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January 9, 2011

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 3

Hatched by Dafydd

In this verse, we come to the first "didacted" section of the Constitution; that is, the first part that was superceded by a subsequent amendment...

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 previous sentence in ~~strikeout~~ was modified by the 14th Amendment, section 2; see next paragraph.)

[Current language from the 14th Amendment: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.]

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.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

All right, first of all, I'm sure you all know why slaves were counted as only 3/5ths of free citizens in slave states; but why all that rigamarole about reducing representation by the same percent as a state denies voting rights to citizens that really ought to be allowed to vote? Did the framers of the 14th Amendment have a premonition that former slaveholding states would try all sorts of underhanded tactics to deny newly freed blacks their voting rights?

Would that be because the framers of the 14th knew that those former slave states were still controlled by Democrats?

Next stop, the exciting Senate!

All verses in the Lizardian Constitutional Collection:

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 1 (Preamble)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 2 (Congress; House, part I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 3 (House, part II)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 4 (Senate, part I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 5 (Senate, part II)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 6 (General congressional admin stuff)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 7 (Legislative process and enumerated powers)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 8 (Limitations)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 9 (The prez -- who does he think he is?)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 10 (What would a president do?)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 11 (Judiciary)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 12 (States, part I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 13 (States, part 2)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 14 (Amendment; supreme law of the land)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 15 (Ratification rules and signers)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 16 (Amendments: Bill of Rights, Amendments 1-4)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 17 (Bill of Rights -- Courtroom Amendments 5-8)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 18 (Bill of Last Rights 9 and 10)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 19 (Amendments: Suing other states, president vs. vice president)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 20 (Amendments: Abolition of slavery)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 21 (Amendments: States prohibited from infringing rights)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 22 (Amendments: Racial voting rights)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 23 (Amendments: Wilsonian-Progressivism I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 24 (Amendments: Wilsonian-Progressivism II)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 25 (Amendments: Rooseveltian amendments)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 26 (Amendments: Camelot amendments)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 27 (Amendments: Panacea amendments)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 9, 2011, at the time of 12:00 AM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: wtanksleyjr

Dafydd, that IS interesting. Obviously this was the first attempt to incorporate Congressional power against the states, and it's a clever one. It's actually not completely necessary, since the Constitution elsewhere says that Congress has the power to guarantee to the people of the states as Republican form of government.

The above hissed in response by: wtanksleyjr at January 9, 2011 9:08 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dick E

Dafydd-

Did the framers of the 14th Amendment have a premonition that former slaveholding states would try all sorts of underhanded tactics to deny newly freed blacks their voting rights?

Yes.

Next stop, the exciting Senate!

I would propose a minor punctuation adjustment to reflect our objective for 2012:

Next, stop the exciting Senate!

The above hissed in response by: Dick E at January 9, 2011 12:06 PM

The following hissed in response by: GW

Given that the 14th Amendment was proposed in 1866 and and passed in 1868, and given that it wasn't until 1869 that the 15th Amendment was proposed, I am sure that the people who drafted the 14th Amendment did so in contemplation that the Democrats would try to disenfranchise newly freed blacks at some point. The reality was, at least for some period of time, that Republican's controlled the confederate states in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Blacks would thereafter continue voting in whole or part for Republicans until the early 1960's, when they became a monolithic voting entity for Dems.

The above hissed in response by: GW at January 9, 2011 6:06 PM