Wry Catcher
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #41
I think the Constitution has been bent and twisted into a form the Founders and Framers would not recognize except as an example of their worst fears. They crystallized a document to restrict the central government for all time yet left an amendment process, with high hurdles, for necessary changes. And they depended on an educated and moral people of a common heritage to zealously guard it, a divided government where each branch kept a lid on the others ambitions and finally...a set of sovereign entities called states to bind the central government to its duties.
The assault on these protections has been devastating. First you had the 14th amendment imposed by force of bayonets and conquest rather than will of people. It may have been backed by good intentions but so is the road to hell. Rulings relying on the 14 th amendment are the fruit of a poisoned tree... Imposed on an unwilling citizenry over their objections. And the tyrants doing it can grin and say "it's your constitution"...a lie. Neither the people nor the states ever ratified or accepted it.
But the attacks go deeper than that springboard. Like something from Orwells imagination they then claim that rights which didn't exist yesterday, and which the authors never saw, were really there all along waiting for jurists smart enough to see them.
The authors didn't know about it.... They were supernaturally channeling Oprah and Cher from the future and hiding it away in code all along!
The 14th Amendment was ratified by every state. It is the law of the land. Don't like it, repeal it; I'm sure there are others who will support you in that endeavor.
There is nothing to repeal nor does the process seem to even exist any longer. As I pointed out earlier when the Equal Rights Amendment was rejected the liberals just pretended it had passed.
But where do you get the idea every state passed the 14th Amendment? You dont have to take my word for it. It is a matter of record. I'll help a little but you should read it for yourself so you will know the truth of the matter.
Even a victorious Union balked adding the 14th to the Constitution. And that was in a time when the amendment process was actually followed...the forms anyhow. The Constitution sets a high bar for amendments and rightfully so. In fact it sets it so high liberals now just use the courts to modify the constitution.
In the case of the 14th amendment even the Northern states knew it would lead to totalitarianism. There was no way it would get the 2/3 votes in Congress it needed to even be presented to the states. BUT, since it only takes a bare majority to refuse a seat in congress, they proceeded to unseat 22 Senators and 58 representatives from the South. These were senators and represenatives who had supported the 13th Amendment by the way. Now they felt confident. Except they still couldn't get a 2/3 vote in favor. Too many northern states objected that free government died with this amendment. They fell one short in the Senate even after disenfranchising half the country. The solution? The senate expelled New Jersey illegally LINK whose Senators were refusing to vote for the amendment and thus were able to pass the resolution by a bare one vote. Link
"...no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." Article V
President Johnson objected and impeachment proceeedings were begun against him. The President of the United States OBJECTED for the same reasons everyone should have. "This importance is at the present time enhanced by the fact that the joint resolution was not submitted by the two Houses for the thirty-six States which constitute the Union, eleven are excluded from representation in either House of Congress, although with the single exception of Texas, they have been entirely restored to all their functions as States, in conformity with the organic law of the land, and have appeared at the National Capitol by Senators and Representatives who have applied for and have been refused admission to the vacant seats."
And so on to the states unlawfully..or at least unjustly.
Oct 1866 Texas rejects
Nov 1866 Georgia rejects
Dec 1866 NC rejects
Dec 1866 SC rejects
Jan 1867 KY rejects
Jan 1867 Virginia rejects
Feb 1867 LA rejects
Feb 1867 Delaware rejects
March 1867 Maryland rejects
Jan 1868 Mississippi rejects
Amendment fails mathematically! You can look up the rejection votes and proclamations yourself. I assume that having done so you can add them up yourself and decide what 3/4 would be for acceptance...and agree with me the amendment failed. "Amendments...shall be valid...when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states"..Artricle V
Secretary of State Seward reports the failure to Congress. Except tyrants don't take rejection well. Ten states were ejected from the Union and military dictatorships set up to rule them. Generals recomposed the state legislators and, in some cases, attended with troops to force the new legislators to ratify the 14th. In outrage two more northern states rejected the amendment while California objected by refusing to vote either way. Then Ohio, Maryland and New Jersey rescinded their ratification citing the illegal use of force to impose a change in the Constitution (a coup in other words) joined by Oregon who cited an illegal state government.
Congress passed a resolution *ordering* the Secty of State to proclaim the amendment passed and on July 20 1868 the Secretary of State obliged but implied that the amendment lacked validity by inserting the words "if valid" in his proclamation he had published in the press.
None of which seem like very good methods for free people to change their constitution.
I have no source to verify your explanation. I find it credible, given my source shows the rejections on the dates you posted, and in two years most every state voted to pass it. I wondered about CA, which finally passed it in 1959. Please cite your resource, this is some history I would like to read more about.