Change the Constitution? Don't count on it -- March 17, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s spring break in America, so swarms of school kids are visiting the nation’s capital, texting and snapping selfies. Sometimes, they even glance up and learn something.

They aren’t the only ones.

Grumpy about the low tone of the presidential campaign, I went to the National Archives to see “Amending America,” a new exhibit about how we amend the U.S. Constitution.

That sounds dry, but it’s fascinating to see politics in historical perspective. Politicians are forever waving the Constitution in our faces, promising to repeal this or add that. Fortunately, it’s not that easy.

As the exhibit reminds us, a beauty of our system is that it runs on consensus. While it’s always possible to amend the Constitution, it’s never probable.

Members of Congress have proposed more than 11,000 constitutional amendments since the Constitution was written in 1787, but only 27 have been ratified. The exhibit celebrates the 225^th anniversary of the first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791 and on permanent display in the Archives Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.

Jostling for space, I leaned over the cases in the dim Rotunda light and looked at the ancient documents. Watching the kids lean in, too, brought unbidden tears to my eyes. We are all de facto heirs of those long-ago patriots.

President Thomas Jefferson recognized in 1803 that the Constitution was a work in progress.

“Let us go on perfecting the Constitution by adding, by way of amendment, those forms which time and trial show are still wanting,” he wrote.

Most proposed amendments fade away. Some were serious attempts to solve problems, others intended only to score points.

Shall we have a constitutional amendment requiring everyone to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” – or face 20 years of hard labor? Shall we outlaw divorce? Or public drunkenness? How about we choose the president by lottery? No, no, no and no.

The process of “perfecting” the Constitution was laborious by design. To approve an amendment takes two-thirds of the House and Senate or a constitutional convention made up of two-thirds of state legislatures. Then, three-quarters of the states must vote to ratify it. Only then is it part of the Constitution.

The 27^th and most recent amendment was first introduced in 1789 but wasn’t ratified until 1992. The measure makes sure that when Congress raises its pay, the raise doesn’t go into effect until the next congressional term.

“Amending America” continues through Sept. 4, 2017, and is especially relevant this Election Year. The Founders limited voting to white, land-owning men. The exhibit traces the five amendments have expanded our voting rights.

“Could you vote in 1869?” asks an interactive display. Visitors answer questions about their gender, race, age, poll tax and residence. Many adults discover that, no, they could not have voted in 1869. 

Not until the 15^th Amendment in 1870 were all people guaranteed the right to vote  --regardless of race. It took another half century for women to get the vote, with the 19^th Amendment in 1920. The 23^rd Amendment in 1961 allowed residents of the District of Columbia to vote for president, though they still lack full congressional representation.

The 24^th Amendment in 1964 prohibited poll tax fees for voting in federal elections. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled state poll taxes unconstitutional. The 26^th Amendment in 1971 lowered the voting age to 18.

The exhibit features more than 50 original documents, including rarely seen letters from citizens for and against amendments. A faded Western Union telegram from 1962 from Augustus C. Johnson of Springfield, Va., to Rep. Emanuel Celler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, urges an end to the poll tax.

“No man who has studied the history of the adoption of this tax by Virginia can honestly deny that its basic purpose was to curtail the vote of our Negro citizens,” wrote Johnson, a Democratic congressional candidate at the time.

A 1964 letter from W.J. Isbell Jr., secretary of the Alabama Baptist State Convention, asks Congress to reject an amendment authorizing school prayer. Isbell supported the Supreme Court ruling that held forced prayers and Bible readings in school unconstitutional, reflecting the view that the state had no right to decide which prayers were said in school.

“I said, `Amen.’ For this is as it should be,” Isbell wrote about the court’s ruling. “I personally felt that the news media would inform the people and sanity would prevail, but this did not seem the case.”

    

Today, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump wants to repeal the 14^th Amendment, which grants anyone born in this country citizenship.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton favors an amendment to reverse the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which said the government cannot ban corporate spending in campaigns.

Conservative Republicans hope to convene a constitutional convention to consider amendments.

Talk is talk. But a new amendment to the Constitution? Don’t count on it.  

 ©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Thank George -- first in war, peace, inaugurations -- Jan. 17, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The Constitution requires only the 35-word oath of office.

All the rest in our presidential inaugurations – the address, poetry, prayers, marching bands and balls -- is gravy.

Before we get swept up in the pomp and pageantry – lobster and bison luncheon in the U.S. Capitol! Native Americans in their regalia! Unicyclists from Maine!  -- let’s take a moment to remember that George Washington was first in the hearts of his countrymen and first to invent a presidential inauguration.

The father of our country had to decide not only what to wear and what to say but how big the buttons on his coat should be and whether to say anything at all. He had to decide where he wanted to stay. The nation’s capital and first inauguration were then in New York, a long way from Mount Vernon.

   

Washington was aware he was setting precedent, and, although not everything he did stuck, it’s instructive to see where we started.

       

In the weeks before his swearing in as the first president on April 30, 1789, Washington wrote letters (yes, by hand) praising the locally made “cloth and buttons” his friend and future Secretary of War Henry Knox had sent him and asked Knox for “six more of the large (engraved) button to trim the coat in the manner I wish it to be.”

He was determined to stay only in “hired rooms” or inns, and not in private homes when he made the trip. “I am not desirous of being placed early in a situation for entertaining,” he wrote James Madison.

    

Washington worried about the “oceans of difficulties” awaiting him as the first Congress had failed to begin its business, and he lamented his lack of political skill. In fact, Washington’s war service had given him excellent political skills, says Jim Zeender, a long-time registrar in the Exhibits Division of the National Archives, whose excellent blog posts about early letters of the founders I draw from here. Zeender’s posts can be found on the National Archives’ Prologue: Pieces of History blog.

The Library of Congress and Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies also have robust web pages on inaugurations.

In 1789, Washington took the oath on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street before a joint session of Congress and addressed the crowd below:  “Fellow citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives,  among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties” than the notification of his election as president. His flowery speech continued for 1,400 words.

   

And later that day, another tradition – of critiquing the president’s inaugural performance -- was born.

U.S. Sen. William Maclay of Pennsylvania wrote in his diary that Washington “read off his address in the plainest manner, without even taking his eyes from the paper, for I felt hurt that he was not first in everything. He was dressed in deep brown, with metal buttons, with an eagle on them, white stockings, a bag, and sword.”

For his second inauguration in Philadelphia, Washington wore a black velvet suit with black stockings. He was weary and his speech was just 135 words. Maclay had lost his re-election bid, so we don’t have his review.

  

Inaugurations have taken place in various locations. The first in the new capital city of Washington was Thomas Jefferson’s second inauguration in 1801. He walked over from his boarding house. 

Social butterfly Dolley Madison came up with the first inaugural ball in 1809, but her husband the president was not impressed. “I’d rather be in bed,” James Madison reportedly confided.

We’ve now come to the 57^th inauguration. Expectations are low for President Barack Obama’s second act.   

Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse likened second inaugurations to the renewal of wedding vows – “the ceremony might be great, but you can’t ignore what you already know about the groom: He snores, he sniffles and he forgot to pay the electric bill last month.”

While almost nothing could equal the pure joy and excitement of four years ago, this inauguration is a time to look at our history and our future with hope.

   

An inauguration gives us a day to celebrate us. Let’s enjoy it. We don’t need George Washington’s big eagle buttons. We have apps.

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.