All of us should honor, respect, defend and uphold the Constitution of our United States of America, which surely is the greatest document of government ever devised by the minds of men.
Unfortunately, our Constitution is sometimes ignored, and sometimes even flagrantly violated. It always should be adhered to very carefully!
But from time to time, there are legitimate questions about what is in the Constitution – and what is not!
For example, there is a long-term controversy about what is presumed to be the 14th Amendment to the Constitution – although it was never legally ratified by Congress.
The 14th Amendment was “adopted” as part of “Reconstruction” at the end of the Civil War. But it is an issue today concerning illegal immigration, because perhaps 12 million to 20 million people have illegally invaded our country.
What’s the story?
After the War Between the States, 1861-1865, Congress proposed and three-fourths of the states properly ratified the 13th Amendment to prohibit slavery.
Then, punitive “radicals” seeking to impose a vicious “Reconstruction” upon the formerly seceded Southern states, sought to adopt the 14th Amendment.
It said, in five sections:
1. That all persons born or naturalized in this country are citizens of the United States, as well as of the states in which they reside, and that no state could abridge the liberties of any citizens of the United States, providing “equal protection of the laws.”
2. That, to prevent denial of voting rights for freed slaves, national representation in Congress would be reduced in proportion to the number of male citizens denied the right to vote.
3. That most of the previous secessionist political leaders would be kept out of a variety of public offices, by banning from office any officials who had supported the Confederate States of America, or had engaged in insurrection or rebellion, or had given aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States.
4. That the U.S. debt resulting from the war was valid, and that debts incurred by the formerly separated states’ insurrection would not be assumed by the United States nor by any state.
5. That “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Continuing problems with the so-called 14th Amendment involve the irregularities that caused it never to have never been voluntarily and legally adopted as the Constitution prescribes – irregularities that are accepted now.
The amendment was not legally proposed in the first place because it deprived the Southern states of representation in Congress – although the seceded states were considered still to be in the Union and never to have legally seceded.
There were 37 states supposedly in the Union at that time, so ratification by 28 states was necessary to make any proposed amendment valid. But when 10 Southern states rejected the proposed 14th Amendment, some of the Southern states were subjected to U.S. military occupation – and were considered to be outside the Union until they ratified the 14th Amendment as a condition for “readmission” to the Union.
But if they were out of the Union, their ratifications obviously were not valid.
And if they were in the Union, they had the right not to ratify the 14th Amendment.
Congress simply ignored the historic fact that fewer than three-fourths of the states legally and voluntarily ratified the 14th Amendment.
In Tennessee, for example, a couple of opposing legislators were locked in a side room in the state Capitol – but counted as “present” – to rig the supposed state approval of the 14th Amendment!
Furthermore, the legislators of the Northern states of New Jersey and Ohio, which initially had ratified the 14th Amendment, were shocked by the high-handed forced ratifications by some other states. So New Jersey and Ohio chose to rescind their ratifications.
So the 14th Amendment was never legally ratified by three-fourths of the states, as the Constitution required. But it has been treated as though it were constitutionally approved!
Following the War Between the States, the issue was about secession. But today, the 14th Amendment is being challenged because of an entirely different issue – illegal immigration.
It involves people who came here illegally, but while here have delivered babies inside the United States – making the babies “natural born citizens,” although their mothers are not citizens and have no legal right to remain here.
What’s the “honest” and “legal” and “practical” answer?
Since the 14th Amendment was never legally adopted, and thus is not a legal part of our Constitution, it should not be applied now. But those who mistakenly insist the 14th Amendment is a part of the Constitution accept the statement that “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.” So what about the “legal” American citizen babies born here, but whose “illegal” mothers are subject to deportation?
How could we send illegal mothers back to foreign countries – but allow their legal-citizen babies to remain in the United States? Or how could we force legal U.S.-citizen babies to leave the United States with their illegal mothers?
These are just some of the complex problems arising now from the massive illegal immigration that has been tolerated too long – and involves the acceptance of the illegal 14th Amendment.