And it has surely had some faults during its more than two centuries—some big faults that have been remedied, like slavery and Prohibition, and numerous smaller ones that are still with us, like the rule that has prevented the recent governors of California and Michigan from offering themselves as presidential candidates. A close study of the way the Constitution has been put on paper—either written or printed—during its long life is sure to call our attention to its smallest faults—its errors of penmanship and typography.
It is not surprising that a few such errors have crept in during all these years, while the original Constitution and an ever-growing body of amendments were written out on a few occasions and printed thousands of times.
Most of the errors of the scribes and the typesetters were promptly corrected before we, the reading public, had a chance to notice them, but a few have endured in successive publications. The earliest of the Constitution's errors were made by the scribe who produced the engrossed written in a fine round hand parchment and the printers who produced versions of the newly completed document in September Production of the engrossed copy must have occupied much of the weekend remaining after the Convention's adjournment late on Saturday, September The scribe was Jacob Shallus, assistant clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature.
He did a fine job given the short time he had, spreading the more than 4, words across four large sheets of parchment. After he finished, Shallus had to deal with several mistakes that he had made during that rushed weekend of exacting labor. Many of the mistakes were omissions, and he tried to take care of each by inserting a word or two between the lines. But he also used a penknife to scrape away an entire line of text near the bottom of page one, leaving behind a roughed-up band that now appears gray from grime.
Jacob Shallus had to scrape away an entire line near the bottom of the Constitution s first parchment page. General Records of the U. Government, RG On the last sheet of the engrossed Constitution, Shallus added a record of the corrections he made on the document.
Another correction was the result not of a mistake, but of a last-minute change of mind by the Convention during the Monday session, when it increased the maximum allowable number of representatives from one per 40, persons to one per 30, Also on page one are a number of ink splotches large and small, which occurred in the effort to complete this large document. Writing with a quill pen was a challenge. On the last sheet, Shallus inscribed a record of the insertions so no one could think these might be illegitimate additions to the adopted text.
After making his correction of the population per representative, Shallus explained it in his note of corrections: "The Word Thirty being partly written on an Erazure. Providing evidence of the difficulty that we all face in getting things right, Shallus managed to make a mistake in one of his corrective notations. He wrote of "the Word 'the' being interlined between the forty third and forty fourth Lines of the second Page," but the insertion actually appears six lines farther down on the page, between lines 49 and What's more, the scribe overlooked, and omitted from the note, another insertion of "the," just two lines farther down from the last error mentioned in the note.
Yet another error appears on the engrossed copy of the Constitution. It was committed not by Jacob Shallus but by Alexander Hamilton. As the members of the Convention prepared to sign the document, Hamilton took up a position beside the last of the four sheets, laid out for signing, and appears to have taken charge of the process as the delegates from each state came forward to sign. In this capacity, he wrote the name of each state at the left of the growing column of signatures.
When he came to the largest state delegation, headed by Benjamin Franklin, he wrote "Pensylvania. While Shallus was spending much of the weekend inscribing those four sheets, the Philadelphia printers John Dunlap and David C. Claypoole were busy with an equally important task: producing copies of the Constitution, some to be given to the Convention delegates as they departed, and some to be transmitted to the Congress of the Confederation.
The text produced by Dunlap and Claypoole contained a few more flaws. It must have contained the uncorrected "forty thousand"; it also cannot have had a correct list of the signers, for when the Convention began its final day, the members did not know precisely who was going to sign the document. There was a determined but unsuccessful effort, led by Benjamin Franklin, to bring aboard three delegates who had not committed themselves—Edmund Randolph, George Mason, and Elbridge Gerry.
There was also some doubt, right up to the end, about another member—William Blount of North Carolina—who finally did sign. We do not know how the print of Monday, September 17, dealt with these uncertainties. No copy of that print has ever come to light. We do know that the printing was done, for the archives contain a record of payment to the printers large enough to cover two jobs, each running to copies or more. Apparently the stack of prints was held closely by someone and not distributed.
Otherwise, a few copies would likely have migrated into the papers of some members and could now be found preserved in various archives. Bonus: Roger Sherman of Connecticut is the other signer of all three. You've never heard of the man who wrote "We the People". Gouverneur Morris was one of the youngest delegates, and he was originally from the Bronx, although he later moved to Philadelphia and represented Pennsylvania at the convention.
He spoke times at the convention, more than any other delegate. No less than James Madison called him the "penman of the Constitution.
He also was apparently quite the ladies' man. If you have Pennsylvania's Bill of RIghts, please return it. After the Bill of Rights was approved, each state received a copy, meaning 14 existed. A copy of the Bill of Rights given as a gift to the New York Public Library in , however, is believed to be Pennsylvania's missing copy. The states agreed to share custody of the document, and it is on public display at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
New York also doesn't have its original version. The document, one of 14 original copies of the Bill of Rights that were owned by the 13 original colonies and the federal government, was stolen from the North Carolina statehouse by a Union soldier during the Civil War, and recently recovered by federal investigators.
One more fun fact about missing Bills of Rights: North Carolina's was missing after being stolen by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's troops during the Civil War. It was recovered during an FBI sting A collector tried to sell it to the National Constitution Center. The new museum in Franklin Court, a site where Franklin actually lived, is a re-imagining of the Underground Museum, opened in as part of the Bicentennial celebration. They partied. Skip to content Miscellaneous.
March 21, Joe Ford. Table of Contents. It was commonly spelled that way. It is spelled correctly in other instances in the document, however. Someone watched Pawn Stars on Monday. Though many people remember being able to touch the Liberty Bell when they were children visiting the city, it is now kept under close watch due to a few crazies attempting to make another crack!
In his new book about the cracked American icon Liberty Bell, Gary Nash points out that the bell we venerate today is itself a replica, created after the original that had been sent from London cracked upon testing. Does the bell still ring today? The Liberty Bell cracked beyond repair on February 23, While the bell does not ring physically, its message of liberty still rings out to many.
On your visit inside of Independence Hall, you will receive a guided tour from a National Park Ranger. Admission to Independence Hall is absolutely free to the public, and every visitor receives a minute guided tour from a National Park Service Ranger.
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