Earlier this week, while previewing a civil-rights series for the school district, one detail got stuck in my craw. In 1971, Congress proposed the 26th Amendment, which would give 18-year-old citizens the right to vote. Knee deep in Vietnam, it made sense that all of the soldiers should have a say at the voting booth. A hundred days later, all 50 states had ratified the amendment, and constitutional law was changed.
A new law, a hundred days. That got me thinking. How long had other sea changes taken in this country?
December 15, 1791. The Bill of Rights--the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution--became law in 811 days. No quick shakes, by some standards, but considering the unimaginable freedoms these amendments gave to ordinary citizens--free press, free speech, freedom of religion (and those are just in the 1st Amendment)--what's a few years among friends?
December 6, 1865. It took the states 309 days to ratify the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. Less than a year to outlaw an issue that had so recently caused citizens to take up arms against one another. Granted, it took Mississippi until 1995 to back the amendment, but that's another story.
February 3, 1870. Five years after outlawing slavery, the states ratified the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote. It took 342 days to ratify the amendment, but considering that just a few years before this, blacks weren't even considered human, it is both a breathtaking admission of wrongdoing and a righteous step towards addressing that error.
As I scanned the list of amendments and the days it took to ratify them, I noticed that most took less than a year to enact. Ironically, the ones that seemed to take the most time often had to do with money. For instance, it took three and a half years to ratify the 16th Amendment in 1913, which instituted income tax.
But none comes close to the 27th Amendment, which limits pay raises in Congress. Proposed on September 25, 1789, it wasn't until May 7, 1992--74,003 days later--that the country would back this one. Nearly 200 years for us to agree to a pay-raise cap for our legislators.
Had that amendment been proposed this year, my guess is that it would have taken the states about eight minutes to ratify it.
My point? If we needed any additional proof that this, our 111th Congress, has been a less-than-stellar performer, I find no greater proof than the history of the institution itself. Fresh off of a civil war, men once considered enemies managed to reach across the aisle and end slavery once and for all. And they did it in less than a year's time.
I shall always associate our current Congress with the bitter taste of bile across my tongue, so absent has it been of courageous acts and compassionate compromise.
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