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Meaning of the 13th Amendment
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." [Emphasis added.]
At the first reading, the meaning of this 13th Amendment (also called the "title of
nobility" Amendment) seems obscure, unimportant. The references to
"nobility", "honour", "emperor", "king", and
"prince" lead us to dismiss this amendment as a petty post-revolution act of
spite directed against the British monarchy. But in our modern world of Lady Di and Prince
Charles, anti-royalist sentiments seem so archaic and quaint, that the Amendment can be
ignored.
Not so.
Consider some evidence of its historical significance: First, "titles of
nobility" were prohibited in both Article VI of the Articles of Confederation (1777)
and in Article I, Sect. 9 of the Constitution of the United States (1778); Second,
although already prohibited by the Constitution, an additional "title of
nobility" amendment was proposed in 1789, again in 1810, and according to Dodge,
finally ratified in 1819. Clearly, the founding fathers saw such a serious threat in
"titles of nobility" and "honors" that anyone receiving them would
forfeit their citizenship. Since the government prohibited "titles of nobility"
several times over four decades, and went through the amending process (even though
"titles of nobility" were already prohibited by the Constitution), it's obvious
that the Amendment carried much more significance for our founding fathers than is readily
apparent today.