Cite as: 536 U. S. 452 (2002)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
II
The Framers constitutionalized the requirement that a census be conducted every decade. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 3. In so doing, they chose their words with precision. Chief Justice Marshall instructed that "[a]s men whose intentions require no concealment, generally employ the words which most directly and aptly express the ideas they intend to convey, the enlightened patriots who framed our constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said." Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). We should be guided, therefore, by the Census Clause's "original meaning, for '[t]he Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now.' " McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U. S. 334, 359 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment) (quoting South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437, 448 (1905)).
Article I, § 2, cl. 3, as modified by § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." The Census Clause specifies that this "actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten
when considering a challenge to the Department of Commerce's decision to use statistical sampling in the decennial census for apportionment purposes. There was no need, however, to decide the constitutional question in that case because we held that 13 U. S. C. § 195 "prohibits the use of sampling in calculating the population for purposes of apportionment." 525 U. S., at 340. Both Justice Stevens and Justice Scalia, however, weighed in on the matter. See id., at 362-364 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 346-349 (Scalia, J., concurring in part).
491
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