US Law Dopers: How do I refer to this part of the US Constitution?

Factual Questions
1

I want to refer to the second paragarph of Article VI in a piece I’m writing. My problem is that I’m not sure what the convention is. Are the paragraphs numbered or not? And if so, do you call them paragraphs? Clauses? § ?

According to the version published by authority of the House and Senate, the Article reads:

So, in this version and the Findlaw version, the paragraphs aren’t numbered.

But in a version published by the Government Publishing Office , the paragraphs are numbered and referred to as clauses:

And the Avalon Project numbers the paragraphs, but doesn’t call them clauses:

So, what’s the convention on citing a paragraph in the Article?

Thanks.

2

I don’t have my Bluebook at home, so maybe one of the law school dopers will be able to help. My gut says the fact that it’s not numbered is irrelevant (in fact, until this thread it really hadn’t occurred to me that the Constitution wasn’t internally numbered :slight_smile: because we use clause and paragraph numbers all the time), and to cite it as U.S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2.

3

Use the numbering and terminology of any version that takes your fancy, and specifically cite that version in your text or bibliography so your readers can consult it if they wish. So to use Campion’s example

BTW it is a convention around here to warn that a link points to a .PDF file, as they can be unnervingly slow to load and give people the impression their browser has hung.

4

Thanks for the responses. So even though it’s not internally numbered, by convention numbers can be used - is that a fair summary?

Sorry about that - I normally do it, but didn’t notice this time that I had linked to a pdf.

5

Correct citation in Bluebook style would be U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. “U.S. Const.” should be in what’s generally called ‘small caps;’ in Word, you get that by hitting Ctrl-Shift-K, I think. That the Founders didn’t number it doesn’t matter–the numbering of the clauses is standard. (Frequently you’d have a section number as well, but Article VI is rather short.)

6

But doesn’t that interfere with the original intent? They must have had a reason not number the clauses. Isn’t this just an example of so-called ‘progressive’ interpretation? Has anyone told Antonin about this?

:wink:

7

FWIW, Northern Piper, this rendition is exactly what the McGill Guide says to do. Pretty much the same as the Bluebook version, but nice to have another similar authority. So it shouldn’t matter if you’re writing for an American or Canadian audience; it’ll be the same either way. (FYI, Americans–the “McGill Guide” is the Canadian equivalent of the Bluebook.)

8

I’ve got a Bluebook somewhere - I really should dig it out.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.