yeah i hate to tell you but you're wrong
about the constitution it's not your
fault i mean that thing is like seven
pages long who has time to read that and
there's like two dozen amendments
but it's not your fault everyone is
wrong about the constitution think about
this phrase from each according to his
ability to each according to his needs
in 1987 the hearst corporation conducted
a survey to mark the bicentennial of the
us constitution over 50 percent of
survey participants thought that that
phrase from each according to his
ability to each according to his needs
was part of the us constitution and this
wasn't a one-off result according to a
2002 columbia law school study nearly
two-thirds of persons polled thought
that this phrase came from the
constitution or from one of the founding
fathers but this phrase does not appear
in the constitution james madison the
author of the constitution didn't say it
either so who did well this was written
by none other than karl marx in 1875 and
then parodied by george orwell in animal
farm marx wasn't the first person to
articulate this idea scholars traced the
concept to the new testament which
states in part and distribution was made
unto every man according as he had need
now the soviet union eventually
incorporated the slogan into its
constitution as quote from each
according to his ability to each
according to his work but that has never
appeared in the us constitution so you
can imagine if americans confuse the u.s
constitution with the soviet
constitution they're probably wrong
about a whole bunch of other things
let's talk about it one thing that
people get wrong all the time is
thinking that the constitution mandates
that english is the official language of
the united states
that same 1987 hearst survey found that
64 of the people believed that the
constitution made english the official
national language of america but english
as the official language has never been
part of the constitution although
english was the dominant language at the
time the constitution was ratified many
other languages flourished as well the
most common languages included dutch
french german and the many languages
spoken by native americans enslaved
people spoke african languages as well
as made their own english-based creole
languages and most of the founding
fathers favored bilingual education
thomas jefferson spoke english french
italian latin and he could also read
greek and spanish he hoped that america
would establish colleges that would
teach in french spanish german and other
languages others like ben franklin saw
it differently and said things that were
incredibly offensive and malthusian
saying quote those germans who come
hither are generally the most ignorant
stupid sort of their own nation they
will soon outnumber us that all the
advantages we have will not in my
opinion be able to preserve our language
and even our government will become
precarious
luckily he didn't win the day on that
one now states with large german
populations disagreed with ben franklin
at least initially in the 1800s
pennsylvania and ohio passed laws
allowing german to be taught in public
schools of course however americans have
consistently attempted to limit these
speaking of other languages in this
country politicians have tried to
introduce a constitutional amendment
making english the official language
which would force the government to stop
providing bilingual services so far
these efforts have failed and while a
constitutional amendment hasn't passed
congress historically has passed all
kinds of laws that would prevent people
from speaking non-english languages for
example in the 19th century the
government forced native american
children to attend missionary schools in
1887 the bureau of indian affairs
decided that mission schools on
reservations were required to provide
all instruction in english children who
use their own languages were bullied and
beaten by the instructors this of course
led to immense language loss and of
course french was the dominant language
in the louisiana territory for over a
hundred years the first louisiana
constitutions made english and french
the official dual languages of the state
but louisiana was a melting pot for
different ethnic groups and eventually
their dialects merged to produce what we
call louisiana french but in 1921
louisiana adopted a new state
constitution which reversed the policy
of bilingual rights the state banned the
teaching of french in all public schools
which highlights one of the differences
between the us federal constitution and
individual state constitutions but of
course these trends continue to this day
representative louis gomer introduced
the english language unity act of 2021
which would declare english as the quote
official language of the united states
to establish a uniform english language
rule for naturalization and to avoid
misconstructions of the english language
texts of the laws of the united states
pursuant to congress's power to provide
for the general welfare of the united
states and to establish uniform rule of
naturalization under article 1 section 8
of the constitution of course the reason
that gomer wanted to pass this law is
because it's not in the constitution at
all
and gomer's bill was referred to
committee where it died but putting
language aside surely that old chestnut
no taxation without representation found
its way into the constitution right well
the popular history of the american
revolution goes something like this the
colonists got so fed up with king george
the third's high taxes that they chuck
british tea into the boston harbor
decided americans would henceforth
become coffee drinkers and wrote a
constitution ensuring that no one would
ever be taxed again without being
adequately represented
well as a resident of the district of
columbia i would have to take issue with
this particular summary of american
history in the 1700s the colonists
objected to the stamp act and other
similar laws that imposed taxes on them
because they couldn't vote and didn't
have representation in parliament and in
response the english came up with a
theory of virtual representation which
meant that since parliament existed
every british subject was represented
regardless of whether they could vote of
course the young american colonists
didn't exactly take to this early
version of zoom meetings after all the
pontificating about taxes and voting and
the subsequent war of independence
perhaps the biggest surprise of all is
that the taxation without representation
didn't make it into the final cut of the
constitution though the colonists did
try hard to work it into the founding
documents the articles of confederation
incorporated a we hate taxes stance by
denying the federal government the right
to levy taxes at all this sounded cool
on paper but was a really big mess in
reality because the new government
couldn't pay its war debts it also
couldn't raise enough money for an army
or navy the british occupied forts in
the great lakes while also dumping its
convicts into the colonies and so for
this and many other reasons the
americans had to write a new governing
document that eventually became the
constitution and you had better well
believe that it gave the federal
government the right to levy taxes the
problem is they forgot to mention that
in order to levy taxes everyone needed
to be adequately represented the state
and local authorities also got the power
to levy taxes but the end result is that
the constitution doesn't guarantee no
taxation without representation but the
motto was still a rallying cry for the
disenfranchised populations especially
in the nation's capital where i live
washington dc which is also the only
geographical entity in the contiguous
united states whose citizens must pay
taxes and register for selective service
without having political representation
in congress well these political
representation that can actually do
something
dc residents pay more taxes than
residents in 22 states and pay more
money per capita to the federal
government than any actual state now we
are not the only ones who else pays
taxes without representation while
undocumented immigrants pay about 7
billion a year in taxes inmates pay
taxes and so do formally incarcerated
people even if their voting rights have
not been restored american children work
and pay sales tax and income tax but
they lack the representation of a vote
and that's just the tip of the iceberg
there's a whole bunch of taxation
without representation in the united
states
and that's probably because the
constitution doesn't guarantee that
right americans hate taxes but they love
shopping and a lot of people think that
they have a right to enter a particular
store or at least they have a right to
contract with other people the freedom
to contract this guy believes he has a
constitutional right to eat at the trump
grill in new york city but here the
police officer contends that a
reservation is not a constitutional
right
i can't revoke my reserve not a
guarantee
it's not a constitutional right
the protester is in fact wrong about his
constitutional right to keep his dinner
reservation but this is an interesting
question do people have a constitutional
right to enter a store or a restaurant
the constitution is often silent about
most things so it shouldn't be
surprising that no one has an explicit
reference to where people are allowed to
be but the 1980 u.s supreme court case
pruneyard shopping center versus robbins
said that the constitution does not give
people an absolute right to enter and
remain on private property even if they
intend to exercise their first amendment
right to free expression so if this man
wants to get into a restaurant to
protest he doesn't actually have a
constitutional right to do so despite
the first amendment but what about if
the city or state government has imposed
a vaccination requirement to enter does
that violate the constitution well so
far the answer is no because not all
unequal treatment violates federal or
state laws the civil rights act of 1964
explicitly prohibits restaurants from
refusing service to customers based on
race color religion or national origin a
restaurant can't refuse service to black
people or white people or muslims or
atheists for example but when it comes
to other classes of people it's a
complete toss-up they can do what they
want restaurants and business owners
have argued that they have a religious
right to refuse service to gay and
transgender people because of the
owner's religious beliefs now the
supreme court has yet to definitively
settle that issue and it's going to be
very interesting to see what happens
with the supreme court over the next few
years on this particular issue it's
definitely going to come up but when a
local regulation prevents unvaccinated
people from entering a restaurant which
is what happened with the situation in
new york city
we're not talking about a protected or
quasi-protected class of people based on
their race ethnicity or gender that
means a lower standard of review
in other words rational basis review
which basically no law ever fails so the
bottom line is that the constitution is
not going to protect your dinner
reservation if there is a specific
enforceable law that says you can't go
inside then there's a phrase that i
think everyone is familiar with the idea
that the criminal law presumes that you
are innocent until proven guilty now
that idea that you are presumed innocent
until proven guilty is one of the most
significant principles in american law
the rights of criminal defense are very
much part of the constitution for
example the fifth amendment bar
self-incrimination quote no person shall
be compelled in any criminal case to be
a witness against himself this is known
as the right to remain silent the sixth
amendment requires that people be given
a speedy and impartial jury trial an
attorney in criminal prosecutions and
establishes defendant's right to
confront adverse witnesses and the 14th
amendment provides for due process of
law however the constitution does not
require that a state prove that someone
committed a crime beyond reasonable
doubt and the constitution doesn't say
that you're innocent until proven guilty
now i'm not saying that the concept of
innocent until proven guilty is not
important but the bigger point is that
not all fundamental rights can be
sourced directly to a line of text in
the constitution astute legal eagles
probably already know that many of our
important legal principles come from
english common law but the presumption
of innocence has a more complicated
origin story it isn't found in any of
the sources we traditionally cite for
english common law like the magna carta
or the english bill of rights of 1689 or
treatises by coke and blackstone in fact
this presumption comes from roman law
and canon law which formed the common
law of europe and eventually this
principle made its way into common law
in a very roundabout way in coffin
versus the united states the supreme
court held that the presumption of
innocence was a bedrock concept in the
american criminal justice system then
justice white credited this to an irish
jurist named leonard mcnally mcnally was
known as a zealous advocate for irish
defendants who were accused of treason
and during mcnally's lifetime the
british system required two witnesses to
prove someone guilty of treason unless
the accused was irish in which case one
witness was sufficient after mcnally's
death the english press found out that
despite his years of advocacy for the
presumption of irish innocence mcnally
was in fact a double agent he
represented irish revolutionaries in
court but reported on their activities
to prosecutors for at least 26 years
despite mcnally's dubious role as a
double agent for the government today
the principle of innocent until proven
guilty is fundamental to the criminal
justice system in the united states
despite it having no reference
whatsoever in the constitution itself
now that's just the tip of the iceberg
of things that you're wrong about the
constitution but this video isn't over
because there's another legal eagle
video about even more things that you're
wrong regarding the constitution not you
obviously but your friends probably
things like the filibuster and the
separation of church and state and this
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