Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

And whereas, it appears from official documents on file in this department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the legislatures of the States of Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia; in all twenty-seven States;

And whereas, the whole number of States in the United States is thirty-six; and whereas the before specially named States whose legislatures have ratified the said proposed amendment conIstitute three-fourths of the whole number of States in the United States:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress, approved the twentieth of April, eighteen hundred and eighteen, entitled “An act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States, and for other purposes," do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the ninetieth. [L. S.]

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.

Does the Thirteenth Amendment fully abolish?

No. Slavery and involuntary servitude are lawful as punishment for crime against a State or the United States. Convicted criminals of any race or complexion are included. Some States have sold and still sell the service and labor of convicts to the highest bidder.

It is plain that if the Thirteenth Amendment is valid, then the two succeeding ones cannot be.

Why so?

The reconstruction legislation of 1866, having no constitutional warrant, was void. To have the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments ratified, it was suddenly discovered that the Southern States were not integral parts of the Union, and would have to be territorialized and readmitted.

66

Negro suffrage was to be legalized by disfranchising the whites, save a small class called carpetbaggers." New and pliant legislatures were set up in the military departments, presided over by pro-consuls.

Is the Fourteenth Amendment valid?

No.

ARTICLE FOURTEENTH.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and VicePresident of the United States, Representatives in

Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as any executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States authorized by law, including

debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Were States counted in by Congress?

Yes. Ohio and New Jersey had rescinded their consent to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. As sovereigns they had the right to do so. Their withdrawals were filed in full time in the office of the Secretary of State at Washington. As will hereafter be shown, New York did the same in respect to the Fifteenth Amendment.

Secretary Seward would not certify to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. He spoke of the Southern legislatures that had ratified, as newly constituted and newly established bodies avowing themselves to be law-making pow

« ForrigeFortsett »