expose_intro.htm

EXPOSE ON THE NON-RATIFICATION OF THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT
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\ INTRODUCTION
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\ The following expose is presented to each and every American citizen to make known the truth concerning the supposed ratification of the Sixteenth (income tax) Amendment to the Constitution. Copies of certified historical documents will be included to insure that nothing in this expose is based on hearsay, conjecture, or rumor; the information preserved on paper with ink is as good as if etched in stone. Two critical documents - memorandums from the Office of the Solicitor to the Secretary of State - will be used to show the following: First, that the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was never ratified by thirty-six states, the number required to make the proposed amendment part of the Constitution; and secondly, that conduct by certain members of our government was and is both unprofessional and illegal.
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\ The proposed Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was publicly declared ratified by Secretary of State, Philander Chase Knox, on February 25, 1913. A copy of this proclamation is reproduced and submitted after the copies of the two memorandums. Knox knew full well that accurate concurrence by three-fourths (thirty-six) of the states would be necessary to make such a proclamation. Knox and associates knew, as the memorandums clearly show, that absolute concurrence by the required number of states had not occurred. The solution for their dilemma was to request that all nonconcurring states resubmit correctly engrossed certified copies of the proposed Sixteenth Amendment to the Secretary of State. Read the following expose and memorandums to learn the course of action taken at this time. Judge for yourself whether or not the required number of states did in actuality correctly and properly pass the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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\ Please feel free to make copies of this presentation and distribute it to friends and associates who wish to preserve our Constitution and its guaranteed freedoms. You may also post it on your web site if you so desire. If you are interested in receiving more historical documentation on this subject, please contact Mr. Bill Benson. His web address is www.thelawthatneverwas.com. Through patience and hard work Bill has accumulated certified documents concerning the ratification of this amendment (1908-1913) by the forty-eight states and also the federal government. This information may be obtained from Bill via the U.S. mail.
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\ EXPOSE ON THE NON-RATIFICATION OF THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT
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\ INTRODUCTION
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It has come to our attention that a series of questionable public acts and proclamations were made during the time of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We base our claims on the archival literature retrieved from the Library of Congress by one Mr. Bill Benson, and we reached our conclusions with our common sense and a desire to see our nation's political system cleansed of past mistakes and put on a sure and sound footing, This expose is not intended to weaken our Constitution, but rather to strengthen it - to guarantee its longevity and protect its true import and meaning from those who might take a too-casual or downright fraudulent approach in their handling of this most honored of documents. In this present instance, we therefore consider it our public duty to present the evidence from historical literature and unequivocally establish the fact that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was never properly ratified and therefore does not exist.
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\ We begin by presenting a memorandum from the Office of the Solicitor, dated February 20, 1913, and sent to the Secretary of State. On the third page and in the fourth section of this document, will be found the following statement: "...copies of eleven others [referring to states] contain errors in wording, some of them substantial as will be seen from the attached memorandum of February 15, 1913, page 7." And further down the page will be found the following statement: "...be noted that a careful examination of the copies of Resolutions of the State Legislatures filed in the Department ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution shows in those Resolutions even more errors than those existing in the copies of Resolutions ratifying the proposed 16th amendment, and the errors themselves are equally serious." Here is where this document becomes extremely interesting. After the admonition that these errors were not trivial but errors of true substance, (Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, copyright 1979, gives for the definition of substance: 'the real content of a statement, speech, etc.; true meaning') the solicitor attempts to justify himself by calling attention to the following facts also found at the bottom of this page and the top of page four: "As by announcing the ratification of the 14th amendment: the Executive Branch of the Government ruled that these errors were immaterial to the adoption of the amendment, and further as this amendment has been repeatedly before the courts, and has been by them enforced, it is clear that the procedure ratifying that amendment constitutes on this point a precedent which may be properly followed in proclaiming the adoption of the present amendment, - that is to say, that the Secretary of State may disregard the errors contained in the certified copies of the resolutions of legislatures acting on the proposed amendment." Essentially, the solicitor claimed that the Executive Branch had ruled that these errors of substance, which compromise the true meaning of an amendment, were not only permissible but precedent setting for all future resolutions amending the Constitution.
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\ It is at this juncture that we take great exception to the statements made and the conclusions drawn by the Chief Clerk of the Office of the Solicitor. A typical high school teacher of mathematics or physics demands of his seventeen-year-old pupils complete accuracy in their solutions and answers to test questions. If the answer to a problem on a test in incorrect, they get a zero, an F, a failure. The teacher is not permitted to accept incorrect answers; if he or she did, would he or she be setting a precedent? Not likely. This professional would be severely reprimanded and subsequently fired. If a teacher expects accuracy on the part of a student in so
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\ It has come to our attention that a series of questionable public acts and proclamations were made during the time of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We base our claims on the archival literature retrieved from the Library of Congress by one Mr. Bill Benson, and we reached our conclusions with our common sense and a desire to see our nation's political system cleansed of past mistakes and put on a sure and sound footing, This expose is not intended to weaken our Constitution, but rather to strengthen it - to guarantee its longevity and protect its true import and meaning from those who might take a too-casual or downright fraudulent approach in their handling of this most honored of documents. In this present instance, we therefore consider it our public duty to present the evidence from historical literature and unequivocally establish the fact that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was never properly ratified and therefore does not exist.
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small a matter as a problem on a single test, should not we expect accuracy on the part of our lawmakers in so great a matter as amending the U.S. Constitution? The proposed Sixteenth Amendment was only thirty words long with only four punctuation marks (three commas and one period). The legislators during the years from 1908 to 1913 were incapable of correctly copying a single simple sentence consisting of a mere thirty words and four punctuation marks. Their carelessness in one instance is downright ludicrous: The legislature of Illinois substituted a meaningless non-word, "remuneration," (try to find remuneration in the dictionary; you won't) for the word, "enumeration," thereby creating the meaningless phrase: "...and without regard to any census or remuneration." They then voted on this unintelligible amendment and passed it 80 to 8 in the House and 41 to 0 in the Senate. Not one of the 121 legislators that voted to pass the amendment questioned the meaning of the word "remuneration." Two of many possible conclusions that may be drawn from this are that these lawmakers were either illiterate or else they never really read the federal document proposing the Sixteenth Amendment.
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\ There is no other profession, trade, or occupation in which error and inaccuracy have been accepted as operative precedents for its members. Can anyone show us concrete examples in such fields as science, engineering, music, archeology, architecture, mathematics, et al where carelessness and mistakes have taken hold as fundamental cornerstones? We think not. The chemist is constrained by formulas and laws to work within parameters that have been established by generations of chemists that have preceded him. The architect is heir to the knowledge of masonry which dates back to time immemorial. The aviation engineer dares not abandon the well established concepts of aerodynamics which have been handed down to him by dedicated teachers, lest he, through carelessness, cause the deaths of trusting pilots and others. The mathematician applies numerical discipline and know-how to the manipulation of his figures, and if he is careful he can expect his answers to be exact, because he has utilized well founded rules. And the list goes on. So we ask: If there is no other profession where carelessness and mistakes are acceptable, then why should the science of politics and the occupation of lawmaker and clerk be exempt from the same rigor and protocols that apply to all the other disciplines? To which we reply, it is not.
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\ The occupation of clerk and lawmaker is descendent of a long line of professionals schooled in the art of the written word. The predecessor of the modern day clerk was the ancient scribe, and that of the Secretary of State was the scribe of the king. The Hebrew word for scribe is sofer, which is derived from the root spr, meaning "to count." Another term frequently used was shoter, the root being derived from the Akkadian sataru, "to write." When the Hebrew scribe was assigned to write a sefer Torah (the Mosaic Law), his job took many months. The scribe was not allowed to write from memory but rather from a specially edited text of the Torah. After the copying was done, every word and letter had to be counted to check against the original, and this was normally done in the presence of another learned Jew. This reading was performed three times. Furthermore, a letter from the word gahon in Leviticus 11:42 had to be the middle letter in the copied text of the Torah. If the copy did not match exactly with the text it was copied from, then the manuscript was either destroyed or else corrected until it was a perfect duplicate of the original. Thus we now know that the clerk is nothing but a modern day scribe, a professional descendent from a long line of copyists who utilized well established rules and regulations for
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\ small a matter as a problem on a single test, should not we expect accuracy on the part of our lawmakers in so great a matter as amending the U.S. Constitution? The proposed Sixteenth Amendment was only thirty words long with only four punctuation marks (three commas and one period). The legislators during the years from 1908 to 1913 were incapable of correctly copying a single simple sentence consisting of a mere thirty words and four punctuation marks. Their carelessness in one instance is downright ludicrous: The legislature of Illinois substituted a meaningless non-word, "remuneration," (try to find remuneration in the dictionary; you won't) for the word, "enumeration," thereby creating the meaningless phrase: "...and without regard to any census or remuneration." They then voted on this unintelligible amendment and passed it 80 to 8 in the House and 41 to 0 in the Senate. Not one of the 121 legislators that voted to pass the amendment questioned the meaning of the word "remuneration." Two of many possible conclusions that may be drawn from this are that these lawmakers were either illiterate or else they never really read the federal document proposing the Sixteenth Amendment.
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transcribing documents. Just as the mathematician works with numbers and symbols employing rules and formulas, so the modern day clerk must use well established rules and regulations to carry on the work of his unique profession. The procedural precedents for the clerks and legislators of the 1908 to 1913 period had their origins in antiquity. The unethical opinions of the legislators of 1908 to 1913 altered nothing. The job they did as lawmakers is appalling and the attempted cover-up by the Solicitor and Secretary of State was shameful. If we were to accept the statement of the clerk proclaiming the acceptance of error and substantial mistakes, we like him would be saying that lawmaking is no profession at all but rather a pseudo-science, open to chaos, and practiced by a group of individuals who have mastered the dubious art of political skullduggery.
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\ Knowing now, as we do, the reality of the serious and substantial errors that were made by Secretary of State, Philander C. Knox, and his contemporary associates, we might ask ourselves what we might do to remedy our present malady. We will answer this question by taking a look at what some other professions have done when confronted with a similar situation. Let us use two rather recent examples of how other professions have handled their mistakes.
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\ In the late 1970's a New York skyscraper called Citicorp Center was completed. It was the product of architect Hugh Stubbins Jr. and structural consulting engineer William J. LeMessurier. All seemed well until LeMessurier received a phone call in June of 1978 from an engineering student in New Jersey questioning the stability of the new structure in heavy wind situations. The concern stemmed from the fact that the fifty-nine story tower rested on four massive stilts located not at the four corners of the structure's base, but rather at the center of each side. LeMessurier assured the New Jersey student that all was well, however, LeMessurier could not resist sharing this information with his own pupils and re-examining some calculations used in determining the buildings ability to withstand wind forces. What he discovered was that a quartering wind [he had already calculated that the skyscraper could withstand a perpendicular wind which was all that was required by New York City's building code] increased the strain on the buildings twenty-five thousand ton steel skeleton by as much as 160 percent. And in a meeting held just a few weeks before, LeMessurier learned of a crucial change in the way the braces were joined. Rather than welding the structure's steel joints together - on a recommendation from Bethlehem Steel - the joints were bolted together instead. Although bolted joints were cheaper than welded joints, a welded joint is much stronger. LeMessurier knew that the potential for disaster existed and the integrity of the building was at risk with the potential for a huge loss of life. Money and materials were needed to go back and correct the errors by welding heavy steel plates over the structure' bolted joints. LeMessurier, in order to avert disaster, had no choice but to blow the whistle quickly — on himself. LeMessurier informed Citicorp's chairman, Walter Wriston, New York City's Acting Building Commissioner, and Arthur Nusbaum, veteran project manager of HRH Construction which was the original contractor for Citicorp Center - among many others. The retro-fit began and was completed in just a few months. The mistakes had been corrected and the integrity of the building was firmly established. In the words of Arthur Nusbaum: 'It wasn't a case of 'We caught you, you skunk,' It started with a guy who stood up and said, 'I got a problem, I made the problem, let's fix the problem'." And as stated in an article in the May 29, 1995 edition of The New Yorker magazine: "The tale, as he (LeMessurier) tells it, is by turns painful,
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self-deprecating, and self-dramatizing — an engineer who did the right thing. But it also speaks to the larger question of how professional people should behave." It is obvious from this real-life situation that professionals who have discovered errors and mistakes, even if they are their own, have no recourse but to own up to the problem then quickly go back and re-do it correctly: To borrow from the words of Mr. LeMessurier; "We have got a problem, we made the problem, let us fix the problem."
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\ And lest anyone feel inclined to claim that there is some kind of statute of limitations imposed on errors and mistakes, it would behoove them to pick up a copy of Time magazine dated March 19, 2001, and take note of the title of the article on page sixty-two, Going Back and Getting It Right. - an article that concerns itself with the use of DNA testing tools in forensic criminology. By using this tool criminologists have been able to establish unequivocally the innocence of so-called convicted criminals. The Innocence Project started by two New York lawyers has had about 60% of their samples sent out for DNA testing returned in favor of their client's innocence. And their convictions have been quickly overturned. In one case Dennis Fritz was exonerated and released from prison after serving twelve years for a rape and murder which he did not commit. In another case, one Vincent Jenkins was proven innocent of a rape which he did not commit and subsequently released from prison after serving a jail sentence of seventeen years. In both these cases, and many more, the judicial decisions were incorrect. So what did someone do? Some professional went back and did it over again, but this time they did it right. No one has said that these men ought to stay in prison since they had already been there for such a long time. There was no statute of limitations placed on their convictions. There is no statute of limitations that can be placed on an innocent man's life. For that matter, there are no time limitations that can be imposed on any situation, in any profession, that permits errors and mistakes to be overlooked or ignored. If errors, mistakes, miscalculations, and carelessness are discovered in the work of any profession they are addressed and done over, until they are done correctly and properly - even if this involves a mere 30-word sentence and an elapsed period of over eighty-eight years.
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\ In the case of the supposed ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, we are now aware of the substantial and serious errors that have been committed by the responsible parties. In fact, so were they. In a memorandum from the Chief Clerk of the Office of the Solicitor dated February 15, 1913, the Solicitor makes the following statement at the bottom of page six: "In the certified copies of the resolutions passed by the legislatures of the several states ratifying the proposed 16th amendment, it appears that only four of these resolutions (those submitted by Arizona, North Dakota, Tennessee, and New Mexico) have quoted absolutely accurately and correctly the 16th amendment as proposed by Congress." This, in the Solicitor's own words, is a clear declaration that of the supposed thirty-eight states that ratified the Sixteenth Amendment (only thirty-six were actually needed for proper ratification), only four did it correctly. Knowing the mistakes and errors contained in the certified copies returned by the states, as a professional, as a modern-day scribe, as a man of integrity, the clerk had no recourse but to ask the states to go back and properly ratify the sixteenth amendment. Anything less was unacceptable. Well, as history shows, he failed to do this. We, therefore, knowing the errors and mistakes that were made and still exist, have no recourse but to make public that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was never ratified and has been null and void since February 25, 1913.
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\ self-deprecating, and self-dramatizing — an engineer who did the right thing. But it also speaks to the larger question of how professional people should behave." It is obvious from this real-life situation that professionals who have discovered errors and mistakes, even if they are their own, have no recourse but to own up to the problem then quickly go back and re-do it correctly: To borrow from the words of Mr. LeMessurier; "We have got a problem, we made the problem, let us fix the problem."
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