Posted on 03/22/2006 3:54:13 PM PST by Libloather
Alamance dealer plans to sell 13th Amendment original
The Associated Press
BURLINGTON, N.C.
Published on Tuesday, March 21, 2006
An Alamance County dealer plans to auction one of 13 known original versions of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States, at the end of the month.
The document will be displayed at the Times-News building this week and will be in an online auction March 30, according to Raynors Historical Collectible Auctions.
Bob Raynor, president of the company, said the document has a potential value of $750,000 to $1 million.
The amendment was approved Feb. 1, 1865, by Congress and is signed by President Abraham Lincoln, vice president Hannibal Hamlin as well as 36 senators and 110 congressmen.
Only $750,000?
Man, if I was a Billionarie (and there are, of course, a lot of them these days), I'd say that something like that's worth at least $10 Million.
OK, Constitutional Freepers: was a Presidential endorsement of a Constitutional Amendment necessary? Discuss.
That's easy--the Constitution assigns no role at all to the President in amending the Constitution, so Lincoln's signature (and Hamlin's, for that matter) had absolutely no legal significance.
As President of the Senate, couldn't the Vice President's signature have some significance?
A two-thirds vote is needed from the Senate...the Vice President has no vote, except when they are evenly divided.
Constitutionally? No.
I have a couple of very old books ca. 1812 that have an entirely different 13th Amendment, something about titles and nobility and loss of citizenship as a penalty. For an amendment that the naysayers assert was never ratified (lacked one vote), this one sure made it around the block. In fact, I wonder it it would have been possible to suppress a legitimately passed amendment back in those days, or later to sustain one that actually lacked all the votes necessary for ratification, just based on one windbag's word. Just wondering if it is possible. And if it could be proved to have happened, what anyone could do about it.
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