There is No
"Fourteenth Amendment"!
by
David Lawrence
U.S. News & World Report
September 27, 1957
David Lawrence
U.S. News & World Report
September 27, 1957
The undisputed record,
attested by official journals and the unanimous writings of historians,
establishes these events as occurring in 1867 and 1868:
- Outside the South, six States — New Jersey, Ohio, Kentucky,
California, Delaware and Maryland — failed to ratify the proposed
amendment.
- In the South, ten States — Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana — by
formal action of their legislatures, rejected it under the normal
processes of civil law.
- A total of 16 legislatures out of 37 failed legally to ratify the
"Fourteenth Amendment."
- Congress — which had deprived the Southern States of their seats in
the Senate — did not lawfully pass the resolution of submission in the
first instance.
- The Southern States which had rejected the amendment were coerced by
a federal statute passed in 1867 that took away the right to vote or hold
office from all citizens who had served in the Confederate Army. Military
governors were appointed and instructed to prepare the roll of voters. All
this happened in spite of the presidential proclamation of amnesty
previously issued by the President. New legislatures were thereupon chosen
and forced to "ratify" under penalty of continued exile from the
Union. In Louisiana, a General sent down from the North presided over the
State legislature.
- Abraham Lincoln had declared many times that the Union was
"inseparable" and "indivisible." After his death, and
when the war was over, the ratification by the Southern States of the
Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, had been accepted as legal. But
Congress in the 1867 law imposed the specific conditions under which the
Southern States would be "entitled to representation in Congress."
- Congress, in passing the 1867 law that declared the Southern States
could not have their seats in either the Senate or House in the next
session unless they ratified the "Fourteenth Amendment," took an
unprecedented step. No such right — to compel a State by an act of
Congress to ratify a constitutional amendment — is to be found anywhere in
the Constitution. Nor has this procedure ever been sanctioned by the
Supreme Court of the United States.
- President Andrew Johnson publicly denounced this law as unconstitutional.
But it was passed over his veto.
- Secretary of State Seward was on the spot in July 1868 when the
various "ratifications" of a spurious nature were placed before
him. The legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey had notified him that they
rescinded their earlier action of ratification. He said in his official
proclamation that he was not authorized as Secretary of State "to
determine and decide doubtful questions as to the authenticity of the
organization of State legislatures or as to the power of any State
legislature to recall a previous act or resolution of ratification."
He added that the amendment was valid "if the resolutions of the
legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey, ratifying the aforesaid amendment,
are to be deemed as remaining of full force and effect, notwithstanding
the subsequent resolutions of the legislatures of these States." This
was a very big "if." It will be noted that the real issue,
therefore, is not only whether the forced "ratification" by the
ten Southern States was lawful, but whether the withdrawal by the
legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey — two Northern States — was legal. The
right of a State, by action of its legislature, to change its mind at any
time before the final proclamation of ratification is issued by the
Secretary of State has been confirmed in connection with other
constitutional amendments.
- The Oregon Legislature in October 1868 — three months after the
Secretary's proclamation was issued — passed a rescinding resolution,
which argued that the "Fourteenth Amendment" had not been
ratified by three fourths of the States and that the
"ratifications" in the Southern States were "usurpations,
unconstitutional, revolutionary and void" and that, "until such
ratification is completed, any State has a right to withdraw its assent to
any proposed amendment."
What do the historians
say about all this? The Encyclopedia Americana states:
"Reconstruction
added humiliation to suffering.... Eight years of crime, fraud, and corruption
followed and it was State legislatures composed of Negroes, carpetbaggers and
scalawags who obeyed the orders of the generals and ratified the
amendment."
W. E. Woodward, in his
famous work, "A New American History?" published in 1936, says:
"To get a clear
idea of the succession of events let us review [President Andrew] Johnson's
actions in respect to the ex-Confederate States.
"In May, 1865, he
issued a Proclamation of Amnesty to former rebels. Then he established
provisional governments in all the Southern States. They were instructed to
call Constitutional Conventions. They did. New State governments were elected.
White men only had the suffrage the Fifteenth Amendment establishing equal
voting rights had not yet been passed]. Senators and Representatives were
chosen, but when they appeared at the opening of Congress they were refused
admission. The State governments, however, continued to function during 1866.
"Now we are in
1867. In the early days of that year [Thaddeus] Stevens brought in, as chairman
of the House Reconstruction Committee, a bill that proposed to sweep all the
Southern State governments into the wastebasket. The South was to be put under
military rule.
"The bill passed.
It was vetoed by Johnson and passed again over his veto. In the Senate it was
amended in such fashion that any State could escape from military rule and be
restored to its full rights by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment and admitting
black as well as white men to the polls."
In challenging its
constitutionality, President Andrew Johnson said in his veto message:
"I submit to
Congress whether this measure is not in its whole character, scope and object
without precedent and without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest
provisions of the Constitution, and utterly destructive of those great
principles of liberty and humanity for which our ancestors on both sides of the
Atlantic have shed so much blood and expended so much treasure."
Many historians have
applauded Johnson's words. Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, known
today as "liberals," wrote in their book, "The Growth of the
American Republic":
"Johnson returned
the bill with a scorching message arguing the unconstitutionality of the whole
thing, and most impartial students have agreed with his reasoning."
James Truslow Adams,
another noted historian, writes in his "History of the United
States":
"The Supreme Court
had decided three months earlier, in the Milligan case, ... that military
courts were unconstitutional except under such war conditions as might make the
operation of civil courts impossible, but the President pointed out in vain
that practically the whole of the new legislation was unconstitutional. ...
There was even talk in Congress of impeaching the Supreme Court for its
decisions! The legislature had run amok and was threatening both the Executive
and the Judiciary."
Actually, President
Johnson was impeached, but the move failed by one vote in the Senate.
The Supreme Court, in
case after case, refused to pass on the illegal activities involved in "ratification."
It said simply that they were acts of the "political departments of the
Government." This, of course, was a convenient device of avoidance. The
Court has adhered to that position ever since Reconstruction Days.
Andrew C. McLaughlin,
whose "Constitutional History of the United States" is a standard
work, writes:
"Can a State which
is not a State and not recognized as such by Congress, perform the supreme duty
of ratifying an amendment to the fundamental law? Or does a State — by
congressional thinking — cease to be a State for some purposes but not for
others?"
This is the tragic
history of the so-called "Fourteenth Amendment" — a record that is a
disgrace to free government and a "government of law."
Isn't the use of
military force to override local government what we deplored in Hungary?
It is never too late to
correct injustice. The people of America should have an opportunity to pass on
an amendment to the Constitution that sets forth the right of the Federal
Government to control education and regulate attendance at public schools
either with federal power alone or concurrently with the States.
That's the honest way,
the just way to deal with the problem of segregation or integration in the
schools. Until such an amendment is adopted, the "Fourteenth
Amendment" should be considered as null and void.
There is only one
supreme tribunal — it is the people themselves. Their sovereign will is
expressed through the procedures set forth in the Constitution itself.
[END]
[OCR'd text from U.S.
News & World Report, September 27, 1957, page 140 et seq.]
Utah Supreme Court (1968) Detailed the
Failed ratification of 14th Amendment
16th Amendment
was Never Ratified
The Law That Never Was: The
Fraud of the 16th Amendment and Personal Income Tax is a 1985 book by William
J. Benson and Martin J. "Red" Beckman which claims that the Sixteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, commonly known as the income tax amendment, was never
properly ratified.
'THE LAW THAT NEVER WAS'
Geoff Metcalf's interview answers question, 'Is 16th
Amendment legal?'
...There is not one state — not one —
that has ratified the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
http://www.wnd.com/2000/02/4017/#CagE22EdBDSuWdSg.99
17TH AMENDMENT:
36 STATES DID NOT RATIFY
The 17th Amendment was never properly ratified. I have
seen the proof with my own eyes at the National Archives and from the documents
obtained by Bill Benson from
all 48 state legislatures in his work, “Proof the 17th Amendment Was Not
Ratified.” I also collected court certified documents on this from the bowels
of the California State Archives. They are incontrovertible and prove without
question that Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, on May 31, 1913,
knowingly and willfully issued a memo declaring the 17th Amendment ratified
even though he knew the required number of states did not ratify it.
http://www.wnd.com/2005/02/28776/#h8dTq3UE7AgbsTE6.99
http://www.wnd.com/2005/02/28776/#h8dTq3UE7AgbsTE6.99
How the 16th and 17th Amendments Ushered
the Era of Big Government
Most people know that the
16th Amendment grants Congress the power to collect taxes on income…the 17th
Amendment to the constitution, which fundamentally changed not only how senators
were elected
Missing 13th Amendment
Oregon Observer - April 1997
In 1983 David Dodge and Tom
Dunn were searching for evidence of government corruption in public records in
a Belfast Library on the coast of Maine. They uncovered probably the most
explosive evidence ever uncovered in our history. They uncovered the United
States Constitution printed in 1825, which was to prohibit lawyers from serving
in Government.
Extensive research since
then has uncovered the following:
1.) The unlawful removal
of a ratified 13th Amendment from the US Constitution.
2.) The Amendment had been
printed in at least 18 separate publications by 11 different states and
territories from 1819 to 1868.
3.) The Amendment was
secretly removed from documents by a group of lawyers and bankers. In its place
was entered the slave Amendment, which was the 14th amendment, which was
changed to the 13th Amendment. All of this occurred during the turmoil of the
civil war.
4.) Since the Amendment
was not lawfully repealed, it is still the law of the land.
5.) Colorado printed the
correct 13th Amendment in 1668. [This
probably should read 1868.]
The following is why the
Amendment was written and what the meaning is: (Keep in mind we had just fought
the Revolutionary War.) The "title of nobility" and words such as
"nobility," "honour," "emperor,"
"king," "esquire" and "prince" normally would
lead you, today, to dismiss this Amendment.
The Move to 'Restore' the
13th Amendment
NEWSWEEK - 7/26/10
…Even so, it’s a little
startling to come upon section 7.19, which calls for “the reintroduction and
ratification of the original 13th Amendment, not the 13th amendment in today’s
Constitution.” Since the existing 13th Amendment bans slavery, while the “original”
one was about something else entirely…
The clause reads:
“No Title of Nobility shall
be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or
Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any
present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King,
Prince, or foreign State.”
Reed’s proposed amendment
extended the ban from office-holders to “any citizen of the United States” and
made the penalty loss of citizenship:
“If any citizen of the United
States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour,
or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present,
pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king,
prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United
States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under
them, or either of them.”
N.H. Republican Lawmakers
Allege
Missing
Constitutional Amendment
Was Purposely
Deleted in 1871
Mon Mar. 4, 2013
For 142 years, the federal
government has kept a secret: A little-known constitutional amendment, designed
to prevent people with "titles of nobility" from holding public
office, was ratified in 1819 before being
deleted from the document as part of a conspiracy by power-hungry lawyers and
bankers. But the original 13th Amendment is technically still on the books; we
just don't know it.
