protect from atmosphere, insects, mold and light, the parchments were re-encased with special light filters, inert helium gas and proper humidity. They were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration in 1952.


text: Since 1952, the "Charters of Freedom" have been displayed in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building. Visual inspections have been enhanced by electronic imaging. Changes in the cases led to removal from their cases July 2001, preservation treatment by conservators, and installment in new encasements for public display in September 2003.


title: Gas stove

text: A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by combustible gas such as syngas, natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas or other flammable gas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels such as coal or wood. The first gas stoves were developed in the 1821s and a gas stove factory was established in England in 1836. This new cooking technology had the advantage of being easily adjustable and could be turned off when not in use. The gas stove, however, did not become a commercial success until the 1885s, by which time supplies of piped gas were available in cities and large towns in Britain. The stoves became widespread on the European Continent and in the United States in the middle 20th century.


title: Gas stove

text: Gas stoves became more common when the oven was integrated into the base and the size was reduced to better fit in with the rest of the kitchen furniture. By the 1910s, producers started to enamel their gas stoves for easier cleaning. Ignition of the gas was originally by match and this was followed by the more convenient pilot light. This had the disadvantage of continually consuming gas. The oven still needed to be lit by match and accidentally turning on the gas without igniting it could lead to an explosion. To prevent these types of accidents, oven manufacturers developed and installed a safety valve called a flame failure device for gas hobs (cooktops) and ovens. Most modern gas stoves have electronic ignition, automatic timers for the oven and extractor hoods to remove fumes.


title: Gas stove

text: Gas stoves are a significant source of indoor air pollution, and require good ventilation to maintain acceptable air quality.


title: Gas stove

text: The first gas stove was developed on 2 March 1803 by Zachäus Winzler (), but this along with other attempts remained isolated experiments. James Sharp patented a gas stove in Northampton, England in 1826 and opened a gas stove factory in 1836. His invention was marketed by the firm Smith & Philips from 1828. An important figure in the early acceptance of this new technology, was Alexis Soyer, the renowned chef at the Reform Club in London. From 1841, he converted his kitchen to consume piped gas, arguing that gas was cheaper overall because the supply could be turned off when the stove was not in use.


title: Gas stove

text: A gas stove was shown at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, but it was only in the 1880s that the technology became a commercial success in England. By that stage a large and reliable network for gas pipeline transport had spread over much of the country, making gas relatively cheap and efficient for domestic use. Gas stoves only became widespread on the European Continent and in the United States in the early 20th century.


title: Gas stove

text: Early gas stoves were rather unwieldy, but soon the oven was integrated into the base and the size was reduced to fit in better with the rest of the kitchen furniture. In the 1910s, producers started to enamel their gas stoves for easier cleaning.


title: Gas stove

text: Gas stoves today use two basic types of ignition sources, standing pilot and electric. A stove with a standing pilot has a small, continuously burning gas flame (called a pilot light) under the cooktop. The flame is between the front and back burners. When the stove is turned on, this flame lights the gas flowing out of the burners. The advantage of the standing pilot system is that it is simple and completely independent of any outside power source. A minor drawback is that the flames continuously consume fuel even when the stove is not in use. Early gas ovens did not have a pilot. One had to light these manually with a match. If one accidentally left the gas on, gas would fill the oven and eventually the room. A small spark, such as an arc from a light switch being turned on, could ignite the gas, triggering a violent explosion. To prevent these types of accidents, oven manufacturers developed and installed a safety valve called a flame failure device for gas hobs (cooktops) and ovens. The safety valve depends on a thermocouple that sends a signal to the valve to stay open. Although most modern gas stoves have electronic ignition, many households have gas cooking ranges and ovens that need to be lit with a flame. Electric ignition stoves use electric sparks to ignite the surface burners. This is the "clicking sound" audible just before the burner actually lights. The sparks are initiated by turning the gas burner knob to a position typically labeled "LITE" or by pressing the 'ignition' button. Once the burner lights, the knob is turned further to modulate the flame size. Auto reignition is an elegant refinement: the user need not know or understand the wait-then-turn sequence. They simply turn the burner knob to the desired flame size and the sparking is turned off automatically when the flame lights. Auto reignition also provides a safety feature: the flame will be automatically reignited if the flame goes out while the gas is still on—for example by a gust of wind. If the power fails, surface burners must be manually match-lit.


title: Gas stove

text: Electric ignition for ovens uses a "hot surface" or "glow bar" ignitor. Basically it is a heating element that heats up to gas's ignition temperature. A sensor detects when the glow bar is hot enough and opens the gas valve.


title: Gas stove

text: Also stoves with electric ignition must be connected with gas protection mechanisms such as gas control breaker. Because of this many manufacturers supply stoves without electricity plug.


title: Gas stove

text: One of the important properties of a gas stove is the heat emitted by the burners. Usually, burner heat is specified in terms of BTUs (British Thermal Units), and represent the heat produced in one hour. Often, a gas stove will have burners with different heat output ratings. For example, a gas cooktop may have a high output burner, often in the range 10,000 to 20,000 BTU, and a mixture of medium output burners, 5,000 to 10,000 BTU, and low output burners, 3,000 BTU or less. The high output burner is suitable for boiling a large pot of water quickly, sautéing and searing, while the low output burners are good for simmering.


title: Gas stove

text: Some high-end cooktop models provide higher range of heat and heavy-duty burners that can go up to 20,000 BTU or even more. These may be desired for preparing large quantities or special types of food and enable certain advanced cooking techniques. However, these burners produce greater emissions and necessitate better ventilation for safe operation. Higher capacity burners may not benefit every potential user or dish.


title: Gas stove

text: In the last few years, appliance manufacturers have been making innovative changes to the design and layout of gas stoves. Most of the modern cooktops have come with lattice structure which usually covers the complete range of the top, enabling sliding of cookware from one burner to another without lifting the containers over the gaps of cooktop. Some modern gas stoves also have central fifth burner or an integrated griddle in between the outer burners.


title: Gas stove

text: The size of a kitchen gas stove usually ranges from to even (industrial models). Almost all the manufacturers have been developing several range of options in size range. Combination of range and oven are also available which usually come in two styles: slide in and freestanding.


title: Gas stove

text: Usually, there isn't much of a style difference in between them. Slide-in come with lips on their either side and controls over the front along with burner controls. Freestanding gas range cooktops have solid slides and controls placed behind the cooktop.


title: Gas stove

text: Many stoves have integrated ovens. Modern ovens often include a convection fan inside the oven to provide even air circulation and let the food cook evenly. Some modern ovens come with temperature sensors which allows close control of baking, automatically shut off after reaching certain temperature, or hold on to particular temperature through the cooking process. Ovens may also have two separate oven bays which allows cooking of two different dishes at the same time.


title: Gas stove

text: Many gas stoves come with at least few modern programmable controls to make the handling easier. LCD displays and some other complex cooking routines are some of the standard features present in most of the basic and high-end manufacturing models. Some of the other programmable controls include precise pre-heating, automatic pizza, cook timers and others.


title: Gas stove

text: Modern gas stove ranges are safer than older models. Two of the major safety concerns with gas stoves are child-safe controls and accidental ignition. Some gas cooktops have knobs which can be accidentally switched on even with a gentle bump.


title: Gas stove

text: In 2013 and 2014, DOE developed and proposed new test procedures for cooking products to allow direct comparison of energy transfer efficiency measurements among induction, electric resistance, and gas cooking tops and ranges. The procedures use a new hybrid test block made of aluminum and stainless steel, so it is suitable for tests on induction cookers. The proposed rule lists results of real lab tests conducted with the hybrid block. For comparable (large) cooking elements the following efficiencies were measured with ±0.5% repeatability: 70.7% - 73.6% for induction, 71.9% for electric coil, 43.9% for gas. Summarizing the results of several tests, DOE affirms that "induction units have an average efficiency of 72.2%, not significantly higher than the 69.9% efficiency of smooth—electric resistance units, or the 71.2% of electric coil units". Moreover, DOE reminds that the 84% induction efficiency, cited in previous Technical Support Documents, was not measured by DOE laboratories but just "referenced from an external test study" performed in 1992.


title: Gas stove

text: Carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide from gas stoves contribute to indoor air pollution, and can present a risk factor for respiratory illnesses such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


title: Gas stove

text: In 2022, the methane emissions from gas stoves in the United States were estimated as equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of 500,000 cars. About 80% of methane emissions occur when stoves are turned off, as the result of leaks in gas lines and fittings.


title: Gas stove

text: New York City, San Francisco and Seattle have curtailed installation of gas stoves and appliances in new construction, for reasons of health, indoor air quality, and climate protection. In April 2022, Washington state "became the first state to adopt all-electric standards for new commercial and multi-family constructions," and 22 cities in the San Francisco had adopted a gas ban.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Nina Jacobson (born September 15, 1965) is an American film executive who, until July 2006, was president of the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. With Dawn Steel, Gail Berman and Sherry Lansing, she was one of the last of a handful of women to head a Hollywood film studio since the 1980s. She established her own production company called Color Force in 2007, and was the producer of "The Hunger Games" film series.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Jacobson was born in Los Angeles, to a Jewish family. In 1987, she graduated from Brown University. She began her film career as a documentary researcher. She joined Disney in 1987 as a story analyst but was dismissed in a management change.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Jacobson is married to Jen Bleakley, with whom she has three children. In 1995, she and American Beauty producer Bruce Cohen formed Out There, a collection of gay and lesbian entertainment industry activists.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: In 1988, she joined Silver Pictures as director of film development. She was later head of development at MacDonald/Parkes Productions before she joined Universal Pictures as senior vice president of production. There, she took part in the development and production of such projects as "Twelve Monkeys" and "Dazed and Confused".


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Later, Jacobson became a senior film executive at DreamWorks SKG where she was responsible for developing "What Lies Beneath". She also takes credit for the idea behind DreamWorks' first animated feature "Antz". Speaking of her mode of working while listening to pitches for new films, she said, "We start with the obligatory chat about the weather, traffic, sports or politics. Then somebody concludes the chitchat (usually me) and the writer does his or her schpiel. The 'dog and pony.' The desired outcome is for me to love the story and want to buy it. But a big part of my job is to pass. I leap only once every six to eight weeks."


title: Nina Jacobson

text: In 1998, she moved to Disney where she was responsible for developing scripts and overseeing film production for Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. Among her projects as studio executive were "The Sixth Sense", "Remember the Titans", "Pearl Harbor", "The Princess Diaries", "The Chronicles of Narnia", and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. For her efforts at helping expand the role of women in the entertainment industry, Women in Film awarded her the Crystal Award in 2003. In 2005, "Forbes" magazine named Jacobson one of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" in acknowledgement of her success.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Closely associated with film director M. Night Shyamalan at Disney (besides "The Sixth Sense", she also worked with him on "Unbreakable", "Signs" and "The Village"), she and Shyamalan clashed during pre-production of his 2006 film, "Lady in the Water". Shyamalan left the studio after Jacobson and others became, in Shyamalan's eyes, overly critical of his script, which would eventually be produced by Warner Bros. Shyamalan is quoted in a book about the difficult period that he "had witnessed the decay of her creative vision right before [his] own wide-open eyes. She didn't want iconoclastic directors. She wanted directors who made money." In her own defense, Jacobson said, "in order to have a Hollywood relationship more closely approximate a real relationship, you have to have a genuine back and forth of the good and the bad. Different people have different ideas about respect. For us, being honest is the greatest show of respect for a filmmaker."


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Immediately after the birth of her third child on July 17, 2006, while still in the delivery room, Jacobson was fired over the telephone by Richard Cook, studio chief for The Walt Disney Company. Apparently as part of a studio restructuring, she was replaced by Oren Aviv, marketing chief of the studio. Soon after she was fired, Jacobson quoted Jerry Bruckheimer saying, "There are two kinds of people in this job: the ones who think they'll have it forever and the ones who know they won't." She said she had treated her own job at Disney "as a privilege, not an entitlement." Among her last projects as production executive was "The Game Plan," a family comedy released in late September 2007. The film opened number one in its first week at the box office and held the top spot through the second week of release.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: By the start of 2007, she was back at work, this time at her own newly established production company, Color Force. Color Force signed a three-year "first-look" production deal with DreamWorks in December 2006. The first feature project released in theaters was "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (2010). She also produced the 2011 feature "One Day".


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Jacobson produced all of the films based on the bestselling "Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and co-wrote the screenplays for the series. The first of the four films based on the trilogy was released on March 23, 2012.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: In 2015, Color Force mounted its first television series, "," based on Jeffrey Toobin's 1997 book, "The Run of His Life".


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Color Force produced the film adaptation of "Crazy Rich Asians", which was released in 2018 to general acclaim. "The Hollywood Reporter" presented Jacobson with its third annual Equity in Entertainment award at its 2018 Women in Entertainment event on December 5, 2018. Previous Equity in Entertainment award winners include Ryan Murphy and Amy Pascal.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: Jacobson produced the 2019 film adaptation of the bestselling novel "Where'd you go Bernadette" by Maria Semple which according to the Critic's Consensus of Rotten Tomatoes "offers dispiriting proof that a talented director, bestselling source material, and terrific cast can add up to far less than the sum of their parts." Jacobson and her production company Color Force also acquired and produced the 2019 adaptation of Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Goldfinch" which despite the novel's devoted fan base was universally panned by critics and was named one of the worst movies of the year by CBS News. It lost over 50 million dollars, according to The Hollywood Reporter.


title: Nina Jacobson

text: In June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting. In the video, Jacobson and others told the stories of the people killed there.


title: Stronger Than Pride

text: Stronger Than Pride is the third studio album by English band Sade, released by Epic Records in the United Kingdom on 3 May 1988 and in the United States on 10 May 1988. In September 2018, "Pitchfork" placed the album at number 37 on its list of "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". The album spawned five singles.


title: Stronger Than Pride

text: Robert Christgau of "The Village Voice" stated, "I'm glad this self-made aristocrat has a human side, but I prefer her image: now that she's singing billets-doux, she's even further from rewarding the concentration she warrants than she used to be. Touching your beloved with a few true cliches is hard enough. For an audience you have to come up with something that doesn't fade into the background like the new age jazz she went pop with."


title: Stronger Than Pride

text: Kristine McKenna of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "The nine songs on "Stronger Than Pride" add up to one long plea of desire, and as the album makes its way up the charts—as it surely will—armies of love-struck men will no doubt dream of losing themselves in Sade's quiet storm of passion."


title: Stronger Than Pride

text: AllMusic's Ron Wynn commented that "Sade demonstrated some intensity and fire on her third release. Whether that was just an attempt to change the pace a bit or a genuine new direction, she had more animation in her delivery on such songs as 'Haunt Me,' 'Give It Up,' and the hit 'Paradise.' Not that she was suddenly singing in a soulful or bluesy manner; rather, Sade's dry and introspective tone now had a little more edge, and the lyrics were ironic as well as reflective. This was her third consecutive multi-platinum album, and it matched the two-million-plus sales level of her debut."


title: Wahlburgers (TV series)

text: Wahlburgers is an American reality television series that aired from January 22, 2014 to July 31, 2019 on A&E. During its 10 seasons, "Wahlburgers" aired 95 episodes.


title: Wahlburgers (TV series)

text: The series is based on the casual dining burger restaurant and bar Wahlburgers, a chain of restaurants that started in the Greater Boston town of Hingham, Massachusetts. Wahlburgers is owned by chef Paul Wahlberg in partnership with two of his brothers, actors and singers Donnie Wahlberg and Mark Wahlberg.


title: Wahlburgers (TV series)

text: Allison Keene of "The Hollywood Reporter" said that "only a true and abiding love for the Wahlbergs will keep viewers interested." Brian Lowry of Variety said the show is "generally playful, but it is just empty calories". Mark A. Perigard of The Boston Herald gave the show a B−.


title: Wahlburgers (TV series)

text: In 2014 and 2015, "Wahlburgers" received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program.


title: Wahlburgers (TV series)

text: "Donnie Loves Jenny" is a reality television series based on the newlywed Donnie Wahlberg and Jenny McCarthy's relationship and premiered on January 7, 2015.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: Siculo-Arabic (), also known as Sicilian Arabic, is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent Norman rule until the 13th century. It was derived from early Maghrebi Arabic following the Abbasid conquest of Sicily in the 9th century and gradually marginalized following the Norman conquest in the 11th century.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: Siculo-Arabic is extinct and is designated as a historical language that is attested only in writings from the 9th–13th centuries in Sicily. However, present-day Maltese is considered to be its sole surviving descendant, it being in foundation a Semitic language that evolved from one of the dialects of Siculo-Arabic over the past 800 years, though in a gradual process of Latinisation that gave Maltese a significant Romance superstrate influence. By contrast, present-day Sicilian, which is an Italo-Dalmatian Romance language, retains very little Siculo-Arabic, with its influence being limited to some 300 words.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: During the 7th and 8th centuries, Sicily was raided from Tunis. The eventual Muslim Arab conquest of Byzantine Sicily was piecemeal and slow. The region was a frontier zone, even after the fall of Taormina in 962, which completed the invasion. Romance languages such as African Romance continued to be used in the island well after the Arabic conquest. Its speakers were largely made up of Sicilian Muslims. However, based on the foundation charter on the Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (written in both Greek and Arabic), it can be speculated that Siculo-Arabic was also the mother tongue for many Sicilian, in this case Palermo’s, Orthodox Christians.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: In 1086, the Normans managed to secure the conversion of the last important Kalbid ruler of Enna Ibn Hamud. This conversion along with the Norman adoption of many Arab governing customs resulted in the emergence of a Christian Siculo-Arabic language. During the Norman era the chancery office operated in Arabic, Greek and Latin.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: The "Nuzhat al-mushtāq fi'khtirāq al-āfāq" (, lit. "the book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands"), most often known as the "Tabula Rogeriana" (lit. "The Book of Roger" in Latin) is a description of the world and world map created by the Palermo-based Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154. Al-Idrisi worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map for fifteen years at the court of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, who commissioned the work around 1138.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: In the post-conquest period, both Arabic and Greek were sometimes used by the new rulers and subsequently used in the king's fiscal administration, which managed royal lands and men in Sicily and Calabria. The many documents that it issued are among the main and most important sources for Arabic in Sicily. However, when the Hohenstaufen replaced the Normans, Arabic was dropped as a language of government in 1194 and the Hohenstaufen expelled the remaining Muslims to Lucera and North Africa in the 13th century. Due to the expulsions, the only remaining Siculo-Arabic speakers were Christians.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: When the Aragonese took Sicily they introduced Catalan nobility, made Latin the only official language; Greek and Arabic official records in Sicily ceased to exist by the 14th century.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: Arabic influence continued in a number of Sicilian words. Most of these terms relate to agriculture and related activities.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: The modern language derived from the Siculo-Arabic spoken in Malta is known as the Maltese language. While "Siculo-Arabic" refers to the language spoken before 1300, hardly any records exist from the 14th century, and the earliest record in the Maltese language is "Il-Kantilena" ("Xidew il-Qada") by Pietru Caxaro (late 15th century), which is written in the Latin script.


title: Siculo-Arabic

text: Maltese evolved from Siculo-Arabic through a gradual process of Latinisation following the re-Christianisation of Malta (which was complete by 1250). Some items of Siculo-Arabic vocabulary are comparable with later items found in Maltese. Although Siculo-Arabic has had a relatively minor influence on modern-day Sicilian, this language has also absorbed many Siculo-Arabic words, with those shown in the table a small sample:


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: "Champagne Problems" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It is the second track on Swift's ninth studio album, "Evermore", which was released on December 11, 2020, through Republic Records. Swift wrote the song with Joe Alwyn (under the pseudonym William Bowery) and produced it with Aaron Dessner. "Champagne Problems" is a lo-fi ballad written from the perspective of a troubled girlfriend who turns down her lover's earnest marriage proposal due to her own mental health struggles. The song depicts the narrator taking responsibility for the breakup and mourning the faded relationship. It is built around a guitar riff and oom-pah piano.


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: Upon "Evermore" release, "Champagne Problems" received critical acclaim for its vivid portrayal of heartbreak and mental health. In the United States, the song debuted at number 21 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, number 3 on the "Billboard" Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and number 7 on the "Rolling Stone" Top 100. Internationally, it charted at number 6 in Canada and Ireland and reached the top 20 on the "Billboard" Global 200 and in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: On July 24, 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Taylor Swift surprise-released her eighth studio album, "Folklore", to widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. In September 2020, Swift and her co-producers and co-writers for the album, Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, and Joe Alwyn, assembled at Long Pond Studio, located in a secluded cabin in upstate New York, to film the documentary "". Released to Disney+ and accompanied by a released digitally, Swift performed the stripped-down renditions of all 17 tracks on "Folklore" and recounted the creative process of developing the album.


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: Swift wrote "Champagne Problems" song with Joe Alwyn (under the pseudonym William Bowery), who she has been in a romantic relationship with since 2016. Despite speculation that Swift wrote it about their own relationship, she explained that she and Alwyn wrote it together and detailed the writing process: "I say it was a surprise that we started writing together, but in a way, it wasn't, because we have always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes, and he's always the person who's showing me songs by artists and then they become my favorite songs or whatever. Joe and I really love sad songs. We've always bonded over music. So it was… We write the saddest [ones]. We just really love sad songs. What can I say?" She selected the song's bridge as one of her favorite parts of the song: "I'm so excited to one day be in front of a crowd when they all sing, 'She would have made such a lovely bride / What a shame she's fucked in the head.'"


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: On December 10, 2020, Swift announced that her ninth studio album and "Folklore"'s sister album, "Evermore", would come out at midnight and revealed its track listing, where "Champagne Problems" placed second. In the announcement, Swift teased imageries of various tracks, including "Champagne Problems", in which "two longtime college sweethearts had very different plans for the same night, one to end it and one who brought a ring." Lyric videos of each song on the album were released to Swift's YouTube channel; "Champagne Problems" has since garnered over 31 million views as of October 2022. In the video, the lyrics appear over a glass of champagne. The song was also included in "The "Dropped Your Hand While Dancing" Chapter", a streaming compilation by Swift released by Swift on January 21, 2021, featuring four other songs from "Evermore" and one from "Folklore".


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: "Champagne Problems" is a weepy ballad with spacious, lo-fi instrumentals, consisting of oompah piano chords that interlace with guitar arpeggios, and choir vocals. It is narrated by an apologetic girlfriend whose personal issues interfere with her romantic relationship, leading to her rejecting her lover's earnest marriage proposal, which takes places at a Christmas party. In the second verse, she sings "You told your family for a reason / You couldn't keep it in / Your sister splashed out on the bottle / Now no one's celebrating," alluding to the fact that the subject was so confident the narrator would say yes that they told their family beforehand. The song sees her take responsibility for the heartache caused and mourning the relationship while observing her former lover moving on. Jason Lipshutz of "Billboard" described the narrative as "a quiet sense of hurt growing louder as the song's story of a shriveled romance... turns more urgent." "Champagne Problems" also sees the narrator addressing her former lover from a second-person perspective: the song opens with the line "You booked the night train for a reason / So you could sit there in this hurt." Musically, the song is set in the key of C major with a tempo of 90 beats per minute. Swift's vocal span from E to G.


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: "Champagne Problems" received widespread critical acclaim. "NME" critic Hannah Mylrea juxtaposed "Champagne Problems" to Swift's 2008 hit "Love Story", with the latter being a song about accepting a marriage proposal while the former is about rejecting the same. Terming it a "disenchantment ballad", Madeline Crone of "American Songwriter" thought that, by the song's first chorus, it is "painstakingly apparent" how "different plans" play out between two lovers. "Entertainment Weekly"'s Maura Johnston praised the song's "pointillistic" details, and underscored how the opening couplet "You booked the night train for a reason / So you could sit there in this hurt" accurately depicts "someone looking to escape from themselves, and not just their situation".


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: "The Guardian" Alexis Petridis said that the song, and more specifically the lyric "She would've made such a lovely bride / What a shame she's fucked in the head", was a partial callback to the "bad-news girlfriend" satirically depicted in Swift's 2014 single "Blank Space". Music journalist Jon Pareles, in "The New York Times", wrote that the music on the track was "an elaborate, evolving sigh", highlighting lo-fi piano chords that progress to guitar chords in more rapid succession and looped "aah" vocals. Brodie Lancaster of "The Sydney Morning Herald" selected the song as an example of Swift's ability to write fictional characters and "write it until it's entirely wrung dry." Writing for "The Independent", Helen Brown described the song as "wickedly fizzy" and praised Swift's character building.


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: Several critics, such as Patrick Ryan of "USA Today", selected "Champagne Problems" as a highlight on "Evermore". Bobby Olivier of "Spin" singled out the song as an "unskippable" highlight on "Evermore", applauding its "addictive" depiction of a failed marriage proposal. Annie Zaleski of "The A.V. Club" pinpointed it as an example of "Evermore"'s sonic cohesion and highly detailed lyricism, while Tom Breihan of "Stereogum" applauded the song's "loving, exacting detail."


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: Jason Lipshutz of "Billboard" similarly praised its lyrics and highlighted the complexity with which Swift explores themes such as marriage and adult love. Writing for "Variety", Chris Willman described "Champagne Problems" as "a superb example of her abilities as a storyteller who doesn’t always tell all." Mikael Wood, in a review published in the "Los Angeles Times", selected "Champagne Problems" as a highlight, opining that its lyrics hold "so much empathy that neither character ends up as the bad guy." According to "Consequence", "Champagne Problems" has the best bridge in "Evermore", containing Swift's best lyrics and performance in the album. Picked by "Clash" critics as one of Swift's 15 best songs, their listicle claimed that the bridge of "Champagne Problems" is "without a doubt some of Taylor's best work as it flows between metaphor and brutal honesty."


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: "Champagne Problems" was the second best-performing track from "Evermore" after the single "Willow" (2020). All of the album's tracks debuted inside the top 75 of the "Billboard" Global 200 chart simultaneously, with "Champagne Problems" charting at number 12. In the United States, the song opened at number 21 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and number 3 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, where it spent 20 weeks and became Swift's 17th top-10 entry. It debuted at number 7 on the "Rolling Stone" Top 100, a competitor to the Hot 100, with 152,700 units sold and 18.3 million streams in its first week. Internationally, the song debuted at number 6 on the Canadian Hot 100, where it became her 31st top-ten single and was certified Gold for selling upwards of 40,000 units. Elsewhere, it charted at number 6 in Ireland, 12 in Australia, number 15 in Malaysia and the UK, number 16 in Singapore, and number 24 in New Zealand.


title: Champagne Problems (Taylor Swift song)

text: Inspired by the track, French luxury hotel Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa offered guests a new package called "Champagne Solution", which includes a bottle of Dom Pérignon, the champagne brand mentioned in the song's lyrics.


title: Insult comedy

text: Insult comedy is a comedy genre in which the act consists mainly of offensive insults usually directed at the audience or other performers. Typical targets for insult include people in the show's audience, the town hosting the performance, or the subject of a roast. An insult comedian often maintains a competitive and interactive relationship with their audience. The style has been described as "festive abuse". The style can be distinguished from an act based on satire, or political humor. Insult comedy is often used to deflect or silence hecklers even when the rest of the show is not focused on it.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: Jed McCaleb is an American programmer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is a co-founder and the CTO of Stellar. Prior to co-founding Stellar, McCaleb founded and served as the CTO of the company Ripple until 2013. McCaleb is also known for creating the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, and the peer-to-peer eDonkey and Overnet networks as well as the eDonkey2000 application.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: In January 2018, it was reported that McCaleb's Ripple token ownership was worth $20 billion, which would put him at 40th place in "Forbes" list of world's richest people.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: McCaleb was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and attended the University of California, Berkeley. He eventually dropped out and moved to New York City.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: In 2000, McCaleb founded MetaMachine Inc. and released his eDonkey2000 application. Sam Yagan joined him in 2001 and served as CEO of the company. McCaleb served as the CTO of the company and continued to develop the peer-to-peer eDonkey network as well as the Overnet network and the eDonkey2000 application. At its height, the network grew to have over 4 million active users at any given time. In September 2006, the company reached a settlement with the RIAA and agreed that the company and its top executives would "immediately cease distributing eDonkey, eDonkey2000, Overnet and other software versions" and the company would pay $30 million to the RIAA to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: In 2007, he purchased the domain Mtgox.com with the intent to create a trading site for "" cards. After moving on from his original idea, McCaleb repurposed the site in late 2010 as a bitcoin exchange that could process bitcoin-to-dollar trades. The website grew in popularity within months. McCaleb sold the company to Mark Karpelès in February 2011 and remained a minority owner in the company until its collapse in 2014.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: In 2011, McCaleb began developing a digital currency in which transactions were verified by consensus among network members which became known as the Ripple protocol, which differs from the mining technique used in bitcoin. He recruited David Schwartz and secured an investment from Jesse Powell before adding Arthur Britto as the chief strategist. McCaleb recruited Chris Larsen to be CEO of the new company, which became known as Opencoin. He continued development of the Ripple protocol and its currency while securing investments before McCaleb left his active role with the company in July 2013.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: In 2014, he co-founded the non-profit organization the Stellar Development Foundation with Joyce Kim to develop the Stellar open source protocol to allow cross-border monetary transactions including fiat and digital currencies. The organization debuted on July 31, 2014, and received $3 million loan from the technology company, Stripe. The organization originally based its payment network on the Ripple protocol McCaleb previously developed but in 2015 adopted the Stellar Consensus Protocol. McCaleb serves as chief technology officer of Stellar.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: In May 2017, McCaleb also launched Lightyear.io, a commercial endeavor building on the Stellar network. Lightyear facilitates Stellar becoming a global payment and currency exchange initially directed at the developing world. In October 2017, Lightyear partnered with IBM to launch blockchain banking in the South Pacific using Stellar's lumen currency. In September 2018, McCaleb negotiated the merger of Lightyear and Chain.com creating the new merged entity named InterStellar.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: "The New York Times" named McCaleb one of the top 10 people leading the blockchain revolution in 2018.


title: Jed McCaleb

text: McCaleb donated US$500,000 worth of XRP (at the time of donation) to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), and remains one of its largest donors, as well as joining its advisory board. In February 2018, McCaleb was announced as a new donor to the artificial intelligence research group OpenAI.


title: Daniel Bravo

text: Daniel Bravo (born 9 February 1963) is a French former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. With the exception of a stint at Serie A's Parma, he spent all of his career in his native France. He made 13 appearances for the France national team scoring once.


title: Daniel Bravo

text: Bravo was born in Toulouse. He made his debut for OGC Nice at 17 years of age in a game against Metz in the French Championship D1. Despite the relegation of Nice to D2 in 1982, he was called up to the French team to face Italy in February 1982. That night, the Blues beat Italy for the first time in over sixty years, and Bravo scored their second goal.


title: Daniel Bravo

text: He stayed at Nice for their spell in D2 for one season and managed to score eleven goals. He then signed for AS Monaco. This was the beginning of a series of clubs he would play for that would lead to him playing for Paris Saint Germain and then in Italy. With the French national team, Bravo played infrequently in the blue jersey, but still participated in the victorious Euro 1984, replacing Jean-Marc Ferreri, during the match against Yugoslavia.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: The Workers' Youth League (, , or AUF) is Norway's largest political youth organization and is affiliated with the Norwegian Labour Party.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: In 1903, the "Norwegian Social-Democratic Youth League" was formed, which the organization and historians consider to be the foundation of the organization.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: As an organizational entity, "AUF" took its current form in April 1927 following the merger of Left Communist Youth League and Socialist Youth League of Norway corresponding with the merger of its parent parties after the conclusion of disputes over the "Twenty-one Conditions". Its ideology is social democracy and democratic socialism.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: In 1958, the local chapter of Berge Furre and Kåre Sollund, "Sosialistisk Studentlag", was closed down. A conflict arose after the United States had been offering its NATO allies American nuclear weapons as a defence against the Eastern Bloc. Sosialistisk Studenlag opposed this and as an attempt to prevent West Germany from getting access to nuclear weapons it contacted MPs during the Easter break to sign a petition. More than half of Labour's MPs signed in what is known as the Easter Rebellion of the Labour Party. The rebellion was badly received by the party leadership when the Easter break ended. Several people were excluded from the Labour Party, including the members of Sosialistisk Studentlag. All the MPs who signed the petition were later offered by the party to retract their signatures, which all but one of them did.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: Three years later, Furre was one of the founders of Sosialistisk Folkeparti, which got two seats in the parliament after the 1961 election. Labour, who had been winning the majority of the seats in every election after World War II, got just 74 out of 150. No party has won the majority of the seats after this.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: In 1998, the Workers' Youth League membership scandal resulted in two former treasurers and two former leaders of the Oslo chapter being found guilty of fraud, and given prison sentences for having unlawfully received NOK 648,000 in grants from the City of Oslo between 1992 and 1994—Ragnar Bøe Elgsaas, Anders Hornslien, Bjørn Jarle Rødberg Larsen and Anders Greif Mathisen.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: On 22 July 2011, AUF's traditional summer camp on the island of Utøya was the scene of a massacre carried out by the right-wing extremist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik dressed as a police officer. He shot and killed 69 people (8 more in a previous bombing in Oslo), most of whom were members of AUF, and wounded several others.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: Three prime ministers, Trygve Bratteli, Thorbjørn Jagland, and Jens Stoltenberg have been leaders in AUF. In addition, Oddvar Norli was leader of local chapter of Hedmark AUF and Gro Harlem Brundtland was deputy leader of "Sosialistisk Studentlag" and "Arbeiderpartiets Studentlag", local chapters of AUF, before they both served as prime ministers. The German Chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Willy Brandt was a member of AUF during his exile in Norway.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: Its current leader is Astrid Willa Eide Hoem which succeeded Ina Libak in October 2020. AUF employs county secretaries in all 19 counties of Norway.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: Its central office is situated at the historical seat of the Norwegian labour movement, Youngstorget in Oslo, in the Peoples' Theatre building. At the main office the elected leadership work together with different political advisors with national campaigns, organisation and political issues. It is co-located with the offices of the Oslo and Akershus county wards.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: The National Congress assembles every second year, and is the supreme body of the Workers' Youth League. The Congress will also elect the party leadership, consisting of a leader, a deputy leader and a secretary general. These three together with 14 other elected members constitutes the Executive Board. On a day-to-day basis AUF is governed by the Executive Board. The highest body between the Congress is the National Delegate's Board, consisting of two representatives from each of the 19 counties and is observed by the Executive Board.


title: Workers' Youth League (Norway)

text: The organization is a full member of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) and the Joint Committee of the Nordic Labour Youth Movement (FNSU). AUF is also an observer member of the Young European Socialists (YES).


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: In statistics, a mediation model seeks to identify and explain the mechanism or process that underlies an observed relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable via the inclusion of a third hypothetical variable, known as a mediator variable (also a mediating variable, intermediary variable, or intervening variable). Rather than a direct causal relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable, a mediation model proposes that the independent variable influences the mediator variable, which in turn influences the dependent variable. Thus, the mediator variable serves to clarify the nature of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: Mediation analyses are employed to understand a known relationship by exploring the underlying mechanism or process by which one variable influences another variable through a mediator variable. In particular, mediation analysis can contribute to better understanding the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable when these variables do not have an obvious direct connection.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: Baron and Kenny (1986) laid out several requirements that must be met to form a true mediation relationship. They are outlined below using a real-world example. See the diagram above for a visual representation of the overall mediating relationship to be explained. Note: Hayes (2009) critiqued Baron and Kenny's mediation steps approach, and as of 2019, David A. Kenny on his website stated that mediation can exist in the absence of a 'significant' total effect, and therefore step 1 below may not be needed. This situation is sometimes referred to as "inconsistent mediation". Later publications by Hayes also questioned the concepts of full or partial mediation and advocated for these terms, along with the classical mediation steps approach outlined below, to be abandoned.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: The following example, drawn from Howell (2009), explains each step of Baron and Kenny's requirements to understand further how a mediation effect is characterized. Step 1 and step 2 use simple regression analysis, whereas step 3 uses multiple regression analysis.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: Such findings would lead to the conclusion implying that your feelings of competence and self-esteem mediate the relationship between how you were parented and how confident you feel about parenting your own children.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: If step 1 does not yield a significant result, one may still have grounds to move to step 2. Sometimes there is actually a significant relationship between independent and dependent variables but because of small sample sizes, or other extraneous factors, there could not be enough power to predict the effect that actually exists.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: In the diagram shown above, the indirect effect is the product of path coefficients "A" and "B". The direct effect is the coefficient " C' ".


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: The direct effect measures the extent to which the dependent variable changes when the independent variable increases by one unit and the mediator variable remains unaltered. In contrast, the indirect effect measures the extent to which the dependent variable changes when the independent variable is held constant and the mediator variable changes by the amount it would have changed had the independent variable increased by one unit.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: In linear systems, the total effect is equal to the sum of the direct and indirect ("C' + AB" in the model above). In nonlinear models, the total effect is not generally equal to the sum of the direct and indirect effects, but to a modified combination of the two.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: A mediator variable can either account for all or some of the observed relationship between two variables.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: Maximum evidence for mediation, also called full mediation, would occur if inclusion of the mediation variable drops the relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable (see pathway "c" in diagram above) to zero.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: Partial mediation maintains that the mediating variable accounts for some, but not all, of the relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable. Partial mediation implies that there is not only a significant relationship between the mediator and the dependent variable, but also some direct relationship between the independent and dependent variable.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: In order for either full or partial mediation to be established, the reduction in variance explained by the independent variable must be significant as determined by one of several tests, such as the Sobel test. The effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable can become nonsignificant when the mediator is introduced simply because a trivial amount of variance is explained (i.e., not true mediation). Thus, it is imperative to show a significant reduction in variance explained by the independent variable before asserting either full or partial mediation.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: It is possible to have statistically significant indirect effects in the absence of a total effect. This can be explained by the presence of several mediating paths that cancel each other out, and become noticeable when one of the cancelling mediators is controlled for. This implies that the terms 'partial' and 'full' mediation should always be interpreted relative to the set of variables that are present in the model.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: In all cases, the operation of "fixing a variable" must be distinguished from that of "controlling for a variable," which has been inappropriately used in the literature. The former stands for physically fixing, while the latter stands for conditioning on, adjusting for, or adding to the regression model. The two notions coincide only when all error terms (not shown in the diagram) are statistically uncorrelated. When errors are correlated, adjustments must be made to neutralize those correlations before embarking on mediation analysis (see Bayesian Networks).


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: Sobel's test is performed to determine if the relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable has been significantly reduced after inclusion of the mediator variable. In other words, this test assesses whether a mediation effect is significant. It examines the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable compared to the relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable including the mediation factor.


title: Mediation (statistics)

text: The Sobel test is more accurate than the Baron and Kenny steps explained above; however, it does have low statistical power. As such, large sample sizes are required in order to have sufficient power to detect significant effects. This is because the key assumption of Sobel's test is the assumption of normality. Because Sobel's test evaluates a given sample on the normal distribution, small sample sizes and skewness of the sampling distribution can be problematic (see Normal distribution for more details). Thus, the rule of thumb as suggested by MacKinnon et al., (2002) is that a sample size of 1000 is required to detect a small effect, a sample size of 100 is sufficient in detecting a medium effect, and a sample size of 50 is required to detect a large effect.