“The Year of Living Constitutionally” author found some odd quirks in America’s most famous document.
Jacobsdoes not have any issues when it comes to commitment.
And while learning how to live constitutionally, Jacobs also learned some fascinating facts about the Constitution.
‘The Year of Living Constitutionally’ by A.J. Jacobs.Crown
Here, the author andformerEntertainment Weeklywriterand editor presents the five weirdest quirks he uncovered about Americas most famous document.
It also has a bunch of typos.
Or whatever the eighteenth century equivalent is (quillos?).
‘The Year of Living Constitutionally’ author A.J. Jacobs at the Capitol.Crown
Granted, spelling was different then, so Im not going to complain about words such aschusing.
But what about the two different spellings of the Keystone State: Pennsylvania and Pensylvania?
How did the state somehow lose an N in its journey from the first page to the fourth page?
Author A.J. Jacobs.Sharon Schuur
Thats not to mention grammar.
I decided to initiate the entire text of the Constitution through the Grammarly software.
Grammarly was not impressed.
It found 663 problems.
The Constitution is crazy hard to amend
How hard is it to amend the Constitution?
Harder than all the Ethan Hunt missions combined.
Consider that since Americas birth, Congress has officially considered 10,524 constitutional amendments.
Of those, 27 were ratified.
Thats a failure rate of 99.74 percent.
The Constitutions ink was made from the nests of wasp larvae.
The Constitution contains a section on government-sanctioned piracy
Its actually called privateering.
But the basic idea is legalized, government-approved piracy.
If you captured an enemy ship, you get to keep the booty.
This was actually hugely important during the Revolutionary War.
America didnt have much of a Navy, so the government outsourced naval battles.
Privateers captured about two thousand British vessels during the Revolutionary War.
(And I tried to get one as part of my book).
Day-drinking and night-drinking were both the norm, and the Founding Fathers were no exception.
Thats not to mention the smoking.
The Founders favored clay tobacco pipes.
For those who didnt bring their own, there were communal pipes available for borrowing.
