The Dubious14th Amendment

The Foundation.....

What most people don’t know is that the Yankee Union Army was the ONLY reason why the 14th Amendment ever became a fixture in American Jurisprudence. They don’t know Southern states were forced to participate at the point of a bayonet. They don’t comprehend the political climate of the states united at that time, and they don’t have a firm grasp of law in general. This is a nation of laws, and they are set forth in this nation’s charter. Laws codified into sundry “rights and amendments.”

The 14th is one of them. The 14th has been accepted in the judicial system, and utilized as a basis for various rulings and policies, however the 14th was the subject of dubious controversy and debate in the days gone by. I have covered this in previous musings of nothingness:

For those who are inclined I have compiled a report utilizing A.I. after ‘hashing out this topic to the lowest denominator.” This exchange has been condescended for the readers:

1. The 14th Amendment's ratification process was tainted by coercion and duress, violating the principle of voluntary state consent required under Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Article V mandates that amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, yet makes no allowance for such ratification to occur under military occupation or political threats. After the Civil War, eleven former Confederate states were placed under federal military rule and stripped of congressional representation until they agreed to ratify the amendment—effectively placing them under duress.

2. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 dissolved existing Southern state governments and replaced them with federally supervised provisional legislatures. These acts created military districts and required new constitutions and political conditions, including ratification of the 14th Amendment, as prerequisites for re-admittance to the Union. This restructuring replaced legitimate, pre-existing state legislatures with bodies installed and controlled by federal authority, undermining the legitimacy of any ratification those provisional bodies conducted.

3. Ratification was explicitly used as a condition of re-admittance to the Union, amounting to a political ultimatum. Southern states were told that unless they ratified the amendment, they would remain under military control and without congressional representation. This is demonstrated clearly in the congressional record, including statements from legislators like Senator Thomas Hendricks, who admitted that the Southern states were being “coerced to adopt the amendment whether they like it or not.”

4. Several states originally rejected the amendment outright but later “re-ratified” it under military pressure. States such as Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Louisiana initially rejected the 14th Amendment in 1866–1867. Only under threat of continued occupation did they reverse course and ratify it. The reversal raises serious doubts about whether these were acts of sovereign legislatures freely expressing the will of the people, or rather compelled decisions made under threat.

5. Two states—Ohio and New Jersey—rescinded their original ratifications before the 14th Amendment was officially certified, yet their votes were still counted. This undermines the procedural integrity of the ratification tally. While the Constitution is silent on rescission, counting rescinded ratifications toward the required three-fourths threshold introduces further legal ambiguity and procedural invalidity.

6. Legal principles from contract and constitutional law affirm that actions taken under duress are void or voidable. According to the Restatement (Second) of Contracts §175, consent induced by coercion is not valid. Although traditionally applied to private law, this principle has been invoked in public law contexts and even acknowledged in federal case law, such as United States v. United Mine Workers (1947), where the Supreme Court affirmed that coercion invalidates legal consent.

7. The U.S. Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the validity of the 14th Amendment’s ratification, instead deferring under the “political question doctrine.” In Coleman v. Miller (1939), the Court declined to intervene in ratification disputes, declaring them political questions beyond judicial review. This has allowed the amendment to remain in force not because its ratification process was legally flawless, but because no court will adjudicate the issue.

8. Historical congressional debates make clear that the drafters and enforcers of the Reconstruction policy knew they were overriding state sovereignty. Statements from congressional figures and records from the Congressional Globe show that lawmakers were fully aware they were imposing an amendment through coercion. This admission underscores the lack of voluntary consent essential to a constitutionally valid amendment process.

9. Therefore, while the 14th Amendment remains legally recognized today, it is constitutionally compromised. Its ratification was secured not through the voluntary assent of three-fourths of the states but through military pressure, the dissolution of lawful state legislatures, and the political threat of continued disenfranchisement. Under any legal framework requiring free and lawful consent, the 14th Amendment’s adoption fails to meet the constitutional standards of legitimacy. (finis)

Congressional Reconstruction and "Forced Ratifications" (1867–1868):

Under the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, Congress:

• Dissolved Southern state governments.

• Placed the former Confederate states under military rule.

• Required ratification of the 14th Amendment as a condition for re-admittance to Congress.

States that re-ratified the amendment under these conditions:

State Date of Re-ratification

North Carolina July 4, 1868

South Carolina July 9, 1868

Georgia July 21, 1868

Louisiana July 9, 1868

Alabama July 13, 1868

Florida June 9, 1868

Arkansas April 6, 1868

North Carolina July 4, 1868

Virginia October 8, 1869

Mississippi January 17, 1870

Texas February 18, 1870

This led to the formal declaration of ratification by Secretary of State William Seward on July 28, 1868, after counting these Southern re-ratifications.

Congressional and Political Figures (1866–1868)

“These States are to be coerced to adopt the amendment whether they like it or not... under the penalty of continued exclusion from representation.”
— Senator Thomas A. Hendricks (Indiana), Congressional Globe, July 13, 1866

“Until the people of the rebel States shall have formed governments that are in harmony with the Constitution and shall have given adequate guarantees of loyalty and equal protection, they must be regarded as not in full communion with the Union.”
— Senator Jacob Howard (Michigan), co-author of the 14th Amendment, Congressional Globe, May 23, 1866

“No legal government or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States... it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced... until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established.”
— Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867 (14 Stat. 428)

“You are legislating for a conquered people, and you know it. You intend to put the bayonet at their throats.”
— Representative Samuel S. Marshall (Illinois), Congressional Globe, March 19, 1867

“In my judgment, the manner in which the amendment was pressed upon the Southern States was arbitrary, despotic, and unconstitutional.”
— Senator Garrett Davis (Kentucky), Congressional Record, 1868

Judicial and Legal Authority

“The legitimacy of a constitutional amendment cannot rest on a foundation of force and disenfranchisement.”
— Judge L.H. Christian, citing arguments in State of Georgia v. Stanton, 73 U.S. 50 (1867)

“No agreement is valid if it is made under duress or coercion that deprives a party of their free will.”
— United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 294 (1947)

“The question of the efficacy of ratifications by state legislatures... presents no justiciable controversy and is a political question.”
— Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939) (confirming courts will not review flawed ratification processes)

“The Constitution does not contemplate the amendment of its provisions by the dictation of a dominant majority of Congress over the suppressed will of sovereign states.”
— Dissenting legal argument raised in Reconstruction-era state appeals

Historians, Scholars, and Legal Analysts

“A coerced state legislature is not acting as a free representative of its people and thus its ratification cannot be said to meet the requirements of Article V.”
— Prof. Forrest McDonald, Was the Fourteenth Amendment Constitutionally Adopted?, Yale Journal on Law & the Humanities, 1993

“The enactment of the 14th Amendment violated every principle of federalism enshrined in the Constitution. It was forced upon the South at gunpoint, and ratified by puppet regimes under military occupation.”
— Raoul Berger, Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment (1977)

“The Reconstruction Amendments, particularly the Fourteenth, were pushed through not by persuasion, but by conquest. The 'ratifications' cannot be counted as the expression of genuine state sovereignty.”
— Charles C. Tansill, A Constitutional History of the United States (1935)

See, people keeping referring to the past foreign coup as a some sort of “Civil War” that was fought over slavery. It was not. It was a hijack of the Southern “Indian” Confederacy by foreign banks, West Point Generals ON BOTH SIDES, and an unlimited supply of foreign mercenaries. I believe the plot was cooked up at West point between the Generals, et.al. in order to steal our lands under the cover of war. A “war” orchestrated by them in order for us to lose our land wealth. This is why we, American Indians, were the last to surrender at the end of the “Civil War.” I have too covered this previously in detail:

So, like mostly everything else. This “line of doo doo” has been unveiled for what it is. Whether it be the 14th Amendment, or a plethora of “other historical stuff,” when it is held up to scrutiny it does not present well. Now granted, most of the “historical stuff” and the way it is presented is just fine for the racist bigot, the delusional patriot, or the simple minded, emotional “political/religious” reactionary. For them, the “colonial cookie cutter” paradigm is enough. They’re good. For those of higher brightness, not so much on things that don’t wash.

Not so much because anyone with an iota or molecule of discernment will start to, over a lifetime, piece together that he or she has been made a “zip damn fool” out of all of the things that were supposed to be a benefit. Once that realization manifests a person probably would then want to know the mechanics of the “thing” takes such a chunk out of the minds of other people. At least I did. “How did they get like that,” is the question I always ask myself first. No matter what the deficiency I ask that question. Why?

Because I remember birthing my children. I remember gently catching them like a small football pitch, and I remember thinking, “How complex is this creation. How weighty is the charge?” I mean, to look at a newly birthed child, the complexities of the process of creation, the perfection, the innocence, and the weighty responsibility that I was being expected to fulfil. It is from that point in time that I ask, “What happened to them?”

What happened to them from that point forward that made them into the “being” that they are today? What made them just accept anything thrown at them? What made them believe that history as presented by academia is correct? What made them believe that the 14th Amendment was on sound legal foundation? What made them, what made them, what made them?

The same thing that took that baby and made it believe everything else. That’s what.

Lord have Mercy