Errors in the United States Constitution

Errors in the United States Constitution

There are several apparent spelling and grammatical errors in the United States Constitution — both the original articles and the Bill of Rights. Errors of these kind are not uncommon in documents created and edited by hand. Since the Constitution is the supreme law of the United States, however, they have attracted some attention.

Original document

The original articles contain choices of style and spelling which are surprising to modern readers. The use of what is commonly known as "British spelling" is prevalent in the original Constitution:

* "controul" (instead of Americanized "control")
* "labour" (instead of Americanized "labor")
* "defence" (instead of Americanized "defense")
* "chuse" and "chusing" (alternate spelling, instead of "choose" and "choosing")

The use of these spellings was the choice of the Constitution's penman, Jacob Shallus. Shallus was hired to scribe the final text agreed upon by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention. Shallus was a clerk of the Pennsylvania State Assembly at the time of the convention's meeting in Philadelphia. [ [http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_q_and_a.html "Questions & Answers Pertaining to the Constitution", National Archives and Records Administration] ]

"It's" is used in , where "its" should have been used.

The spelling "Pensylvania" is used in the signature list at the bottom of the original Constitution. Elsewhere, in , the normal spelling, "Pennsylvania", is used. However, in the late 18th century, the use of a single "N" in Pennsylvania was not uncommon — the Liberty Bell, for example, uses a single "N".

Bill of Rights

British spelling

The word "defence" appears in the Sixth Amendment.

Comma or smudge?

A mark on the original, hand-written, Bill of Rights has been interpreted as either a comma or a smudge, and the difference may well be meaningful. The mark is found in the Takings Clause (eminent domain) of the Fifth Amendment: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use [ , ] without just compensation."

Different sources have quoted this phrase with and without the comma. [ [http://westwing.bewarne.com/whowhatwhere/comma.html The West Wing, Who What Where - The Comma in the Takings Clause] ] In the [http://westwing.bewarne.com/whowhatwhere/comma.html#parchment original text] it is not clear if there is a comma or a smudge.

Usage in popular culture

* This error was mentioned in the "Institutional Memory" episode of "The West Wing".

Correction of errors

With the possible exception of the "comma or smudge" error, the correction of typographical errors in the Constitution has no effect on the meaning or interpretation. A modern reprint of the Constitution often changes the words to reflect modern usage. [ [http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt "The United States Constitution", USConstitution.net] ]

The original Constitution is also rife with capitalized nouns which, in standard modern usage, would not be capitalized. For example, the first clause of Article 1, Section 5 reads:

Modern reprints of the Constitution could revert all of the capitalized words above to lower case (except for the word "Each", which is the first word of the sentence). As with the fixing of typos, this sort of change has no effect on the meaning or interpretation of the Constitution.

References


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