BT obviously we do not agree, but this is another example
of what a great learning tool this place is...I was never aware
until tonight that....
The 14th Amendment was basically ratified at "at the Point of the Bayonet". As the legally reconstituted
Southern states were busy ratifying the anti-slavery Thirteenth Amendment, the Northern dominated Congress
refused to seat Southern representatives and Senators. This allowed the remaining Congress to propose
the Fourteenth Amendment, consistent with Article V's requirement of a 2/3 majority for sending a proposed
amendment to the states. Never mind that Congress also clearly violated that Article's provision that "no State,
without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
Though the Northern states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, it was decisively rejected by the Southern
and border states, failing to secure the 3/4 of the states necessary for ratification under Article V. The Northern States
responded with the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which virtually expelled the Southern states from the Union and placed
them under martial law. To end military rule, the Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
As one Northerner politician described the situation: "the people of the South have rejected the constitutional amendment
and therefore we will march upon them and force them to adopt it at the point of the bayonet."
