ore obvious than in the way the Constitution handles the possible removal of a sitting president. Anyone want to tackle that one?
—You mean the whole impeachment thing.
—So the president does something wrong—
What do you mean “wrong?”
—Whaddya mean what do I mean? Something that’s not according to the Constitution—that’s unconstitutional.
Yes, but what makes something unconstitutional?
—Something that’s against the law.
Well, yes. But what makes something—oh never mind. The actual language in the Constitution is “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The point is that the Founders never really spell out how to define either, which are actually a kind of odd couple. Murder? For sure, that’s a high crime. But a misdemeanor? Are you going to get rid of a president over a speeding ticket? It would be hard to convince people that made sense. Which is kind of the point. The Founders figured if people got mad enough, they’d find a way to make their anger known, and that impeachment would be the process whereby that happened. So what’s the procedure? Yin?
—First you get impeached by the House. If a majority decides the president has done something wrong, then the President gets tried in the Senate. The chief justice of the Supreme Court is the judge. If two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict, the president loses his job.
Great. And how many times has this actually happened?
—There have been two impeachments: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Both were acquitted.
Outstanding. Just to finish making the point: there’s something avowedly subjective about impeachment and conviction. The Founders wanted to make it difficult, possible, and to some degree a matter of public opinion. I’d say they succeeded.
Let me introduce another topic: slavery Question: how many times does the word “slavery” come up in the Constitution?
—A 103 times.
Good, Jonquil. The answer is never. Slavery is referred to three times: There’s a fugitive slave provision in which property must be returned in Article IV, Section 2. And the international slave trade was outlawed after 1808 in Article I, Section 9. That meant you couldn’t import slaves from Africa after that. Remember, as we talked about, a lot of the Founders believed slavery was dying. But the effect of this provision ended up making domestic slaves more valuable. Virginia got rich essentially exporting its slaves to other states.
—And the third time is the 3/5ths Compromise, right?
Good, Adam. How did that work?
—It was for representation in Congress. Each slave was 3/5ths of a person. This gave the Southern states an advantage.
Not just in Congress—as we’ve been discussing, Congressional representation determined the size of an Electoral College delegation. In 1800, for example, Thomas Jefferson would not have been elected president without slaves adding to the counted population of major slave states like Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia.
—Can we talk about amendments now?
Sure, Kylie. Why don’t you start by telling us what you know?
—So an amendment is when you want to change the Constitution. I don’t understand the whole thing about the state capitals.
Yes, that is a little confusing. There’s more than one way to get an amendment. One is to call a series of state conventions, and if two-thirds of them agree, then it passes. But that’s never been done successfully. The way it’s typically done is that bills pass both House of Congress agreeing to approve them by two-thirds margins, and then three-quarters of the states vote to approve the proposal (as opposed to holding a convention to consider a proposal).
—You say “typically.” Is there some other way?
Well, the Bill of Rights came in together as a package. That’s the first ten amendments. Part of a deal James Madison made to get the Constitution passed. The Antifederalists were afraid there weren’t enough personal protections in the document. Madison replied that they’re implied. Not good enough, they responded. Fine, he said: If you agree to ratify I’ll codify them into a Bill of Rights. Ten amendments.
—Do we have to know all ten?
—All of them?
Y