I'm sorry, but I regard a claim that a generally recognized Constitutional amendment "was never lawfully ratified" as a signpost.
The sign says "WELCOME TO TINFOIL WORLD".
I'm sorry, but I regard a claim that a generally recognized Constitutional amendment "was never lawfully ratified" as a signpost.
The sign says "WELCOME TO TINFOIL WORLD".
Then you'd love the 16th Amendment too. See the The Law That Never Was.
The only real question here is whether you believe that a proposed amendment must be passed by 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ratified by 3/4 of the States as required by the Constitution. Three-quarters of the States did NOT ratify the 16th Amendment, yet Alexander Knox declared it ratified anyway and listed States whose legislatures hadn't even been in session on the day they supposedly assented.
The 14th Amendment is even better known. No serious historian denies that this amendment was ratified in a manner that was not constitutional. David Lawrence, as Editor of US News and World Report summed up the reasons here.
Of course, today both of these amendment are "generally recognized" and are so intertwined with our jurisprudence that they have the de facto authority of amendments even though both are illegitimate. BUT -- this does not change the fact that the 14th Amendment was, historically, not lawfully ratified. And this fact is worth pointing out when we discuss the destructive effect this amendment has had on our Republic.