Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment

A tale of Corrupt Unconstitutional Political Manipulation

Following the greatest tragedy of the Civil War and the assignation of President Lincoln in April of 1865, national leadership was largely in the hands of the Radical Republicans. They under minded the new President, Andrew Johnson, at every opportunity, and had little regard for the Supreme Court. They considered the Constitution to be an inconvenience and the Supreme Court to be an annoyance to the will of the people accomplished by Congress. States Right, having been defeated by the coercion of bayonets, was no longer an effective check on federal power.

President Johnson planned to follow Lincoln’s relatively benign plan for establishing loyal civil governments in the South and restoring them to the national family. Pursuant to this on May 29, 1865, he declared an amnesty for most Confederate veterans. By the middle of July many Southern state governments under the control of Union loyalists were functioning. But the Radical Republicans were bent on exacting vengeance and remaking the South. Johnson was uncomfortable with coercing the States into enfranchising former slaves, but the Radical Republicans, most of whom had been radical abolitionists, were insistent. Their motives in this were by no means pure. These included both political justice for blacks and exacting a humiliating vengeance on the South. But most importantly, they wanted to remake the South into an unassailable bastion of Radical Republican political support. That support would be used to guarantee the permanent political dominance of the Radical Republican faction over the nation and thereby guarantee the ongoing success of their economic and political agendas.

The Radical Republican hard core in Congress numbered only about thirty of some of the 230 Northern Senators and Representatives, but their influence was very powerful, and they had strong widespread support in the Northern press. Five men were exercised dominant leadership, they were: Thaddeus Stevens, Representative from Pennsylvania; Benjamin Butler, Representative from Massachusetts; Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts; Benjamin Wade, Senator from Ohio; and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.

In December 1865, the 13^th Amendment abolished slavery. Included in the three-quarters of the States necessary for ratification were seven Southern States whose governments had been appointed and reconstituted by President Johnson. This, however, did not guarantee many civil rights for the former slaves, and as the Southern legislatures began to consist more of elected Democrats, they tended back to more traditional Southern thinking and far away from Radical Republican thinking. The Radical Republicans believed more amendments were needed to ensure civil rights but also to advance their agenda for the South and the rest of the nation. Thus the 14^th Amendment, which was really a combination of several amendments, was a born concept. Passing the 14^th Amendment became high priority for the Radical Republicans. In passing the 14^th Amendment, they would ruthlessly violate the Constitution, engage in blatantly dishonest and despotic legislature manipulation, and impose mean-spirited tyranny on the South that would poison race relations and regional trust for generations. Several aspects of the 14^th Amendment would turn the Constitution on its head and open the door for widespread Judicial and Congressional abuse and tyranny. The shameful coercion, blatant dishonest, and numerous legislative and constitutional irregularities involved in passing the 14^th Amendment place its legitimacy in extreme doubt.

The Amendment consists of five sections. The first section defines who is a citizen and overturns the Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to blacks. It also prevented states from abridging the rights of citizens and denying any person due process and equal protection of the laws.

One reason for this section was to prevent Southern states from implementing “Black Codes” limiting the rights of former slaves. Some Mississippi legislation in particular was raising concern that the emancipation of slaves by the 13^th Amendment was being circumvented.

At this very time, however, many Northern states had Black Codes more severe than any emerging in the South. Indiana law codes would not allow blacks and mulattos to come into the state. Illinois, the land of Lincoln, and Oregon were almost as restrictive of black immigration. Numerous other Northen states including, Kansas, Michigan, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Wisconsin had rejected Negro suffrage and with it other rights and privileges of full citizenship.

Because Section 1 defines anyone born in the U.S. as a citizen, it has had vast unforeseen consequences in recent years. Each year, more than 300,000 children are born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant parents. This automatically makes these children citizens and entitles both the child and mother to many welfare benefits covering pregnancy and birth. The baby is entitled to Medicaid for an additional twelve months. In recent years this “anchor baby” provision of the 14^th Amendment has seen much costly abuse. The writers of the 14^th Amendment never intended it to be a benefit to illegal immigrants.

Section 2 eliminated the three-fifths rule for slaves in approving legislative representation. Each person was to be counted as a whole person. This section allowed for reducing representation as a penalty for its violation and left the door open to abridging the rights of those who had participated in “rebellion.”

Section 3 was the most objectionable to the South. It denied public auction to any person who had supported the Confederacy during the war. This essentially limited civic leadership at any level to the planned constituents of the Radical Republicans. It was not only humiliating and debilitating to the South but designs to guarantee Republican political hegemony in the South without significant opposition.

Section 4 repudiated all Confederate debt and legitimized the obligation of all citizens to pay for U.S. debt incurred during and after the war.

Section 5 gave Congress the power to enforce the other four sections by legislation. This was thought by many to be an open door to increasing federal power over the states, which turned out to be quite true.

The 39^th Congress convened in December 1865, just as the states, including seven Southern states, were finalizing ratification of the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery. The Radical Republicans knew that they could not depend on elected Southern Congressmen to achieve the two-thirds majorities in the U.S. Senate and House to pass the 14^th Amendment. Consequentially, they mustered a majority in both Houses of Congress and voted not to seat the 22 Senators and 58 Representatives from eleven formerly Confederate, Southern States. This was accomplished in part by “waving the bloody shirt” of Union losses during the war, impugning the patriotism of those willing to welcome the Southern states back into the Union fold, and appealing to partisan greed and lust for power.

However, in the U.S. Senate they could count only 33 of 50 votes, just one short, of that necessary for the two-thirds majority to pass a Constitutional Amendment. To overcome this, they devised a plan to retroactively unseat John P. Stockton of New Jersey, an outspoken opponent of the 14^th Amendment. It would have required a two-thirds vote to expel Senator Stockton for cause, but they never could muster the votes. After several days of high-pressure political maneuvering using the usual accusation and unseemly tactics, the Radical Republicans were able on March 27 to retroactively unseat Stockton. The excuse was that the New Jersey Legislature had elected him by a plurality rather than by a majority vote, but this was legal in New Jersey as well as in other states. In those days, U>S> Senators were elected by state legislatures rather than by popular vote. Such a retractive unseating for transparency political objectives was highly irregular, but the 14^th Amendment was counted as having passed the U.S. House with 120 votes, easily more than two-thirds of the 152 that voted, but there were 30 abstentions.

The Amendment was then required to go to President Johnson before going to the States for approval. Johnson, an opponent of the Amendment, was somehow bypassed. The Amendment then went to 37 States. A constitutional amendment requires ratification by three-quarters of the States, or in this case 28. A rejection or a failure to ratify by ten States would have killed the amendment.

Tennessee was the first to ratify the amendment, but without proper quorum of its legislature. Nevertheless, despite this irregularity, Tennessee was counted for ratification. By February 6, 1867, all ten of the remaining Southern states and three border states rejected the amendment. California refused to consider it and later rejected it. In addition, Ohio in January of 1886, and New Jersey in March of 1886, reacting to Radial Republicans despotism and public displeasure thereof, rescinded their earlier ratifications. Oregon had ratified in September of 1866, but after settling a controversy over a few legislative seats, formally rescinded on October 15, 1868. The Oregon recission was too late, however, to effect of the eventful outcome.

The Radical Republicans, however, had a radical plan to reverse Southern rejections of the 14^th Amendment that fit their longer-range agenda very well. Under their leadership, on March 2, 1867, a Reconstruction Act was passed. Over the veto of President Johnson, this act revoked the legal status of the two Southern states that had rejected the 14^th Amendment and placed them under a military government administered through five U.S. Army districts.

The inconsistency, appalling capriciousness, and hypocrisy of the Radical Republican position should be noted here. If the Southern States were legal enough to have just ratified the 13^th Amendment, how could Thaddeus Stevens now say that these same states were “without any legal authority?” It demonstrated once again the arbitrary and tyrannical mindset of the Radical Republicans. This would become increasingly evident during the years of Reconstruction, which I will cover in future publications. It was also certainly evident in their contrived attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson for trying to dismiss his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. But as previously indicated, the Radical Republicans had little regard for the Constitution, legal precedent, any concept of fairness, or honest parliamentary procedure.

And what of the declared Union objectives of the War? Reunification of the states now became secondary to the vengeful and totalitarian will of a few men who proclaimed themselves to be the will of the people. The Radical Republicans vision for the South can be clearly seen here. In effect, after a long and bloody war “To hold the Union together,” Radical Republicans now kicked the South out of the Union for their own selfish, political purposes. Southern states were subjugated tools of the Radical Republicans ambitions. Every vestige of their culture, heritage, and political sovereignty would be subjected to a campaign of deliberate debasement and attempted eradication. It reveals that a strong underlying Northern motivation for the War was keeping the South under their economic and political control as subjugated territories stripped of their political rights. The purpose of the Reconstruction was to further subjugate and exploit the South, and this was done with a spirit of malice. Readmission depended upon their declared acceptance of the 14^th Amendment.

One of the provisions of the Reconstruction Act was to disenfranchise black males and disenfranchise all Confederate veterans and former Confederate officials. Hence almost the entire white male population of the South except Northern immigrants and proven Union loyalists were without vote or voice in state, local, or federal government. Enflaming the hatred of former slaves against their former masters was to be an important Radical Republican tool for political dominance. Other sections of the act were designed to subdue Southern spirit and provide for continued economic exploitation of the South. This was to establish a permanent Republican dominance in the South and thereby the nation. The war had been ruinous, but military and “carpetbagger” governments would see to it that the ruin was increased, and recovery was slow. Reconstruction was to be continued by ruthless and unsavory political means.

Kentucky had not only rejected the amendment in January 1867, but by overwhelming majorities in a May 1867 election, sent a solid slate of nine Democrats to Congress. On July 3, the Radical Republican Congress voted not to seat them. On July 5, Senator Sumner of Massachusetts threatened to place Kentucky and Maryland under military government. No action was taken on this, however, as Republicans began losing off year elections to Democrats in Northern states.

It was now demanded of the ten Southern States under military government that statehood would not be regained unless they ratified the 14^th Amendment. Six Southern states complied with the reconstructive coercion, and with the ratifications of South Carolina and Louisiana on July 9, 1886, Congress declared the 14^th Amendment ratified, ignoring the recessions of Ohio, and New Jersey, and the impending rescission of Oregon. By law, the official recognition of ratification of a constitutional amendment, rested with the Secretary of State, William H. Seward. Seward proclaimed ratification of the 14^th Amendment on July 20, but in his written and oral proclamation he referred to the questionable status of Ohio and New Jersey ratifications in view of their later rescissions. Congress was unhappy with this. The next day, assuming the function of the Secretary of State, Congress proclaimed joint resolution that the 14^th Amendment was officially ratified. On July 28, Seward bowed to the Congressional resolution of the 21^st and proclaimed the Amendment ratified. With all the regularities, frauds, and coercions involved, what fair minded person would recognize the 14^th Amendment as constitutional? Yet it is accepted as such, and there are now many precedents in law based on the 14^th Amendment.

The 14^th Amendment in many ways turned the original Constitution and the first Ten Amendments on their head. With the 14^th Amendment the nation has progressed from a philosophy of decentralized, limit government to a government increasingly characterized by highly centralized power. States Rights, once an essential check against excessive executive, judicial, and congressional power has been reduced to a meek whisper. Before the Civil War and the 14^th Amendment no federal judge would have dared contemplate removing the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building or striking down state legislation on abortion, much less making laws that forced young children to be bused across a county to achieve an ideal race balance or prohibiting bibles in schools and prayers at high school events. Congress now passes sweeping legislation that is clearly beyond the bounds of their enumerated powers in the Articles of the Constitution and in violation of the Bill of Rights, especially the 10^th Amendment.

The 14^th Amendment has some positives. More attention is paid to individual civil rights and due process, but it has come at a price of considerable loss of freedom and liberties to individuals, businesses, churches, civic, educational, and social organizations, and various spheres of local and states government. It also made us coercive rather than a voluntary society. Every year under the penumbra of the 14^th Amendment, we progress further toward totalitarian government with little accountability or responsiveness to the governed or any concern for constitutional limits of power.

The history of the 14^th Amendment unveils a remarkable corruption of the spirit of liberty and flagrant despotism that has been covered in decades of politically correct whitewash. Such demonstrations of human depravity and course tyranny, though shameful, should not be cover up by a misguided sense of American patriotism. Few things are necessary to a just society as truth. Hence a sine qua non (prerequisite) of all genuine patriotism is high regard for the truth. Truth will always be high ground.

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confessed and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Proverbs 28: 13, ESV.

Why the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. In Invalid

Twenty-three* Senators and fifty-eight Representatives we unlawfully excluded in securing the necessary two-thirds majority to adopt the Joint Resolution.

· (*Twenty-three from eleven Southern States on one from New Jersey)

· (Violates Articles 1.3, 1.2, and V of the U.S. Constitution)

· (The joint Resolution was not submitted to the President for approval, Violates Article 1.5)

The proposed Amendment was rejected by more than one quarter of the States and never received the required approval three-fourths of all the States in the Union.

· (Violates Article V.1)

The governments and legislatures of ten States that had rejeceted the Amendment were unlawfully removed by military force and their reinstatement made contingent on approving the Amendment.

· (Violates Article IV.4)

The Proclamation declaring the 14^th Amendment valid included five States whose lawful legislatures had been replaced by unlawful puppet legislatures and two States (Ohio and New Jersey) whose legislature had rescinded their initial approval.

· (Violates Article IV.2 and V)

Remarkable quotes:

In a post war interview with former Confederate Lt. General Richard Taylor (son of President Zachary Taylor), Thaddeus Stevens called the Constitution “a worthless bit of old parchment.”

“The intent of the Reconstruction Act is to work a radical reorganization in Southern institutions, habits, and manners, and to break up the foundations of their institutions.”

“Greed on office, curse of democracies, will impel demagogues to grovel deeper in the mire in pursuit of ignorant votes.” ~Richard Taylor

References:

The biography essential to understanding the story of the Fourteenth Amendment is Color Blind Justice, Albion Tourgee and the Fight for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy v. Ferguson, by Mark Elliot (Oxford University Press, 2006). Albion Tourgee, a native of the Western Reserve of Ohio, was a Union officer who settled in North Carolina following the Civil War.

The Republic for which it Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896, by Richard White (Oxford University Press, 2018), the latest volume in the multi-volume set, The Oxford History of the United States.

Michael Kent Curtis’s excellent No State Shall Abridge, The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights (Duke University Press, 1986)

These are books that may pique your curiosity in considering how the founding fathers of the Second Constitutional Convention created and used the Fourteenth Amendment to balance the equites, address the challenges of their times, and create a coherent democracy. They also shed light on issues that remain relevant and volatile today.