Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution

[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?