By Stephen Macaulay
In 1787 Paul Revere opened a bell foundry in Boston. In addition to things like copper spikes and bolts that were used for shipbuilding, Revere cast his first bell in 1792. One of them was produced for the USS Constitution. During the War of 1812, the bell was put out of commission by a British ship, HMS Guerriere.
(For those of you who have forgotten their American history classes, the War of 1812 pitted the U.S. against the United Kingdom, which would seem unthinkable today as the U.K. is now one of our closest allies—well, given the way the current administration has treated our closest allies, maybe it isn’t so unthinkable. Anyway, during this war the U.K. and Native Americans were on the same side; the U.S. tried to get chunks of Canada; the Brits burned the White House. Again, much of this seems bizarre, but things were different 208 years ago. Hang on to that thought.)
While Revere’s bell foundry is somewhat obscure, it is worth noting that in 1787 the U.S. Constitution was signed.
According to the official White House website, “The founders also specified a process by which the Constitution may be amended, and since its ratification, the Constitution has been amended 27 times.”
Which is germane because it is clear from this that the founders didn’t think that what they had created was carved in stone tablets.
Even the White House understands that. Things change. Even words.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett has described herself as a “constitutional originalist” and that she takes a textualist approach to the law.
During the hearings for her appointment to the Supreme Court, Lindsay Graham, a former JAG lawyer (there is no evidence that he, like Harmon Rabb, suffers from night blindness, although he seems to be vexed by a tendency to behave as a presidential lickspittle), asked Judge Barrett what all that means in a way that could be understood.
She replied, "So in English, that means that I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it."
She added, "So that meaning doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it."
“The meaning doesn’t change over time.”
Really?
So the words as written in 1787 have the same meaning as they do today? Back when Paul Revere was casting bells?
Let’s look at Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, which is important vis-à-vis the recent decision regarding the U.S. census as this is where taking the census every 10 years came from:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.”
Note how there seems to be a randomized capitalization of words. Presumably were one to write that way on one a paper submitted to Judge Barrett when she was teaching they would have been in a World of Hurt because We don’t capitalize Nouns Nowadays.
What’s more, there is the word “Persons” not “citizens” (or Citizens). There are Persons counted as fractions (or Fractions).
And meaning doesn’t change over time?
Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.