There have been no legal amendments to
the Constitution since the Thirteenth and even that was bastardized and
re-written. It is not the original 13th. If we went by the original
13th, there would be NO attorneys in Congress today. The 13th prevented
attorneys from holding office. It is a conflict of interest to
legislate laws that they would be defending and creating more business
for themselves. It is a tragedy that the People are not interested
enough to be more informed about these matters. Most of the lack of
education started taking place when good ol' Jimmy Carter brought in the
US Dept of Education. The dumbing down of the students accelerated
rapidly like it was on steroids. Pitiful!!!!! Now you may understand
why the government is always attacking the homeschoolers. M
There is No "Fourteenth Amendment"!
By
David Lawrence
U.S. News & World Report
September 27, 1957
A MISTAKEN BELIEF — that there is a valid article in the Constitution
known as the "Fourteenth Amendment" — is responsible for the Supreme
Court decision of 1954 and the ensuing controversy over desegregation in
the public schools of America. No such amendment was ever legally
ratified by three fourths of the States of the Union as required by the
Constitution itself. The so-called "Fourteenth Amendment" was dubiously
proclaimed by the Secretary of State on July 20, 1868. The President
shared that doubt. There were 37 States in the Union at the time, so
ratification by at least 28 was necessary to make the amendment an
integral part of the Constitution. Actually, only 21 States legally
ratified it. So it failed of ratification.
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.]
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