Seminar on Original Meaning: Linguistic Analysis of Legal Texts
Class One (Wed, Jan 13)

Discussion Assignment Two: Interpreting constitutional text

Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution, states:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

You are on the legal staff of the House Judiciary and have been asked to research whether an article of impeachment can be drafted charging Donald Trump with treason in relation to the events of January 6 at the Capitol.

1. Without looking at a dictionary, any internet resource, or the text of the Constitution, write down a one sentence definition of what you think “treason” means in Article II, Section 4.
   
2. Open up MS Word version of the Constitution
   Use the “find” function in Word to find and list every time “treason” appears, and then cut and paste into a list each sentence in which “treason” appears each time. (You can probably do this same exercise just using Google.) Do you think “treason” means the same thing every time the word appears in the Constitution? And if so, does that change your answer to (a)?