by Marvin Ramírez
Marvin J. Ramírez
As most North Americans celebrate Fourth of July, the Independence of the United States from England, I started reading interesting literature that describes a different scenario about our country’s real history. A history that is never thought in our schools and universities, or mentioned in our required U.S. History class.
Have you heard of the original Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States?
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 17; the Senate reduced the list to 12. 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.
This was happening at the time when the Revolutionary War successfully defeated the dominium of the English Crown. The United States became a Republic, and its inhabitants free people, sovereigns.
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 the 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 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 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 ratifi ed. However, these letters would later become crucial because, in the absence of additional information, they would be interpreted to mean that the Amendment was never ratifi ed).
I found this reading fascinating. So, next time, we will fi nd out and see the evidence that in fact, the Thirteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, was ratifi ed. We will fi nd out with this evidence the legal implication for our current government offi cials who happen to have a title of nobility: Esquire – the lawyers.
