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Created Jan 0001
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Titles Of Nobility Amendment

“This article is part of a series on the Constitution of the United States. One might think the foundational document of a nation would be straightforward, but...”

Contents
  • 1. Overview
  • 2. Etymology
  • 3. Cultural Impact

This article is part of a series on the Constitution of the United States . One might think the foundational document of a nation would be straightforward, but like most things created by humans, it’s a labyrinth of intentions and unintended consequences.

Preamble and Articles

  • Preamble – The grand opening, full of lofty ideals.
  • I – The legislative branch, where the real haggling happens.
  • II – The executive branch, where power is consolidated (or at least, tried to be).
  • III – The judicial branch, the arbiters of all this glorious chaos.
  • IV – States’ rights and relations. Because who doesn’t love a good inter-state squabble?
  • V – The amendment process. This is where things get truly interesting, or endlessly stalled, depending on your perspective.
  • VI – Debts, supremacy, oaths. The practicalities.
  • VII – Ratification. The initial hurdle, which, to everyone’s surprise, was cleared.

Amendments to the Constitution – Because the original wasn’t quite perfect, imagine that.

  • I – Freedom, until it’s inconvenient.
  • II – Arms, and endless debate.
  • III – Soldiers, the forgotten amendment.
  • IV – Privacy, a quaint concept.
  • V – Rights of the accused, mostly ignored by TV shows.
  • VI – Fair trial, if you’re lucky.
  • VII – Civil trials, because some things need a jury.
  • VIII – Cruel and unusual, a subjective measure.
  • IX – Unenumerated rights, the grand mystery.
  • (/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) – States’ powers, a constant tug-of-war.
  • XI – State immunity, a niche concern.
  • XII – Presidential election, a process that still manages to surprise.
  • XIII – Abolition of slavery. A real improvement, finally.
  • XIV – Citizenship and equal protection, still being argued over.
  • XV – Voting rights (for men), a step, not a sprint.
  • XVI – Income tax. Oh, the joy.
  • XVII – Direct election of senators, because the people always know best.
  • XVIII – Prohibition. A grand experiment in futility.
  • XIX – Women’s suffrage. Took long enough.
  • XX – Lame Duck, smoothing transitions.
  • XXI – Repeal of Prohibition. Because some lessons are learned quickly.
  • XXII – Presidential term limits. A sensible constraint.
  • XXIII – D.C. voting. Still not quite full representation.
  • XXIV – Poll tax abolition. Another barrier removed.
  • XXV – Presidential disability and succession. Because things happen.
  • XXVI – 18-year-old vote. Youthful enthusiasm, or just legalizing what was already happening.
  • XXVII – Congressional pay raises. A slow burn, but it got there.

Unratified Amendments : The graveyard of good intentions and forgotten fears.

History – Because context is everything, and usually more complicated than you’d like.

Full text – For those who enjoy reading the original script of a long-running, slightly chaotic play.

Proposed U.S. Constitutional Amendment: The Titles of Nobility Amendment

Ah, the Titles of Nobility Amendment . A truly captivating piece of legislative history, not for its groundbreaking impact, but for its persistent, spectral presence in the annals of “almost.” This particular proposal, which remains technically pending, is a relic from a time when the young United States Constitution was still finding its footing, and its framers were deeply, almost comically, concerned with the corrupting influence of European aristocracy. The 11th Congress formally adopted this peculiar measure on May 1, 1810, and, with a flourish of what must have been immense self-importance, dispatched it to the various state legislatures for their consideration and, ideally, ratification.

What exactly did this amendment seek to achieve? In essence, it aimed to purge the budding republic of any individual who dared to accept a title of nobility from a foreign potentate—be it an “emperor , king , prince or foreign power.” The penalty for such an egregious act of social climbing? Nothing less than the complete forfeiture of one’s United States citizenship . It was a dramatic declaration, a constitutional “you’re out!” for anyone who preferred a duke’s coronet to plain old American liberty.

Despite its rather dramatic intent, this amendment never quite made it across the finish line. Intriguingly, on two separate occasions between 1812 and 1816, it was tantalizingly close to securing the requisite number of state ratifications needed to become an official, immutable part of the Constitution . Yet, like a forgotten promise, it lingered. Congress, in its infinite wisdom or perhaps simple oversight, neglected to impose a time limit for its ratification. Consequently, this archaic prohibition on aristocratic aspirations officially remains “pending” before the states, a legislative zombie shuffling through time, waiting for a critical mass of approval that will almost certainly never arrive. It serves as a quaint reminder of what once deeply worried the founders, and perhaps, what truly matters in the grand scheme of governance.

Text from Amendment

“If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.”

A rather wordy way of saying, “Don’t be fancy, or we’ll kick you out.” One can practically hear the collective sigh of the drafters, tired of the European obsession with inherited status. The amendment wasn’t just about titles, mind you; it also cast a suspicious eye on any “present, pension, office or emolument” received from foreign powers without explicit congressional approval. It essentially aimed to sever any perceived umbilical cord to European monarchies, ensuring that American loyalty was singular and unblemished by foreign trinkets or titles. The stakes were high: loss of citizenship and disqualification from any “office of trust or profit.” It’s almost admirable in its bluntness, if not its ultimate efficacy.

Background

This proposed amendment wasn’t conjured from thin air; it was designed to further fortify existing constitutional bulwarks against foreign influence and aristocratic pretense. It specifically aimed to amplify the sentiments already enshrined in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution , which explicitly forbids the federal government from bestowing any titles of nobility or honor. Furthermore, it reinforced Section 10, Clause 1 , which similarly restricts the individual states from granting such distinctions. Essentially, the original document said, “We don’t do titles here.” This amendment was an emphatic, almost desperate, addendum: “And neither do you, if you want to remain one of us.”

Now, for the juicy bits of historical gossip. One persistent, and rather entertaining, theory posits that this amendment was a direct response to a particularly scandalous transatlantic romance. Picture it: 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte’s impetuous younger brother, Jerome , marries the rather spirited Betsy Patterson of Baltimore, Maryland . Their union eventually produced a son, Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte , born in the United Kingdom on July 7, 1805. The ensuing drama involved Betsy’s desire for aristocratic recognition from France for her son, who, despite his foreign birthplace, would have held U.S. citizenship through his mother. The idea that a constitutional amendment could be sparked by a socialite’s ambition for her child’s noble status is, frankly, peak human absurdity.

Another facet of this theory suggests that Betsy herself harbored desires for a title, a claim supported by her being referred to as the “Duchess of Baltimore” in various historical texts—a title, it must be noted, entirely distinct from the ancient British-Irish title of Baron Baltimore , after whom the city itself was named. However, the timeline complicates this narrative slightly: the marriage was annulled in 1805, a full five years before the 11th Congress proposed the amendment. Still, the specter of foreign noble entanglements clearly haunted the young republic. Representative Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina , when casting his vote on the amendment, reportedly declared that “he considered the vote on this question as deciding whether or not we were to have members of the Legion of Honor in this country.” This outburst perfectly encapsulates the era’s deep-seated anxieties about external allegiances and the perceived threat of European class structures undermining the fledgling American experiment in republicanism.

The underlying purpose of this amendment, beyond the personal dramas, was a more profound concern for national integrity. The framers, and later the legislators, genuinely feared that individuals holding foreign titles would inherently carry with them allegiances demanded by those titles. Such divided loyalties, they reasoned, would render these title-holders unfit to serve in the government of the newly formed Republic. The nightmare scenario was one where foreign powers could bestow these glittering markers of status upon American citizens , then leverage them as subtle (or not-so-subtle) tools to “call in favors”—either to push through favorable legislation or, more insidiously, to obstruct the passage of laws detrimental to their own interests. It was a preventative measure, a constitutional prophylactic against the perceived insidious creep of Old World corruption into the heart of American governance.

Legislative and ratification history

Ratification status   Ratified amendment   Rejected amendment

The journey of the Titles of Nobility Amendment through the legislative process began in the hallowed halls of the United States Senate . It was championed by Democratic–Republican Senator Philip Reed of Maryland , a state seemingly at the epicenter of this aristocratic anxiety. The Senate, after what one can only assume was a brief and relatively uncontentious debate—given the overwhelming sentiment against foreign entanglements at the time—passed the measure on April 27, 1810, with a decisive vote of 19–5. From there, it moved to the House of Representatives for its crucial consideration. The House, equally convinced of the amendment’s necessity, followed suit on May 1, 1810, approving it by an even more resounding margin of 87–3.

With congressional approval secured, the proposed amendment embarked on its customary tour of the state legislatures for ratification. The following states, in a flurry of anti-aristocratic fervor, moved to ratify it:

However, not all states were so eager to join the anti-nobility crusade. A few, perhaps seeing it as an unnecessary overreach or simply having more pressing local concerns, chose to reject it:

It’s worth noting that no other state legislature has since taken any formal action to complete the ratification process for this amendment. When the proposed amendment was initially circulated among the states, a total of 13 ratifications were required for it to be officially enshrined within the Constitution . By early 1812, 11 states had indeed ratified it, bringing it tantalizingly close to adoption. However, the subsequent admission of Louisiana as a state effectively raised the required number of ratifications to 14, a moving target that the amendment failed to hit.

On February 27, 1818, President James Monroe formally presented Congress with the accumulated ratification records. Both he and the legislative body concluded that the amendment had not, in fact, garnered the necessary number of ratifications. A law enacted on April 20, 1818, then formalized the responsibility for overseeing the amendment process, placing it squarely in the hands of the Secretary of State —a duty that remained with that office until 1950. So, it languishes, a perpetual “almost,” a testament to the unpredictable nature of constitutional change.

Misconceptions

Now, this is where the story gets truly interesting, and frankly, a bit tiresome. Despite the clear historical record, a vocal group of individuals, sometimes affectionately (or perhaps, derisively) referred to as “Thirteenthers,” have propagated the rather tenacious claim that the Titles of Nobility Amendment did actually become part of the Constitution . This peculiar misconception isn’t entirely baseless, though its foundation is built on human error rather than constitutional fact. It stemmed from the amendment’s erroneous inclusion as the “Thirteenth Amendment” in several early 19th-century printings of the Constitution . Adding to this confusion, between 1819 and 1867, the statutory law code of Virginia inexplicably included it as well. It’s almost as if some people wanted it to be real, or simply couldn’t be bothered to fact-check.

The enduring significance of this misconception is often tied to another, equally bizarre, claim: that a lawyer’s professional use of the word or abbreviation “Esquire ” somehow constitutes a “title of nobility” acquired from a foreign power. Consequently, some litigants and self-proclaimed constitutional purists have attempted to argue that lawyers, by accepting such a “title,” have forfeited their United States citizenship or are disqualified from holding public office. The sheer audacity of this leap of logic is, to put it mildly, breathtaking.

The genesis of this enduring error can be traced back to 1815, when the Philadelphia printing house of Bioren and Duane, operating under a government contract, published a comprehensive five-volume set titled Laws of the United States. On page 74 of its inaugural volume, the proposed Titles of Nobility Amendment was conspicuously printed as “Article 13,” nestled right alongside the genuinely adopted Eleventh and Twelfth Amendments . Crucially, there was no explicit indication on that particular page that “Article 13” had not yet achieved the status of law. However, earlier in the same volume, on page ix of the Introduction, the diligent (or perhaps, belatedly cautious) editors did offer a caveat:

“There has been some difficulty in ascertaining whether the amendment proposed, which is stated as the thirteenth, has or has not been adopted by a sufficient number of the state legislatures. … It has been considered best, however, to publish the proposed amendment in its proper place, as if it had been adopted, with this explanation, to prevent misconception.”

One might infer that the editors, in their attempt to be thorough, inadvertently created a constitutional ghost. As the Bioren and Duane set of federal laws gained widespread distribution as a standard legal reference, it seems entirely plausible that various compilers of other books, either forgetting or simply skipping over the rather vital caveat in the Introduction, blindly copied the text of the Constitution and, in doing so, mistakenly included the Titles of Nobility Amendment as if it had been officially adopted as the Thirteenth Amendment . This glaring error eventually caught the attention of the U.S. House of Representatives in December 1817. When the publisher of a pocket edition of the Constitution , also produced under government contract, included the amendment as the Thirteenth Amendment , the House was compelled to request that the President formally ascertain and report on the true status of the proposed amendment. Despite the official conclusion that the amendment had, in fact, not been adopted, the erroneous printing persisted occasionally (often replicating the Americanized spelling and punctuation of Bioren and Duane, and, predictably, omitting any inconvenient ratification information) until some time after 1845. It wasn’t until 1845 that the Bioren and Duane series was superseded by an entirely new compilation, United States Statutes at Large, which finally printed the Constitution with only 12 amendments in its first volume, relegating the unadopted Titles of Nobility Amendment to a section on congressional resolutions in volume 2. A long overdue correction, one might say.

Legal scholars and the courts have consistently, and rather unambiguously, dismissed these “Thirteenther” claims. In 1833, Associate Justice Joseph Story of the U.S. Supreme Court published his seminal Commentaries on the Constitution. This authoritative work included only twelve amendments and a clear declaration (in § 959) that these were the only amendments adopted. Story further noted (in § 1346) that the Titles of Nobility Amendment had not been adopted, “probably from a growing sense that it is wholly unnecessary.” A rather diplomatic way of saying, “It was a silly idea, even then.” In 1847, Associate Justice Levi Woodbury reinforced this in a dissenting opinion, stating unequivocally that there “were only twelve amendments ever made to” the Constitution . More recently, the Supreme Court has continued to clarify this point, explicitly describing the Titles of Nobility Amendment as unadopted in Dillon v. Gloss (1921), and again in Coleman v. Miller (1939) by two dissenting Justices. Even in Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), both the majority and dissenting opinions concurred in its unadopted status. The legal consensus is, to put it mildly, resolute.

Further undermining the “missing Thirteenth Amendment” fantasy is the historical record surrounding subsequent proposed amendments. On March 2, 1861, Congress proposed the Corwin Amendment , which, if ratified, would have prevented any federal legislation, including future constitutional amendments, from interfering with or abolishing slavery. Significantly, this proposal was already titled as the Thirteenth Amendment , and at no point did anyone claim that an adopted Thirteenth Amendment already existed. The silence on this matter is rather deafening.

Then, on February 1, 1865, the 38th Congress passed and sent to the states for ratification the amendment that actually became the Thirteenth Amendment , which, thankfully, abolished slavery. Again, when this pivotal amendment was proposed and subsequently adopted, there was no clamor, no widespread legal challenge, no credible argument from any quarter claiming that a Thirteenth Amendment had already been adopted. The historical record, it seems, is stubbornly unambiguous.

The assertion that the Titles of Nobility Amendment somehow, through some clandestine process, achieved ratification has never once been upheld by any court in the United States . In the rare instances where courts have been forced to confront this rather outlandish claim, they have consistently dismissed it with the weary patience of a parent explaining basic facts to a particularly stubborn child. For example, in Campion v. Towns (D. Ariz. July 15, 2005), a tax protester attempted to use this argument as a defense against a charge of tax evasion. The court, in its infinite wisdom, felt compelled to “correct any misunderstanding Plaintiff has concerning the text of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ”:

“In his Complaint, Plaintiff includes a certified copy of the Thirteenth Amendment from the Colorado State Archives which was published in 1861. As included in that compilation, the Thirteenth Amendment would strip an individual of United States citizenship if they accept any title of nobility or honor. However, this is not the Thirteenth Amendment . The correct Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery. Although some people claim that state publication of the erroneous Thirteenth Amendment makes it valid, Article V of the Constitution does not so provide.”

A rather clear, if exasperated, rebuke. The courts have little patience for constitutional fan fiction.

In a 2004 case, Sibley v. Culliver (M.D. Ala. 2003, aff’d 11th Cir. 2004), a federal district court found that the defendant’s invocation of this phantom amendment actually worked to his detriment. The defendant, a convicted murderer, submitted documents in support of his appeal, asserting that his conviction was invalid due to a grand conspiracy by the American Bar Association . The court noted:

“These documents allege in great detail a complex conspiracy by an illegal monopoly, the American Bar Association , which resulted in a take-over of the judicial systems of this country, both federal and state, by the ABA and its related entities, including the Alabama State Bar Association and Alabama’s Unified Court System. It is then alleged that the ABA-controlled system is illegal and in violation of what is referred to as the ‘missing Thirteenth Amendment ’, to the United States Constitution , which stated that any person who accepts a title of nobility forfeits his United States citizenship and which amendment was ratified but subsequently hidden or excised from the law. Since lawyers and judges accept the titles ‘Esquire’/‘The Honorable’, it is argued, they are not citizens and the entire judicial system is illegal. Furthermore, these documents contend that the charge of conviction in this case, capital murder of a police officer acting in the line of duty, is unconstitutional because it bestows upon police officers special rights or a special designation of the worth of life in contravention of the ‘missing Thirteenth Amendment ’. The documents then explain that these are reasons that Sibley and his wife refused appointed counsel on appeal and refused to pursue matters any further in the court system and that only Congress can give them relief.”

The Sibley court, understandably, dismissed the appeal, concluding in part that the defendant was simply not seeking relief through the established judicial system. It’s a rather elaborate way to avoid responsibility, one might observe. This case was further cited in U.S. v. Tariq L. Belt (D. Md. , July 26, 2011), where a court described a prison inmate’s attempt to use the Titles of Nobility Amendment to claim immunity from jurisdiction:

“Some plaintiffs have relied on what they have called the ’true’ Thirteenth Amendment to argue that various individuals are not citizens . This version of the Thirteenth Amendment allegedly states that individuals who accept titles of nobility must renounce their United States citizenship . … The Court interprets Belt’s claim of a noble title and another nationality as further indications of his attempt to renounce his citizenship and therefore contest the Government’s ability to keep him imprisoned.”

Finally, in a 2001 decision by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals , the court definitively rejected a defendant’s attempt to use the Titles of Nobility Amendment to deny the trial court’s authority to put him on trial:

“[The Defendant] also appears to argue that licensing lawyers violates the original Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by equating licensure with accepting a title of nobility or honor. The current Thirteenth Amendment does not resemble the one Casteel cites, nor is he correct that a lawyer’s license to practice is granted by a foreign power.”

The consistent judicial rejection of these claims across various levels of the legal system leaves no room for doubt. The Titles of Nobility Amendment remains an intriguing historical footnote, a testament to early American anxieties, but it is emphatically not part of the United States Constitution . The real Thirteenth Amendment , thankfully, is far more consequential.

See also