DAVID ROSMAN: Formal titles could have been unconstitutional

Put out an APB! The 13th Amendment is missing!

With all the happenings concerning the debt limit debacle, the war in Afghanistan and whatever the Columbia City Council is doing this week to disrupt our lives, it appears that some people are worried about the missing 13th Amendment.

No, not the one we have come to know and love, the one that makes it unconstitutional to own slaves. I know where that one is. I read it. I’ve seen the original.

The missing 13th Amendment, the Titles of Nobility (and Honour) Amendment, was brought to my attention by one of my readers, Edward Poian, an adjunct professor of political philosophy at Mercy College in New York.

I hesitate calling him “doctor” or “professor” for fear of possibly violating the missing amendment to the Constitution, which would have made it illegal to use titles such as "Esquire" after a name.

The matter began as a joint resolution passed by Congress in 1810 and sent to the various states for ratification. The proposed amendment read:

“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.”

That would mean that parents training their children to say “Ma’am and “Sir” could violate the Constitution, that every speaker who begins a presentation with “Ladies and Gentlemen” could be breaking the law. Oh, the poor ring master of Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

I found the original source of the Missing 13th Amendment argument at FreedomSchool.com, a well-known “patriotic/anti-government” website. Some 20 sites that I visited appear to refer back to this single article as their proof, reprinting it verbatim.

The argument is that the proposed amendment, at the time of introduction, needed only 12 states for ratification. In fact, 12 state legislatures did ratify it.

However, there is dispute. The ratification bar was raised with the admission into the union of four new states after 1810. Under that standard, the amendment would have needed 16 states for ratification, not 12. The evidence against proper ratification abounds.

Poian’s argument is that Article V of “the Constitution does not specify that newly entered states must ratify an amendment which was proposed prior to the state joining the Union.”

He is right on this point. Article V does not address this issue at all.  It simply states that a proposal becomes an amendment "when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States."

In fact, both sides use the same point in their positions about the number of states needed for ratification this issue.

In 2005, the "titles of nobility amendment" was used as a defense against paying taxes in Campion v. Towns before a U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

I procured a copy of the court decision, and the only mention of the amendment is that it was never ratified, and therefore is not part of the Constitution and unable to be used as a defense. The complainant did not appeal.

There is good news for the conspiracy junkies. Unlike the Equal Rights Amendment, the original filing of the amendment did not put a time limit on ratification needed to be complete, so technically, this is still an open amendment. However, it is now subject to ratification by 38 states. 

A valid amendment would be bad news in Columbia. Medical professionals and full-time faculty at MU and Columbia and Stephens colleges could no longer ask  people to call them “doctor.”

At any rate, this is great stuff to lighten our otherwise bleak and overheated days.                                                                                          

David Rosman is an award-winning editor, writer, professional speaker and college instructor in communications, ethics, business and politics. You can read more of David’s commentaries at InkandVoice.com and New York Journal of Books.com.