Missing 13th Amendment declares Lawyers ineligible for office

I stumbled apon this paper by David M. Dodge, that makes the claim that there was a 13th amendment to the constitution that prohibited "lawyers from serving in government"

The Missing 13th Amendment

By chance, they discovered the library's oldest authentic copy of the Constitution of the United States (printed in 1825). Both men were stunned to see this document included a 13th Amendment that no longer appears on current copies of the Constitution. Moreover, after studying the Amendment's language and historical context, they realized the principle intent of this "missing" 13th Amendment was to prohibit lawyers from serving in government. So began a seven year, nationwide search for the truth surrounding the most bizarre Constitutional puzzle in American history -- the unlawful removal of a ratified Amendment from the Constitution of the United States.

Here is the text of the "missing 13th Amendment"

"If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them."

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/03677802716a.jpg[/atsimg]

It is a long paper, and certianly worth the read if you have the time, but bascially it states that one of the intentions of prohibiting people of nobility or honour was to keep lawyers out. At the time, the International Bar Association

chartered by the King of England, headquartered in London, and closely associated with the international banking system. Lawyers admitted to the IBA received the rank "Esquire" -- a "title of nobility". "Esquire" was the principle title of nobility which the 13th Amendment sought to prohibit from the United States

So, was it the intentions of our founding fathers to keep lawyers out of office? That doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me. From Legal Reform Now

The number of lawyers in public office in our history has been large

The U.S. Congress has long been dominated by lawyer-politicians. "From 1780 to 1930, two thirds of the senators and about half of the House of Representatives were lawyers; the percentage seems to have stayed fairly stable

I'll finalize this post with a definition of lawyer by Ambrose Bierce

Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

-E-

[edit on 10-9-2009 by MysterE]

the thirteenth amendment to the constitution abolishes slavery.

specifically:

Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865.

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

According to that article the copy of the Constitution was printed in 1825, 40 years before The Slavery Amendment. So it is possible that sometime in between 1825 and 1865 the "No Lawyers" Amendment was removed.

reply to post by Crakeur


That is correct. This article argues that an additional amendment which supposedly should have been ratified, should be law today. I would post the section that discusses this but it would be an extremely long quote. What happened is...

12 states had already ratified the amendment, and

Before a thirteenth state could ratify, the War of 1812 broke out with England. By the time the war ended in 1814, the British had burned the Capitol, the Library of Congress, and most of the records of the first 38 years of government. Whether there was a connection between the proposed "title of nobility" amendment and the War of 1812 is not known. However, the momentum to ratify the proposed Amendment was lost in the tumult of war.

The author goes on to explain his position. It is under the "PARADISE LOST, RATIFICATION FOUND" section of the article. I should have explained this better in the OP

-E-


[edit on 10-9-2009 by MysterE]

You might check the article on "failed amendments" here. There are some links from that page that give some additional detail. It's called the "Anti Title Amendment".

The reason why it was removed is clear (and not even a Conspiracy Theory).

Once the United States had gained its Independence from England, Lawyers were no longer members of Gentry, nor swore their allegiance to a foreign sovereign power. To practice Law in the United States after Independence, Voluntary and Jurisdictional Bars were created to which a Lawyer had to affiliate with in order to practice Law. These American Bars replaced the British Inns of the Court to which Lawyers previously were members of after successful apprenticeship. Lawyers in the United States therefore carried the title of "Juris Doctor" or "Doctor of Jurisprudence" rather than the Gentry title of "Esquire". Therefore, the "missing" 13th Amendment became redundant and no longer applicable, as there was no longer a Gentry in the United States. However, a similar clause does appear in the 14th Amendment:

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.

So, the premise remains the same. You must swear an oath to support the Constitution of the United States to hold public office. If you have aided or abetted enemies of the States, or engaged in insurrection or rebellion, then you cannot hold office unless 2/3rd of both the House and Congress vote to exempt you from that. The idea being that one cannot be a servant of two masters.

Although I personally am not fond of lawyers, to put it politely, who else is going to be better at writing the laws than one well-versed in the law?

Ideally, it would be better if we had the lawyers draft the laws, and non-lawyers vote on them. Giving lawyers the power to draft *AND* enact laws is where our Governmental Process went awry.

[edit on 10-9-2009 by fraterormus]

reply to post by fraterormus


Then I guess the question is, Did the framers of the constitution intend to only restrict foreign nobility? Or did they want lawyers included, and since they fell under the category of foreign nobility, they did not feel the need to specify lawyers in general.

P.S. Your rhetoric here

Giving lawyers the power to draft *AND* enact laws is where our Governmental Process went awry.

is spot on.

-E-

Originally posted by MysterE
Then I guess the question is, Did the framers of the constitution intend to only restrict foreign nobility? Or did they want lawyers included, and since they fell under the category of foreign nobility, they did not feel the need to specify lawyers in general.

As the verbiage in the 14th Amendment shows, it seems to have been a "You can't serve two masters" and "You are either with us or against us". If someone served or swore allegiance to a foreign sovereign, then how could they serve the interest of the United States as a public official?

Likewise, in addition to that commonality shared between the missing 13th and the current 14th Amendment, as pertaining specifically to lawyers, if someone clung to their Title of Gentry, then how could they swear allegiance to the founding premise of the United States that all men are created equal if they hold a title that puts them above their fellow man?

Our Founding Fathers understood that the Government was supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Government wasn't meant to be above the people. That is what they fought to overthrow (along with their French compatriots). There is no room in the United States Government for an Aristocracy, even though that is where it is headed with multi-generational families occupying the same seats of Government.

The missing 13th Amendment doesn't seem to be against Lawyers per se, but against those who held Aristocratic Titles and swore their Allegiance to a foreign sovereign power to gain those Titles. The same would have applied to any Officer having served in a foreign Military, or a Noble of another Country. It was intended to keep the newly born United States Government of the People from being usurped and taken over by the French, Spanish, Dutch, or German Aristocracy or other foreign interests. We still, to this day, have similar provisions in Constitutional Amendments and Code, but rather than specifically say "Title" or "Aristocracy" or "Gentry" or "Nobility", since mentioning those specifically would lend credence to the idea that all men aren't really created equal (if we don't acknowledge such differences between men, then it reinforces the idea that all men are created equal), we now just say "citizen of another country".

Well this sounds familiar:

"As the verbiage in the 14th Amendment shows, it seems to have been a "You can't serve two masters" and "You are either with us or against us". If someone served or swore allegiance to a foreign sovereign, then how could they serve the interest of the United States as a public official?

It's no wonder the "Birthers" are so upset!