# Library of Congress has started amending the Constitution **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 6, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772 "2025-08-06T15:51:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/21 "2025-08-06T17:28:40Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > [Full Text of the U.S. Constitution | Constitution Center](https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text) Everyone seems inclined to say that it’s to declaw habeas corpus. I’d suggest that everyone take note that the Article also has the Emoluments Clause within its phraseology. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/22 "2025-08-06T17:33:55Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > > > Article I, sections 9 and 10 have been deleted from the Constitution on the US Library of Congress webpage. > > > > Probably because they’re outdated. No one needs to know about them. > > It’s of no effect. There are legion copies and transcripts of the U.S. Constitution, including 13 surviving from the original 1787 print run of 500. The Library of Congress copy is not some official copy holding sway over the law of the land. > > Another government agency, the National Archives, still has **[the full transcript including Art 1, Sec 9-10](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#1-9)**. > > A 1787 hard copy is also on public display in several places, including the National Archives Rotunda (which, admittedly, could perhaps be closed or otherwise acted upon by Trumpian agents at any point). > > In the image below, Article 1, Section 9 starts just over halfway down the page. Section 10 follows. It’s easiest seen and made out by enlarging and zooming in: > > [https://www.archives.gov/files/founding-docs/constitution-page2.jpg](https://www.archives.gov/files/founding-docs/constitution-page2.jpg) Man, who transcribed that? Because their handwriting is horrible. I couldn’t make out a single word. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/23 "2025-08-06T17:48:46Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Article I, sections 9 and 10 have been deleted from the Constitution on the US Library of Congress webpage. > > Probably because they’re outdated. No one needs to know about them. > > I mean, habeas corpus, bills of attainder, limits on state powers; those are all pretty obscure, right? I think you are mis-remembering the Constitution. There has never been a Section 9 or 10 in Article I. Websites that claim that and doctored images purporting to show these in the ‘original’ document are fabrications. Please stand in full view of your view screen and prepare to be visited by Thinkpol representatives to be escorted to Miniluv for your reeducation. “He who controls the past controls the present, and he who controls the present controls the future”. – George Orwell, _1984_ Stranger ---
**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:** [August 6, 2025, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/24 "2025-08-06T19:59:46Z")
Section 9 and 10 are back. Is anything else missing? ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/25 "2025-08-06T20:18:43Z")
“These ten…[_crash!_] Eight! Eight amendments!” ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/26 "2025-08-06T20:30:52Z")
This thread needed more cow-Mel. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/27 "2025-08-06T21:16:43Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I’d suggest that everyone take note that the Article also has the Emoluments Clause within its phraseology. And what is at the beginning of the emoluments clause? Could it be “_No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States_” ? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/28 "2025-08-06T21:34:49Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I think you are mis-remembering the Constitution. There has never been a Section 9 or 10 in Article I. Websites that claim that and doctored images purporting to show these in the ‘original’ document are fabrications. Please stand in full view of your view screen and prepare to be visited by Thinkpol representatives to be escorted to Miniluv for your reeducation. Yep. As for the “it was an accident” (or “coding error”) explanation: The missing sections were missing both on the ‘text of the Constitution’ page _ **AND** _ on the ‘annotated explanation of the Constitution’ page. Note that the acting Librarian of Congress is TODD BLANCHE. Why did they do this? Partly to distract from Epstein. But also partly for the sheer pleasure of showing that they are in control, and if they find bits of the Constitution inconvenient, out those bits will go. It’s a flex. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/29 "2025-08-06T21:38:59Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Why did they do this? Partly to distract from Epstein. But also partly for the sheer pleasure of showing that they are in control, and if they find bits of the Constitution inconvenient, out those bits will go. Feels more to me like a statement by someone dissatisfied with the administration and symbolically removing those parts than the other explanations. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/30 "2025-08-06T21:44:25Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > someone dissatisfied with the administration and symbolically removing those parts Opinions are bound to differ. To me, if you disliked Trumpian doings and wanted to show your support for the sections on Habeas Corpus and the consent of Congress being required for levying tariffs (etc.) then you would NOT show that support by removing said sections. Maybe you’d code them so they appeared in extra-large font, for example. But you wouldn’t remove them. This will likely be one of those things argued over without resolution, as I doubt that Mr. Blanche will ever be transparent about it. That’s not his style. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/31 "2025-08-06T21:47:25Z")
They have better ways to flex their power and show who’s in charge than removing some text on one website. And they have been doing so with the shit they’ve been ramming through Congress and executive orders. This would be peanuts and has no tangible effect. It’s a non-story to me. It’s not even on the CNN front page, and I wouldn’t even had known of it had I not come across this thread. Piss poor way of handling the Epstein deal if that was their motive. Now if they removed multiple instances of this across all government websites, that may be another story. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/32 "2025-08-06T21:54:16Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > They have better ways to flex their power and show who’s in charge than removing some text on one website. And they have been doing so with the shit they’ve been ramming through Congress and executive orders. Sure, they’re doing worse stuff. It does not follow logically that because they do X and Y, they would refrain from doing Z because it isn’t Big enough. That’s part of the point of flexing. **You don’t have to ration it.** You can do any and all shitty stuff you feel like doing, and no one can stop you. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/33 "2025-08-06T21:54:54Z")
Like you said, there’s going to be disagreement in opinions about this. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/34 "2025-08-06T22:48:24Z")
My guess is that they were editing the annotations to more fully match the felonial interpretation (e.g. helpfully defining habeas corpus as “[a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-noem-fumbles-definition-of-habeas-corpus).”) and they fucked it up. It would be interesting for someone (not me) to use the wayback machine to compare the current annotation to what it was a couple of weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/35 "2025-08-06T23:06:36Z")
I’m doubling down on this theory. Reading the [annotation of the emolument clause](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C8-3/ALDE_00013206/) it is now almost totally taken up with discussion about how the courts didn’t find it applied to Trump, and the [habeas corpus](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C2-1/ALDE_00001087/) section is all about when it can be suspended. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/36 "2025-08-06T23:49:05Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > That’s part of the point of flexing. **You don’t have to ration it.** You can do any and all shitty stuff you feel like doing, and no one can stop you. More to the point, it is a way to gig the lib’rals and see how outraged they get by this penny ante legal vandalism, which serves as a gauge for what they can get away with in the media when it comes to bigger issues. Tyranny almost never comes all at once; it comes in dribs and drabs of authoritarian creep until you wake up one day and discover that while you are in something that has the facade of a democracy all actual institutions and civil liberties are effectively gone. Just ask pro-Palestinian protestors arrested in London, or Poland taking a hard-right turn in 2015 toward a far-right autocracy despite twenty-five years of leading the East Bloc into democratic reforms. That deleting this portion of the Constitution from a government website is inane and in no way affects how courts will interpret law does not mean it wasn’t done with malicious intent and willful testing of boundaries. Like a small child who knows he can’t get away with a lie but does it anyway, it is really about seeing just how much he can fatigue his parents until he feels out the threshold of what he can get them without provoking punishment. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/37 "2025-08-06T23:57:04Z")
Wow, that’s both highly, highly probably and absolutely fucking disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/38 "2025-08-07T00:04:37Z")
Yeah, that sounds much more plausible as to what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/39 "2025-08-07T22:20:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Like a small child who knows he can’t get away with a lie but does it anyway, it is really about seeing just how much he can fatigue his parents until he feels out the threshold of what he can get them without provoking punishment. It’s my theory that Donald and his primary minions, in their emotional development, never made it past the Terrible Twos. So this would fit. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > It would be interesting for someone (not me) to use the wayback machine to compare the current annotation to what it was a couple of weeks ago. Yes, that could be illuminating. (Though if the plan was to edit the annotations to be more fascist-friendly, what need was there to _remove_ the un-annotated text?) ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772/40 "2025-08-07T23:14:44Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > (Though if the plan was to edit the annotations to be more fascist-friendly, what need was there to _remove_ the un-annotated text?) My hypothesis would be that somehow in changing the annotation they fucked up the coding of the orignal pages. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/library-of-congress-has-started-amending-the-constitution/1021772.md?page=3)