Members of the House might have thought they were bringing the Constitution alive by reading it aloud on Thursday. But they made a crucial error by excising its history. When they chose to deliberately drop the sections that became obsolete or offensive, and which were later amended, they missed a chance to demonstrate that this document is not nailed to the door of the past. It remains vital precisely because it can be reimagined.
Having decided to spend their first moments in power proclaiming their devotion to the Constitution, Republican leaders might at least have read the whole thing. The part, for instance, where slaves “bound to service” are counted as three-fifths of a person. The part where fugitive slaves cannot gain their freedom by escaping to a free state. Or the part where ordinary citizens do not actually get a direct vote for their senator.
All these provisions were written by a group of men that many in the Tea Party and elsewhere seem to consider infallible and nearly divine. The Constitution’s words are a stirring proclamation of freedom across the ages. But some passages are artifacts of their time.
Incensed by this rewriting of history, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, arose just before the reading to remind the House of what it was redacting. African-Americans and women struggled for decades to be granted the right to vote, he said, and those struggles are clearly reflected in the text. “Many of us don’t want that to be lost upon the reading of our sacred document,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07fri2.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211
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