Titles of Nobility Amendment
Another tax protester argument is that a 'missing' Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution known as the Titles of Nobility Amendment or "TONA" precedes the current Thirteenth Amendment; the missing amendment purportedly would have divested the citizenship of any person receiving a title of nobility. Therefore, actions taken by lawyers and judges, who use the title 'Esquire' (which some protesters claim is a title of nobility), are monarchical, and therefore unconstitutional. This contention, rarely raised before courts, was most recently addressed in Campion v. Towns, No.CV-04-1516PHX-ROS, *2 n.1 (D. Ariz. 2005) as a defense to a charge of tax evasion. The court replied:
Additionally, the Court will 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. —Campion v. TownsRead more about this topic: Tax Protester Constitutional Arguments
Famous quotes containing the words titles, nobility and/or amendment:
“Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enacting that all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner’s jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)