"Original" 13th Amendment

[rabid_nerd]

http://www.amendment-13.org/

Opinions?

The "missing" 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
reads as follows:

"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."

The controversy falls to whether or not Virginia ratified the amendment. Up to 50 years later, the amendment was printed by states with today's 13th amendment listed as the 14th.

THIS YEAR, New Hampshire has a bill introduced to re-certify their ratification of this amendment. If Virginia introduced a similar bill, that it re-certifies their ratification, it could arguably put-in-force the original 13th Amendment.

Anyone knighted would therefore be stripped of citizenship and barred from office. Some proponents argue more extreme consequences such as it barring all lawyers from serving, although I am not convinced of such an argument.

I am convinced that the issue is unsolved, and that they're arguments that it is in fact ratified are convincing.

(This amendment would not, of course, overwrite or affect the current amendment known as the 13th)

[goobergunch]

1. I think that the text is a bit extreme...

but I won't deny that it would be enjoyable to see Rudy Guliani stripped of his citizenship.

[rabid_nerd]

3. Indeed...

It could also affect Ah-nold. Does he have any honor bestowed upon him from Austria?

It's extreme, but fits in with a freeper's xenophobic mentality.

[Journeyman]

2. There was another 13th Amendment, as well. . .

which, if passed, would have made slavery inviolate from Federal jurisdiction. Despite its support by a majority of the House and Senate, and the tacit approval of the new President, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War interfered with its adoption.


Proposed 13th. Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, viz:

Article Thirteen

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proposal

This amendment to the Constitution relating to slavery was proposed by the Thirty-sixth Congress on March 2, 1861, when it passed the Senate, having previously passed the House on February 28, 1861.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Yupster]

7. This was a compromise proposal

that came out of the Crittenden Committee which was a group of senators that stayed in Washington over Christmas 1860 to try to work out a compromise that would keep the south in the Union. At the point only S Carolina had left.

The committee was a who's-who of the senate with Crittenden of Kentucky as chairman, Davis of Mississippi, Seward of NY, Benjamin of Louisiana and Toombs of Georgia, but it was doomed because the Republican members could not get instructions from the president-elect who made it clear he would have nothing to do with the committee until he was sworn in. By then the Confederate Constitution had already been written and Davis had already been sworn in as the CSA's "acting president" pending a vote of the people which came later that year. Surprisingly, Davis was sworn in before Lincoln was.

[damnraddem]

4. So, anyone who received a pension from another country ...

would have citizenship stripped. This would put paid to all joint pension agreements between the U.S. and other countries. In fact, acceptance of a present from a foreign noble or any country would strip one of citizenship. Is a Nobel prize a 'title of honor'? If so, wouldn't it be interesting to see all Nobel laureates have to either refuse the Prize or be stripped of citizenship. What about academic titles -- would someone graduating with a degree from a foreign university (at least a public university) lose their U.S. citizenship? Would holding an office with the UN count? I hope this claim is found to be a hoax, or otherwise dispensed with.

And since lawyers are licensed as such by the states, why would they be affected by the wording of this supposed-amendment? It doesn't matter what title is given the lawyer, the conferring is by a state of the U.S.

[damnraddem]

9. In answer to my own question, here is what is said by Silversmith

(http://www.thirdamendment.com/missing.html): " ... the subject matter of the case was whether a group of individuals could be authorized by the state to conduct what was in effect a lottery even while a criminal statute prohibiting lotteries remained in place for all other individuals. If TONA were to employ the same principle, any professional granted a privilege to practice by a state (e.g. lawyers, doctors, barbers, cosmetologists) denied to the public at large would hold a title of nobility, be stripped of their citizenship, and be ineligible to hold public office.

"But claims that embrace such nonsensical propositions are put forward by extremists. TONA proponents claim that the amendment would prohibit lawyers from serving in public office because lawyers are often referred to by the term "esquire."(150) But in the United States, the use of the term is nothing more than a custom. The Constitution prohibits the federal government and states from granting titles of nobility.(151) The one American experiment with excluding citizens holding titles of nobility from public office did not affect lawyers; the Georgia Constitution of 1777(152) did not prohibit lawyers from serving in the House of Assembly."

[punpirate]

5. The bit about lawyers...

... is a very old freeper rant. Because lawyers often, once they pass the bar, use "Esquire" after their names, the freepers think that is a bestowed foreign title, so they would no longer be citizens, and therefore could not prosecute. The legal authority of the missing 13th amendment been used often (and uniformly unsuccessfully) as a defense in right-wing tax dodge and firearms cases.

Cheers.

[damnraddem]

6. Remember that 90%-plus on the Internet is crap.

That's why one must check for the reliability of the sources.
Besides your source, here are other claims from one site: http://www.barefootsworld.net/13essay.html; http://www.barefootsworld.net/orig13th.html.

Peer-review doesn't ensure truth, but it's the best we have. Here is a peer-reviewed publication, found on the net, debunking these claims: http://www.thirdamendment.com/missing.html. I'll go with peer-review. Here's an instructive paragraph from this source: "When TONA was submitted to the states in 1810, 17 states were members of the Union; 13 ratifications were required to make the amendment part of the Constitution.(120) But Louisiana was admitted to the Union on April 30, 1812; the number of state ratifications required to make TONA part of the Constitution thus rose to 14. Prior to that date TONA had received only 11 ratifications,(121) so it was never a single ratification short of immortality. New Hampshire ratified TONA on December 12, 1812,(122) again placing the amendment within two states of becoming part of the Constitution. But Indiana was admitted to the Union on December 11, 1816, and was followed by Mississippi on December 10, 1817 and Illinois on December 3, 1818, with no further ratifications emerging. By 1819, therefore, the threshold was 16 ratifications, and TONA fell four states short. If Virginia ratified at any time, it did not matter, but by 1819 it was far too late."

[Yupster]

8. I also read a Newsweek cover story about 20 years ago

That said that they pretty much proved that the 14th Amendment was never legally passed. It was interesting, though pretty much mot at this point.