Funny, my reaction to sentences like those is nearly the opposite. - Edit 1
Before modification by Legolas at 30/08/2012 08:13:31 PM
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. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
People no longer write like that because few can be bothered to read and comprehend it. Ending government by sound bite is as simple as demanding better instead of demanding simplicity. Heaven knows we should; the Constitutions text well demonstrates most government policy is too complex to fully address in five words.
As in, if only laws nowadays were even remotely as easy and clear to read as those. If you compare the Bill of Rights and the like to other countries' constitutions that mostly date to later periods, one of the things that will strike you is how succinct and simple the phrasing of the Bill of Rights is.
Edit: Which goes a fair way in explaining why soundbites nowadays are so popular - politics have simply become so complicated that, unlike in the Founding Fathers' time, a reasonably well-educated citizen can't keep up with it all or even fully understand most bills, perhaps not even if (s)he dedicated every available moment of his/her time to it.