Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution

[David Lockmiller]

The Way Out of the Debt Crisis Could Lead Back Through the Civil War
New York Times -- May 25, 2023

The Treasury needed the money. The legal tender bill passed and was signed by Lincoln — with the amendment — and the government’s financial crisis, at least for the moment, subsided. Troops were happy to get the new greenbacks, as they were called, and so were merchants and others.

The public debt climbed to $2.68 billion by the end of the war — 41 times its level at the onset of Southern secession. Yet the United States emerged with its credit improved at home and abroad, able to borrow more and at lower interest rates.

After the war, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (stipulating that the validity of the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned”) implicitly treated the debt as sacrosanct.

[End of quotations from the New York Times story.]

Congress officially authorizes the creation of national debt liabilities by law. It is the House of Representatives that must first authorize such expenditures in accordance with provisions of the Constitution.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. And, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Section 4 reads simply: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, . . . shall not be questioned."

[David Lockmiller]

This is a new version of McCarthyism.

The original version is defined as "the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, especially of pro-Communist activity, in many instances unsupported by proof or based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence." (Dictionary.com)

This new version of the law is defined as the practice of passing compromise legislation as to expenditures and taxation revenue and later demanding huge revisions in the legislated compromise when the debt limit is reached. Democrats tend to want to help the poor; Republicans tend to want to help the rich.

The reaching of the debt ceiling right now has resulted in the "new McCarthyism," named for the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.

Here's how it works: After the compromise legislation is passed, the compromise net revenue stream to the national Treasury proves to be insufficient and the legislated debt limit is about to be passed. The "new McCarthy" Republicans now refuse to raise the debt limit unless the legislative compromise of expenditures (defense spending and benefit payments to the poor) is negated to their benefit. The "new McCarthy" Republicans demand defense spending (which favors defense contractor stockholders with major holdings - the rich) be significantly increased and the benefits to the poor be significantly decreased.

It was the compromise legislation on expenditures and taxation that has led directly to the legislated default limit on the national debt. As a matter of constitutional fairness, either the debt ceiling should be legislatively increased or immediate legislation should be passed increasing tax revenue from the rich and decreasing benefits to the poor, in some combination.

Instead, this new version of McCarthyism calls for increased defense spending and drastic cuts to the benefits for the poor.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution (stipulating that the validity of the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned”) implicitly treats the debt as sacrosanct. And, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land.

[RJNorton]

David, this is my opinion. To me, your post above represents your personal political opinion, and has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln. What say you? Thanks.

[David Lockmiller]

I presume, Roger, that you read my previous post on this thread.

I quote therefrom:

The Way Out of the Debt Crisis Could Lead Back Through the Civil War (emphasis added)
New York Times -- May 25, 2023

The Treasury needed the money. The legal tender bill passed and was signed by Lincoln — with the amendment — and the government’s financial crisis, at least for the moment, subsided. Troops were happy to get the new greenbacks, as they were called, and so were merchants and others.

The public debt climbed to $2.68 billion by the end of the war — 41 times its level at the onset of Southern secession. Yet the United States emerged with its credit improved at home and abroad, able to borrow more and at lower interest rates.

After the war, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (stipulating that the validity of the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned”) implicitly treated the debt as sacrosanct.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is what kept lenders from demanding payment in gold. Henceforth, greenbacks became the equivalent of gold. The Constitution is the Supreme Law. Ordinary Congressional legislation is just that. When ordinary Congressional legislation conflicts with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the Constitution prevails in ALL cases at law.

[Gene C]

This reminds me of a song - If 10% is Good Enough For Jesus It Ought To Be Enough For Uncle Sam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrnvfy2RJ0g

[David Lockmiller]

(05-25-2023 06:34 PM)Gene C Wrote:  This reminds me of a song - If 10% is Good Enough For Jesus It Ought To Be Enough For Uncle Sam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrnvfy2RJ0g

Gene, Roger made a post on May 10 on my thread entitled "Re: Constitutionality of the Debt Limit." The graphic he posted shows that "the United States spent $877 billion on defense in 2022. And, the next top 10 countries in the world combined spent $849 billion in the same year.

I don't know how much the United States will spend on defense in 2023 but I do know that McCarthy and the other Republicans in Congress want to spend more as part of the Debt Limit settlement negotiations.

Gene, of the "10% [you sing] is good enough for Jesus," how much of that 10% is for defense spending?

Last Sunday, May 21, 2023, 60 Minutes had as its first segment "Price Gouging in Pentagon Contracts."

Why don't you watch that 60 Minutes segment and see if you have a song for that?

[Gene C]

(05-25-2023 07:38 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Why don't you watch that 60 Minutes segment and see if you have a song for that?

That's a tough request

Straighten Up and Fly Right - by the Andrews Sisters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmjNIq49398

[David Lockmiller]

(05-25-2023 10:06 PM)Gene C Wrote:  

(05-25-2023 07:38 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Why don't you watch that 60 Minutes segment and see if you have a song for that?

That's a tough request

Straighten Up and Fly Right - by the Andrews Sisters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmjNIq49398

I see what you're saying, Gene.

The buzzard is the Defense Contractors and the monkey is the United States Congress and the President of the United States. The problem is that there is no one in Congress or the Office of the President of the United States telling the "buzzards" to "straighten up and fly right."

[Gene C]

You got it David

[AussieMick]

(05-25-2023 01:40 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  ....
.... The Constitution is the Supreme Law. Ordinary Congressional legislation is just that. When ordinary Congressional legislation conflicts with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the Constitution prevails in ALL cases at law.

David , I hesitate to question your knowledge on this. But I have read (recently) that the interpretation that this issue is clear-cut cannot be sustained with 100% confidence.

From wikipedia , for example,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta...ts%20debt.

"United States debt ceiling"

there are scholars who argue that even if the law itself is unconstitutional, that determination must be made by the courts and the President does not have the authority to unilaterally ignore the debt ceiling law.

[David Lockmiller]

(05-27-2023 03:42 AM)AussieMick Wrote:  

(05-25-2023 01:40 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  ....
.... The Constitution is the Supreme Law. Ordinary Congressional legislation is just that. When ordinary Congressional legislation conflicts with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the Constitution prevails in ALL cases at law.

David , I hesitate to question your knowledge on this. But I have read (recently) that the interpretation that this issue is clear-cut cannot be sustained with 100% confidence.

From wikipedia , for example,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta...ts%20debt.

"United States debt ceiling"

there are scholars who argue that even if the law itself is unconstitutional, that determination must be made by the courts and the President does not have the authority to unilaterally ignore the debt ceiling law.

I made the following post on August 24, 2010 (post #10 on the referenced thread). I permit President Lincoln to speak on the subject with some emphasis added:

RE: Maryland constitutional questions after Fort Sumter

According to the work titled The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States, by Henry J. Raymond, Derby and Miller Publishers, New York, (1865), at pages 191-92, President Lincoln addressed much more completely this constitutional issue in his message to the extra session of Congress on July 4, 1861 as follows:

Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to authorize the Commanding-General, in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has been purposely exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition, that one who has sworn to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” should not himself violate them. Of course, some consideration was given to the question of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted, and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the states. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen’s liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated! To state the question more directly: Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated! Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown, when it was believed disregarding this single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it,” is equivalent to a provision – is a provision – that such privilege may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we had a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now, it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is vested with this power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.

No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion, at some length, will probably be presented by the Attorney-General. Whether there be any legislation on the subject, and, if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress.

The forbearance of this Government had been so extraordinary, and so long continued, as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action as if they supposed the early destruction of the National Union was probable. While this, on discovery, gave the Executive some concern, he is now happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United States are now everywhere practically respected by foreign powers; and a general sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the world.

The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy, will give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient for your deliberation and action; while the Executive and all the Department will stand ready to supply omissions, or to communicate new facts considered important for you to know.

[End of quotation.]

My question for the members of this forum is the following: What do you think is going to happen after June 5, 2023 if the President of the United States does not invoke Amendment XIV, Section 4? This section of the Constitution reads in pertinent part: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, . . . shall not be questioned.

The Republican House of Representatives members previously authorized by negotiated law a limit on how much defense contractors can be paid by the government in a specific period of time and the limits of government discretionary spending for the poor.

Now, those same Republican House of Representatives members are insisting that if those same government expenditures are not renegotiated right now by the President of the United States to meet their demand terms, "the validity of the public debt of the United States" will be declared to the world to be "null and void."

It is the Republican members of Congress who are holding a gun to the Presidential Head of this Nation!

All citizens of the United States should consider this to be a "dangerous emergency." However, some citizens of the United States insist that this is politics as it should be because the ends justify the means in all cases.

As the final point of my argument, I ask the following question: Would anyone care to explain briefly why Merrick B. Garland, the current Attorney General of the United States, is not the current Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?

[RJNorton]

(05-27-2023 08:00 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  As the final point of my argument, I ask the following question: Would anyone care to explain briefly why Merrick B. Garland, the current Attorney General of the United States, is not the current Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256...atters-now

[David Lockmiller]

(05-27-2023 12:30 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-27-2023 08:00 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  As the final point of my argument, I ask the following question: Would anyone care to explain briefly why Merrick B. Garland, the current Attorney General of the United States, is not the current Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256...atters-now

Roger, thank you for posting this. I quote therefrom briefly:

In a speech that August in Kentucky, McConnell would say: "One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.' "

McConnell was not alone. The 11 Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter saying they had no intention of consenting to any nominee from Obama. No proceedings of any kind were held on Garland's appointment.

Scores of scholars — law professors, historians and political scientists — urged the Senate to at least have a process for Garland as a duly appointed nominee with impeccable qualifications. But some lawyers and academics pointed out that the Constitution empowered the Senate to "advise and consent" but did not require it do so. (Some adding that they thought the Senate still ought to do so.)

[Gene C]

(05-27-2023 08:00 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  It is the Republican members of Congress who are holding a gun to the Presidential Head of this Nation!

I guess the President shouldn't have loaded the gun.

Somehow this scene from "Support Your Local Sheriff" came to mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW3vklH3oYM

[David Lockmiller]

(05-27-2023 03:42 AM)AussieMick Wrote:   there are scholars who argue that even if the law itself is unconstitutional, that determination must be made by the courts and the President does not have the authority to unilaterally ignore the debt ceiling law.

Chief Justice John Marshall expounded on the issue of legislation constitutionality in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 1 Cranch 137 (1803):

"[T]he particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument." (Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137,180.)

The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognize certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it. ((Id. at 176)

That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it, nor ought it to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent. (Id.)

This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns, to different departments, their respective powers. It may either stop here; or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments. (Id.)

The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction, between a government with limited and unlimited powers, is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed, are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by any an ordinary act. (Id. at 176-177)

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. (Id. at 177.)

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power, in its own nature illimitable. (Id.)

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution is void. (Id.)

This theory is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is consequently to be considered, by this court, as one of the fundamental principles of our society. (Id.)

If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration. (Id.)

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. (Id.)

So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. (Id. at 178)

If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply. (Id.)

Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law. (Id.) (Emphasis added.)

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void; is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare, that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure. (Id.)

That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions -- a written constitution -- would of itself be sufficient, in America, where written constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction. But the peculiar expressions of the constitution of the United States furnish additional arguments in favor of its rejection. (Id.)

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution. (Id.)

Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises? (Id. at 178-179)

This is too extravagant to be maintained. (Id. at 179)

Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreeably to the constitution of the United States, if that constitution forms no rule for his government? if it is closed upon him, and cannot be inspected by him? (Id. at 180)

If such be the real state of things, this is worse than solemn mockery. To prescribe, or to take this oath, becomes equally a crime. (Id.)

It is also not entirely unworthy of observation, that in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the constitution itself is first mentioned; and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the constitution, have that rank. (Id.)

Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument. (Id.)



Finally, Amendment XIV, Section 4 reads in pertinent part:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, . . . shall not be questioned."