The American Ruling Class

[rickoff]

Reply to Bren:

Thanks, Bren. I'm glad to see that several people have been interested enough to participate in this thread, and that many more have taken the time to at least read a number of the posts. All we can hope for is that the information found here will help to awaken readers to the corruption that exists, the deceptions that have been and continue to be perpetrated upon us by the Ruling Class powerful elite, and what can be done to stop them.

Best 2 U,

Rick

[rickoff]

Health Care Reform?

FINALLY...SOME ONE ASKED HIM THE QUESTION!

ON "ABC-TV" (BETTER KNOWN AS THE ALL BARRACK CHANNEL)
DURING THE "NETWORK SPECIAL ON HEALTH CARE".... OBAMA WAS ASKED:


"MR. PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM AND JOIN THE NEW 'UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM' THAT THE REST OF US WILL BE ON ????"


(BET YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER)



THERE WAS A STONEY SILENCE AS OBAMA IGNORED THE QUESTION AND CHOSE NOT TO ANSWER IT. IN ADDITION, A NUMBER OF SENATORS WERE ASKED THE SAME QUESTION AND THEIR RESPONSE WAS. "WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT." AND THEY DID. IT WAS ANNOUNCED ON THE NEWS THAT THE "KENNEDY HEALTH CARE BILL" WAS WRITTEN INTO THE NEW HEALTH CARE REFORM INITIATIVE ENSURING THAT THAT CONGRESS WILL BE 100% EXEMPT !

SO, THIS GREAT NEW HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND I... IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR OBAMA, HIS FAMILY OR CONGRESS...??


WE, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, NEED TO STOP THIS PROPOSED DEBACLE ASAP! THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG! WE GET "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE" WHILE THE WASHINGTON ELITE KEEP RIGHT ON WITH THEIR GOLD-PLATED HEALTH CARE COVERAGES?



If you don't pass this around, may you enjoy their Plan!

[rickoff]

These would be funny if they weren't true:

[rickoff]

TV programming alert!

Today on TV the History Channel is running several hours of 911 related programs, which are currently underway as I write. Of special interest will be the "Conspiracies" program airing from 5PM to 7PM Eastern time, which will focus on many of the popular conspiracy theories found on the Internet. It will be interesting to see how they treat the conspiracy point of view, and whether any of the theories are given serious consideration or just brushed aside. Be sure to watch this, and let's have a discussion about what we see.

A mountain of evidence points to the "official" version of the 911 events as being far from the actual truth. The only officially sanctioned investigation and report was done by the 911 Commission, and several members of that Commission have stated that their investigation was hampered by government sources which lied, withheld requested information and documents, and otherwise created barriers to the investigation. Why should we believe the "official" version of the 911 events when even those who drafted the report do not believe it?

The reason why this should be considered as a central issue in this thread is because of its nature. Those who stood to gain from the 911 events were at the highest echelons of the Ruling Class. Overwhelming evidence points to the 911 events as being a planned false flag operation, which was eerily similar to the previously contrived Operation Northwoods, a US military and government plan that was not carried out under the administration of John Kennedy, who refused to sanction it. The 911 events are a classic example of the Problem-Reaction-Solution philosophy which the Ruling Class has effectively used for generations to shape public opinion and bring about changes that are desirable to the Ruling Class.

Please watch this special broadcast, and let's discuss what is and is not shown.

Rick

[chasson321]

Thanks Rick!

Rick,
I just want to thank you for your thoughtful posts. Whether dealing with experiments and their descriptions or other topics such as this one, your research and attention to detail is clearly seen.

Tim

[h20power]

Well, I will have to sit that one out as I don't have cable TV and do very little TV watching in general. But I already know the truth, the Oklahoma city bombing was a trail run to see if they could get away with it and they did. Not many question that event when they should, for the bomb was at one side of the building and debry was blown in the wrong direction. Plus the fource of the blast was far too powerful, able to shear all the rebar in the concret. Then one or two explosive devices didn't go off and the bomb squad was called in to defuse the bombs.

With 9/11 they where so sure they would get away with it, some of them make bets against the companies they new where being used for the cover up stocks to fall. All roads lead to the CIA when the money trail is followed and a few other companies. They have killed well over 500,000 people with this false flage event and the numbers are still coming in.

We must at all cost get this fully ratified original 13th Amendment to be enforced by our law officers:

Quote from The Missing 13th Amendment: The Original Thirteenth Amendment

The Missing 13th Amendment
"TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR"

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.

As the saying goes, Milk does the body good, pass it on


h2opower.

[brenie]

Is this the Rick and h20 show?
Excellent material, keep it coming.

Regards, Bren.

[h20power]

Thanks and I know what you mean, he and I seem to think very much alike, and I am very glad he started this thread Thanks Rick


h2opower.

Is this the Rick and h20 show?
Excellent material, keep it coming.

Regards, Bren.

[patmac]

Hi Rick...

It's incredible David Icke is on right in many cases look:

That Health system is near to be identical to health system here in Colombia, that system begun here on first year of gov Alvaro Uribe, Health System is near 100% privatized here, you Gov here has named it Prepaid Heath System.

You montly pay aprox 30-40 U$ dollars. And they give you medical assitance but some is problematic when see you problem is very costly only give you some pills and don't give you a complete cure to the problem at least you demand on the Court your case, affortunatly here exist a system named TUTELA, where is possible make your demand for free and the state pay the LAWYERS and to avoid make this costly then the conflics is solved very fast.

This year the problem is bigger the Health companies is saying BROKE, then the president Uribe is saying "This country can not pay for ALL". That suggest me that system goes to TOTAL PRIVATIZATION in the future.

The OBAMACARE is like this system in Colombia, the Doctors use his computer and first follow a stupid protocols and if your problem is danger and is not discovered on time (Cancer for example), they only give you ones cheape pills like Aspirin to hide your aches and don't cure your sick. But HEY if the pills is costly then you pay 100% his value ... Then here in Colombia pills imported are highly costly because is TAX Charged. My mother suffer Diabethes type II, and her pills cost aprox U$ 60 montly.

This is a SATANIC SYSTEM if they don't give you all you need to live sane then is better don't get nothing from them. How can the system tell you what is your SICK and do not give you the cure?.

[rickoff]

Hi Patmac,

Yes, I don't see how your government can possibly pay for everyone's health care needs when each person only pays about $40 per month. Here in USA I pay about $450 each month towards my health insurance. I am retired now, and my former employer pays 80% of the cost for my insurance. So, that means I am paying 20% of the total cost, which must be $2,250 per month. That is almost as much as each person would pay in an entire year for Obama Care, and that looks like a huge problem to me. There is no way that Obama Care can provide my wife and myself with the quality of medical care that we now receive. Sure, I would save money by accepting Obama Care, but as the saying goes, "you get what you pay for." You can see that in your country there is not enough money coming in to the system to pay the costs, so people are not getting what they need. The same thing will happen here with Obama Care, and then they will double or triple the cost of people's insurance to make up for the shortfalls. It won't be very pretty.

Best regards to you Carlos,

Rick

[rickoff]

Reply to H2O:

Quote from The Missing 13th Amendment: The Original Thirteenth Amendment

The Missing 13th Amendment
"TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR"

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.

Hi H2O,

I had heard of this before, and looked into it at the time. In actuality, the "Titles of Nobility" is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that forbids the United States from granting titles of nobility and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress.

That still stands, and reads, "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

The Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA) was a proposed 13th Amendment to the US Constitution dating from 1810. The Amendment reads, "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." The US Senate approved the measure by a vote of 19-5 on April 27, 1810. It was then adopted by the US House of Representatives with a vote of 87-3 on May 1, 1810. After its passage in the Congress, the amendment was presented to the state legislatures for ratification as prescribed by Article V of the Constitution. It was submitted to the state legislatures during the 2nd Session of the 11th Congress via a resolution offered by U.S. Senator Phillip Reed of Maryland. To this date, it has not been ratified by three-fourths of the states and so has never become part of the Constitution.

Quite unfortunate, and it also begs the question, "Why Not?" You would think that the states would have been all in favor of this. Actually, 12 states did ratify the Amendment:

1. Maryland (December 25, 1810)
2. Kentucky (January 31, 1811)
3. Ohio (January 31, 1811)
4. Delaware (February 2, 1811)
5. Pennsylvania (February 6, 1811)
6. New Jersey (February 13, 1811)
7. Vermont (October 24, 1811)
8. Tennessee (November 21, 1811)
9. Georgia (November 22, 1811)
10. North Carolina (December 23, 1811)
11. Massachusetts (February 27, 1812)
12. New Hampshire (December 9, 1812)

The amendment was rejected by the following three state legislatures:

1. New York (March 12, 1812)
2. Connecticut (May 13, 1813)
3. Rhode Island (September 15, 1814)

In the case of South Carolina, while its Senate voted to ratify the amendment on November 28, 1811, the state's House of Representatives rejected the amendment on December 21, 1814. As to Virginia's legislators, although it long has been maintained that no records survived of any action having been taken relative to officially ratifying, or rejecting, the amendment, state legislative records indicate that the Virginia House of Delegates approved the amendment on February 2, 1811,[5] but the Virginia Senate rejected the amendment on February 14, 1811.[6]

Now that takes care of 17 states, right? In 1810 there were 17 states, so we have accounted for all of them. So in 1810, only 13 states would have needed to ratify the Amendment for a required 3/4 majority. But only 1 state, Maryland, ratified in 1810. Several others ratified during 1811, and this would have brought the total to ten states. Massachusetts and New Hampshire did not ratify until 1812, and 12 states did not constitute a 3/4 majority in 1812 because there were actually 18 states that year. In 1812, Louisiana was the 18th state to join the Union. So the Amendment failed by just 1 state!

I'm astonished that my own state of Maine is not on the ratified list, and that would have cinched the deal had they ratified before 1812. The good part, though, is that the Amendment has no expiration date! It is still active and waiting for action by the remaining states. Only 26 more states are needed to ratify and pass this Amendment.

I think that the Amendment was purposely held back from passing by state legislators for some reason - perhaps because most of them are also lawyers with titles (esquire, for example.) While Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids titles of nobility, it does not stipulate any penalty for those who accept or use a title, while the proposed Amendment does cite that citizenship will be forfeited. I think we should hound our state representatives and demand an answer as to why they have not yet ratified the Amendment. Let's see what they have to say about it.

In any case, Barack Obama, while not in danger of losing his citizenship (if he actually is a citizen - which hasn't been proven yet) is definitely in violation of the Constitution both for accepting the chairman position of the UN Security Council, and for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama by the Norwegian Parliament, clearly a violation of the Constitution's Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8. Obama received a certificate, a gold medal, and a monetary award exceeding one million dollars. Nice work if you can get it, huh? I'm not quite sure what the Constitution specifies as punishment for violations of the Constitution, or what our other laws say about that. Perhaps someone else would look into that and see if Obama can be held accountable in some way. If so, let us know.

Best regards,

Rick

[h20power]

Hi Rick,
This bit of reading clearly says it was ratified: The Demon Of Discord - Ratification and Suppression of the Original Thirteenth Amendment

Conclusions

True history is not what it seems to be in modern American history.

The large number of subsequent publications of the Thirteenth Amendment, in books of State law and in volumes of history, collections of Presidential addresses, and special publications of the Constitution -- for example, in the Whig Party Almanac of 1845, as issued by the New York Tribune - and the last that we find, the Laws of the Territory of Wyoming in 1876 similarly showing the Thirteenth Amendment, were not mistakes made by poorly informed frontiersmen. Too many of the men who supported this measure, in the Senate, were lawyers, to make the argument that it bans lawyers from being elected. Not under the terms and definitions current in that era, 1810-1820!

The men who operated in government in the years after 1819 were not ignorant buffoons, and they were comfortable with what Virginia had done in publishing its Revised Code. A former judge, Governor Ninian Edwards of Illinois, was in office in 1826 when that State's Legislature approved a new edition of its laws to supersede the 1823 edition, with the original Thirteenth again contained in it. He was also the first Senator sent by Illinois to Washington 1818-1825, with extensive experience in the law and as the Governor of Illinois Territory 1809-1818. Such men were jealous of the rights of their States, and if Edwards had believed that Illinois was entitled to take a ratification vote, he would have demanded it. No such demand was ever made.

Sectional jealousies would have been easily inflamed, in that time, if the principal scholars of the law thought that the original Thirteenth Amendment was installed by a Virginian cabal. Publishers based in the northern cities of Boston and New York apparently were unaffected by Joseph Story's 1828 volumes, because a wide variety of historical books were issued with the Constitution and the original Thirteenth included. Nor would the friends of Thomas Jefferson have remained silent, if they detected the judiciary assimilating new powers, in every session.

Writing to William Charles Jarvis in September of 1820, the sage of Monticello said,

"to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps."

And, a quick study of the Nullification controversy can confirm this assertion: the leading men of the States in the 1830's were exceptionally vocal in defending the perquisites of their sovereign, constitutional republics.[41] Oddly enough, the original Thirteenth Amendment clearly and unequivocally extends the authority of Congress over all manner of trading arrangements; and it clarifies the idea that Citizenship has its origin in a person's State of residence, with a federal 'octave' or level of responsibility in the world at large, which is subject to legislative oversight.

To question the bona fides of the Revised Code of 1819 is to cast aspersions on the leading men of law from Virginia in that era, the leading scholars of that law, two judges of the supreme court of appeals, and the democratic process of self-government as it was known in that day and age. The TONA was written and passed by a Congress which was reacting to the depredations of British aristocrats and Spanish grandees, to safeguard a government which was an infant among the nations of the world, but a strong one. It was clearly designed to defeat the plans and to retard the plots of skilled men of espionage, worldly-wise diplomats, and to stifle homegrown Bonapartists. It was not the work of xenophobic men, but of hard-skulled and practical political leaders from both the Federalist and the Jeffersonian factions.

Throughout the Jacksonian era, men of government read their law books and those books included the TONA as the lawful Article XIII. When it disappeared, it did not vanish all at once but it was, rather, replaced by stealth and thus by nothing at all. It was simply ignored to death by a legal establishment which was loyal to James Buchanan and his Philadelphia lawyers, and thus supportive of the continued extension, expansion, growth of slavery, and the cotton trade.[42]

Nor were all of these political leaders subject to the manipulations of Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States.[43] In that time, the New England States opposed the banking policies coming from Biddle and his corps of propagandists: they had their own State banks to protect, and in the post-Federalist era, affection for Great Britain was a distant second to the commercial interests of weaving and manufacturing.

Nor did the British or the Spanish give up their briberies and influence-peddling after losing the Bank to Andrew Jackson's veto. The whole checkered history of Texas and its failed annexations reeks of English meddling and espionage.[44]

James Buchanan and his various allies and cohorts, including Senators Judah P. Benjamin and Henry Clay emerge as the men who plotted the suppression of the TONA. Elected to the Louisiana State House as a Whig, Benjamin was allied to Senator John Slidell and his brother Tom, then the Chief Justice of the State. Admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1848, Benjamin certainly had motives for seeing the original Thirteenth Amendment suppressed. And the most famous case then current involved "the Cuban Filibusters," as those Americans who fomented revolutions in South American countries were popularly known.

(Had to cut a large section of the reading out for it was too long)

The Senate voted 39 to 5 to approve this section and it was sent to the House, where it passed 133-65 -- after a furious and rancorous debate -- on March 2, 1861. It appears at 12 Stat. 251, 36th Congress. Two State legislatures ratified it, beginning with Ohio on May 13, 1861, and followed by Maryland on January 10, 1862. Illinois bungled its ratification by holding a convention. It is the only Amendment ever issued by Congress with an article number in the text, and it would, thus, have permanently displaced the original Thirteenth or TONA.

The original Thirteenth Amendment was the law, and even though it has been suppressed and forgotten, it remains our patrimony, our birthright. It is ours as a gift from the veterans of the Revolutionary struggle against tyranny, indolence and greed. Although it was derailed by the War of 1812, the vote of the Virginia Legislature and its publication in the Revised Code of Virginia for 1819 stands as the lawful notice of ratification to the federal government. It belongs to us all, as Citizens. Dozens of opportunities to revisit it, or to protest it, passed unattended. That means the original Thirteenth Amendment was never revoked or deleted lawfully.

"Everything that is hidden about the TONA is hidden in plain sight."

It needs only to be reclaimed by American patriots, and then proclaimed to the whole nation!

Finis

After reading all of that I conclude it was ratified just buried by a Bush style president Buchanan. Not to doubt your research, but when I read this it does seem very clear that all we patriots have to do is reclaim the much needed original 13th back to our once great nation. This will fix what is wrong for the most part, and will bring honor back to our representatives, after clearing about 98% of them out, lol. But this way any attempts of a corporation, bankers cartel, or foreign powers will be halted in their tracks.

We must find a way to fight for this, for as I see things now it might just be our only hope of keeping America from becoming the North American Union.

Give me more time to go over all of what you posted as I am also interested in knowing the real truth about this matter.

But the 14th Amendment I know for a fact was never ratified, and we patriots must see too it that it gets the boot out of our Constitution. Right now we are fastly losing this battle to stop the North American Union as they are planning to crash the dollar and then using their problem reaction solution give us the Amero and we will not only accept it but America will vanish with a thunderous applause as the ignorant masses demand it be given to them to get them back into their normal way of life. I truly feel sad for this country right now for I can see it's end and the battle looks like it is almost over.

Gotta find a way to keep my head up,

h2opower.

[rickoff]

Reply to H2O:

The original Thirteenth Amendment was the law, and even though it has been suppressed and forgotten, it remains our patrimony, our birthright. It is ours as a gift from the veterans of the Revolutionary struggle against tyranny, indolence and greed. Although it was derailed by the War of 1812, the vote of the Virginia Legislature and its publication in the Revised Code of Virginia for 1819 stands as the lawful notice of ratification to the federal government.

That's interesting, H2O, and it may put a different slant on things from the information I provided in post #161, which stated:

As to Virginia's legislators, although it long has been maintained that no records survived of any action having been taken relative to officially ratifying, or rejecting, the amendment, state legislative records indicate that the Virginia House of Delegates approved the amendment on February 2, 1811,[5] but the Virginia Senate rejected the amendment on February 14, 1811.[6]

I would take it that the above statement is factual, but that later on, in 1819, Virginia did ratify the Amendment and published it. This is very interesting. The question now becomes how many states were there in 1819, and did any other states ratify the TONA between 1812 and 1819? In order to pass, the Amendment required a 3/4 majority of the states approving it.

Indiana became the nineteenth state on December 11, 1816.
Mississippi became the 20th state on December 10, 1817.
Illinois became the 21st state in 1818.
Alabama became the 22nd state in 1819.

Maine became the 23rd state on March 15, 1820, so we do not need to consider that when studying the Virginia ratfication in 1819. Thus, there were 22 states in 1819 and the Amendment would have required a total of 17 state ratifications to pass with the 3/4 requirement. This may prove difficult to research to determine exactly how many states did ratify the Amendment by 1819. Some of this may be possible on the Internet, but I suspect that we may have to dig deeper within state records. If Virginia originally failed to ratify the Amendment, but later approved it in 1819, it is possible that some of the other states that rejected it early on may have also approved it later. And what of Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, and Alabama? Did they approve the Amendment, reject it, or perhaps not even deliberate on it? These are the questions we must ask, and the answers we must seek.

Best regards to you H2O,

Rick

[rickoff]

My analysis of the ratification of the original 13th Amendment

Here's a list of all the states in the Union through 1819, in the order which they attained statehood. Those who we know ratified the original 13th Amendment are noted, as well as those who originally rejected the Amendment.

States by Order of Entry into Union

State ................. Entered Union............ Rejected/Ratified Amendment
1. Delaware.......... Dec. 07, 1787............ Feb 2, 1811
2. Pennsylvania......Dec. 12, 1787............ Feb 6, 1811
3. New Jersey....... Dec. 18, 1787............ Feb 13, 1811
4. Georgia............ Jan. 02, 1788............. Nov 22, 1811
5. Connecticut...... Jan. 09, 1788............. May 13, 1813
6. Massachusetts.. Feb. 06, 1788............. Feb 27, 1812
7. Maryland.......... Apr. 28, 1788............. Dec 25, 1810
8. South Carolina... May 23, 1788............. Dec 21, 1814
9. New Hampshire.. Jun. 21, 1788............. Dec 9, 1812
10. Virginia........... Jun. 25, 1788............. Feb 14, 1811* Mar 12, 1819
11. New York........ Jul. 26, 1788.............. Mar 12, 1812
12. North Carolina.. Nov. 21, 1789............ Dec 23, 1811
13. Rhode Island.... May 29, 1790............ Sep 15, 1814
14. Vermont.......... Mar. 04, 1791............ Oct 24, 1811
15. Kentucky......... Jun. 01, 1792............ Jan 31, 1811
16. Tennessee....... Jun. 01, 1796............ Nov 21, 1811
17. Ohio................ Mar. 01, 1803........... Jan 31, 1811
18. Louisiana.......... Apr. 30, 1812........... ??????
19. Indiana............ Dec. 11, 1816........... ??????
20. Mississippi........ Dec. 10, 1817........... ??????
21. Illinois............. Dec. 03, 1818........... ??????
22. Alabama.......... Dec. 14, 1819........... ??????

Note: The last 5 states listed above should be stricken from consideration, because they are not eligible to vote on ratification of an Amendment passed by Congress in 1810, before they became states.

* Note that Virginia did not actually reject the 13th Amendment. Between February 2, 1811, and February 14, 1811, Virginia's two legislative houses (General Assembly) considered the Titles of Nobility amendment. Senate and House of Delegates' journal entries record that on February 14, 1811, the following took place in Virginia's Senate:

"on the question being put thereupon, the said resolution was disagreed to by the House." ("House," in this case, refers to the upper house, i.e., the Senate, not the lower house, the House of Delegates.)

"...disagreed to," means not accepted, as opposed to rejected. According to house rules, the matter could not be raised again in the same legislative session, but no rejection was ever reported. The record shows that the resolution to amend was properly enrolled and rarified (not ratified) May 1, 1811, and signed by the President of the Virginia Senate.

The March 12, 1819 date shown in the above table refers to the date of publication of Virginia's Revised Code, which included the 13th Amendment, but is that the effective date of ratification? The Virginia legislature voted to approve the publication, but did they ever specifically vote in the affirmative to accept the proposed Amendment? If they did, there appears to be no record found of that final vote. It can be argued that the Virginia legislature did effectively vote in the affirmative by voting to publish the Amendment along with their state laws, but that is not a totally convincing argument. We all know how our representatives in Washington don't even bother to read most of the bills that get passed there. A further Act, requiring the Governor of Virginia to transmit 4 copies of the Revised Code of 1819 to the Federal Government's Secrtetary of State (Chapter XVIII of the Virginia Session Acts of the General Assembly) was passed February 24, 1820. This required the 4 copies to be distributed as follows: one copy to be submitted to the President of the US, one for the US Senate, one for the US House of Representatives, and one for the Library of Congress. The only date of receival we can be sure of in that regard is on an image of the Virginia Revised Code of 1819 with a hand written notation by the US State Department dated 29 August 1821. Many argue that this served as notification to the federal government that the Amendment was approved by Virginia, since it appeared within their revised laws, but if the matter of ratification never passed a properly recorded vote then publication of the Amendment was unwarranted. Virginia should have taken a properly recorded vote and made their position on the matter clear. Attempts were made by the US Secretary of State to communicate with Virginia on the matter, and to determine their final disposition, but there is no record of Virgina responding. Both the President and the Secretary of State at that time wrote that Virginia had not responded to their requests. The Constitution does not specify how a state shall communicate ratification of an Amendment to the federal government, but it is logical to assume that each state involved in the process would take steps to either initiate a communication or respond to one, and there is no existing evidence either way. If the governor of Virginia, or the Virginia Senate president sent a communication along with the below pictured publication which confirmed that the legislature had voted in the affirmative, and if there were a record of that communication, then all would be solved. Perhaps that did occur, and the explanatory document was later destroyed or misplaced, either intentionally or not. But even so, that does not explain why no record of a successful ratification vote can be found within the Virginia legislature's documentations.


The State Department definitely received this publication no later than August 29, 1821. Notice the "C.I." notation at the bottom. This is a reference to the Amendments included in the publication, so the State Department obviously knew the 13th Amendment was included in this publication, and that it apparently was adopted as law by Virginia. I assume that there probably was an explanatory letter included with this publication, but since there is no record of it then that is only speculation.

I think that the debate over whether or not Virginia effectively ratified the Amendment could go on forever without a definitive answer, and that failure of the Virginia Senate to properly record their affirmative vote in the state records is the problem. There is absolutely nothing that could prevent the Virginia Senate from resolving that issue today, if they are so inclined to do this. No time limit for ratification was included in the Amendment proposal, and some Amendments have actually taken a century or more to be ratified. A case in point is the 27th Amendment, which took 202 years! Virginia's lower House already voted approval of the Amendment, so it only remains for the Virginia Senate to take the matter up again, vote to pass it, record the vote, and communicate the result to the US Secretary of State. It should be a no-brainer for them to do this, but it doesn't look like they will do it on their own. It looks like we need to prod members of the Virginia Senate to take up the matter with all due haste. Here is a link to a Wikipedia article showing a list of the 40 current members of the Virginia Senate: Senate of Virginia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Within the senate list you can click on any of the names and find external links to their e-mail. For example, by following the links provided for the first name in the list, John Miller, we can find that his e-mail address is mailto:district01@senate.virginia.gov

We need to be very polite when communicating with these people, and ask for a response on whether or not they will bring this up for a roll call vote. It should be stressed that a properly recorded decision is long overdue, and that it is important to properly resolve this matter, and we should explain why a yes vote is the correct choice. The e-mail message should be informative and yet brief if we are to hope that anyone will read it and answer us. Would anyone care to take a stab at formulating such a message and sharing it with the rest of us? That would be quite helpful. Also, do we have any members here from Virginia? They would likely be more apt, as constutuents, to get attention from their representatives than the rest of us would as out-of-state corresponders, although I think we can make the point to them that this is a national issue and that we therefore have a legitimate interest.

Rick

[h20power]

Wow! Do you work for PBS's history detectives? If not you should, I got the run around when looking for those documents, well done, well done indeed Sir. Thanks for your efforts a whole heart felt thanks

Now I can keep my head up as to the best way to fight them that plus the energy independence should throw a monkey wrench into their plans.


h2opower.