Talk:Preamble to the United States Constitution

Law High‑importance

	Law portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States: Government High‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject U.S. Government (assessed as High-importance).

U.S. Congress High‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Congress, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United States Congress on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.U.S. CongressWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. CongressTemplate:WikiProject U.S. CongressU.S. Congress
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is about one (or many) Thing(s).

United States Constitution High‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States Constitution, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Constitution of the United States on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United States ConstitutionWikipedia:WikiProject United States ConstitutionTemplate:WikiProject United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article has not yet been assigned a subject. The options are: "Person", "People", "Place", "Thing", and "Events."

Politics: American High‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by American politics task force (assessed as High-importance).

Archives

Archive 1

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by when more than 1 section is present.

Protecting our constitution & its rights.

I would like to see a spot specifically added to inform on the importance of the constitution of the USA.

It is very important to elaborate to fellow constitutionalist the power of invoking their constitutional rights in crucial moments, and how to defend it.

Can we elaborate to the people the constitution and why it is the law of the land, superior to state constitutions? Constitutionalist24 (talk) 02:24, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Strange article for such a proposal. You can propose such changes on the article about the Constitution of the United States. Dimadick (talk) 18:44, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Preamble

Title of Trust. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:579:5244:2E:5118:590:1774:D949 (talk) 00:13, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/preamble — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:579:5244:2E:5118:590:1774:D949 (talk) 00:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2024

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected article at Preamble to the United States Constitution. (edit · history · last · links · protection log)

This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y".

The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |answered=no parameter to "yes" when the request has been accepted, rejected or on hold awaiting user input. This is so that inactive or completed requests don't needlessly fill up the edit requests category. You may also wish to use the {{ESp}} template in the response. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, make a protection request.

Change "Order" in the preamble to "order".

"Order" in the preamble has a capitalized O. Currently, it shows "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,", despite the fact that the capitalization of that word is grammatically incorrect and does not appear to be capitalized in the original. I think it should be changed to "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union," KayoBoba (talk) 07:06, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done for now, although other editors may revert and discuss. Have used the first printing of the Constitution, which lowercases 'order'. The engrossed original is questionable, and could be read either way. Will ping Rjensen for guidance here. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the original handwritten constitution the "O" in order stands slightly above the 'r', 'e', and 'r', and is at the same height as the 'd', so casing may depend on point of view. I've followed the edit request using the first printed copy as the default, although this may have or may have not been changed in later copies and in modern renditions. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:46, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Will revert back to the uppercase for now per the National Archives transcript. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

the lower case is the original text passed by Congress--the capital-O was added by an engraver without any official approval by Congress for his change. Rjensen (talk) 10:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rjensen, here's where it gets tricky. The National Archives, Britannica, and many other sources uppercase 'Order', and it took awhile to find this example of early lowercasing. Logic and commonsense clash with sources here, an example of Wikipedia's constant dilemma. Do you have a definitive source for lowercasing, or is the link I just provided enough to lowercase. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Look at "The Official Edition of the Constitution, the First Printing of the Final Text of the Constitution" at https://hyperallergic.com/695096/an-original-copy-of-us-constitution-becomes-most-expensive-document-ever-sold/ the timing is important--typo changes were made after this one. See official history pp 8-9 at https://archive.org/details/journalactsproce1819unit/page/9/mode/1up

Rjensen (talk) 13:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

a comment on expertise: the job of the National Archives is to obtain and preserve historic documents. (I spent several years on the Board of the Illinois State Archives where we discussed these roles.) They do not much read or interpret them. At Sotheby where they collect $$$$ on sales their experts look for evidence of historic timing. The "first" makes a $$$$$ difference compared to "second". So when they say this is "the first printing" it's credible. And they have the exact dates too. Rjensen (talk) 14:54, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]