House's Constitution Reading

Yesterday I was watching the newly-convened US House of Representatives, now under a Republican majority, on C-Span. Featured was a reading of the United States Constitution, to be split up in a bipartisan fashion among high-ranking members. But before the reading could commence, a few inquiries were raised on the Democratic side regarding which version of the Constitution was to be read.

I didn't know there were different versions of the Constitution, did you? Apparently, there are some parts of the original document that have in subsequent years been rendered "null and void" by amendments. The most notable are the stipulations as to how slave-holding states were to be allotted representatives, with the infamous "three fifths of a man" as the stated standard for counting slaves. Obviously, those who practically worship the Constitution as almost a religious document and plan to use it in the upcoming session to further their own political agenda did not want those embarrassing sections read, so they had it "white"-washed, so to speak. Only one problem with that, as I see it.

The body of the Constitution is still there, with nothing deleted (not even those sections sanctioning slavery). The sections superseded by amendments (most notably the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th) are still there and would be restored should those amendments ever be repealed. You can't erase the core body of the Constitution, but you can repeal amendments. I say this because there is a move afoot to change the 14th Amendment, which was originally intended to give black former slaves citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law. One of this amendment's clauses bestows American citizenship on anyone born on US soil, and many undocumented immigrants in recent years have gained such citizenship for their children as they were born in this country. Legislators with a hard-line approach to the immigration issue, like South Carolina's Lindsey Graham (who has regrettably backtracked on his previous commitment to a more reasonable and comprehensive immigration reform policy), want the 14th Amendment modified or least reinterpreted to exclude these children from citizenship.

So the amendments don't automatically supersede the main body of the Constitution. Instead, it is how the courts (and the legislators and presidents who place them in their positions) who determine how the amendments are interpreted. It is ironic that the 14th Amendment seems to currently be up for attack since beginning soon after its enactment in 1868, a very anti-civil-rights and pro-corporate Supreme Court for decades refused to apply it to protect blacks from discrimination and instead abused it to give corporations special legal status as "persons".

It was legitimate for lawmakers to raise an issue over the Constitution's reading yesterday. They weren't trying to stop the document from being read, but rather were trying to educate the public about its true nature and how subject it is to different interpretations, and even at times abuse.