# Is the Constitution being turned into another Bible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 7, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579 "2011-02-07T21:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/41 "2011-02-08T18:27:06Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Well, it would have been hard to write the Seventh Amendment without being specific. What would you say rather than $20? “A week’s wages”? > > The part about the seventh I don’t get is why on earth they thought it was important to preserve the distinction between law and equity. I’d probably have said “a dollar amount to be set by Congress from time to time”. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/42 "2011-02-08T18:29:56Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > But some things plainly are dated, such as the right to sue for damages over $20 or whatever it is. Just as you can be a Christian without believing in the Great Flood, so you should be able to live under a Constitution without believing it to be infallible. The Constitution doesn’t allow for a graduated tax, but we have one anyway. Should we go to a flat tax because that’s what a strict reading tells us, or should we use our own brains? That’s the Seventh Amendment, as I mentioned. I’m not sure a strict reading does prevent a graduated tax, though. I don’t know where people get the idea that a Constitution is infallible. It’s rules, a framework - nothing more and nothing less. And if you want to change the rules, fine. The method is set up for how to do so. A document that includes methods for changing itself doesn’t strike me as one that is infallible in any way. As for the amount in the Seventh, **RNATB** , I’m not certain it’s that dated. It’s an indicator, I believe, that the right to a jury trial is significantly more important than the danger of limiting jury trials. Equity was really important at the time - I won’t pretend to understand any more than that. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/43 "2011-02-08T18:31:01Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’d probably have said “a dollar amount to be set by Congress from time to time”. That would have a completely different effect. It would place the right to a jury trial in the hands of Congress, and it was a right considered important enough that it shouldn’t be a the whims of the majority. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/44 "2011-02-08T18:53:02Z")
Instead, it placed the right to a jury trial on an arcane finding of what English courts would have said about the matter 300 years ago- and an essentially arbitrary finding, at that, if the action in question didn’t exist when the Constitution was ratified. I’d _much_ rather have left it up to Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/45 "2011-02-08T18:55:39Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I don’t want this to descend into a debate over the Second Half of God’s Second Amendment. The point is larger than that- do we want to consider the words of the founders to be infallible and unchangeable? Or should we interpret the Constitution with the common sense that comes with over two centuries of a changing culture? Infallible? No. And unchangeable? Absolutely not. But the “change” has to come by amending the words of the Constitution. If by “change,” you mean that the words stay the same, but we start pretending they mean something different… then, no. They are unchangeable by that method. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/46 "2011-02-08T18:56:18Z")
Now that (apart from the last part) I am not going to disagree with you on. I wish I understood the whole law-equity thing better. Hell, back when I took the VA bar, it was the last time you had to do separate law and equity papers. Now they wuss it down for the little cherubs. (A response to **RNATB** , rudely interrupted by **Bricker** ’s post). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/47 "2011-02-08T18:56:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Infallible? No. > > And unchangeable? Absolutely not. > > But the “change” has to come by amending the words of the Constitution. If by “change,” you mean that the words stay the same, but we start pretending they mean something different… then, no. They are unchangeable by that method. You mean like how we’re _pretending_ that “all men” includes black ones, now? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/48 "2011-02-08T18:58:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You mean like how we’re _pretending_ that “all men” includes black ones, now? :dubious: Since when? I thought we elected a Republican Congress to deal with that sort of malarkey. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/49 "2011-02-08T19:01:02Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > But some things plainly are dated, such as the right to sue for damages over $20 or whatever it is. Just as you can be a Christian without believing in the Great Flood, so you should be able to live under a Constitution without believing it to be infallible. The Constitution doesn’t allow for a graduated tax, but we have one anyway. Should we go to a flat tax because that’s what a strict reading tells us, or should we use our own brains? If the Constitution says, no tax except by apportionment among the states, and based only on a census or enumeration. Then yes, if you want to start taxing income, and you want to do it without apportionment among the states, and without regard to any census or enumeration, you have to amend those words. Otherwise you cannot. And in fact, we _DID_ just that: > [@Amendment XVI](#): > > The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. Congress tried to tax income on the “just use our brains” method you mention, and the Supreme Court quite rightly shot them down. So the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, changing the words of the Constitution, and thus we solved the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/50 "2011-02-08T19:06:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You mean like how we’re _pretending_ that “all men” includes black ones, now? :dubious: No. That, too, was a problem that had to be dealt with by actually amending the words of the Constitution: > [@Amendment XIV](#): > > 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. What’s a citizen? > [@Amendment XIV](#): > > All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. See how it works? We needed to change the Constitution, so we _amended_ it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/51 "2011-02-08T19:08:44Z")
It would be nice, by the way, if debaters make a point and it’s rebutted, that they acknowledge that in some way, instead of just moving on to the next point and never admitting that in one particular they might have been wrong or chosen a bad example. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/52 "2011-02-08T19:14:29Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Infallible? No. > > And unchangeable? Absolutely not. > > But the “change” has to come by amending the words of the Constitution. If by “change,” you mean that the words stay the same, but we start pretending they mean something different… then, no. They are unchangeable by that method. In this, I am in 100% agreement with you. We have the legal means to both clarify and/or completely change any and/or all of the Constitution, and I would prefer we use those methods instead of attempting to read the minds of our ancestors. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579/53 "2011-02-08T20:43:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > In this, I am in 100% agreement with you. We have the legal means to both clarify and/or completely change any and/or all of the Constitution, and I would prefer we use those methods instead of attempting to read the minds of our ancestors. Thank you. And this, incidentally, illustrates why hypocrisy is a problem when discussing these things. Take, for example, the recent conservative push, in some circles, to pass a law in Congress that declares that children of illegal immigrants born in the US are not citizens. This may be a wonderful, desirable policy to adopt, but they cannot adopt it without ignoring the plain language of Amendment XIV. And rather than admit this, they try to nullify the language without actually changing it… while at the same time discussing their great reverence for the text of the Constitution. This is a perfect example of the value of: we agree on the rules ahead of time, and then stick to them even if they compel a particular outcome we don’t like. You want to change the meaning of the Constitution? Fine: change the words. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-constitution-being-turned-into-another-bible/570579.md?page=2)