Pantographs, used for copying documents in different sizes, had been around for centuries by the time the constitution was written. But a better example is the signet ring or seal which could be used in place of a signature to show who has endorsed or written a document.
So if you needed to send important orders or letters to many people you could quickly pour the wax, then stamp your seal or ring into it to "sign" the document. The founding fathers could easily have included a ban on this sort of thing. They didn't.
You have to sign executive orders with the SAME PEN that George Washington used to write the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE or it is BIGLY NULL AND VOID AND DOESNT COUT AND IT'S FAKE NEWS! BOUNCES OFF ME AND STICKS TO YOU! HA! TAKE THAT LOSERS!!!
Moses, It is told kept two sets of tablets. Identical with the exception of a single X which he sharped on the tablet he kept. The other tablet he passed to a group who had grown tired of wandering. And so it is that Moses lead his people to the only place in the Middle East without oil.
A treasonous PotUS
Guns that could shoot off 300 rounds a minute
The Internet
Bidets
Billionaires buying a presidency while the elected one golfs and sits on his golden toilet all day
Stupid questions from stupid people
I don't know how they get away with signing documents and not using a quill. It's incredible! While it doesn't say anything about it in the constitution, all we have to do is look at the original meaning of writing implements to know!
He famously changed the path of Hurricane Dorian with his Sharpie!
During a press conference on March 22, 2020 we found out that "good govs are getting it done, bad ones are not,” thanks to his can-be-seen-from-space Sharpie notes!
I'm sure they didn't. They also never contemplated ball point pens, felt tip pens, crayons, colored pencils, gel tip pens or finger writing on tablet computers either.
That White House clown is suggesting that Biden's pardons had been autopen signed, and that Biden knew nothing about it. Only some mentally unbalanced cretin would even voice that idea.
If a President is deemed NOT mentally competent to stand trial and has to be pulled off the Presidential ticket and his VP put in his place then the use of an auto pen, after those above facts are known, is very very suspect.
There were carved stamps that could be inked and wax seals embossed by an officials seal or signet ring. These carried the official weight and authority of a signature. Seems like an autopen is just a modern version of a signature stamp.
This is from a New York Post article. It's referring to a Trump White House memo.
But it doesn't matter much unless the Supreme Court becomes inclined to stop rather than to facilitate the dictatorship that Trump has declared. Maybe Barrett will slow the dismantling of the Constitutional order.
And it's from DJTs favorite paper the NY Post. Written at the third grade level. The paper with such a prolific headline " The Best Sex I Ever Had" an alleged quote from Marla Maples. A paper laughed at by most NYers.
Well yeah. Just like they contemplated free speech on the internet when creating the 1st amendment. And assault rifles in civilian hands when creating the 2nd amendment. And when an unelected psychopathic billionaire takes over the presidency in amendment... Wait, what amendment was that again?
Guess they didn't even contemplated that 245 later someone would direct the path of a hurricane and doing depictions of his own ECG with the same Sharpie.
Turns out they sort of did. See Steve Vladek post with the decision in a Bush related case that concluded that “sign” includes “instructed to sign” and has since the founding days.
No. But, then, they didn't contemplate Americans ever electing someone so ethically and morally bereft to the Presidency like Donald Trump. Contemplation was less complicated in the 18th Century, it would appear.
I think that Thomas Jefferson used a device similar to an autopen to make copies of documents. Since it could have been used to sign documents it seems to me that at least some of the founders knew of these devices and had no objection to them.
I came here to post the same comment. Yes Thomas Jefferson had one, here is what it looks like. I think it's in his house Monticello in Charlottesville, VA. He used it from 1806 until his death. It was originally called a polygraph machine made by Hawkins and Peale's.
The founders would have had to import barrels of ink from England to run through the fountain pens that pardoned the J6ers. The founders contemplated pardoning maybe 2 people per Presidential term. Tops. They would not have been big fans of pardoning cop killers and wife-swapping Roger Stone.
Yes, they did. At least they contemplated the meaning of "signing" and you can absolutely without a doubt delegate the physical placing of your name on a document that you authorize.
Wow. I don’t know if I’d say it like that way per say, because women did have influence, but probably more in private. In public, well, things were not the best. By today’s standards maybe in that aspect your post makes sense. Respectfully. But MAGA Reps might yearn for those days… aka: Great Again.
They:
could not own property;
were enjoined from making contracts;
were barred from serving as soldiers;
lost their property and earnings upon marriage.
I wanted to be respectful in my post. It was a different time, very different cultural attitudes and ‘mores.’ No excuses. Women’s Rights has come a long, long way. Women had it darn hard back in the Revolutionary Days. Those days were not great for them. MAGA is an ignorant acronym in ways.
No, just like they didn’t contemplate AR-15s and similar weapons designed for battlefields in the hands of unregulated “militia”.
Perhaps one of their biggest mistakes was not including a mandatory Constitutional review and update every 100 years or so to reflect the changing times.
I remember seeing a pantograph pen at Monticello, it was used by Jefferson’s clerks… probably to sign all the IOUs he was sending out (my cousin has one addressed to our ancestor, Jeff borrowed a lot of money from what I can tell)
Date of Issuance: July 7, 2005
“[…], the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
And with no pardons and no secret service for his perceived enemies it's obvious to anyone who is not in that deplorable basket that he wants them in jail or dead. Thanks needed to rant.
The Founders did not contemplate many things like black men being president, automatic guns, telephones, the Internet, airplanes…should the federal government forbid their use? No more phone calls! Send letters by donkey! Back to muskets! Presidents traveling by horse. Any questions?
the president at the time passed them, there's no law against the use of an autopen, and this sounds like a disengenuous question meant as a gotcha toward gun control advocates. But autopens aren't designed to be able to take lives by the dozens, modern firearms are. it's a false equivolency
also the founders didn't understand central AC but instead owned people. They're not the paragons of virtue regressives want to portray them as. They're people we need to do better than, not look up to.
Thomas Jefferson used a machine that copied his writing and used it for presidential documents. So yes, the Founding Fathers did contemplate autopens, at least on a very basic level
Sadly most won't get it. All documents going into the archives are auto penned. But they are also all signed by hand. All of Bidens' s pardons were also on video.
But the news media are too afraid of getting a mean tweet to be a real journalist anymore.
Their attention was on all the spaceships landing in nearby Virginia, apparently on a mission to obtain McNuggets. But I agree, it's an inexcusible oversight & shame on Lenin & Trotsky for their intellectual laziness.
People have argued in court that the 2nd amendment does not cover automatic or semi-automatic weapons because they did not exist when the 2nd amendment was written. Same logic applies to Trump's argument about the autopen.
You can kind of see a small parallel with a segment of Apple fans. “Steve Jobs would’ve never” when Apple now does something they don’t like.
Jobs thought eating a shitload of fruit would cure pancreatic cancer. He had his flaws. But he also told Tim Cook to be himself, not “what would Steve do.”
A large proportion of the country was raised being taught in school and by family that the US is literally the best country in history. And, that it is the best directly because of the constitution. So the Founders become a mythical group of dudes that you owe nearly everything to.
A lot of American jurists were raised in the tradition of Sola Scriptura, the literal interpretation of the Bible. Unlike the Catholics and Orthodox, they don't believe in the teachings of the Saints, i. e. what has been written cannot be reinterpreted in any context. They approach the
founding fathers the same way. What was set down by the founders 250 years ago cannot be interpreted in the context of modern times but is to be followed as written to the letter.
So many European nations have long storied histories dating back half a millenia and the united states had... none of that. So they created a kind of national mythos, a cult if you will, to fill that hole and build a sense of history to the state.
Essentially yes. Im not familiar with when exactly this all started, i assume like much of modern American nationalism it got turned up to 11 during the red scare and the cold war in general. But i could be wrong.
That was a really interesting question. I had a vague sense that even at the turn of the last century or in the 1920's there was a veneration of the "Founding Fathers" so I google ngram'ed it
I think the FF mythos goes back to day 1, with notable surges in 1840, 1900, and 2000 (!)
I was thinking about it and irrc the post civil war confederacy revisionism drew heavily on the idea that the south was carrying on the revolutionary spirit! Or some other such nonsense. They also used that imagery for their own purposes. Its all very much ingrained in our short history.
"Founding Fathers" directly seems to have ramped up in the early 20th century with the WW's, peaking like you say during the red scare. But even in the 1920s it was ramping up
Well, they created our system of government, and since we still live under that system, their intentions carry a lot of weight. Especially to 'constitutional originalists'. And we don't have to guess what these intentions were because they wrote it down.
Conservatives in the 60s and 70s realized that they couldn’t contend with a half century of progressive legal precedent, but they *could* pretend that the founders agreed with them on every modern political question, and so invented originalism as a cover for hijacking American law.
It all goes together. Originalism, anti-choice, anger towards progressive ideas, extreme Christianity, a Supreme Court that has an originalist/textualist majority, Maga! It’s decades in the making. It might take decades to undo.
We should demand trump sign everything with a feather pen. Tell him everything he's ever signed is fraudulent because he didn't do it like the founders
Did.
Presidents have been using autopens for decades. Before that secretaries could sign for a president as needed when authorized. It doesn’t matter what the document is.
Part of why he is so dangerous is that he has obviously sold every favor he can and given a blank check to Musk, Project 2025, and who knows who else for his own personal gain. He's obviously selling out Ukraine.
i think they believed we'd each have individually issued gundams by this point which is why the 3rd amendment was passed (no need to quarter soldiers if you've got a mecha in every home)
He doesn't need to sign, remember, all Biden has to do is think it, right? Like that's how Cheetolini was able to declassify docs, he simply thought about it.
The polygraph wasn't invented until 1803, 16 years after the Constitution was written. However, they had the pantograph, used to make copies of suffering sizes, so clearly they were familiar with "automatic" writing technology.
The Founders understood that there would be advancements that they couldn't fathom. Our entire system was created to be able to adjust to those advancements.
There is no way in hell Trump has personally signed everything that needs his signature. He too lazy. It is just another attempt for him to grab more power and to prosecute any one that offends him.
According to Truth Social, the autopen was created by George Washington, because he predicted that a rogue future president would some day pardon innocent people.
At least one of the Founding Fathers penned an autobiography (with a quill, no doubt) that was so desired it went missing in France for years, and parts may have been fabricated by someone other than him. He was THAT badass. He'd have been floored by this BS.
No they did not but also they did not count on AR 15's, M60 machineguns or many things that will come in the future. Our Constitution is a living document that is supposed to grow in time to adjust to the future. That only happens when people grow.
Same way they anticipated rapid fire automatic weapons when they made the second amendment, and then shrugged and said, "Eh, it'll be fine. Automatic rifles for everybody! Woo!" 🙄
Agreement in history has been evidenced by seal, bull, wax, wet signature, digital signature, and now this thing called an "auto pen." It makes no difference. It's likely nonsense someone said on Twitter or Fox News.
Frankly, if they really cared about these things they would have created an Official Gazette - at least Spain and France had some official newspaper when they were alive.🙃
If you read the opinion of the legal counsel to the president from a couple of decades ago, they did. At least they did, because "signing" has always meant affixing a signature to something the signatory has authorized. I think Steve Vladek posted the opinion for folks like you. It's good.
lol, I'm Canadian and have been saying this since about March 2016. Americans love to go on and on about how great the Declaration is but meanwhile you have an elected felon running the show. The fact Trump exists is proof it's all BS. Wake up.
Actually, my friend, the Declaration is a different document. Conceptually, the Constitution is remarkably resilient but some of the compromises are outmoded, there are some outright contradictions, and, of course, women are excluded.
But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play...?
Nice try bro. My Blockbuster membership is more binding than your "Constitution". It's a joke, and Trump is proving that. Americans are cucks to a felon and you suck that up. Prove me wrong. Seriously, please, prove me wrong.
I love how GOP sees Presidental powers as absolute for them, but for other President's with whom they disagree, those powers are definitely open to overtuning/feckless. It's almost like they're fascists
Comments
A treasonous PotUS
Guns that could shoot off 300 rounds a minute
The Internet
Bidets
Billionaires buying a presidency while the elected one golfs and sits on his golden toilet all day
Stupid questions from stupid people
https://www.justice.gov/file/494411/dl?inline
Why?!?!
He famously changed the path of Hurricane Dorian with his Sharpie!
During a press conference on March 22, 2020 we found out that "good govs are getting it done, bad ones are not,” thanks to his can-be-seen-from-space Sharpie notes!
🧢
But it doesn't matter much unless the Supreme Court becomes inclined to stop rather than to facilitate the dictatorship that Trump has declared. Maybe Barrett will slow the dismantling of the Constitutional order.
The founders contemplated neither.
🧢
Nearly all women could not vote.
They:
could not own property;
were enjoined from making contracts;
were barred from serving as soldiers;
lost their property and earnings upon marriage.
Their husbands spoke for them politically.
We men need to own our history.
🧢
🫱🏻🫲🏽
🧢
Perhaps one of their biggest mistakes was not including a mandatory Constitutional review and update every 100 years or so to reflect the changing times.
A generational review is the smarter choice, even if “conservatives” would take significant issue with that periodicity.
Televisions? Computers? Cars? Air conditioning? Even an old fashioned steam engine would send them for a loop.
If you gave Ben Franklin access to OnlyFans my lord...
“[…], the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/whether-president-may-sign-bill-directing-his-signature-be-affixed-it
#NEVERGIVEANINCH
But the news media are too afraid of getting a mean tweet to be a real journalist anymore.
While other documents similarly signed - including legislation - remain valid
Trust me.
People have argued in court that the 2nd amendment does not cover automatic or semi-automatic weapons because they did not exist when the 2nd amendment was written. Same logic applies to Trump's argument about the autopen.
Jobs thought eating a shitload of fruit would cure pancreatic cancer. He had his flaws. But he also told Tim Cook to be himself, not “what would Steve do.”
Can you imagine 20-year-old me sitting down and creating anything durable that lasts, I don't know, more than 20 minutes?!
I think the FF mythos goes back to day 1, with notable surges in 1840, 1900, and 2000 (!)
Mind you that this group of people included slave owners and they didn’t really include women in much.
Did.
It's just more Orange Bluster because he's a desperately unhappy person
You bet it did.
I would love to hear her answer. she would come up with something.
https://www.shapell.org/behind-the-scenes/the-robot-pen/
So, yes, but no.
US Colony 1600s
Each generation
lived incredibly long
G/Grandfather lived bedroom beside mine he was born 1800s
he knew his G/Grandfather
Revo War Officers
Ancestors viewed
nonsense easily
cleared smoke screens
2024 election
🛰 capture manipulated
Globe seeks tech
M🛰sk
Say it ain’t so, F-L C!
👏🏽
🧢
Every story I see says one random aide made mention of it and Murdoch news media is going ape shit.
But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play...?