The Universe of Discourse

The loophole in the U.S. Constitution

Gödel took the matter of citizenship with great solemnity, preparing for the exam by making a close study of the United States Constitution. On the eve of the hearing, he called [Oskar] Morgenstern in an agitated state, saying he had found an "inconsistency" in the Constitution, one that could allow a dictatorship to arise.

I've wondered for years what "inconsistency" was.

I suppose the Attorney General could bring some sort of suit in the Supreme Court that resulted in the Court "interpreting" the Constitution to find that the President had the power to, say, arbitrarily replace congresspersons with his own stooges. This would require only six conspirators: five justices and the President. (The A.G. is a mere appendage of the President and is not required for the scheme anyway.)

But this seems outside the rules. I'm not sure what the rules are, but having the Supreme Court radically and arbitrarily "re-interpret" the Constitution isn't an "inconsistency in the Constitution". The solution above is more like a coup d'etat. The Joint Chiefs of Staff could stage a military takeover and institute a dictatorship, but that isn't an "inconsistency in the Constitution" either. To qualify, the Supreme Court would have to find a plausible interpretation of the Constitution that resulted in a dictatorship.

The best solution I have found so far is this: Under Article IV, Congress has the power to admit new states. A congressional majority could agree to admit 150 trivial new states, and then propose arbitrary constitutional amendments, to be ratified by the trivial legislatures of the new states.

This would require a congressional majority in both houses. So Gödel's constant, the smallest number of conspirators required to legally transform the United States into a dictatorship, is at most 269. (This upper bound would have been 267 in 1948 when Gödel became a citizen.) I would like to reduce this number, because I can't see Gödel getting excited over a "loophole" that required so many conspirators.

[ Addendum 20070912: The answer. ]

[ Addendum 20090121: Jeffrey Kegler has discovered Oskar Morgenstern's lost eyewitness account of Gödel's citizenship hearing. Read about it here. ]

[ Addendum 20160129: F.E. Guerra-Pujol has written an article speculating on this topic, “Gödel’s Loophole”. Guerra-Pujol specifically rejects my Article IV proposal for requiring too many conspirators. ]

[ Addendum 20200116: The Harvard Law Review has published an article that proposes my scheme. ]

[Other articles in category /law] permanent link