# Think Tank > U.S. Constitution >  Word Meanings Deliberately changed

## romacox

Many word meanings have changed from the time of our Founding Fathers to now, and one needs to take that into account when studying the Constitution.

The word "Welfare" is used in the Preamble of the Constitution, and many take it mean giving the Federal Government sweeping powers.

According to the 1828 version of Websters, welfare means: "2. exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to States.  Today' Websters dictionary defines welfare: "receiving government aid because of poverty, etc.  One can type in words like democracy, welfare, republic, democratic republic....and compare it with today's dictionary with shocking results.
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters

Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." 

 George Washington summed it best in his farewell speech: "Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."

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## Chester Copperpot

Hey has anybody ever thought of going back thru the constitution and picking out the words whose meanings have changed and sort of annotated a constitution with them?

I think it would be well for at least the congress to get this as a gift.. or to put up ona website so people could view the information as it was originally intended to be understood...

Ill help with a project like this...

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## dannno

Wow, good point.

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## Kludge

Um..... Isn't poverty opposite "peace and prosperity?" Unemployment is arguably an unusual calamity.... unpayable doctors' bills, poor farm yields, disability....

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## LittleLightShining

> The word "Welfare" is used in the Preamble of the Constitution, and many take it mean giving the Federal Government sweeping powers.
> 
> According to the 1828 version of Websters, welfare means: "2. exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to States.  Today' Websters dictionary defines welfare: "receiving government aid because of poverty, etc.  One can type in words like democracy, welfare, republic, democratic republic....and compare it with today's dictionary with shocking results.
> http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters


I just stole this and posted it to facebook with the link to the dictionary page-- hope you don't mind. 

Excellent post!

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## romacox

I don't mind at all Little Light.  The information was shared with me, and I am passing it on.

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## heavenlyboy34

This is a point I have to CONSTANTLY explain to left liberals and often conservatives.  nice post. 




> Many word meanings have changed from the time of our Founding Fathers to now, and one needs to take that into account when studying the Constitution.
> 
> The word "Welfare" is used in the Preamble of the Constitution, and many take it mean giving the Federal Government sweeping powers.
> 
> According to the 1828 version of Websters, welfare means: "2. exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to States.  Today' Websters dictionary defines welfare: "receiving government aid because of poverty, etc.  One can type in words like democracy, welfare, republic, democratic republic....and compare it with today's dictionary with shocking results.
> http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters
> 
> Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." 
> 
>  George Washington summed it best in his farewell speech: "Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."

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## osan

> Many word meanings have changed from the time of our Founding Fathers to now, and one needs to take that into account when studying the Constitution.
> 
> The word "Welfare" is used in the Preamble of the Constitution, and many take it mean giving the Federal Government sweeping powers.
> 
> According to the 1828 version of Websters, welfare means: "2. exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to States.  Today' Websters dictionary defines welfare: "receiving government aid because of poverty, etc.  One can type in words like democracy, welfare, republic, democratic republic....and compare it with today's dictionary with shocking results.
> http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters
> 
> Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." 
> 
>  George Washington summed it best in his farewell speech: "Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."


An essay on this very topic may be found here: http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com...d-freedom.html

The central role that words and language play in our lives is properly understood by very few people on the planet.  Were people to fully comprehend the importance of words and language in their lives, I believe most would be stricken with a profound terror for the tenuous threads by which our very existences hang which we call those utterances and what they allow and at times drive us to do.

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## osan

> Hey has anybody ever thought of going back thru the constitution and picking out the words whose meanings have changed and sort of annotated a constitution with them?


An excellent suggestion.




> I think it would be well for at least the congress to get this as a gift.. or to put up ona website so people could view the information as it was originally intended to be understood...
> 
> Ill help with a project like this...


I am not loathe to put a hand in such an endeavor.  We would need a period dictionary.  Any online?

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## Isaac Bickerstaff

> An excellent suggestion.
> 
> 
> 
> I am not loathe to put a hand in such an endeavor.  We would need a period dictionary.  Any online?


The Devil's Dictionary
http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?P




> POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.





> SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

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## slothman

It would need to be a 1789 or whenever dictionary.

I was thinking of such an amendment that is more like a precedent and gives information like "The Federalist Papers" and personal papers to tell what the founders were thinking about when they wrote the Const.
It would have no real laws or requirements in it though.
It would have helped SCOTUS find out if "separate but equal" was better or worse than "separate is inherently unequal."

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## nate895

There is an older dictionary from around 1785 that is the most accurate as far as the US Constitution, but Webster's is generally good. Webster's still has some problems as far as a couple of words are concerned in the Constitution, but it won't lead you to a misinterpretation of the document like latest edition of the Oxford dictionary would. 

The meaning of words is definitely a very important aspect of our study of anything really. That is why philosophy in the 20th and 21st century, with the exception of process thought and Reformed epistemology, is so preoccupied with language.

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## osan

> There is an older dictionary from around 1785 that is the most accurate as far as the US Constitution


Do you have a title?  Know where I might find one?

Dead serious about this.  If I get my analytical teeth into this, I could produce something perhaps worthwhile.  I think the idea is sound and would not mind taking a crack at it.

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## nayjevin

> Do you have a title?  Know where I might find one?
> 
> Dead serious about this.  If I get my analytical teeth into this, I could produce something perhaps worthwhile.  I think the idea is sound and would not mind taking a crack at it.


That is a really good idea, if instructed well.  If I could initiate myself into that it would be great.  I think I have a pretty good dearth of vocabulary and understanding of lexuscography.

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## Original_Intent

> This is a point I have to CONSTANTLY explain to left liberals and often conservatives.  nice post.


Two more words that have had their meaning butchered beyond recognition - liberal and conservative. Also fascism.

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## nate895

> Do you have a title?  Know where I might find one?
> 
> Dead serious about this.  If I get my analytical teeth into this, I could produce something perhaps worthwhile.  I think the idea is sound and would not mind taking a crack at it.


archive.org has it in two volumes, but they are scanned photos, so it is quite difficult (though not impossible) to read them at parts:

http://www.archive.org/details/dicti...engl01johnuoft
http://www.archive.org/details/dicti...engl02johnuoft

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## therepublic

Thanks for sharing this link Osan

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## osan

> archive.org has it in two volumes, but they are scanned photos, so it is quite difficult (though not impossible) to read them at parts:
> 
> http://www.archive.org/details/dicti...engl01johnuoft
> http://www.archive.org/details/dicti...engl02johnuoft


 This will be a good start.  Let us see how well I can make something of this.  It will be a while before I can start as I am in the middle of preparations to move.

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## rancher89

FWIW

http://teamlaw.org/

Down on the left side there's an "online resources" link  that is extensive.

I just found this site recently, I am not a member, but I've found some very interesting information, check out the "patriot mythology" link as well.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Two more words that have had their meaning butchered beyond recognition - liberal and conservative. Also fascism.



Agreed.  That's why I used the modifier "left liberal".   In the bigger picture, even that is probably not clear enough.  I should have been clearer about "conservative", though. /facepalm  

grrrr...damned propagandists-always hijacking language on me!

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## Elwar

"Well Regulated" used to mean well maintained...such as someone cleaning and keeping up their musket has a "well regulated" musket...a musket that you know will work when you need it.

Why not pick a few words from the Constitution and start to change them in our favor?

We could change our current day meaning of taxes to the word "excessive fines" or "excessive bail".

And then change "taxes on incomes" to mean complaints against government.

So the 8th Amendment will be read like:
"Income taxes" shall not be required, nor cruel or unusual punishments inflicted.

16th Amendment will be read like:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect "complaints against government", from whatever source derived...

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## osan

> Um..... Isn't poverty opposite "peace and prosperity?" Unemployment is arguably an unusual calamity.... unpayable doctors' bills, poor farm yields, disability....


These are all relative terms, so the answer to your question is "it depends", which is to say that the insinuation of a categorical "yes" is by no means so.

$#@! happens to people all the time.  In most cases it is not government's role to "help".  Let us be clear on what "help" means in such cases: the benefit of one at the detriment of another.  Government does not ask permission to use one's privately held resources to "help" another - they employ force or the threat thereof, including lethal varieties.  Such exercise is clearly beyond the powers granted to government in the USA, and it should be in any nation as far as I am concerned.

Every "calamity" you list is none of government's business insofar as stealing from me in order to help you.

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## Roxi

> Hey has anybody ever thought of going back thru the constitution and picking out the words whose meanings have changed and sort of annotated a constitution with them?
> 
> I think it would be well for at least the congress to get this as a gift.. or to put up ona website so people could view the information as it was originally intended to be understood...
> 
> Ill help with a project like this...




thats a good idea... people could volunteer to look up each word in a sentence and then report their sentence rewritten to someone who could put it all together and publish it into a book.

I'm game. I would spend some time helping with this project if enough people volunteered to look up a sentence... anyone know how many sentences are in the Constitution?

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## Roxi

Ok I will start working on dividing the Constitution into sentences by number, anyone who want to help with that would be awesome....

once I get it all numbered I will create a thread for it and people can volunteer to take a number to translate 

I set up TherealConstitution@gmail.com

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## Live_Free_Or_Die

nt

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## osan

> Hey has anybody ever thought of going back thru the constitution and picking out the words whose meanings have changed and sort of annotated a constitution with them?
> 
> I think it would be well for at least the congress to get this as a gift.. or to put up ona website so people could view the information as it was originally intended to be understood...
> 
> Ill help with a project like this...



I have prepared a copy of the Constitution in Word-format with each line numbered and double-spaced.  I am unable to post attachments, so perhaps one of you guys can post it here?  Let me know.

If we are going to do this, may I suggest that we turn this into a more or less formal project and each do a section?  For example, I would be very interested in focusing on the BoR or even just a part of it if others are also interested in it.  But the entire document should be covered and we should proof and review each others' work and try to reconcile style and be very careful with the precision with which the work is carried out in the final product.

What say ye?

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## osan

> Ok I will start working on dividing the Constitution into sentences by number, anyone who want to help with that would be awesome....
> 
> once I get it all numbered I will create a thread for it and people can volunteer to take a number to translate 
> 
> I set up TherealConstitution@gmail.com


I could swear I replied to this last week, but now cannot find it.

Anyhow, on the chance I was dreaming it all, I will once again out it out there that I have already done this task.  The lines are numbered by Article and Section and is in Word format.  I cannot post attachments, so anyone interested please let me know and I will mail the document to you.

Sorry if this turns out to be redundant posting.

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## GunnyFreedom

Google Docs is good for collaborating on a Word file.  If I were participating (I'd love to, but my time is at an all-time premium right now) I would suggest hyper linking the word in question to a hover-over pop-up of a capture of the dictionary's text.

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## nayjevin

oops

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## Roxi

> I could swear I replied to this last week, but now cannot find it.
> 
> Anyhow, on the chance I was dreaming it all, I will once again out it out there that I have already done this task.  The lines are numbered by Article and Section and is in Word format.  I cannot post attachments, so anyone interested please let me know and I will mail the document to you.
> 
> Sorry if this turns out to be redundant posting.



YES!! please email that to therealconstitution@gmail.com!

and I am going to start a new thread as we will need volunteers

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## Roxi

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...81#post2584281

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## nayjevin

> Google Docs is good for collaborating on a Word file.  If I were participating (I'd love to, but my time is at an all-time premium right now) I would suggest hyper linking the word in question to a hover-over pop-up of a capture of the dictionary's text.


This is a good idea... a picture of the original constitution, with the ability to see old-world definitions on hover.

Annotations alongside it perhaps. 

I daresay this is a better idea than some sort of line-by-line translation.  It's not really being translated anyway - just a few key words really.

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## tmosley

The next version of the constitution needs to contain a "definition of terms" section, as is common in modern contracts.  This will prevent such usurpations from occurring in the future.  It is a pain in the ass, but necessary when silver tongued demons come forth among men to destroy freedom, as is most common today (and, I suspect, always has been).

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## osan

> YES!! please email that to therealconstitution@gmail.com!
> 
> and I am going to start a new thread as we will need volunteers


Tonight.  Buried my cat today and feel like crap so I'm "in town" just to get away a bit.

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## osan

> Google Docs is good for collaborating on a Word file. If I were participating (I'd love to, but my time is at an all-time premium right now) I would suggest hyper linking the word in question to a hover-over pop-up of a capture of the dictionary's text.


Excellent idea Gunny.  I may post it there.

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## osan

> The next version of the constitution needs to contain a "definition of terms" section, as is common in modern contracts. This will prevent such usurpations from occurring in the future. It is a pain in the ass, but necessary when silver tongued demons come forth among men to destroy freedom, as is most common today (and, I suspect, always has been).


The constitution I wrote does exactly this.  It was just an intellectual exercise, but the structure is definitely better than what we have.  It protects the good people from the bad a lot better than our current version.  It is a beautiful document, but it has been co-opted by people who have very bad ideas about free living.

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## nayjevin

off topic, but




> when silver tongued demons come forth among men


please expand that into a song.

Or may I?

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## osan

> Google Docs is good for collaborating on a Word file.  If I were participating (I'd love to, but my time is at an all-time premium right now) I would suggest hyper linking the word in question to a hover-over pop-up of a capture of the dictionary's text.


OK, I uploaded it to google docs.  Folks should be able to access it here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ab...NHZuM2Yy&hl=en

If anyone has trouble, let me know.

Also, the formatting I used has not been preserved in full faith.  Most notably, the double-spacing appears to gone the way of the dodo.

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## Chester Copperpot

bump

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## GunnyFreedom

> Tonight.  Buried my cat today and feel like crap so I'm "in town" just to get away a bit.


I came awful close to having to do that very recently.  He is starting with kidney failure, so I know it can't be that far off

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## osan

> YES!! please email that to therealconstitution@gmail.com!
> 
> and I am going to start a new thread as we will need volunteers



Did you get it?

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## Baptist

> Many word meanings have changed from the time of our Founding Fathers to now, and one needs to take that into account when studying the Constitution.
> 
> The word "Welfare" is used in the Preamble of the Constitution, and many take it mean giving the Federal Government sweeping powers.
> 
> *According to the 1828* version of Websters, welfare means: "2. exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to States.  Today' Websters dictionary defines welfare: "receiving government aid because of poverty, etc.  One can type in words like democracy, welfare, republic, democratic republic....and compare it with today's dictionary with shocking results.
> http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters
> 
> Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." 
> 
>  George Washington summed it best in his farewell speech: "Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."



The Webster's 1828 dictionary is my 2nd favorite book.  It is a MUST for anyone who likes to study the Bible (King James of course), and it is a must for anyone who likes to read books and documents from the 1700s-1800s.  

Webster knew 28 languages and spent many years putting this dictionary together.  The Webster 1828 was the *first* dictionary made for Americans.

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## osan

Bump for giggles.

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## Romulus

good thread is good.

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