(A column of dots on the left, including an extra dot at the end of the column, if produced by your browser, may be disregarded.)
United States Code: 2000 Edition: Containing the General and Permanent Laws of the United States, In Force on January 2, 2001, prep. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, House of Representatives (Washington [D.C.]: House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 2000 ed. 2001), v. 1, p. LVII ff. (Constitution of the United States of America—1787 (including amendments), in The Organic Laws of the United States of America) (set cited as U.S.C.) (no 2001 supplement available at the time of this research). According to the United States Code: “1This text of the Constitution follows the engrossed copy signed by Gen. Washington and the deputies from 12 States. The small superior figures preceding the paragraphs designate clauses, and were not in the original and have no reference to footnotes.” U.S.C., Constitution, n. 1, 1st paragraph.
United States Code Annotated (St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, Bicentennial ed. date varies by vol.), vols. with unannotated Const. & annotated Arts. 1–7 (1987 1st reprint 1989); vols. with anno’d Amdts. 1–6 (1987); vol. with anno’d Amdts. 7–14 (1987 reprint 1990) (not including all content for Amdt. 14); vol. with annos. for portion of Amdt. 14 subtitled Due Process In General (1987) (subtitle on vol. spine & Supp. Pam. title p.) (Due Process in General on Supp. Pam. cover, Due Process (General) on Supp. Pam. spine, no such subtitle on vol. cover or title p.); vol. with annos. for portion of Amdt. 14 subtitled Due Process As To Specific Subjects (1987) (subtitle on vol. spine & Supp. Pam. title p.) (Due Process As to Specific Subjects on vol. cover & Supp. Pam. cover, Due Process (Specific Subjects) on Supp. Pam. spine, no such subtitle on vol. title p.); vol. with anno’d Amdts. 14–end (1987) (not including all content for Amdt. 14) (set cited as U.S.C.A.) (current supplementation checked: 2003 Cumulative Annual Pocket Part or 2003 Supplementary Pamphlet as relevant for each vol.). On the accuracy of the Constitutional text is the following, Authentic Copy, set out in full as it appears in U.S.C.A.: “The text of the Constitution appearing in these volumes corresponds exactly with the true copy of the Constitution in the custody of the Library of Congress and the Amendments to it in the custody of the Archivist of the United States.” U.S.C.A., vol. with Const. Art. I, p. VII (Explanation). Multiple renditions of the Constitution are included, as follows:
— Constitution of the United States: Unannotated, in U.S.C.A., main or bound vol. with unanno’d Const., p. 25 ff. The unannotated Constitutional text is separate from the corresponding texts appearing among the judicial annotations also in U.S.C.A.
— The principal annotated Constitutional rendition, approximately complete as Constitutional text, in U.S.C.A., main or bound vol. with unanno’d Const., p. 55 ff. & U.S.C.A., passim. Amdt. XIV is repeated in all main or bound vols. containing the anno’d Amdt. XIV; all of the repetitions were compared and erroneous discrepancies, if any, were noted. Amdt. XVIII is set out as a note to itself; i.e., after the editorial title appear Historical Notes, one of which, Repeal of Amendment, sets out the text, as the Amendment had been repealed.
— An annotated redundant incomplete text in U.S.C.A., in U.S.C.A., main or bound vol. with unanno’d Const., p. 70 ff. & U.S.C.A., passim. It is composed of Constitutional texts that are essentially repetitions of portions of the principal annotated Constitutional rendition. It does not include the preamble to the original Const., Art. V or VII, the statement of edits following Art. VII, the statement of subscription of names following Art. VII, the statement of desire preceding Amdt. I, or Amdt. II, III, IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, or XXVII; this general incompleteness of this rendition is not in itself error. Some repetitions are divided; e.g., Amdt. I is divided into three subdivisions, each set out in full, these being the religious freedom clauses, the speech and press clauses, and the petition clauses (the term clause is generally not used in this sense in this work but is by many writers and publishers). Art. II, § 1, cl. 3, on the first method of electing a President and a Vice President, is set out as a note, Clause Superseded, to Historical Notes, in turn to another clause identified in U.S.C.A. as Art. II, § 1, cl. 3, and elsewhere as Art. II, § 1, cl. 4, on the time of elections.
— Amendment XXVII, redundant in U.S.C.A., main or bound vol. with unanno’d Const., Constitution of the United States: Unannotated, Amdt. I, Historical Notes, Proposal and Ratification of Amendments 1 to 10, which note describes the amdt. as having “failed of adoption”. The identical note appears in the corresponding place in the principal anno’d Constitutional text in U.S.C.A. Both notes appear in the main or bound vol.; there is no update in the pkt. pt. At the time of publication of the main or bound vol., this amdt. had not yet been ratified; but it had been by the time the pkt. pt. was published, placing the notes, not having been updated, in error.
United States Code Service (Charlottesville, Va.: LexisNexis, Lawyers ed. date varies by vol.), Main Vol. with Complete Text & Arts. I–III (2001) (vol. title ltd. to Arts. I–III); Main Vol. with Arts. IV–VII & Amdts. 1–3 (1997); Main Vol. with Amdt. 4 (1997); Main Vol. with Amdt. 5 (1995); Main Vol. with Amdt. 6 pt. (2001); Main Vol. with Amdts. 6 pt.–12 (2001); Main Vol. with Amdts. 13–14 pt. (1999); Main Vol. with Amdt. 14 pt.–end (1999) (set cited as USCS) (current supplementation checked: Cum. Supp. (issued April 2003) for each vol.). Multiple renditions of the Constitution are included, as follows:
— Constitution of the United States of America: Complete Text, in USCS, Main Vol. with Arts. I–III, p. 18 ff. (Complete Text per running page header in id., USCS, passim; “Complete text” under Constitution of the United States per id., Table of Contents). The unannotated Constitutional text is separate from the corresponding texts appearing among the judicial annotations also in USCS.
— The principal annotated Constitutional rendition, approximately complete as Constitutional text, in USCS, main vol. with Arts. I–III, supra, p. 41 ff. & USCS, passim. The general heading that precedes Amdt. I is repeated in each main vol. that carries annos. for amdts. and in the Cum. Supp. for each such volume; they were spot-checked in the Cum. Supps. issued Apr. 2002 and all those checked were identical. Art. II, § 1, cl. 3, having been superseded by an amdt., is set out, identically in main vol. & pkt. pt., as a note to renumbered cl. 3 of the same section, in other renditions known as cl. 4; the note is the only one in Explanatory Notes, in turn in “HISTORY; ANCILLARY LAWS AND DIRECTIVES”.
Two additional renditions within USCS include only noncore text and therefore are not within the scope of this research:
— A passage between provisions of the Complete Text, before Amdt. 1, “HISTORY; ANCILLARY LAWS AND DIRECTIVES”, Explanatory Notes, 1st n.
— A passage between provisions of the principal annotated text, before Amdt. 1, “HISTORY; ANCILLARY LAWS AND DIRECTIVES”, Explanatory Notes, 1st n.
United States Statutes at Large (Washington [D.C.]: (now) U.S. Gov’t Printing Ofc., vol. and ed. dates vary, copyright is as of year of ed. and next subsequent year) (cited as Stat.). The original Constitution and early Amendments did not contemporaneously appear in these volumes, publication of which began later, thus their scope is limited to later Amendments. Post- rather than preratification texts were used when both were available (Constitution Annotated, infra, commonly refers to preratification texts as official). Despite government publication, it was not presumed that editors of these volumes had access to the originals now at the National Archives, because of the number of discrepancies found in these volumes, and thus no benefit of the doubt was granted as to editors’ interpretation of handwriting or old printing, as was granted with respect to the Constitution Annotated Literal Print, infra. It is possible that any error in any of these volumes was corrected in a later volume; but such corrections were not sought, as few users of the volumes would ordinarily do so themselves. In 38 Stat., p. [2048] is blank, but presumably nothing is missing; the same is true of 47 Stat. [2568], 48 Stat. [1748], 65 Stat. [776], 74 Stat. [1056] and [1058], 75 Stat. [846], 78 Stat. [1116], 79 Stat. [1326], 81 Stat. [982], and 106 Stat. [5144].
What purport to be the full original Constitution and Amendments I–XII (all that was then in effect) appear at 1 Stat. 10–20 (orig. Const.) & 21–22 (Amdts.). A sampling shows the existence of errors. They are not catalogued here because it is unlikely that anyone seeking the text of a Constitutional provision will still look in 1 Stat. and because it is essentially a reprint, which is not the sort of research for which Statutes at Large volumes are usually used. Where a newly ratified amendment was published in — Stat. —, any discrepancy found therein was catalogued in this research.
United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, dates vary) (1951 ed. known as United States Code Congressional and Administrative Service) (cited as U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News or, for 1951 ed., U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.Serv.). The original Constitution and most Amendments long preceded these volumes, publication of which began later, thus their scope is limited to the latest Amendments. Post- rather than preratification texts were used when both were available. It is possible that any error in any of these volumes was corrected in a later volume; but such corrections were not sought, as few users of the volumes would ordinarily do so themselves. In 1961 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, page [948] was blank, but presumably nothing was missing; the same is true of 1967 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News [1074] and [1078] and 1992 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News [F2].
Federal Register (Washington, D.C.: Ofc. of Fed. Reg., Natnl. Archives & Records Admin. (microform), dates vary). The original Constitution and many Amendments long preceded these issues, publication of which began later, thus their scope is limited to the latest Amendments. Since the Federal Register is best known for coverage of regulations and Federal agency notices, it is less likely that it would be used to locate texts of new Constitutional amendments except by happenstance.
The inclusion of the Federal Register in this research was due in large part to its publisher also being the custodian of the Web-based images taken as the principal authority, and presumably the custodian of the original papers that are the official Constitution and amendments; this suggests that the Federal Register documents were based on very authoritative sources.
Additional citational information: Amdt. XXII: 16 FR 2019, no. 43, Saturday, March 3, 1951 (National Archives Microfilm Publications, microcopy 190, roll 59) (Certification dated Mar. 1, 1951) (postratification). Amdt. XXIII: 26 FR 2808, no. 63, Tuesday, April 4, 1961 (Washington [D.C.]: The National Archives (National Archives Microfilm Publications, microcopy 190, roll 117), 1962) (Certification dated “this 3d day of April
The Senate pamphlet: The Constitution of the United States and The Declaration of Independence ([Washington, D.C.: U.S. Senate] (Senate Doc. 105-11, 105th Cong., 1st Sess.) (
The House of Representatives pamphlet: The Constitution of the United States with Index and The Declaration of Independence ([Washington, D.C.: U.S. House of Representatives] (House Doc. 106-215, 106th Cong., 2d Sess.) (
Black’s Law Dictionary, ed. in chf. Bryan A. Garner (St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, 7th ed. (not deluxe) 1999), appx. B.
Library of Congress, as publisher of Constitution Annotated, an interpretation of Supreme Court holdings on Constitutional law running some 2,000 pages: The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation: Annotations of Cases Decided By the Supreme Court of the United States to June 29, 1992, prep. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, co-eds. Johnny H. Killian & George A. Costello (Washington [D.C.]: U.S. Government Printing Office (Sen. Doc. 103-6, 103d Cong., 1st Sess.), 1992 ed. 1996) (spine subtitle: Analysis & Interpretation 1992) (short title: Constitution Annotated, per id., p. V ff. (quoting P.L. 91-589, 84 Stat. 1585, 2 U.S.C. 168)) (current supplementation checked: The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation: 2000 Supplement: Analysis of Cases Decided By the Supreme Court of the United States to June 28, 2000, prep. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, eds. Johnny H. Killian, George A. Costello, & Kenneth R. Thomas (Washington [D.C.]: U.S. Government Printing Office (Sen. Doc. 106-27, 106th Cong., 2d Sess.), 2000)).
Two renditions of the Constitution are included in the volume, as follows:
— Literal Print, in Constitution Annotated, p. 1 ff. (Literal Print) (main Contents table, id., at p. XXIII, lists as entries “Text of the Constitution (literal print)
— The Constitutional text distributed within the interpretational text of Constitution Annotated, p. 51 ff. This book is a treatise offering Constitutional interpretation in the same sequence as the Constitution. Not every page of interpretation was inspected for erroneously distributed text, viz., for fragments or duplicate fragments not in positions suggested by the logic of the overall arrangement of the book, such as that erroneously appearing at p. 520. Nothing at all preambular to the Bill of Rights appears in the Constitution Annotated distributed text at pp. 951, [952], [954], 955, 964, [968], and 969. Clause captions are lacking for some leading clauses of multiclause sections, but are provided for some other clauses. (In other publications, the corresponding text is usually known as the annotated text; but that terminology was not used in this researcher’s labeling of this rendition, lest it be known as the Constitution Annotated Annotated Text.)
The Keepsake Edition was selected as a lay rendition likely to be taken by the public as especially accurate. The Constitution of the United States of America: The Bicentennial Keepsake Edition, eds. Byron Preiss and David Osterlund (Toronto & N.Y.: Bantam Books (A Byron Preiss Book), [1st printing?] July 1987) (yellow jacket) (no autographs reproduced). The Keepsake edition was published before ratification of Amendment XXVII and does not include texts of then-proposed amendments.
Specifically, this rendition was included in this research in light of a gift among persons with influence: “On frequent occasions, especially when I have a speech to make in the United States, I take in my handbag a well-thumbed little yellow volume — a Bicentennial Keepsake Edition of the United States Constitution, given me by President George Bush Sr and signed by members of the United States Supreme
The most authoritative source, against which comparisons were made, is the High Resolution image set at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., World Wide Web Internet site. Amendments XI–XVIII and XX–XXVI are not available at that site in like form (but see discussion, infra). For the readers’ technical information, the High Resolution images may not download successfully if the browser used is Netscape Communicator 4.72 but may if it is Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.50.
The original Constitution and the Bill of Rights were doubtless transcribed enough times to supply each state and national government its own copy, raising the possibility of difference between copies that purported to be and should have been identical. Virginia’s copy and the Federal copy of the Bill of Rights differ; see the former in Life magazine, Fall Special, 1991. Differences between the Federal document bearing any part of the Constitution and the corresponding copy of any other jurisdiction were, for this research, effectively disregarded.
For the original Constitution, consisting of a preamble, seven Articles, and some other portions, and for Amendments I–X and XXVII, all handwritten, the images are approximately life-size, in color, and of low (i.e., rather subtle) contrast. The URLs are
For Amendment XIX, the same source is used, except that it is not in the High Resolution image set. Nonetheless, it is an image of an amending document, H.J.R. 1, 66th Cong., 1st Sess., and apparently not a retypeset rendition. The URL is
For Amendments XI–XVIII and XX–XXVI, the retypeset Constitution at the same National Archives World Wide Web site was used, despite the risk of error in any typeset rendition. The URL is
Only core provisions were analyzed. These include all articles and amendments, the Preamble to the original Constitution, and the statement of desire preceding Amendments I–X and XXVII. Excluded, though ratified, are all captions (because presumably commonly understood to be subject to editorial styling by each publisher), the title of the Constitution (because present in the original only by inference from a provision within), the statement of edits and the statement of subscription of names in the original Constitution, the statement of place and date, the resolving clause, and the general heading preceding Amendments I–X and XXVII, and all ancillaries (such as purpose statements) to Amendments XI–XXVI. The resolution and the transmittal letter for the original Constitution were disregarded.
Names assigned to portions of the Constitutional text outside of articles and amendments, such as to preambles to amendments, are this researcher’s, and are intended to be descriptive, rather than formal.
Fragments are the units of analysis in pursuit of error. A fragment may be any portion, including a caption; there are no standard boundaries defining fragments in general, so that, for example, a pair of words with a sentence-ending period in between may constitute one fragment, except that a fragment generally won’t include a part of a caption and noncaption content. Fragments are numbered in order of appearance within each Constitutional portion, such as within a clause, section, or amendment. Fragments that overlap are numbered according to where they begin or, if they begin at the same point, with the longer ones preceding the shorter. Where one fragment is contained by another, the encompassing one is assigned the earlier fragment number. In the course of the research producing this work, I determined what constituted a fragment in each instance. Numbering may not be consecutive and may not begin at 1, because some numbers were assigned to noncore text and because the error may be in a rendition not here shown. Numbering may change if more fragments become the subject of this data collection.
A clause in this context is a subdivision of the article, amendment, other portion, or section being cited. Generally, clauses in the sense intended for this research correspond to paragraphs of Constitutional text, and not to parts of sentences, nor to conceptual units held to underpin rights and obligations. So defined, there may not be any clause at all. For example, many sections are not divided into clauses.
Clause numbering sometimes varied between renditions, apparently because of publishers’ editorial decisions. For this research, a single numbering scheme with historical stability was employed, so that the same clause would be known by one identity throughout the lists of discrepancies. The numbering is that which would be expected based on a review of the National Archives’ copies of the Constitution, with supersession having no effect on the numbering of that which was purportedly superseded.
The lists of discrepancies, although prepared for Web display in HTML, are consistent with the underlying database.
Long texts could not be shown in certain fields, because of a database management software limitation, so other fields were used for the purpose, where they’re appropriately labeled.
Renditions are called such rather than versions, since the latter are generally chronal and the former refer to publishers as points of origin.
Double capitals, superscripts, and italics couldn’t be shown as such, because of a database management software limitation, so they are described in notes instead, where relevant. Where a quotation ordinarily would have to be explained, e.g., where double capitals, superscripts, or italics are present, but the specific point to be explained is not relevant to any error declaration or is excluded by a limitation in the notes, e.g., that the quotation is only for punctuation although words are shown, no explanation may have been provided, with the result that, e.g., a word may be shown in all capitals even though it originally appeared in double capitals. Cf. the corresponding content in another fragment, where the sought explanation appears if relevant.
Line and page breaks of no moment for this research were not preserved in quotations. E.g., “an-”/“other” in an original will have been quoted as “another” unless the break held significance for this research.
Bracketings and note references were disregarded as not having been in the ratified originals, and thus were bypassed in all quotations of Constitutional fragments from any renditions. Commonly, they referred to amending histories or modern editorial judgments about the presumed intentions of the framers of the Constitution in the precise wording they had employed. Too, any errors consequential of bracketings and references were similarly disregarded, as with a discrepancy between two renditions as to whether a fragment had been superseded by a subsequent amendment, the discrepancy being in the position of a closing bracket indicating the range of supersession.
Judgment Standards and Implementation
Error directionality, i.e., which rendition is in error at the point of a discrepancy between two renditions, is not determined except where one rendition is the National Archives’ High Resolution image set. Thus, with regard to Amendments XI–XVIII and XX–XXVI, not available in the High Resolution image set but only as retypeset, no directionality is ascribed to any discrepancy. As a result, in the absence of directionality, while an error exists, it is not suggested which rendition has the error and which rendition is correct at the point of discrepancy.
The benefit of any doubt in the editing of any Constitutional rendition other than the handwritten originals was granted to the Library of Congress in the comparison to the handwritten originals for its rendition of the Literal Print in Constitution Annotated where it was unclear whether their rendition was discrepant from a handwritten original, because the Library might well have researched calligraphic standards of the time and style (since it, more than other publishers covered in this research, would most probably have had the means to do such research) and might have had access to the handwritten original papers, those understood to be now in the custody of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, and not just to reproductions, and the originals may have suffered from fading or other damage between the time they may have been examined, perhaps decades ago, and when high resolution images of them were prepared for posting on the World Wide Web, given that the latter were newly posted in recent months. Examples:
— Word spacing at specific locations in the handwritten original, except where otherwise indicated. In the Constitutional handwriting, word spacing is often tight. See, e.g., Article I, § 2, clause 3, in “be determined” or “bedetermined”.
— Intraword line breaks.
Character and layout interpretation:
— Character design idiosyncracy was disregarded except where otherwise noted; e.g., the letter “i” need not have been dotted and still may be clearly identified as such.
— Whether a “t” in the same rendition was crossed couldn’t always be determined. Each such letter was accepted as a “t” if the Constitution Annotated Literal Print rendition was not in disagreement. An example of such inclarity might be in Amendment II in the word “State”.
— In determining whether a character in the same rendition is an em-dash or an underscore, I generally relied on the judgments implicit in some other renditions, because of a possibility that character calligraphy has evolved so that an em-dash could essentially have rested on the baseline. I have no independent knowledge of this, but presumed that the interpretation of the character for those other renditions might have been based on such a hypothesis. Not researched was the frequency of underscores that don’t underscore other characters in formal writing of the 1780s.
— A large and somewhat faint “X” in the margin of p. 3 of the original Constitution and next to Art. II, § 2, cl. 1, which “X” is not read as being part of the Constitution or as editing it, was disregarded.
— A “+” appears in the lower left corner and “42” in the lower right corner of the National Archives’ High Resolution image of the Bill of Rights. I disregarded both, on the presumption that neither was part of any ratified text, and given that neither appeared in any other rendition reviewed.
— Handwriting on the fourth page of the original Constitution is neater than that on the prior pages and shows faint baselines and the handwriting in the Bill of Rights differs from that in the original Constitution, but none of this appears to affect interpretation for purposes of textual proofreading.
— The relative size of writing when not indicative of case was disregarded. E.g., that some letters may be an order of magnitude larger than other text, other than when indicative of case, is disregarded; an example of this is the phrase “We the People” as it appears in the beginning of the handwritten original of the Constitution.
— Old English lettering was approximately the calligraphic style in a few fragments in the National Archives’ High Resolution rendition of the original Constitution (chiefly “We the People” in the Preamble), reminiscent of the fonts used for some newspaper mastheads and functionally comparable to typographic bold- or black-weighting. Such typeface use is not noted in the tables, as no rendition need have reproduced it to be lexically accurate.
— In the National Archives’ retypeset rendition of amendments appearing on their World Wide Web site, a double hyphen appears where other renditions used an em-dash. Because this may be required for readability of Web text written in HTML (a computer language) in a large number of users’ browsers, this difference was bypassed by treating the former as if the latter, thus not as error. Nonetheless, the National Archives should have included a style note, to preserve a reader’s ability to restore original text.
— For some typography, usually older, an apparent space before a colon, a semicolon, a comma, or a period, when consistently found in a rendition, is treated as part of the typeface design, as if to ensure comprehension as such a character, and therefore not as a separate space. The quotation of such text in this work thus is without the apparent space before the punctuation.
— Double spaces after sentences were treated as if single spaces.
— Indenting being normal, hanging, or zero was not considered, although whether a paragraph was commenced was.
— Boldfacing was disregarded.
— Text was quoted without regard to line and page breaks, except as otherwise noted in this work. Where a word was hyphenated in one rendition but hyphenated across a line or page break in another, no discrepancy was reported, unless otherwise noted.
— Where a line break could be interpreted in more than one way, as when a space might normally occur but for the line break, unless otherwise noted the interpretation applied was that which would result in there not being an error.
Elisions in quotations: Brackets indicative of supersession, asterisks indicative of amendment, bracketed insertions of text not intended as direct Constitutional text, and note references were elided as if absent in the original. Consequently, errors entirely within elided material (e.g., a failure to open a paragraph with a bracket when multiple paragraphs are enclosed within one set of brackets) and errors based entirely on material so elided (e.g., an error of a supersession boundary) are not reported in this work.
Linguistically, to determine whether a form or a spelling variant existed rather than any legal semantics, the dictionary of choice was often the Oxford English Dictionary Online, rather than any legal dictionary or glossary. Legal meanings are commonly left to determination and debate by readers of this work.
Justifications make nonerrors of some of what would otherwise be errors. Those justifications, however, should be published where a researcher would normally expect to find them when finding text that might otherwise be interpreted as erroneous.
More errors than those itemized in this work may exist. The focus was on accuracy for errors found, but no guarantee that all errors have been found can be given. Further, noncore fragments, including captions, include various errors.
— Errors of superscripting or not are classified as errors of spelling.
— Errors of hyphenation are typically errors of spelling, although separately itemized. Many dictionaries do not distinguish between stylings that are otherwise identically spelled, stylings being open, solid, or hyphenated, so that the entry of one style into a dictionary does not mean that the other stylings are necessarily unknown, infrequent, or incorrect.
Doubtful as error: Art. III, § 3, cl. 2, “Corruption”, in the National Archives’ High Resolution rendition: No other rendition checked differs. Arguably, the handwritten word may be “Conruption”, since the relevant stroke for the third letter appears to be rounded more suitably for an “n” than for an “r”. However, preventing comparison, no “nr” in lower case appears elsewhere in the Constitution except in a signature and perhaps in amendments (the latter weren’t relied upon lest handwriting forms differed, as they do as to case even in the Bill of Rights for other words). For a contrastive comparison of handwriting in the original Constitution, see “rr” in Art. I, § 3, clause 6, “Concurrence”, Art. I, § 5, cl. 2, “Concurrence”, Art. I, § 7, cl. 3, “Concurrence”, and Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2, “Territory”; see also, e.g., each “r” in Art. I, § 6, cl. 1, “respective
Ancillary Argumentation Support
— The elapsed times for ratification of the original Constitution were calculated from the date it was proposed for ratification, per the Constitution itself, and the ratification date for each state, per Constitution Annotated, supra, pp. XV–XXI (Historical Note: Historical Note On Formation of the Constitution) (
— Those for the Bill of Rights were calculated per Constitution Annotated, supra, Literal Print, Amendment I, n. 2.
Equine travel time was estimated from Travelers: The American Tourist from Stagecoach to Space Shuttle, by Horace Sutton (N.Y.: Wm. Morrow, 1st ed. [1st printing?] 1980), pp. 24–25 (in ch. II: The Restless New Country (1800–1860)) (author a travel journalist) (“Foreign visitors
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Appendix first publicly posted to the World Wide Web July 24, 2004; revised (to add links) and posted August 17, 2004.
Minor revisions: Copyright © 2004 Nick Levinson
Balance: Copyright © 2003 Nick Levinson
All rights reserved.