A question about the language used in the U.S. constitution.?

Question

Article 1 section 2 of the constitution states: "No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen."

I understand intrinsically that the double negation begun in the nucleus of the subject changes the meaning of the first and third relative clauses, but in the second clause there is no additional negative, rendering me to consider it as a possible grammatical error with the following literal meaning: "No citizen shall be a representative."

Acknowledging only fools would adhere to that interpretation, I've tried reconsidering my interpretation to no avail. Either it is grammatically incorrect as is, or I'm ignorant of some grammatical rule long since neglected by grammar texts.

I've revised the sentence, changing a position of a comma, and added in parentheses cardinal numbers to indicate that the scope of "who shall not have" is applying to the next 2 immediate clauses, while the subject "no person" continues to apply for the remainder of the sentence.

No person shall be a representative who shall not have, (1) attained the age of 25 years, and (2) been 7 years a citizen of the United States, and who also shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.

Answer 1

It's fine as is. You have a compound verb situation in the first clause (and there are only two). What you are reading as the second clause is the second part of the compound verb. There is no new subject introduced, so it's not a clause in itself. Contrast that with the second clause (your third) where 'who' is the subject.



Read it as: ' . . . who shall not have attained X and been Y, and who . . . .' The comma following 'Years' throws a curve, but that was the punctuation style of the time.

Answer 2

Some random moron on the Internet can't CHANGE the US Constitution.



It clearly means what everyone else on Earth understands it to mean. Adding numbers to it is silly.

Answer 3

Yes, and if the Constitution had been written 228 days ago rather than 228 years ago, your paragraph is exactly the way it would have been written.

Answer 4

You are wrong. "No citizen shall be a representative" was another manner of saying "A Representative must be . . . ." It was the way it was written 200 years ago. There is no double negative.



Much ado about nothing by you.