Amendment XIII.
SECTION 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.
-
The fact that 13A was passed in 1865 and only after the country had been torn in two by the Southern War Of Rebellion And Aggression For The Explicit Right To Keep And Retain Slavery, because let's not pretend that this monumental bout of cussedness was anything other than that, actually points all the way back to the creation of the United States itself and the several states' refusal to accept that Somerset v Stewart (1772) might apply in the then colonies.
Somerset v Stewart challenged the very idea that slavery should exist in England and when the states refused to accept this as a thing, the government under Lord North tried to bring them to heel with punitive taxation measures. The fact that the states refused to accept punishment and negotiate on the matter of why the taxation was imposed in the first place, says that the people who wanted to keep And retain slavery had so much of an economic advantage to do it that they were literally willing to go to war to defend it; which they duly did. The fact that they convinced other people to fight for them, on the notions of "freedom", set in play the petards by which four score and seven years later, these United States would be hoisted.
Let's make no bones about this. The cost of 13A was blood. The cost of 13A was utterly pointless because it should have been addressed before the invention of the United States as a nation. The fact that this took two wars and 93 years, is evil.
Had the United States accepted the ruling of Somerset v Stewart in 1772 then no punitive taxation measures would have ever been passed or needed, the Revolutionary War would have probably never kicked off and certainly the Southern War Of Rebellion And Aggression For The Explicit Right To Keep And Retain Slavery would have never happened.
However contained within 13A is still a clause which quite frankly is pretty horrid. Given that the United States fostered and nurtured a culture of really evil racial hatred which still persists in some quarters, the clause "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" strikes me as being deliberately nasty.
Having already proven that racial hatred was rampant, how could anyone ever actually guarantee that the courts of law which were and are presided over by equally racist judges, be free and fair? If the whole process which leads to a party "having been duly convicted" is itself coloured with a poisonous tint, then an unjust judge could and would duly convict on petty grounds to subject someone whom they hate, to slavery all over again.
In fact 13A only addressed a specific issue (albeit a very very important one) but did nothing to shape the culture. There was a period of about five years in which there was some semblance of equality but that soon dissolved as soon as those with money and power were able to shape the system to their own ends all over again.
13A did not address issues of equality.
13A did not address issues of equity.
13A did not address issues of decency.
For everything 13A is, the one thing which it is not, is just.
13A immediately sparked off the era of "Jim Crow"; which in many circumstances was not an iota any better. Sure, 13A removed slavery outright as a thing but it never attempted to address any issues surrounding segregation, discrimination, or unfair and unconscionable contracts, the existence of things like company stores, or a whole host of issues that grew up and festered in the culture because the initial scar of slavery was never lanced properly in 1774.
13A never corrected the lie that although America said that it held certain truths to be self-evident, life, liberty, and happiness, it immediately set about to explicitly and deliberately deny those same rights to people who it deemed not actually to be created equal.
SECTION 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
-
I have no idea why this needs to exist. If Article I, Section 8 already granted Congress the power to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to execute the powers contained within the Constitution, then by default 13A Section 2 should have already been included?
I know that the United States really hates the idea of handing plenary powers to government but deliberately hamstringing it to the point where it doesn't even function well is a bad thing. Yes, there are people who defend that design but by default governance does not merely disappear but crystallises to unelected and unelectable private powers; thus making a mockery of the opening words of the Constitution: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union... No. You do not.
Amendment XIV.
SECTION 1
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
-
One of the curious consequences of that opening line of 14A is that literally anyone born in the United States is a citizen of the United States. This creates the situation of so-called 'anchor babies' where desperate people will enter the United States (legally or illegally) and have their baby on United States' soil. As citizenship is conferred on the basis of land and not parentage, then that child is a citizen of the United States.
There are of course a lot of asterisks all the way down here; which include the problem of whether or not a first nations person born on a reservation is actually a United States citizen, or whether or not someone who lives in an unincorporated territory where not all of the Constitution applies (thanks to SCOTUS's 1917 Insular Cases) is actually a United States citizen, or even the "sad coconut" case where someone both on an unorganised but incorporated territory like Palmyra Atoll is absolutely a United States citizen. Does the US Constitution apply even when nobody lives there? Yes, it does. It turns out that even the void is not an invitation to anarchy.
But it is the second part of this which is really scary.
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"
By implication, the States can enforce any law which does abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States and which does deprive people of life, liberty, and property, by due process of law. It turns out that the States can actually ignore any rights which people think and believe to be inherent, by merely passing legislation to do so.
Of course, this was in fact always the case. A right is a legal instrument which allows someone to do a thing, or own a thing, or have an interest in a thing. What 14A does is bounce back a lot of power to the States; who in the five years after 1868, which was immediately after the War of Southern Aggression, began to strip away the rights which slaves and black people had won for a brief period of time; all with the endorsement of 14A because legislatures always pass law by due process of law.
As for "the equal protection of the laws", if the law offers no protection at all but to everyone equally, then this maliciously satisfies the conditions of 14A.
SECTION 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, [being twenty-one years of age,]* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
-
Note 1 - the Members of the House of Representatives is apportioned based upon the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State; except when the right to vote is denied to them. Note that women for the purposes of 14A S2 simply do not exist. Also note that there is a difference between someone being explicitly denied the vote by law, and being denied the vote by law because the state has made it difficult to do so (such as by means of reducing the number of polling places, or making those polling places really hard to get to, or by having machines which simply do not work, et cetera). It might be in the State's interest to have people counted in the "whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State" because then they'd get more Representatives but at the same time, it might be in the State's interest to have people unable to exercise their franchise because the self-interested people with power are a bunch of racist knaves.
Note 2 - The right to vote at any election can be abridged for “participation in rebellion, or other crime”. Yet again this assumes that the justice system itself if reasonable and just, and not made up of a bunch of racist knaves. The actual operation of this secrtion meant that States who were formally in the North could and did deny the vote to people who had fought for the Confederacy; likewise that States who were formally in the South could and did deny the vote to people who had fought for the Union.
SECTION 3
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.
-
14A which was passed in 1868 was originally supposed to deny people who had previously taken up arms against the United States for the Confederacy from holding public office, both elected and unelected. That seems sensible enough. Why would you want your former enemies engaged in the apparatus of government.
It does however pose an interesting question. With regards January 6th 2021 when President Donald Trump stood at the end of The Mall and incited people to violence, to engage in insurrection and with the confessed intent to kill various members of the House and Senate, then that should have automatically disqualified him to run again for President under this section. Several States declared that Trump was ineligible to run for President and had him struck off their ballot papers.
Trump then took the case to the Supreme Court, in the case of Trump v Anderson (2024); wherein SCOTUS ruled that 14A S3 was the exclusive domain of the Federal Government and that the States, even though they were correct in applying the law, were not the ones to do so, so their decisions were struck off as invalid. What the cussing cuss is this cuss? If SCOTUS refuses to apply the law because it was deliberately stacked with partisan appointments, then yet again we prove that functionally even engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States and/or given aid or comfort its enemies therein, is basically pointless. 14A S3 is utterly pointless and useless if the court is made of scum.
No comments:
Post a Comment