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Article 13
A few months back there was quite a lot of traffic concerning the
"lost" 13th amendment. It has recently been mentioned again, so this may be a
good time to bring this up. I was able to contact the researchers, David Dodge, Tom Dunn
and Brian March and get a copy of the latest report on this topic. Many of you are very
familiar with this story, but there is relatively new information concerning the records
that exist which substantiate the validity of the claim that the "Titles of
Nobility" was actually ratified. It is necessary to go through the report carefully,
but it seems certain from the documents that have been found at the National Archives and
elsewhere that TON was legally ratified. For those who are new to this I will re-hash the
old news and weave in the new as I go along.
In 1983, two independent researchers, David Dodge and Tom Dunn, while looking for evidence
of political corruption in a library in Belfast Maine, stumbled across an 1825 copy of the
Maine Civil Code. In this document, as I believe is customary, the Constitution of the
U.S. was printed. They noticed that Article Thirteen of the amendments was not the same
Article Thirteen which is now enumerated in the Constitution. This Article Thirteen, which
is known as the "Titles of Nobility" amendment, (TON) reads as follows:
Article XIII
------------
If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of
nobility or honor, 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 post went on to say that the researchers had carried on a written communication with
Sen. George Mitchell (D. Maine) and as I recall, someone named Hargrave from the National
Archives in Washington DC. It appears that the original position of Mitchell and Hargrave
was that this was simply a printing error and that it had been immediately corrected upon
discovery. This does not appear to be the case. Dodge and Dunn went on to find, at last
count, 24 different state legislatures which printed this amendment as Article Thirteen,
in 77 separate editions of their respective Civil Codes. This occurred over a period from
1818 until 1876. It has also been found in school text books and other publications from
that period. At first I was very skeptical, but now I have seen 2nd generation photo
copies of all of these documents. Almost every document carries a stamp from the library
where it was found. In some cases where the document was hand written I have only seen a
typed version, but after speaking with the researchers at length, I am sure that these
typed reproductions are faithful. In total, they present compelling evidence that the
original Article Thirteen was wrongfully removed from the Constitution.
Gradually the position of Senator Mitchell and others at the National Archive changed.
(Paraphrased from the letters between Dodge and Mitchell). One such position was that the
article in question had been proposed in the 11th congress, 2nd session in 1810 and
subsequently ratified by only 12 states before the close of 1812. As there were 17 states
at the time that the Amendment was proposed it required that 13 states ratify, and this
did not happen. Dodge and Dunn continued their research. They found a circular letter,
dated 7, Jan. 1818, commissioned by the House of Representatives for President James
Monroe and written by then Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. It was sent to only 3
states, of the original 17, that had not yet responded, as to their disposition on the
proposed Thirteenth Article. Virginia was one of those states. Dodge and Dunn now went to
the Library of Congress and were allowed access to the rare book room. There they found an
un-cataloged book entitled "The Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia", 1819. The
amendment was there, listed as the Thirteenth Article of the U.S. Constitution. This, of
course, indicated that a 13th state had indeed ratified the amendment, constituting a 3/4
majority of the states of the Union at the time the amendment was proposed... and now, the
Senator's position changes once again. They responded to Dodge by saying that since there
were 21 states by the time that Virginia ratified in 1818 or 1819, 13 was no longer enough
to bring the amendment into law. They contended that It would have then required 16 votes
to ratify, not 13.
This appears to be the current position of Senator Mitchell and the National Archives,
although the Archives legal department has not yet formally responded to the question. The
Constitution is **silent** on what is to be done concerning the addition of new states
during the ratification process. Furthermore, the four new states (Louisiana, Indiana,
Mississippi and Illinois) who, Senator Mitchell and the archivists, claim should have been
considered in this process, all, **without exception**, carried the "Titles of
Nobility" amendment on their U.S. Constitutions for at least several years after 1818
or 1819. It would appear that those state's own legislatures considered this to be the law
of the land.
There are some documents which have been uncovered that are not included in the current
edition of the report. Brian March did a thorough search of the archives in the four
states that were added during the ratification process. No evidence was found to indicate
that the Secretary of State polled them as too their response on the amendment. !!!THEY
WERE NOT CONSIDERED!!! and as I said earlier, all four states have been shown to have
published the TON amendment. The letters from those state archives are among the documents
not included in the report. I have seen copies of all the documents. These guys have done
some tremendous research and documented everything very well.
Another "report to the President" of Feb 3, 1818, a time when the four states
had already been admitted, also lists specifically the states that were involved in the
ratification and !!! AGAIN, THE NEW STATES ARE NOT CONSIDERED!!! Again, this report was not
available when they went to press. If you ask Brian to include some of the new material I
feel certain that he will.