The big stumbling block that the pro-14 can't get past is if the Southern legislators were lawful enough to ratify the 13th Amendment, why weren't they lawful enough to reject the 14th?
Do some of you Yankees begin to understand why the South is STILL ticked about the War of Northern Conquest?
- you can find someone to litigate against it because they are or have been harmed by its existence.
- that person has the nerve and the deep pockets to take their argument all the way to the Supreme Court. If the government were to lose at any level, they would certainly appeal to the highest level. If the litigant loses, they would have to continue appealing and hope that the Supremes will see fit to hear it.
- the Supreme Court has the cajones to declare it null and void.
Similar arguments relating to errors in the ratification process have been made forever about income taxation, but no judge has ever, to my knowledge, ever come out and said that the 16th Amendment is null and void. And IMHO, no judge, even if convinced that it should be null and void, ever will.
So the amendments will stand unless specifically repealed by legislative action; the rest is nice table talk signifying nothing.
Amendment XIV
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 Vice President 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 an 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.
We are all created equal.
The amendment passed.
Get over it.
This objection would wipe out most constitutional amendments, including #'s 1-10. Not that it isn't a valid objection, but one shouldn't be under the impression that it's unique to this amendment.
As for the larger question does anyone here know of any instance in American legal history where a law was declared invalid, after it was reputed to have gone into effect, on the grounds that the proper procedure for passing it had not been followed? I have to wonder if there's any precedent for this.
Leaving the ratification history aside, whether the Fourteenth Amendment or something similar to does fit into the Constitutional scheme is an interesting one. Some protection for the rights of individuals against state and local governments seems to be a reasonable contribution to the Framers' program.
Of course it was a change. That's why the Fourteenth Amendment was an amendment, like the Bill of Rights were amendments to the original documents. But one can view it more as a completion or contribution to the original plan. Not to have provided such protection would have been a mistake.
Automatic citizenship for the children of people just of the plane or boat does seem to be a mistake. That can also be rectified by the amendment process.
Walt
What language in Article 1, Section 5 are you relying upon here? Did you mean to cite Article 1, Section 7? I believe that in Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), the Supreme Court held that Article V does not require that constitutional amendments be submitted to the President for approval or veto. That case concerned the Eleventh Amendment.
More generally, assuming that you believe that there is a need to resolve the interesting issues that you have raised, which branch(es) of our government do you believe is/are constitutionally authorized to resolve which issues with finality?
At this point, I know that there's no point in bothering to read any further. The President has no role whatsoever in the process of amending the Constitution.