Paradise Lost
In 1789, the House of Representatives compiled a list of possible
Constitutional Amendments, some of which would ultimately become our Bill of Rights. The
House proposed seventeen; the Senate reduced the list to twelve. During this process that
Senator Tristrain Dalton (Mass.) proposed an Amendment seeking to prohibit and provide a
penalty for any American accepting a "title of Nobility" (RG 46 Records of the
U.S. Senate). Although it wasn't passed, this was the first time a "title of
nobility" amendment was proposed.
Twenty years later, in January, 1810, Senator Reed proposed another "Title of
Nobility" Amendment (History of Congress, Proceedings of the Senate, p. 529-530). On
April 27, 1810, the Senate voted to pass this 13th Amendment by a vote of 26 to 1; the
House resolved in the affirmative 87 to 3; and the following resolve was sent to the
States for ratification:
"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 Constitution requires three-quarters of the states to ratify a proposed amendment
before it may be added to the Constitution. When Congress proposed the "Title of
Nobility" Amendment in 1810, there were seventeen states, thirteen of which would
have to ratify for the Amendment to be adopted. According to the National Archives, the
following is a list of the twelve states that ratified, and their dates of ratification:
Maryland, Dec. 25, 1810
Kentucky, Jan. 31, 1811
Ohio, Jan. 31, 1811
Delaware, Feb. 2, 1811
Pennsylvania, Feb. 6, 1811
New Jersey, Feb. 13, 1811
Vermont, Oct. 24, 1811
Tennessee, Nov. 21, 1811
Georgia, Dec. 13, 1811
North Carolina, Dec. 23, 1811
Massachusetts, Feb. 27, 1812
New Hampshire, Dec. 10, 1812
Before a thirteenth state could ratify, the War of 1812 broke out with England. By the
time the war ended in 1814, the British had burned the Capitol, the Library of Congress,
and most of the records of the first 38 years of government. Whether there was a
connection between the proposed "title of nobility" amendment and the War of
1812 is not known. However, the momentum to ratify the proposed Amendment was lost in the
tumult of war.
Then, four years later, on December 31, 1817, the House of Representatives resolved that
President Monroe inquire into the status of this Amendment. In a letter dated February 6,
1818, President Monroe reported to the House that the Secretary of State Adams had written
to the governors of Virginia, South Carolina and Connecticut to tell them that the
proposed Amendment had been ratified by twelve States and rejected by two (New York and
Rhode Island), and asked the governors to notify him of their legislature's position.
(House Document No. 76)
(This, and other letters written by the President and the Secretary of State during the
month of February, 1818, note only that the proposed Amendment had not yet been ratified.
However, these letters would later become crucial because, in the absence of additional
information they would be interpreted to mean the amendment was never ratified).
On February 28, 1818, Secretary of State Adams reported the rejection of the Amendment by
South Carolina. [House Doc. No. 129]. There are no further entries regarding the
ratification of the 13th Amendment in the Journals of Congress; whether Virginia ratified
is neither confirmed nor denied. Likewise, a search through the executive papers of
Governor Preston of Virginia does not reveal any correspondence from Secretary of State
Adams. (However, there is a journal entry in the Virginia House that the Governor
presented the House with an official letter and documents from Washington within a time
frame that conceivably includes receipt of Adams' letter.) Again, no evidence
of ratification; none of denial.
However, on March 10, 1819, the Virginia legislature passed Act No. 280 (Virginia Archives
of Richmond, "misc.' file, p. 299 for micro-film): "Be it enacted by the General
Assembly, that there shall be published an edition of the Laws of this Commonwealth in
which shall be contained the following matters, that is to say: the Constitution of the
united States and the amendments thereto..." This act was the specific legislated
instructions on what was, by law, to be included in the re-publication (a special edition)
of the Virginia Civil Code. The Virginia Legislature had already agreed that all Acts were
to go into effect on the same day -- the day that the Act to re-publish the Civil Code was
enacted. Therefore, the 13th Amendment's official date of ratification would be the date
of re-publication of the Virginia Civil Code: March 12, 1819.