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."