"TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR"
Date 08/01/91
David Dodge, Researcher
Alfred Adask, Editor
TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR"
In the winter of 1983, archival research expert David Dodge, and former Baltimore police
investigator Tom Dunn, were searching for evidence of government corruption in public
records stored in the Belfast Library on the coast of Maine. By chance, they discovered
the library's oldest authentic copy of the Constitution of the United States (printed in
1825). Both men were stunned to see this document included a 13th Amendment that no longer
appears on current copies of the Constitution. Moreover, after studying the Amendment's
language and historical context, they realized the principle intent of this
"missing" 13th Amendment was to prohibit lawyers from serving in government.
So began a seven year, nationwide search for the truth surrounding the most bizarre
Constitutional puzzle in American history -- the unlawful removal of a ratified Amendment
from the Constitution of the United States. Since 1983, Dodge and Dunn have uncovered
additional copies of the Constitution with the "missing" 13th Amendment printed
in at least eighteen separate publications by ten different states and territories over
four decades from 1822 to 1860.
In June of this year, Dodge uncovered the evidence that this missing 13th Amendment had
indeed been lawfully ratified by the state of Virginia and was therefore an authentic
Amendment to the American Constitution. If the evidence is correct and no logical errors
have been made, a 13th Amendment restricting lawyers from serving in government was
ratified in 1819 and removed from our Constitution during the tumult of the Civil War.
Since the Amendment was never lawfully repealed, it is still the Law today. The
implications are enormous.
The story of this "missing" Amendment is complex and at times confusing because
the political issues and vocabulary of the American Revolution were different from our
own. However, there are essentially two issues: What does the Amendment mean? and, Was the
Amendment ratified? Before we consider the issue of ratification, we should first
understand the Amendment's meaning and consequent current relevance.
