Missing text from 13th Amendment means lawyers can't serve in gov't

[festus]

David M. Dodge, Researcher, Date 08/01/91
Rise up for America
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 (1991), 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 the U.S. 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 Since the Amendment was never lawfully repealed, it is still the Law today.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?

[Scarecrow]

now that's interesting...

[JJFlash]

Whoa....

[phmn09]

I believe this article is referring to the "Titles of Nobility" amendment, which doesn't appear to have been ratified by the required number of states to have become a constitutional amendment (Titles of Nobility Amendment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

This issue seems to pop up from time to time, however:

* Although the amendment was not ratified, it was erroneously published in some 19th century copies of the Constitution, and
* It would probably be a stretch that a lawyer being referred to as 'esquire' would constitute a title of nobility that would make someone ineligible for constitutional office.

As many of the framers of the Constitution were lawyers (Data on the Framers of the Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net), as were many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (Signers of The Declaration of Independence - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net), I'd suspect that the intent behind this proposed amendment wouldn't be to exclude lawyers from Federal office.

[AvidshooterTX]

This article pretty much debunks it.

The Real Titles of Nobility Amendment FAQ