The five oddest clauses in the U.S. Constitution

Law professor Jay Wexler sheds light on nation’s founding document and its quirks

This provision resulted from a compromise between large and small states at the Constitutional Convention. Large states would get more representation than small ones in the House of Representatives, but all states would get equal representation in the Senate. This means that both California and Rhode Island have the same voting power in the nation’s most important legislative body. If you’ve ever wondered why people all of a sudden feel more politically powerful when they move to Delaware or Wyoming from New York or Texas, this is the reason.

This Amendment was extremely important to the framers, who had witnessed the so-called quartering of British troops during the colonial period, but it has played nearly no role whatsoever in modern American history. It’s hardly surprising that the most cited piece of reporting in the past 200 years about this Amendment was published by The Onion.

This clause, which was intended by the framers to ensure that federal officers wouldn’t be tempted to give favors to foreign governments in return for money or other goodies, has received unprecedented attention during the early months of the Trump administration. But the clause raises as many questions as it answers. What in the world is an “emolument,” and in particular, if an officer receives fair market value for a service he or she provides a foreign government (like a hotel room), does that mean the officer has violated the Constitution?

This clause was adopted in the wake of the Civil War to ensure that Congress would not forgive debts incurred by the Union, but in recent years it has been cited as potentially giving the president the unilateral power to raise the debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on the nation’s financial obligations. Such an interpretation is implausible, but note how unclear the clause is; a lesson to future drafters — avoid using the passive voice when writing a constitution.

This clause may have made a lot of sense in the 18th century, when communications and transportation were far less advanced and efficient than they are today. Back then, it may have been difficult to get every senator back to the Capitol to vote on a presidential appointment, so the president needed the power to make unilateral appointments when the Senate was not in session. That’s not the case today, but the clause still exists, and presidents now try to use it to circumvent the necessity of getting Senate confirmation of controversial high-level appointments.

Related posts:

El 19 de Septiembre Ciudad de México volvió a temblar con una magnitud de 7.1. Miles de vídeos, fotografías e información circuló por estos días invadiendo las redes sociales. Luisito El Chido es el…

Download complete Coursera Notebook assignment. Once you login to coursera and open any notebook, you can go to the root directory by trimming additional text.

The issue of how to lead during The Great Resignation is perhaps at first best approached by considering how not to lead during this employer crisis. Three key actions to avoid are: - cracking the…