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Maine's constitution has unprintable sections
- moron4hire 3y agoOne wonders what the motivations were in 1876 to redact this portion of Maine's constitution.
- eigenket 3y ago> Part of the redacted material pertained to Maine’s treaty obligations to Wabanaki people. The motivation is very obvious - they wanted to conveniently forget their treaty obligations.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoIf they wanted to renege on their treaties with Native tribes, they likely would have openly done so. That's what was happening in most of the US around 1870.
- throwaway167 3y agoPerhaps they sought to hide it so those that sought to renege couldn't, making it a forever obligation.
- eigenket 3y agoGiven that about a month or so after the redaction they renaged on their obligations over Grass Island that seems unlikely https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/display?use_mmn=1 https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/...
- ethbr1 3y agoIt was nice to see the Supreme Court reverse the quiet abrogation trend 3 years ago: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889562040/supreme-court-rules-that-about-half-of-oklahoma-is-indian-land https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889562040/supreme-court-rules... The 5-4 ruling, Gorsuch writing for majority, is a really interesting read: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf Essentially, both liberals and conservatives can agree that... if the United States entered into a treaty... and the United States government never explicitly overrode that treaty... then it still stands. Which, fair, but still nice to see recognition even when the question has repercussions for the eastern half of Oklahoma, the state is opposed, and the facts are inconvenient.
- enragedcacti 3y ago> Essentially, both liberals and conservatives can agree that... if the United States entered into a treaty... I think it would be more accurate to say that liberals and Gorsuch, who is uncharacteristically liberal on native american issues, can agree. Gorsuch's footnotes do a good job imo of making clear that the four conservative dissenting votes have very little respect for the treaties and promises made.
- rsynnott 3y agoI mean, I get why, but it's very odd that people think of this as a liberal vs conservative issue; it is a rule of law issue.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agowell as Trump's repeated attempts to overturn the election show, preserving democracy and the rule of law are somewhat divided along party lines
- enragedcacti 3y agoI agree that I'm playing kind of fast and loose with the terms. I think you could definitely make an argument that Gorsuch argues the position from a small-c conservative "rule of law" perspective. In my view the dissent is operating on a very different rule-of-law, one that Gorsuch is happy to dabble in with most other issues: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. It's satisfying to raise issues above the partisan or ideological divide, but if the people that call themselves conservative consistently find ways make the law protect their own while restraining others, as four of them try to do here, then its naive to assume that the issues are really transcendent of that.
- rayiner 3y ago[flagged]
- enragedcacti 3y agoThis is the relevant piece I believe: > The Articles also required that its terms and conditions “be incorporated into, and become and be a part of any Constitution, provisional or other, under which the Government of the said proposed State, shall, at any time hereafter, be administered; subject however, to be modified, or annulled by the agreement of the Legislature of both the said States; but by no other power or body whatsoever." They couldn't remove the sections because the terms of their statehood had them inherit obligations from Massachusetts that supersede their state constitution.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoI don't think needing Massachusetts to sign off on your reneging would be a meaningful barrier.
- enragedcacti 3y agoAs far as I can tell the historical context around the decision is lost, but I wouldn't be surprised if Massachusetts could have been a legitimate barrier to actually eliminating the sections. One piece of historical context we do have is this: > In 1967, Maine’s first Indian affairs commissioner, anthropologist Edward Hinckley, discovered Maine had received $30,000 from Massachusetts in compensation, but the state never actually set aside new land for the tribes. If you're Mass. and you created those articles for a reason then I wouldn't find it surprising if you didn't want to help Maine throw them out after they've already violated your will at least once. All of that is secondary to the fact that they did renege on their promises repeatedly and unabashedly for the next century. Hiding the sections from print could have been an attempt to stop legal challenges before they started, it could have just been out of spite. Who knows, maybe they were very eco-friendly and were worried about all that wasted paper! I find it quite silly to extend such extreme benefit of the doubt to the state government that we already know wanted to escape those treaties and successfully did so before, during, and after passing this amendment.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago>If you're Mass. and you created those articles for a reason then I wouldn't find it surprising if you didn't want to help Maine throw them out after they've already violated your will at least once. If you created those articles, you were probably dead by 1870, and definitely dead by 1967. Any generation of lawmakers would have been willing to renegotiate the terms if it benefited them. >find it quite silly to extend such extreme benefit of the doubt to the state government that we already know wanted to escape those treaties and successfully did so before, during, and after passing this amendment. I said that the US at that point cared so little about honoring treaties with Native tribes that I doubted they'd bother formally amending a constitution to do so. That's not giving them the benefit of the doubt.
- eesmith 3y agoLooks like you are right: https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/display?use_mmn=1 https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/... There was a 1874 court case where Granger claimed he owned the land by a deed granted the same year Massachusetts signed a treaty with the Passamaquoddy Tribe. The court decided for Granger. Under the treaty obligation, "it was Maine’s duty to compensate the Passamaquoddy for the value of the lost land, and to pay the Tribe's court costs and damages—neither of which happened." Maine couldn't simply change its constitution as the Articles of Separation requires "bars Maine from altering the Articles of Separation without the consent of Massachusetts and requires their inclusion in the Maine Constitution." To be clear, it appears there is no smoking gun which explicitly says this is the reason, but the people involve knew, or likely knew, about the case when developing the 1876 change. There is a 2022 paper on the topic titled “‘It May Be Questionable’: Granger v. Avery and the Redaction of Article X, Section 5 from the Maine Constitution“ at https://www.academia.edu/60751074/_It_May_Be_Questionable_Granger_v_Avery_and_the_Redaction_of_Article_X_Section_5_from_the_Maine_Constitution_ https://www.academia.edu/60751074/_It_May_Be_Questionable_Gr... which may have more.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoThis is a cynical take that I don't think can be made honestly by anyone who has read the sections
- enragedcacti 3y agoIt's just a coincidence that Maine has repeatedly reneged on its responsibilities stemming from those sections: > If the constitutional commissioners who proposed the 1875 suppression of Section 5 intended to ensure the state’s obligations were forgotten, they were successful. Rather than protecting the Indians’ trust lands, Maine authorized some tracts to be flooded by dams, others to be annexed for the laying out of highways, and thousands more acres transferred to white owners. In no case was compensation given to the Indians, in violation of treaty obligations. In 1893, Maine courts even ruled that the Passamaquoddy tribe didn’t exist because it lacked sovereign powers. https://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/01/legislation-would-put-hidden-sections-of-maines-constitution-back-into-print/ https://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/01/legislation-would-put...
- s1artibartfast 3y agoYes, it is just a coincidence, in that Maine, as every other State (AFAIK) have reneged on their responsibilities. "The forgetting" has nothing to do with the constitutional change. Most people don't know or care about the contents of their state constitutions. Redaction wasnt useful legally or generally in the violation of indian treaties.
- eigenket 3y agoIt is interesting that the redaction happened one month before the final judgement in the Granger v. Avery court case. https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/display?use_mmn=1 https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/...
- s1artibartfast 3y agoThe redaction had and has no bearing on the law, because the redacted portion is still fully binding. What exactly is the meat of this conspiracy theory. That The judges were duped with misleading constitutions? That it was some sort of government psyop to influence public sentiment in the long run by distributing misleading documents?
- boomboomsubban 3y agoJudging by the other two sections redacted, it seemed more to get rid of the establishment cruft than any nefarious purpose. The full text of section 5 is rather long and contains a lot of things not really relevant after they were an established state. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Maine#Text_of_Article_X,_Section_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Maine#Text_of_...
- earthboundkid 3y agoTFA makes it pretty clear: to make it less likely for Wabanaki to win court cases.
- OskarS 3y ago"pretty clear" is an overstatement, I read it and I didn't understand it. I'm not a lawyer, but the article could have included... you know... your exact comment somewhere.
- broken-kebab 3y agoCould you please quote that part? I can't find anything like it there
- s1artibartfast 3y agohow would it make it less likely? Is seems like you are making some logical jumps
- anovikov 3y agoGiven how 1876 elections went, that time was probably more politically crazy that today, so a lot of things could happen.
- pard68 3y agoInteresting strategy. Can't amend a legal document? Just make the portions you dislike illegal to print!
- CoastalCoder 3y agoAnd require readers to agree to arbitration if they feel that part of the constitution isn't being obeyed.
- NewJazz 3y agoI think most constitutions do this? They pick/invent the court.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ooterness 3y agoHow long is the section in question? Are we talking about 2-3 paragraphs or 100 pages of text?
- anony123 3y agoAbout 2-3 pages. You can find the text at https://www.legislature.maine.gov/lawlibrary/sections-of-the-maine-constitution-omitted-from-printing/9296/ https://www.legislature.maine.gov/lawlibrary/sections-of-the...
- jaywalk 3y agoIf I print that page, should I stay out of Maine unless/until this amendment passes?
- tiahura 3y agoTribal entitlements should be dismantled around the world.
- mr_inspector 3y agointeresting take. Could you elaborate why you think so ?
- jstanley 3y agoAssuming a tribal entitlement entitles you to something based on what tribe you're born into, it seems pretty obviously discriminatory.
- ethbr1 3y agoLike birthright citizenship?
- jstanley 3y agoSure! I'm on board. Let's abolish the concept of citizenship while we're at it.
- smaudet 3y agoSo....you're into anarchy? Sorry to say, discriminatory behavior is fairly common in anarchic systems (see, evolution, mating impulses). You need a bit of discrimination in order to not discriminate. Don't like it? Rewrite the laws of physics! (maybe fix the whole good and evil thing too while you're at it)
- shepherdjerred 3y agoThe parent did not mention anarchy. Abolishing the concept of citizenship is not exclusive to having a functioning government.
- idlewords 3y agoFew people know the modern Maine constitution was drafted by Ken Thompson.
- hdivider 3y agoEven better approach: do it like the British. An 'unwritten' constitution. No need to even have a document for the plebs to read and criticize. Whatever gets a majority in Parliament ends up being the so-called constitution.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoI don't think you're being fair to the British here. Their constitution, though not written as a single constitutional document, has at least parts that are written (most notably, the Magna Carta). The whole functions as something significantly more rigid than what a majority in Parliament decides.
- gustavus 3y agoApparently it includes allowing for sending people to prison because they criticize politicians and jailing people who are carrying a chisel or pair of scissors though. EDIT: And because I watched it on Sunday. Remember as always ENGLAND PREVAILS!
- NeoTar 3y agoYep. One of the strengths of the British Constitution is also one of its weaknesses - under the concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty "[the parliament] may change or repeal any previous legislation and so it is not bound by written law or by precedent. " So, the things you like in a constitution are not set-in-stone and can be overturned, but so can the things you don't like.
- maxwell 3y agoYeah, in the U.S. the people retain sovereignty instead, and our Constitution, the first codified constitution in history, provides a narrow set of powers for the federal government that serves us, written after we defeated the most powerful empire up to that point near the peak of their power in the first successful war of independence. Statutes can always be tossed or repealed, but our rights may only be overturned via amendment (Gödel's hack).
- rpbiwer2 3y agoSeeing as how this is Hacker News, I thought this was going to be about how the constitution contains non printable characters or something.
- 1970-01-01 3y agoI thought the same! Some non-English writing, perhaps native Indian writing or something was stuck in the physical books. Nope, just omitted legal text.
- johnobrien1010 3y agoYeah, IMHO title should probably be has unprinted sections, not unprintable sections
- School-Cotton 3y agoOr rather “not officially printed”. I’m sure some lawyer somewhere has printed them.
- MiddleEndian 3y agoI was expecting a saved picture of their constitution that somehow triggered a counterfeit deterrence system on a govt printer.
- CalRobert 3y agoToss in some ANSII color escape sequences, perhaps!
- rob74 3y agoThe title is a little misleading: the sections are not "unprintable" due to technical reasons, they are just currently not printed because the constitution itself says they shouldn't be printed...
- mrcwinn 3y agoOf note: another ballot question would restore Maine's constitution to using spaces.
- Aardwolf 3y agoSo how is it preserved now? By word of mouth?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoBy printed copies from before 1876. I'm sure the state government has some copies in archives somewhere.
- Kranar 3y agoAs has been pointed out, there are copies of it that contain the unprintable sections. With that said it's worth mentioning that many laws, even in the U.S., aren't exactly printed or documented per say. Plenty of countries have unwritten constitutions; for example in Canada there is no mention of the Prime Minister in any constitutional document, it exists by legal convention.
- codexb 3y agoI think it would be more accurate to state that the Prime Minister's power and authority exist at the pleasure of the British Monarchy. Legally, the British Monarch, and by extension, the Governor General of Canada has ultimate authority over the Canadian government. I'm amazed Canada has retained this system of government for so long.
- someotherperson 3y agoThis is the case in almost all Commonwealth countries no? The system works because the country is still relatively healthy. Nobody really cares at the end of the day what leadership style the country has, as long as the leadership ensures that the laws represent the ethics, that there is some concept of justice, and general healthy HDI (whether it's safety, work opportunities, housing, education, whatever). Democracy is usually seen as some way to achieve this, but there is also a sharp difference between healthy democracies and democracies that start and end at the ballot. You can equally have dictatorships that are just as healthy, if not healthier, than many democracies (for example the UAE or Oman).
- 3y ago
- justrealist 3y agoThe redacted section is on wikipedia fwiw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Maine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Maine
- DonHopkins 3y agoDoes it include css to prevent it from printing?
- h2odragon 3y agoThat would only be required in state, no?
- rsynnott 3y ago> What is the history behind Question 6? I feel like this section doesn't really _answer_ that. Like, it has the _what_, but not the _why_. Very odd. I was expecting it to either be some sort of particularly arcane issue with actually printing (maybe characters not representable in Unicode?), or, at an outside chance, obscene material. Vaguely reminded of Charlie Stross's Laundry Files, where Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act is itself secret, because it self-classifies under Section 2.
- returningfory2 3y agoAgreed, though I'm guessing the "why" is that those parts of the constitution are not considered relevant anymore. It's like the part of article 1 section 2 of the Federal Constitution that describes the initial apportionment of seats in the House [1]. It makes sense it was put in there, but nowadays it's irrelevant. [1] "until such enumeration shall be made..." https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#1-2 https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...
- rayiner 3y agoI hate how this article is written. The article makes it seem like the redaction in 1876 was done for purposes of hiding the treaty obligations to Indians. But it never proves that implication. Instead, it admits halfway through that the entire text of the provisions inherited from the Articles of Separation were also redacted: > Sections 1 and 2 of Article X were also redacted in 1876. They covered when the first Maine legislature would meet, when initial elections would be held, how Senate and House seats would be allocated as between the counties and towns, and what the initial terms of Maine’s elected and appointed officers would be. In reality it seems like the redaction was done to eliminate from the printed copies provisions specific to the implementation of Maine’s separation from Massachusetts.
- _moof 3y ago> In reality it seems like the redaction was done to eliminate from the printed copies provisions specific to the implementation of Maine’s separation from Massachusetts. Sounds like a great way to sell "hey let's not talk about that whole Wabanaki thing" without having to come right out and say "hey let's not talk about that whole Wabanaki thing." A political tactic as old as the hills: package your unpalatable agenda in something that sounds totally reasonable on its face. I'm not saying that's definitely what happened here, but I am saying that just because they also stopped printing other sections and billed it as something benign doesn't necessarily mean that was the actual motivation.
- rayiner 3y agoAmong other things, you’re projecting modern sensitivities onto people in 1876. At the time, I doubt anyone was talking about it in 1876 or the public would have cared if the relevant text was more visible.
- brucecrust 3y ago[flagged]
- zen928 3y agoAny reason why your doubts have any higher validity than their suppositions? If you want to shut down their viewpoint, you could augment your statement with examples backing the level of confidence you seem to display about your stance despite it being a assertion based entirely on your personal feelings. I doubt you can make a claim on the self imagined apathetic response of a faceless group of people 150 years ago. You "doubting" isn't any more valid. I don't see it as unreasonable that institutional discrimination existed in 1876.