February 23, 2005

Was there a 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that was ratified but ignored? According to some right-wing conspiracy theorists, yes. This amendment, they say, makes it illegal for lawyers to serve in public office. More here and here.

The supporters argue that 12 of the 13 necessary states had ratified the amendment when the War of 1812 intervened. After the war, three states had not taken any stance on the amendment. However, in 1819, the Virginia General Assembly published the Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia, which included a copy of the U.S. Constitution. This printing included the 13th amendment. Virginia was one of the three states that had not commented, supporters argue that this shows that the Assembly had quietly passed the amendment. They go on to say: "The fact of its existence had been lost to memory until researchers accidentally discovered in the public library at Belfast, Maine a copy of the 1825 Maine Constitution and that of the United States which included this amendment. Subsequent research shows that it was in the records of the ratifying states, and subsequently admitted states and territories until 1876. The last to drop it from record was the Territory of Wyoming after 1876. The most intriguing discovery was the 1867 Colorado Territory edition which includes both the "missing" Thirteenth Amendment and the current 13th Amendment, on the same page."

posted by waitingtoderail 19 years ago
  • Well, it's an interesting historical mystery, but these people's claim that it will have wide repercussions (such as creating a perfect system of government) is ridiculous. It reads thus: "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." Granted, this would be pretty annoying to some dual citizens and perhaps retired immigrants with gov't pensions from abroad. The page claims, however, that the TRUE meaning is to prevent lawyers from holding office because of their "titles" of esquire. This part's ridiculous, because if it were true, it would also mean that all lawyers would have to be stripped of citizenship. You'll notice they aren't arguing for that (even if it follows directly from their conclusions) because then they would seem like raving lunatics. Which, of course, they are.
  • By virtue of these titles, honors, and special privileges, lawyers have assumed political and economic advantages over the majority of U.S. citizens. Through these privileges, they have nearly established a two-tiered citizenship in this nation where a majority may vote, but only a minority (lawyers) may run for political office. yeah, right. Another take on the subject here.
  • And you thought that those conspiracy-theorists nowadays spent all their time on UFOs, MKULTRA, the HAARP project, Area 51, Mount Weather, and other fanstastically paranoid and thoroughly high-tech inventions. Instead, we get a fantastically paranoid and yet thoroughly LOW-tech linguistic quibble. The Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, the Tripartite Commission and FEMA all want you to NOT READ ANY FURTHER! There are no missing amendments, squire!
  • Thanks for the opposing viewpoint, ambrosia, I was having trouble finding something I thought I could link to.
  • I made an error on one of those links - it's discussing a different(!) real 13th amendment....
  • I heard that there was a treasure map hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
  • MK ULRA was not a conspiracy theory - my grandfather worked on it. It is documented and very real. If you don't like the idea of a government who administers LSD to people in pills (or radioactive materials in oatmeal) I suggest you leave quickly. Furthermore, HAARP exists, it's just that nobody knows what it's for.
  • HAARP changes weather patterns and administers ultra-high frequency radio chatter that directly influences thought patters, emotional states, and in some cases, psychic traffic. Crap, I wasn't supposed to say that. Now I'm being reassigned to a weather station in Nome, Alaska. They say they'll mail me my clothes.
  • Actually this sounds similar to the Canadian ban on citizens acceptingforeign titles, including from the British Crown. It came in handy when we used it to get rid of Conrad Black once the Queen offered him a peerage.
  • But why stop with lawyers? The phony amendment says that anyone with a title of nobility or honor is stripped of their citizenship. Well, don't we call judges "honorable" in this country? They're all out. Your mayor is commonly referred to as "your honor." Guess we can't have any mayors anymore. What about religious leaders? Aren't many ministers referred to as "honorable?" Get rid of all of them too! I could even make a pretty good argument that the term doctor is an honorific, since it's only bestowed upon someone by an elite group. That's it! All doctors, lawyers, judges, religious leaders, justices of the peace, PhD's, and anyone else who I don't like are no longer US citizens! Anarchy shall reign! Bwahahaha! Kneel before Zod! I think I need to get some sleep.
  • Considering the fact that no one paid attention to the unconstitutionality of the Bush/Cheney ticket (both from the same state), I don't think this movement's going anywhere.
  • Settle, I wasn't saying that MKULTRA or HAARP didn't exist. Note that you didn't have to remind me that Area 51 and Mount Weather, are, after all, actual places. Neither did I say that the proposed "13th amendment" never existed. I was merely paralleling it with other items which have factual basis and evidence but remain strange attractors to obsessive conspiracy theorists who like to attribute much larger and more sinister motives to such things and places.
  • Nal, there's a fair argument that the Bush/Cheney ticket was unconstitutional because at the time they both lived in Texas, but the other side is equally viable in claiming that Cheney is from Wyoming, where his "official" place of residence was, and was merely living in Texas because Halliburton HQ was there, and not Wyoming. I don't really take a side on this issue, as both are solid points, but neither surpassingly compelling.
  • Yes this is a real amendment. Interestingly, the author actually played Paul Pfeiffer on "The Wonder Years," that is until he ate Pop Rocks and Pepsi and his head exploded...
  • I've read Cheney's history, and the case for his residing in Wyoming is extremely weak, IMHO. We're talking about dotting i's and crossing t's here, but these are Constitutional i's and t's. I hardly think it's a huge deal, in and of itself. I do however, think it speaks volumes in retrospect that the Bush campaign had 49 other states to choose from and decided to apparently ignore the constitutional issue instead. Sorry for derailing the thread.
  • Also, does this mean that Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted "Theodore" Logan, Esq., would be deported? Because that would be most non-triumphant.
  • Esquire: 1 : a member of the English gentry ranking below a knight 2 : a candidate for knighthood serving as shield bearer and attendant to a knight 3 -- used as a title of courtesy usually placed in its abbreviated form after the surname 4 archaic : a landed proprietor I believe that Bill and Ted can be allowed some courtesy.
  • I thought it was only Bill who was "Bill S. Preston, Esquire," and Ted was only "Ted 'Theodore' Logan" ?
  • Maybe so, someone stole my DVD.... however we can only assume that if Bill was deported, Ted would also leave the country in protest.
  • Hey! Their wives were illegal immigrants! We can only hope that they got a pass on that after Wyld Stallyns saved the world.
  • I could even make a pretty good argument that the term doctor is an honorific It is. It actually replaces "Mister/Master" (if a man) -- you are no longer legally Mr. Smith. You are Dr. Smith.
  • It's the big thing that you never see in time-travel stories... All the problems you would have doing simple things like doing your taxes, or even getting a passport. Not so easy when you're a young princess from 16th (?) century Europe and it's 1993. Even if you had a birth certificate, I'm guessing one that says "Born: Cornwall, England. Michaelmas Eve, 1558" wouldn't really fly.
  • We have the basis for a thriving consulting business! Now someone just needs to get off their ass and invent a time machine.
  • Actually, there are more serious issues with most time travel stories - like language (even English would have been damned hard to understand in 1558), and disease immuninities, let alone paradox. Has anyone other than Connie Willis dealt with this?
  • Though I guess this probably belongs in the other thread.
  • Diana Gabaldon's Cross Stitch/Outlander series deals with some of it: the main character is a nurse (later a doctor) and tries to develop penicillin so she can help people in pre-Revolution America, among other things. (It's a weird series of books, not completely trashy romance but sort of intellectual time-travel stuff too...)
  • Douglas Adams did the best on time travel. He covered the classic chaos theory paradox - go back in time, change a thing, and the turn of events will prevent you from then going back in time once past-time gets to the present. He had alternate universes, infinite numbers of them, that each represented a specific version of this universe at a specific time according to every possible chain of events. So you could time/space travel to earth, but the earth you might go to has a permanent climate of heavy drizzle and is entirely inhabited by rodents of an unusual size that always go for your ankle. And the whole way the guide v2 (the bird thing) saw space-time was freakin awesome as well.
  • ah, my work here is done (see name).
  • i wrote about this very subject. interesting larger issue: It's but one of several "failed amendments," concerning everything from states' rights to women's rights, that supporters and constitutional scholars say are still alive. These are amendments that were approved by the House and Senate, didn't get enough states to ratify and -- this is key -- have no time limits on ratification.
  • Douglas Adams did the best on time travel. You haven't read much science fiction, have you?
  • Douglas Adams did the best on time travel.
    You haven't read much science fiction, have you?
    Now, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Adams' ideas on time travel. I think the parallel he draws between normal tourism and "time tourism," as well as the brief info on the Campaign for Real Time and the Cathedral of Chalesm (a cathedral that by poor temporal planning and management happened to never have existed, rendering photographs priceless) indicate a fairly observant consideration should time travel become ubiquitous. But really, who knows exactly how the fabric of spacetime would heal itself should time be tinkered with? Not only does Nature abhor a vacuum, but I think Time abhors a paradox. All is speculation until and unless it happens, and Adams has at least a fairly self-consistent method behind his speculations.