The best way to memorize the preamble of the American constitution is to use a memory technique you enjoy.
There are a few options, but for a long sentence like this one, the Memory Palace technique combined is key.
When paired with mnemonic associations and spaced repetition, you’ll be able to commit the preamble to memory quickly. Possibly in just one day or less.
As a person who has taught mnemonic methods for over fifteen years and published over a dozen memory training books while running monthly workshops, I’ve seen people excel with verbatim memorization countless times.
Now, the reason most of us need memory techniques is simple.
“We the people” is a phrase we hear so often, it enters memory almost for free.
But words like “ordain” are more challenging.
So, if you want to hold that word and the entire preamble in memory so you can form a more perfect union with your country, I applaud your mission.
On this page, I’ll show you exactly how to memorize it.
You’ll be able to recite it word-perfectly.
On demand.
And use the same technique to memorize other aspects of the constitution too, including the amendments.
Let’s dive in.
How to Memorize The Preamble of the Constitution
As discussed in my tutorial on memorizing any script in one night, you want to use a Memory Palace any time you’re memorizing verbatim content.
In case you’re not familiar with it, the Memory Palace technique lets you mentally place information you don’t know in an imaginary recreation of locations you know well.
You then place associations that help you remember each word. So you can have a “wee” family member on a couch to help you remember the word “we.”
There’s a better and more specific association I’ll give you below. But the point is to come up with some kind of idea or image that reminds you of the first word. That first association is then paired with another association that helps you remember “people” on the next part of the couch.
In effect, you create a chain of associations.
Of course, couches are rather small, so I suggest you consider adding more furniture based on what ancient people used to call the method of loci. (Loci is the plural in Latin for locations.)
I use furniture myself, but not as much as I used to. You can also place your associations on walls and corners as I demonstrate in this Memory Palace Walkthrough video:
Now that you’ve seen an example, think of using a Memory Palace like this:
Any room or hallway in your home can be used as if it’s a container for words and sentences. My full Memory Palace guide goes deeper into the details, but to help teach you the technique, let’s use the preamble itself as an example:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
To help you get started, let’s break the full process down.
One: Create A Memory Palace
The best way to do this quickly is to make a quick drawing of where you’re going to place the text you want to memorize.
In my experience, this amount of material will require 2-3 rooms.
Draw them out by hand and plan the journey you’re going to follow.
Two: Assign And Place Your Preamble Associations with Mnemonic Examples Like These
One of the trickiest aspects for people new to using mnemonic strategies is assigning associations.
The easiest way to get started is to learn the pegword method.
This technique will equip you with one or more image per letter of the alphabet.
Then, when you look at a word like “we,” you will instantly think of a Wendy, or the restaurant chain Wendy’s.
To make “we the people” memorable, you could imagine Wendy smoking a joint filled with people.
Here’s another example:
For a phrase like “provide for the common defence,” you can look at the “pr” in “provide” and think of someone like the musician Prince. He can be throwing a comma at your favorite defense athlete in a sport of your choice.
Three: Review Each Word Using Your Memory Palace
Laying out these associations along a Memory Palace journey is not enough.
You need to revisit them using active recall so that long term memories can form. Going back along the journey to practice recalling each word of the preamble forms long-term retention through what memory scientists call “triggering.”
The way I speed up the review process when memorizing verbatim content is to follow these patterns:
- Recall the text forward
- Recall it backward
- Recall from the middle to the end
- Recall from the middle to the beginning
- Recall it out of order by skipping around the various parts of your Memory Palace
I know that it sounds strange to repeat texts backward, but it uses what’s called the serial positioning effect to give more exposure to each part of the preamble.
If you want to see a demonstrate of me reciting information out of order, check out my Shakespeare case study based on my analysis of how Anthony Hopkins memorizes his scripts. (I prefer my way.)
To take another practical example, when I memorized my TEDx Talk using the how to memorize a speech technique, I literally recalled it backward to help make my recall of each word bulletproof.
It worked and the video of the talk went on to be viewed over four million times.
Four: Contextualize the Preamble
Whenever memorizing any kind of information, it’s important to go beyond the core text and tap into what memory scientists call context-dependent memory.
Part of what this effect involves is simple. It means that the more related information you gather about something you’ve memorized, the easier you’ll be able to recall it.
There are many ways to establish more context, such as reading about the history of how the preamble was written and the reasons it came into being.
It’s also helpful to work on memorizing the amendments to the constitution to give your memory more context.
You can also learn more about the learning techniques of its authors and those who influenced its writing, such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
If you don’t know those figures, you can expand your knowledge context about the preamble by using this name memorization guide to learn them.
You can also learn and apply a number system to remember the relevant historical dates about the writing of the preamble.
The more you frame this individual memory project in the larger context, the easier it will be for you to remember.
And remember the pegword method we talked about?
It will give you more relevant associations to use. For example, if you have memorized the presidents, many of them could serve as your associative images.
FAQ: How to Memorize the Preamble Quickly, Correctly and Without Strain
As someone who has given many verbatim recall demonstrations, I’m asked often about how to complete learning goals like deeply absorbing the preamble.
Here are some rapid fire questions and answers I’ve come across that I’m confident will help you out.
What’s the easiest way to memorize the Preamble?
The easiest way is to break it down into smaller phrases and layer them into a Memory Palace using mnemonic images.
By breaking the preamble down into smaller phrases, you’re essentially engaging in what learning scientists call mnemonic chunking.
This simple division technique is based on the fact that we remember smaller amounts of information more easily than long phrases.
The next step is to review the preamble on a schedule. You can use an app like Anki or learn to use spaced repetition on your own without any prompting from a device.
Should I understand the Preamble’s meaning first before memorizing it?
Not necessasrily.
I’ve heard a lot of memory athletes suggest that you should never memorize anything without understanding it first.
But I’ve memorized many things I didn’t understand. It was only after memorizing it that I came to understand it.
My Sanskrit phrases learning project is one example on top of my Shakespeare demonstration mentioned above. I’m not too proud to admit that even as a person with a PhD, I didn’t understand a lot of that material until after I used memory techniques to memorize the words.
I believe memorizing leads to understanding because you take pressure off your working memory. Once the cognitive load has been reduced, you’re then able to focus purely on the full preamble because it is now completely absorbed into your long-term memory.
What are the best chunks to split the Preamble into?
I wouldn’t say that any of them are the best.
The key is to break all of it down in groupings or chunks of 3-5 words.
For example:
- We the people (3 words)
- in order to (3 words)
By doing this consistently within a Memory Palace, you’ll soon have memorized the entire text.
Another technique you can apply was suggested by Giordano Bruno. He talked about labelling the verbatim content as you memorize it using mnemonic “Seals.”
For example, “we the people” refers to the “who” and “in order to” refers to the purpose.
Just by touching lightly on the category the words belong to can help you better remember the the individual chunks.
How do I memorize the six goals in order without mixing them up?
This is where the Memory Palace technique really shines. Because you’re laying out your associations along a familiar location, you can memorize the Preamble in a perfectly linear order.
During your review, you follow the exact same path and thereby recall the words in the precise order.
You can also turn the goals into an acronym or acrostic, two techniques I discuss on this site’s Dictionary of Mnemonics.
Is writing the Preamble from memory really helpful?
Yes.
Any time you add writing to the review process, you will help your brain install the information faster.
I write from memory frequently and it has helped me tremendously. I can recite verbatim texts I haven’t practiced recalling often years later thanks to having written them from memory just a few times during the learning process.
How can I stop forgetting the middle of the Preamble?
This is where my suggestion to recite verbatim texts you memorize out of order comes in handy. I discussed this above when describing how you can use a Memory Palace to skip around parts of the Preamble during your initial recall practice.
This process works due to principles discovered in the ancient world and validated over a hundred years ago by the scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus.
He showed that by recalling information in various orders, you could defeat the “forgetting curve,” which is what causes you to forget the middle of the Preamble. So to stop that from happening, revisiting the Preamble out of order using the Memory Palace technique gives each part of the Preamble more “stickiness.”
The scientific terms for this kind of stickiness are “primacy effect” and “recency effect.”
How do I avoid blanking out when I recite the Preamble in front of people?
There are a few ways to avoid blunders.
The first is to practice thoroughly and make sure you can write it out by hand. For extra certainty, write it out backward as well.
It’s helpful to pay extra attention to any words in the Preamble you don’t know well too. You can use my guide to memorizing vocabulary to help with that.
Finally, if you know you’re going to recite it, be well rested, hydrated and relax your mind with some quick breathing exercise.
And another thing that has helped me a lot might strike you as strange, but I think it’s worth practicing:
Let go of the outcome. If you relax into it and allow yourself to make a mistake, you’ll more easily pick up where you left off. But adding pressure can push away the words you want to recall.
So above all things, practice relaxation often. It’s key to performing in all kinds of situations where you need to recall information, from passing a driving test, to school exams and applying for citizenship in a new country.
Does this approach work for other preambles and related content like state constitutions, honor codes, etc.?
Yes, it does.
You will benefit from using the same techniques for any scripted passage.
Even better, it’s helpful to remember that any sentence is effectively a list of words. To that end, my tutorial on memorizing lists is worth a look.
Memorizing The Constitution Is Easy
As you’ve seen, it doesn’t take much to get set up so you can rapidly commit the preamble to memory.
Everything comes down to preparing your memory systems in advance so that you can memorize it easily.
If you’d like to learn more about the Memory Palace technique, please consider registering for this free course:
Through four video tutorials and three worksheets, this powerful learning experience will help you prepare your mnemonic systems and grant you a more perfect union with the skill that matters most:
Your memory.
Power to your progress and enjoy committing the Preamble to your memory.
