[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 397-398]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                THE HOUSE'S READING OF THE CONSTITUTION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 18, 2011

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, when we read the Constitution in this body on 
January 6, 2011, we missed a good opportunity. I joined in the reading. 
I was certainly not going to allow one political party to claim the 
Constitution for its own, as it has sometimes tried to claim the U.S. 
flag. However, by reading an altered version of the Constitution and by 
doing so without warrant we lost a great educational moment.
  I revere the U.S. Constitution and carry a copy of the Constitution 
with me every day. I often ask students what they think is the greatest 
invention of humans. Because they know that I am a scientist, they 
usually say something technical like the laser or a microchip in answer 
to my question. I reply that the greatest invention is the U.S. 
Constitution. It is truly ingenious: Because of this document, our 
brilliant, resilient, self-correcting system of government, dreamed up 
in Philadelphia so many years ago, still functions well today. The 
system inspires and motivates people around the world.
  Instead of reading the full Constitution, members of the House took 
turns reading an altered text based on the amendments. I was further 
troubled to learn that because of human error we skipped two pages 
during our reading.
  The altered text omitted the original language of Article I, Section 
2 that counted each black individual as only three-fifths of a person

[[Page 398]]

for the purposes of apportionment of Representatives, omitting it and 
reading only the text of the 14th Amendment that apportioned 
Representatives according to the total number of all male citizens. 
Yet, Article I, Section 3 that proscribes that the two Senators from 
each state be chosen by the state legislature, a passage of the 
Constitution subsequently amended by the 17th Amendment, was read in 
its original format.
  The decision to not read the full text ignores the fundamental 
strength of the U.S. Constitution--its implicit recognition that the 
United States of America is an imperfect, ever evolving, self-
correcting union. The Constitution is not a perfect document, and the 
Founders did not have all the answers. African American were counted as 
three-fifths of a person. Women were disenfranchised. The concept of 
privacy was glossed over. The full text of the Constitution and its 
Amendments should have been read today to help American recall and 
understand how we have strived and still strive ``to form a more 
perfect Union.''
  The Constitution was a compromise throughout. In addition to counting 
each black individual as only three-fifths of a person, it was 
virtually silent on slavery, the great injustice of the day. But after 
a way that almost destroyed the Union, after more than half a million 
died, and when brother fought brother, the Constitution was amended and 
updated to reflect the will of the people. Today, the American 
experiment continues to improve. Freedoms and protections of rights 
keep growing in the face of both consistent and ever-changing threats.
  Langston Hughes--an American who was denied the rights and freedoms 
that all of us deserve--wrote in Let America Be America Again, 1938,

     O, yes,
     I say it plain,
     America never was America to me,
     And yet I swear this oath--
     America will be!

  Students attending under-performing schools, millions of Americans 
without health insurance, and widespread poverty demonstrate that even 
today, America never was America for far too many of us. But our 
Constitution lets us admit when we are wrong and correct our mistakes. 
Our collective vision of America must include an expanding sphere of 
freedom, liberty, and opportunity for all. And most importantly, we 
must never believe we are so infallible that we fail to strive for a 
``more perfect Union.''

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