I have the Constitution hanging on the wall in my living room and there is no comma in that position.
It reads:
No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president....
There is no comma after "States" and before "at" in the copy on my wall.
Back in 1976, when the “Freedom Train” was wending its way around the country, my wife went aboard to see the exhibits. She was given the opportunity to buy an envelope containing photocopies of 1) The Unanimous Declaration, 2) the Constitution, 3) the Bill of Rights and 4) the original handwriten version of the Gettysburg Address. Each of them is/was handwritten. The first three are meticulously written out in careful script while the last was scrawled out in Lincoln’s typical poor handwriting.
I will not swear that my photocopy of the Constitution has not been tampered with because I cannot know that, but there is a comma right where we are talking about. Was it there when the document was adopted? I don’t know. I do know that (lacking photcopy machines) subsequent copies of the original were themselves carefully written out in longhand by people who were good at such things. I don’t know how many copies were made nor do I know that all copies either did or did not have that damned comma.
Granted, a comma there can have an effect on the meaning of the sentence. For us to know one way or another we’d have to look - not at a copy of a copy of a c.... (you get the idea) but at the original. Someone who lives near the National Archives might be able to decide this but lacking that I think we’re just going to have to disagree for now.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_downloads.html
...the comma is in fact where others have claimed it's located on the original parchment.
See for yourself.
Hint: open the Constitution image that's the third one down, out of four images placed vertically, in the second section from the top of the page. Use the magnification function in the browser viewer. FYI: I'm using MS Vista.
Isn't the FReeper community grand? ;o)
Strange, the copy I have does have a comma after "States", although I don't think it changes the meaning or intent:
No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president....