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TheDaily Constitution

Plain-language reading and reference for the Constitution of the United States. Independent, and not affiliated with any government body.

This publication

Contact

We read everything that comes in. The message form on this page is the way to reach the editors, and it is the only way we accept correspondence.

What we are glad to hear about

Most of the improvements to this site have come from readers noticing something we missed. Messages of these kinds are genuinely useful:

  • Corrections. A misquoted clause, a wrong date, a section number that does not match the text, a link that has gone dead. Point us at it and we will check it against an official transcript.
  • Passages that are unclear. If an explanation left you more confused than when you started, that is a fault in our writing and worth telling us about.
  • Terms to add to the glossary. If a word stopped you while reading, it has stopped others. Our glossary grows mainly from these suggestions.
  • Questions from teachers and group leaders. How to fit the readings into a term, how to structure a session, what to do with a passage that keeps derailing a discussion.
  • Anything that reads as taking a side. Nonpartiality is the standard we care most about, and an outside eye catches drift that we do not.

What we cannot do

There are limits to what a publication like this can honestly offer, and it is fairer to say so up front.

  • We cannot give legal advice. This is not a law firm and nothing here is advice.
  • We cannot answer questions about your own legal situation. Even a general-sounding question about your circumstances is a legal question, and we are not the right place for it.
  • We cannot recommend a lawyer or refer you to one. Your state or local bar association operates a referral service, and the federal courts publish a general explanation of how the court system is organized if you are trying to work out where a matter belongs.
  • We cannot settle a disputed constitutional question or tell you which reading is correct. Where the answer is contested, we set out the competing readings and leave them standing.

For anything factual, the Constitution Annotated will usually get you further than we can, and our primary sources guide lists the other free authoritative editions. More about how this publication works, and what it is not, is on our about page.

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Use the form below. Tell us which page you are writing about and quote the sentence in question where you can. That single step turns most corrections into a five-minute fix. We do not publish messages, share them, or add anyone to a mailing list.

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