Dear Charles: The National Archives web page says this:
. How many words are there in the texts in the present volume, and how long does it take to read them? A. The Constitution has 4,543 words, including the signatures but not the certificate on the interlineations; and takes about half an hour to read. The Declaration of Independence has 1,458 words, with the signatures, but is slower reading, as it takes about ten minutes. The Farewell Address has 7,641 words and requires forty-five minutes to read. If you want to cite the source, the URL is: http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/constitution_q_and_a.html It's the Internet, so who knows? On the other hand, the web site purports to be taking its info from a hard copy book: The preceding was excerpted from The Story of the Constitution by Sol Bloom, Washington, DC : National Archives and Record Administration, 1986, c1937. I hope this helps. Chris Schroeder Chris Schroeder Charles S. Murphy Professor of Law and Public Policy Studies Director of the Program in Public Law Duke Law School PO Box 90360 (Corner of Science & Towerview for deliveries) Durham, NC 27708-0360 voice: 919 613 7096 fax: 919 613 7161 [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/19/03 09:19AM >>> In my forthcoming book on constitutional law (Saying What The Law Is: The Constitution in the Supreme Court) which is now approaching page proofs I make assertions about a) the number of words in the Constitution, and b) the number of justices who have sat on the Court since its beginning. I did a machine count of the first and a manual count of the second (Justices elevated to Chief only count for one for my purposes). Does anyone know of any authoritative or at least published counts of either of these items? This is my last chance to be absolutely correct. Many thanks to all. Charles Fried [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1525 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 495 4636 fax: (617) 496 4865 Charles Fried 1525 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 495 4636 fax: (617) 496 4865
BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 X-GWTYPE:USER FN:SCHROEDER, Chris TEL;WORK:613-7096 ORG:;Faculty TEL;PREF;FAX:613-7231 EMAIL;WORK;PREF;NGW:[EMAIL PROTECTED] N:SCHROEDER;Chris TITLE:Professor of Law ADR;DOM;WORK;PARCEL;POSTAL:;4030 LABEL;DOM;WORK;PARCEL;POSTAL;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:SCHROEDER, Chris=0A= 4030 END:VCARD
