The U.S. Constitution starts with the words “We the People.” What does “We the People” mean?

Why this is the answer

The Preamble, the single sentence that opens the Constitution, explains why the document was written: to form a more perfect union, establish justice, keep peace at home, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for the people and their descendants. Before it lists any of those goals, though, it names who is acting. The people of the United States ordain and establish the Constitution. No monarch hands it down. USCIS reads those three words as the root of self-government. Americans are not ruled by a king or a queen; they govern themselves by electing representatives at every level. The 2008 study lessons add the term popular sovereignty: the power to govern comes from the people, who are the highest power, and the government works for them and protects their rights. The other official answers belong to the same family of ideas. USCIS explains consent of the governed through Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence. He believed a government exists only if the people think it should, and that people create their own government and agree to follow the laws it makes. The official list also accepts (example of) social contract. Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers took the reasoning one step further: because the people hand power to a government voluntarily, they can take it back. USCIS uses that idea to explain why the colonies separated from Great Britain: the British government was not protecting the colonists' rights. There are five accepted answers, and you need one. "Self-government" and "people should govern themselves" are the easiest to say in plain English. "Popular sovereignty" sounds impressive but is easy to stumble over, so practice it aloud before you rely on it. The trap is answering with a group other than the people, for example that the states hold all the power or that only Congress makes decisions. In the words of the USCIS lessons, the power to govern comes from the people, who are the highest power. If you lose the thread, ask yourself who ordains and establishes the Constitution in its very first line. The answer is printed right there.