# US Dopers: have you read the Constitution? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 30, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304 "2016-07-30T16:58:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/21 "2016-07-31T20:42:35Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > One of the issues I have with people who keep saying “Have you read the Constitution?” is that they often miss the fact that it is not a self-contained document. I see too many people using reasoning like “The Constitution forbids cruel punishments. I think jail is cruel. Therefore, jails are unconstitutional.” It’s rarely that simple on any issue. Hundreds of years of court rulings are relevant to understanding the meaning of words and phrases, and often necessary to understand what courts have implied from the literal meaning. This is a contentious issue. Textualists would argue that the Constitution is a self-contained document. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/22 "2016-07-31T21:20:32Z")
The poll is missing a few options. - I studied it in high school or earlier but may not have read the whole thing, and certainly forgot most of it, so really it’s down to reading bits and pieces as it is relevant. (I checked the “I have read bits as necessary, and probably read the whole thing by now.” option.) - I have read the Federalist Papers and (for class) a book which chronicled the Constitutional Convention. (I think it was [this one](https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0316103985).) The poll had no option for secondary literature on its own. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/23 "2016-07-31T21:58:17Z")
I picked the first one, though that’s not fully accurate. I’ve read it post high school, but not for a class. There was a requirement put in place in 2004 that publicly funded educational institutions hold [Constitution Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Day_(United_States))activities. For that year, the library stepped up and managed it. Part of what we did was hand out pocket constitutions. That was the point that I realized I didn’t know if I’d ever read it in full, and so I took one and I did. It’s a fascinating document and sometimes when people start talking about making amendments to restrict this or that, I wonder if they’ve read it. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/24 "2016-07-31T22:37:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This is a contentious issue. Textualists would argue that the Constitution is a self-contained document. My comment is more about the actual state of affairs today. Even if someone happens to be of a textualist persuasion, they’re not getting far in the legal field unless they understand how the Constitution has actually been used. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/25 "2016-07-31T23:15:54Z")
As a foreigner, I picked the last option, but in actuality I’m really option 2: I’ve read the whole thing, including amendments (in fact I have a pocket copy on my desk), plus have read numerous texts on it (including Farrand and the Federalist Papers all the way through) as well as many of the Supreme Court decisions interpreting parts I’m interested in. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/26 "2016-08-01T00:20:38Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > My comment is more about the actual state of affairs today. Even if someone happens to be of a textualist persuasion, they’re not getting far in the legal field unless they understand how the Constitution has actually been used. Pretty much agreed. You can’t really “know the constitution” without at least some knowledge of the really key Supreme Court decisions. Marbury vs. Madison significantly changed the document’s function, virtually amending it, and a great many other decisions have been hugely significant in its real meaning. (The meaning of “person” to include corporations is worth a week’s seminar all by itself!) ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/27 "2016-08-01T00:26:17Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The poll is missing a few options. I sort of did it on the fly. I just wanted to know why had read it and who hadn’t, but I knew a binary poll would never fly. > [@](#): > > The poll had no option for secondary literature on its own. I wasn’t interested in that. I wasn’t really going for knowledge as much as who felt a civic duty to read it. That’s why I didn’t include a lot of different options for non-US Dopers. I read it, FTR, because in part, because I felt a civic duty to do so. Yes, I’d been shown up a couple of times by being less knowledgeable than some other people, but I’d also been made aware of the fact that my aunt, who was a naturalized citizen, was far better prepared for civic duties like voting and jury duty, than I was. I’m quite heartened by the results of the poll. I know dopers aren’t a cross-section of the US, but I’m still made optimistic by the results of the poll. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/28 "2016-08-01T00:26:39Z")
We had to read it in high school but not in college so some of your poll options are off. I have trouble believing anyone managed to graduate from high school in the US without having been forced to read it at least once. Whether said person paid any attention or cares in the slightest about its importance is a different question. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/29 "2016-08-01T07:30:21Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > … Marbury vs. Madison significantly changed the document’s function, virtually amending it, … Disagree. Judicial review is implicit in the statement that the Constitution is to be the supreme law of the land, and was foreseen by the drafters of the Constitution. As the wiki article on [Marbury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison#Status_of_the_judicial_power_before_Marbury) notes: > [@](#): > > At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, there were a number of references to judicial review. Fifteen delegates made statements about the power of the federal courts to review the constitutionality of laws, with all but two of them supporting the idea.[17] > > Likewise, at the state ratifying conventions, over two dozen delegates in at least seven states indicated that under the Constitution, the federal courts would have the power to declare statutes unconstitutional.[18] Professors Saikrishna Prakash and John Yoo point out, with respect to the ratification of the Constitution, that “no scholar to date has identified even _one_ participant in the ratification fight who argued that the Constitution did not authorize judicial review of Federal statutes. This silence in the face of the numerous comments on the other side is revealing.”[19] The Anti-Federalists also agreed that judicial review was implicit in the Constitution, but for some of them, that was a bug, not a feature. _Marbury v Madison_ is also perfectly consistent with [Federalist 78](http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa78.htm), written by Hamilton, one of the New York delegates to the constitutional convention: [QUOTE=Federalist 78] The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. **Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing**. Some perplexity respecting the rights of the courts to pronounce legislative acts void, because contrary to the Constitution, has arisen from an imagination that the doctrine would imply a superiority of the judiciary to the legislative power. It is urged that the authority which can declare the acts of another void, must necessarily be superior to the one whose acts may be declared void. **As this doctrine is of great importance in all the American constitutions** , a brief discussion of the ground on which it rests cannot be unacceptable. There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. … The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. [/QUOTE] That was the point of Marshall’s decision: that the function of the judiciary is to determine questions of law, and the Constitution being the supreme law, it is the function of the judiciary to resolve conflicts between statutes and the supreme law: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.” ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/30 "2016-08-01T12:32:31Z")
I’ve never read it, but I’ve been taught it enough to have a general idea of what’s in it. I doubt I would win a trivia contest about it, but you could mention something that’s in it, and I probably would be able to say “oh yeah, that’s in the constitution”. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/31 "2016-08-01T14:26:32Z")
Not sure why having read it for class in high school was specifically excluded, but yea, that is when I read it. ---
**Author:** ![TheSeaOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@TheSeaOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSeaOtter)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/32 "2016-08-01T15:35:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah, I’m somewhere between #2 and #3. I’ve read the whole thing, but I have not read “books” on it, although certainly some literature. Same. I read Supreme Court decisions, and articles about those, and I’ve read history books that discussed the Constitution, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that was exclusively about it. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/33 "2016-08-01T16:53:43Z")
You left out “I can sing the Preamble”. I have studied the Constitution in college, written about it, read both contemporary and modern literature about it, and memorized some portions. I’m a scholar of the life and works of James Madison, which means that I’ve read both biographies and his personal writings that deal extensively with the Constitution. I can also sing the Preamble. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/34 "2016-08-01T18:26:11Z")
Read the whole thing in a govt. class in high school (I also wonder why that was specifically excluded), as well as covering several important SC decisions about it. > [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > I can also sing the Preamble. Me too! But can you sing about Interplanet Janet? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/35 "2016-08-01T19:39:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > None of the options really covered me. I’m sure I read the whole thing through, including amendments, in high school as part of classes. While I wouldn’t say I have read entire books on it, I have read articles and analyses of parts of it. I’ve periodically read through the most important sections in connection with current issues. I picked the third option as being closest. That’s pretty much my experience as well- I’m pretty sure we read through it in high school, and then in my college government/political science course, we discussed specific parts of it that the professor felt set the US apart from other nations. And I’ve looked up specific parts and amendments for specific wording, or illumination (Constitution proper for wording, amendments for the actual meaning) as various issues have come up over time. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/36 "2016-08-03T14:56:26Z")
I have read the Constitution the way I’ve read the Bible- often, but never from start to finish. I’ve certainly read most of it at one time or another, parts of it many times. But there are surely parts I’ve never looked at. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/37 "2016-08-03T17:06:26Z")
I read it in high school. These days I just listen to the audio version. [Egon Spengler] Print is dead [/Egon Spengler] ---
**Author:** ![appleaday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@appleaday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleaday)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/38 "2016-08-03T18:03:53Z")
Read the whole thing in high school. Haven’t made any particular study of it since then, so I guess I’m pretty ignorant on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/39 "2016-08-03T18:33:56Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > There’s a lot of rumbling going on over the fact that Donald Trump has probably not read the US constitution. The fact that it’s obvious to a lot of people that he hasn’t makes me think that maybe more people in the US have than I might have predicted, which is good. I would think the opposite since SO many people seem to have no clue what treason is. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304/40 "2016-08-03T18:35:56Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > You left out “I can sing the Preamble”. I once auditioned for a play with Kirk’s monolgue from Omega Glory…do I win anything? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-have-you-read-the-constitution/761304.md?page=3)