Cite as: 536 U. S. 452 (2002)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
from modern registers to make up for deficient registers. Glass 111-112.
To be sure, the Census Clause enables Congress to prescribe the "Manner" in which the enumeration is taken. The Court suggests that "enumeration" implies the breadth of Congress' methodological authority, rather than its constraints. See ante, at 474. But while Congress may dictate the manner in which the census is conducted,7 it does not have unbridled discretion. For the purposes of apportionment, it must follow the Constitution's command of an "actual Enumeration." Madison made this point clear during debate of the first Census Act when he noted the difficulties "attendant on the taking the census, in the way required by the constitution, and which we are obliged to perform." Founders' Constitution 139.
The Court also places undue weight on the penultimate version of the Clause, the iteration that was given to the Committee of Detail and Committee of Style. See ante, at 474-475. Whatever may be said of the earlier version, the Court rejected a similar reliance in Nixon v. United States, 506 U. S. 224, 231 (1993), because "we must presume that the Committee's reorganization or rephrasing accurately captured what the Framers meant in their unadorned lan-7 As described infra, at 503-504, Congress has implemented this power in a variety of ways, such as by authorizing marshals to "cause the number of the inhabitants to be taken" and to appoint as many assistants as necessary, establishing the timeframe within which the census is to be completed, and setting methods of payment for assistants. Act of Mar. 1, 1790, § 1, reprinted in C. Wright, History and Growth of the United States Census (prepared for the Senate Committee on the Census), S. Doc. No. 194, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., 925 (1900) (hereinafter Wright). In recent years, the Bureau through its delegated power has adopted a number of measures to reduce error, including "an extensive advertising campaign, a more easily completed census questionnaire, and increased use of automation, which among other things facilitated the development of accurate maps and geographic files for the 1990 census." Wisconsin v. City of New York, 517 U. S. 1, 8 (1996).
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