Titles of Nobility Amendment

The Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution dating from 1810. It was submitted to the state legislatures during the 2nd Session of the 11th Congress via a resolution offered by U.S. Senator Philip Reed of Maryland—and has not taken effect because it has not yet been ratified by the legislatures of enough states. As quoted on page 613, Volume II, Statutes At Large, covering the 6th Congress through the 12th Congress, the proposed amendment reads:

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.

The TONA—if ever ratified—would expand upon the following provision which appears in Article I, Section 9, of the original Constitution:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Proposal of the TONA by Congress

The United States Senate approved the measure by a vote of 19 to 5 on April 27, 1810 (20 Annals of Congress 670-672). It was then adopted by the House of Representatives with a vote of 87 to 3 on May 1, 1810 (20 Annals of Congress 2050-2051). And with that, the TONA was presented to the state legislatures for ratification as prescribed by Article V of the Constitution.

Reaction to the TONA in the state legislatures

This still-pending proposed amendment is known to have been ratified by the legislatures of the following 12 states: Maryland in 1810, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Vermont in 1811, as well as by Massachusetts on February 27, 1812, and by New Hampshire on December 9, 1812.

In the specific case of South Carolina, it was reported that while its Senate voted to ratify the TONA on November 28, 1811, the state's House of Representatives did not approve the proposal. The precise action—or lack of action—in the South Carolina House of Representatives, with respect to the TONA, has not been reported.

Although the act, on the part of state legislatures, of "rejecting" a proposed constitutional amendment has no legal recognition, such action does have political implications. It is believed that the TONA was specifically rejected by lawmakers in New York on March 12, 1812; by those in Connecticut on May 13, 1813; and by those in Rhode Island on September 15, 1814. As to Virginia's legislators, although it long has been maintained that no records survived of any action having been taken relative to officially ratifying, or rejecting, the TONA, an anti-TONA article (cited at the end of this article) asserts that the Virginia Senate in fact rejected the TONA on February 14, 1811.

Today, with 50 states in the Union, it would take the approvals of legislators in a minimum of 38 states to achieve ratification. Per the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in the 1939 case of Coleman v. Miller, the TONA is technically still subject to being approved by the nation's state lawmakers, as no deadline for ratification was specified when Congress proposed the TONA for the consideration of the states. Thus, the legislatures of at least 26 more states would have to ratify the TONA in order for it to become part of the American Constitution.

Long-standing misimpression

The misconception prevailed for decades that the TONA had in fact become part of the federal Constitution—indeed many printings of the Constitution during the 19th century erroneously include it as being the Thirteenth Amendment. Perhaps this misunderstanding could be traced to the mistaken belief that both chambers of South Carolina's legislature had acted favorably upon the TONA when, apparently, only one body had done so. Or possibly, it can be attributed to the misapprehension that Virginia lawmakers had adopted the TONA, despite the long-standing belief that there was a lack of documentation that either chamber of Virginia's legislature ever even so much as considered the TONA.

That is not where the misunderstandings end. There is a further mistaken belief that the TONA was, at all stages, just one state's adoption shy of being incorporated into the federal Constitution.

When the TONA was offered by Congress to the state legislatures on May 1, 1810, the approval of 13 of them would indeed have been required. However, with the addition of Louisiana into the Union on April 30, 1812, that threshold increased to 14 state approvals. Louisiana's statehood commenced after the Massachusetts ratification of the TONA, but prior to the New Hampshire ratification of it. Then, when Indiana was admitted on December 11, 1816, the bar was raised up to 15 approvals need to ratify the TONA. And although the admission of Mississippi on December 10, 1817, did not increase the numerical requirement, the entry of Illinois on December 3, 1818, did elevate that minimum to 16 state adoptions necessary for the TONA to be incorporated into the Constitution of the United States of America.

It should be clarified that the actual 13th Amendment was ratified in December of 1865 and abolished slavery uniformly throughout the United States.

Why the TONA was proposed

There is speculation that the TONA was proposed by Congress in response to the 1803 marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte's younger brother, Jerome, and Betsy Patterson of Baltimore who gave birth to a boy for whom she wanted aristocratic recognition from France. The child, named Jerome Napoleon "Bo" Bonaparte, was born, not in the United States, but in Great Britain on July 7, 1805—nevertheless, he would have held American citizenship through his mother. Another theory is that his mother actually desired a title of nobility for herself and, indeed, she is referred to as the "Duchess of Baltimore" in many texts written about the TONA. However, the marriage had been annulled in 1805—well before the TONA's proposal by the 11th Congress.

Theories

Some people claim that the TONA actually was properly ratified and that it has been suppressed as part of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by attorneys who do not wish to forfeit their American citizenship when they use the title "Esquire" after their last name (although Esquire, even in the United Kingdom, is not a title of nobility).

There is a school of thought that Virginia lawmakers adopted the TONA sometime before the invasion of the eastern portion of the United States by British troops during the War of 1812 and that, as a consequence of the sacking, pillaging, and burning of government records in Virginia and Washington, D.C., by the British, there was a loss of the documentation which would attest to a valid ratification of the TONA by Virginia's legislature.

The assertion that the TONA actually was validly ratified has never been upheld by any court in the United States. To the contrary, in the few instances in which courts have been confronted with such claims, judges have brushed those claims aside. In Campion v. Towns, No.CV-04-1516PHX-ROS, *2 n.1 (D. Ariz. 2005), a tax protester raised TONA as one of his defenses to a charge of tax evasion. The court replied that it would "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.

In another case, Sibley v. Culliver, 243 F. Supp. 2d 1278, 1283 (M.D. Ala. 2003), aff'd 377 F.3d 1196 (11th Cir. 2004), a federal court in Alabama found that the defendant's invocation of TONA actually worked to his detriment. The court took note of documents produced by the defendant, a convicted murderer who submitted documents in support of his appeal claiming that TONA rendered his conviction invalid:

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" and "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 dismissed the appeal, concluding in part that the defendant was simply not seeking relief through the courts.

Furthermore, supporters maintain that—if ratified—the TONA would have consequences above and beyond those listed above. Among the TONA's claimed additional effects would be:

1. When someone in the United States becomes a lawyer, he or she often uses the title of "Esquire" (or an abbreviation thereof) to signify his or her status, much as doctors attach "M.D." to their names. Supporters of the TONA claim that this constitutes "a British title of gentry" because the state bar associations in the United States were franchises of the British International Bar Association in the early 1800s. Therefore, so the argument goes, any lawyer in the United States who uses the title "Esquire" is British gentry, and would—under a validly-ratified TONA—forsake his or her American citizenship, and be unable to hold any U.S. government office.
2. The word "honour" (as it is spelled in the text of the proposed TONA) in the phrase "title of nobility or honour" should not be interpreted as "title of honour" in the traditional sense, but rather as "obtaining or having an advantage or privilege over another," which includes, among other things, the immunity to lawsuits which is held by various government officials. Theoretically then—were TONA to ever be ratified—there is a school of thought that judges could be sued for the legal decisions that they make, and that legislators could be sued for the laws that they pass.

Domestic titles of nobility

The TONA does not say anything about domestic titles of nobility—only those which might be issued by foreign powers. Even if it might be seriously contended that attorneys and others hold special "honors" or privileges by virtue of their positions, the language of this proposed amendment probably would not apply if such titles were to be issued by federal or state governments. (Congress, and most state legislatures, are otherwise precluded from issuing domestic titles of nobility, as Article I, Section 9, of the original Constitution—quoted above—makes clear).

See also

• List of amendments to the United States Constitution
• List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution
• Unsuccessful attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution

External links and sources

• An article examining TONA advocates' claims that TONA is part of the Constitution, and that "esquire" is a title of nobility, finding that neither is true.
• TONA Research Committee an extensive archive of information gathered by advocates in support of the idea that the TONA amendment is part of the Constitution.