Will the Debt Ceiling Be Overturned by the 14th Amendment?

The debt ceiling is currently due to be passed on August 2, 2011. This is a moving target that has already been “adjusted” three times. The government is currently funding our debt by raiding the federal employees’ pension fund. With little movement by either side on what to do on this issue, a new wrinkle is being added by the interpretation of the following section in the 14th amendment:

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.

If an agreement is not reached soon, it appears that the President will use this portion of the 14th amendment to make the requirement for a debt ceiling to be unconstitutional.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21xfszl0k-M

How many of our current issues and problems can be attributed to this amendment? Anchor babies, abortion, ten commandments not allowed in courtrooms and elimination of state’s rights are only the beginning of this illegally ratified amendment. Imagine a United States where true history was taught and our 10th amendment rights were restored. I have included an excerpt below from U.S. News and World Report in 1957 concerning this “amendment”.

David DeGerolamo

There is No “Fourteenth Amendment”!

by
David Lawrence
U.S. News & World Report
September 27, 1957

A MISTAKEN  BELIEF —  that there  is a valid article in the Constitution  known   as  the   “Fourteenth  Amendment”   —   is responsible for  the Supreme  Court  decision  of  1954  and  the ensuing controversy  over desegregation  in the public schools of America.    No  such amendment was ever legally ratified by three fourths  of   the  States   of  the  Union  as  required  by  the Constitution itself.     The so-called “Fourteenth Amendment” was dubiously  proclaimed by the Secretary of State on July 20, 1868. The President  shared that  doubt.    There were 37 States in the Union at  the time,  so ratification by at least 28 was necessary to make  the amendment  an integral  part  of  the  Constitution. Actually, only  21 States  legally ratified  it.  So it failed of ratification.

The undisputed record, attested by official journals and the unanimous writings  of historians,  establishes these  events  as occurring in 1867 and 1868:

1. Outside the  South, six  States —  New  Jersey,  Ohio,  Kentucky, California,  Delaware and  Maryland — failed  to ratify the proposed amendment.
2. In the  South, ten States — Texas, Arkansas, Virginia,  North  Carolina,   South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Florida, Mississippi  and Louisiana — by formal action  of their  legislatures, rejected  it under  the  normal  processes of civil law.
3. A total  of 16 legislatures out of 37 failed legally to  ratify the “Fourteenth Amendment.”
4. Congress —  which had  deprived the Southern States of  their seats  in the Senate — did not lawfully pass the  resolution of submission in the first instance.
5. The Southern  States which  had rejected  the amendment  were coerced  by a  federal statute passed in 1867 that  took away  the right  to vote  or hold  office from all  citizens  who  had  served  in  the  Confederate  Army.  Military governors  were appointed  and  instructed  to  prepare the roll of voters.  All this happened in spite  of the  presidential proclamation of amnesty previously  issued  by   the  President.    New  legislatures  were  thereupon chosen  and forced  to “ratify” under penalty  of continued  exile from  the Union.   In  Louisiana, a  General sent  down from  the North  presided  over  the  State legislature.
6. Abraham Lincoln  had declared many times that the Union  was “inseparable”  and “indivisible.”  After his death,  and when  the war  was over,  the ratification  by  the  Southern States of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing  slavery, had  been accepted  as legal.  But Congress in  the 1867  law imposed  the  specific  conditions  under  which  the   Southern  States  would  be  “entitled  to  representation in Congress.”
7. Congress, in  passing the  1867 law  that declared  the  Southern States  could not  have their  seats in either  the Senate  or House  in the  next session  unless they  ratified   the    “Fourteenth   Amendment,”   took   an  unprecedented step.  No such right — to compel a State  by an  act  of  Congress  to  ratify  a  constitutional  amendment  —   is  to   be  found   anywhere  in   the  Constitution.     Nor  has  this  procedure  ever  been  sanctioned by the Supreme Court of the United States.
8. President Andrew Johnson publicly denounced this law as  unconstitutional.  But it was passed over his veto.
9. Secretary of  State Seward was on the spot in July 1868  when the  various “ratifications”  of a spurious nature  were placed  before him.   The legislatures of Ohio and  New Jersey  had notified  him that they rescinded their  earlier  action  of  ratification.    He  said  in  his  official proclamation  that he  was not  authorized  as  Secretary of  State “to  determine and  decide doubtful  questions as to the authenticity of the organization of  State legislatures  or as  to the  power of  any  State  legislature to  recall a  previous act or resolution of  ratification.”   He added  that the amendment was valid  “if the resolutions of the legislatures of Ohio and New  Jersey, ratifying  the aforesaid  amendment, are  to be  deemed  as   remaining  of   full  force   and  effect,  notwithstanding  the   subsequent  resolutions  of  the  legislatures of  these States.”   This  was a  very big  “if.”  It will be noted that the real issue, therefore,  is not  only whether  the forced  “ratification” by the  ten  Southern   States  was  lawful,  but  whether  the  withdrawal by the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey — two  Northern States  — was  legal.   The right of a  State, by action of its legislature, to change its mind  at  any   time  before   the  final   proclamation   of  ratification is  issued by  the Secretary  of State has  been confirmed  in connection with other constitutional  amendments.
10. The Oregon  Legislature in October 1868 — three months  after the  Secretary’s  proclamation  was  issued    — passed a  rescinding resolution,  which argued that the  “Fourteenth Amendment”  had not  been ratified by three  fourths of  the States  and that the “ratifications” in  the     Southern      States     were     “usurpations,  unconstitutional, revolutionary  and  void”  and  that,  “until such  ratification is completed, any State has a  right  to   withdraw  its   assent  to   any   proposed  amendment.”

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