January 7, 2011--My Constitution
I pride myself on knowing the U.S. Constitution. The real one as opposed to the one read on the floor yesterday of the House of Representatives.
I know that John Boehner, the newly installed Speaker, has had trouble keeping our founding documents straight in his mind. Last year, for example, at the first Tea Party rally at the Capitol, when quoting their favorite document, the Constitution, he read from the Declaration of Independence.
That was then but this is now, and with perhaps 50 new Tea Party Republicans seated in Congress he tried to get things right when he ordered the reading of the full Constitution before any new business could occur.
But when I tuned in to watch on C-Span what I assumed would be an historic and moving event, when the reader got to Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3, that part of the Constitution that refers to Negroes (slaves) as being "three-fifths of all other Persons" (of white male persons) somehow that and other references to slavery in the original Constitution were, well, redacted.
Predictably, the Democrats were outraged by this "rewriting" of our Constitution. If we are to read it, let's read all of it, they said. Including those parts that are embarrassing but could lead to those tuning in to the Constitution for the first time (I suspect these constitutional newbies include many members of Congress who showed during their recent campaigns that they know only the Glenn Beck or Cliff Notes version) that we have a history, which, though improved through the years, still has unfinished business.
(For the details, see New York Times article linked below.)
The Republican leaders acknowledged that they did do some editing, but only of those parts that through the amendment process were changed or overturned. For example, since the 20th Amendment overturned the 19th (the Prohibition Amendment) they left that out too.
So slavery and booze got cut. How apt. And how appropriate during the very same week that a new version of Huckleberry Finn was published which also included considerable redacting--all 219 uses of the N-word were omitted. So Jim, the book's most admirable character, became "Slave Jim."
We are clearly living during the Karl Rove era. Recall how he famously said, "The truth is what we say it is."
I know that John Boehner, the newly installed Speaker, has had trouble keeping our founding documents straight in his mind. Last year, for example, at the first Tea Party rally at the Capitol, when quoting their favorite document, the Constitution, he read from the Declaration of Independence.
That was then but this is now, and with perhaps 50 new Tea Party Republicans seated in Congress he tried to get things right when he ordered the reading of the full Constitution before any new business could occur.
But when I tuned in to watch on C-Span what I assumed would be an historic and moving event, when the reader got to Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3, that part of the Constitution that refers to Negroes (slaves) as being "three-fifths of all other Persons" (of white male persons) somehow that and other references to slavery in the original Constitution were, well, redacted.
Predictably, the Democrats were outraged by this "rewriting" of our Constitution. If we are to read it, let's read all of it, they said. Including those parts that are embarrassing but could lead to those tuning in to the Constitution for the first time (I suspect these constitutional newbies include many members of Congress who showed during their recent campaigns that they know only the Glenn Beck or Cliff Notes version) that we have a history, which, though improved through the years, still has unfinished business.
(For the details, see New York Times article linked below.)
The Republican leaders acknowledged that they did do some editing, but only of those parts that through the amendment process were changed or overturned. For example, since the 20th Amendment overturned the 19th (the Prohibition Amendment) they left that out too.
So slavery and booze got cut. How apt. And how appropriate during the very same week that a new version of Huckleberry Finn was published which also included considerable redacting--all 219 uses of the N-word were omitted. So Jim, the book's most admirable character, became "Slave Jim."
We are clearly living during the Karl Rove era. Recall how he famously said, "The truth is what we say it is."
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:20 AM
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