: I've heard it said (actually, that the title of "Esquire", given to "lawyers at the bar" in America, is a British title and indicates the fact that the American bar is an extension of, and perhaps subservient to, the British bar.

Starting with original intent, the history and the context of this amendment -- the original Thirteenth or Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA), does not prohibit the appellation of "Esquire" or its use by persons who have studied or read the law -- any more than does the Juris Doctor or the Medical Doctor. Those represent academic honors which are earned and which are, ostensibly, available to any citizen who will do the work needed to acquire the education. Many men used "esquire" to indicate that they were owners of land, as well, or so my research of the period 1790 through 1820 indicates, but I think that it does mostly pertain to men who have read the law as clerks (as there were no actual "law schools" in those days).

: If this is so, it would mean the majority of American
: attorneys would be prohibited from serving in positions of
: public trust -- and that would give enormous leverage for
: "tossing the rascals out" who may already be
: present in those positions. (It would also explain the
: persistent obscuration of the 13th during all this time,
: and would point to massive resistance to efforts to bring
: it to light, now.)

This line of argument has its uses, but all of them stem from the formation of the American Bar Association sometime after 1872, and its formalization in 1876. Bar Associations seem to be as old as the colonial states, themselves, but don't quote me on that one. The facts may very well prove that, after 1876, the Bar Association became an adjunct or an affiliate of the Inner Temple or the Bar Association of Great Britain. The appellation of attorney may now, in fact, be a petit title of nobility: it is awarded by examination, and the authority to govern those examinations has been ceded to the Bar by Legislatures which have themselves been under Bar control for decades, or longer.

In its original setting and context, however, an Esquire is simply a man who has reached a majority age and who has read or studied the law, and who owns property (or who has owned real property). No advantages accrued to such men, nor did the first awards of Ph.D. or L.L.B.'s create new classes of citizenship.

The questions raised here dovetail, however, with the promotion by James Buchanan of the William Hickey edition of the Constitution, as printed by F.G. Collins of Philadelphia. He was then Secretary of State for the United States, and he conspired with leading legal experts and various pro-slavery Senators, including the despicable Henry Clay -- who voted as a young Senator to approve the TONA in 1810 -- to foist a truncated version of the Constitution on the whole country. Despite being the most comprehensive edition of the Constitution that had ever been produced, up to that time, with copious notes on every aspect of every part of the Bill of Rights and Articles XI and XII, there is absolutely no mention of the original Thirteenth!!

Hickey's edition explicitly details the proposal of twelve separate articles of amendment for the Bill of Rights, and lists the States in their order of approval of the ten articles which had been considered by most to be essential:

curiously enough, the date of ratification for this Bill of Rights concurs with the approval by Virginia, on December 15th of 1791 -- which means that even Buchanan and Hickey were unable or unwiling to establish that Vermont had "a right" to ratify any of the sections of the Bill of Rights -- having joined the union after the joint resolution was issued to the States. Of course, Vermont is listed as having ratified the same on November 3, of 1791, but Virginia gets the credit for their approval on a much later date! Therefore, the action of Vermont as number ten on the list was "pro forma" and not acceptable even to Buchanan.

Therefore, the argument advanced in later years -- that the admission of Louisiana and then of Indiana and Mississippi made the whole number of ratifications necessary rise to fifteen from thirteen -- is specifically rejected by the factual listing of the eleven States ratifying the Bill of Rights, but with Vermont's approval not counting towards the total necessary, ten of the 13 States in the original Congress!

James Buchanan was a State Representative and a practicing lawyer in Pennsylvania during the time the TONA was being ratified: he was later elected to Congress and then sent to the Senate. After serving as the Secretary of State, and after conspiring to endorse and subsidize the Hickey printings (at least ten editions through 1854), then Buchanan is sent to be the ambassador to Great Britain! He returns from that duty in time to be hustled into the Presidency by Tom and John Slidell of Louisiana, and their political ally in the Senate -- Judah P. Benjamin.

Benjamin and John Slidell walked out of the Senate after making fiery speeches defending the right of Louisiana to secede, and both were heavily involved in the Confederacy's governance. Benjamin was born in the British Virgin Islands. After the civil war ended, Benjamin skedaddled for Great Britain, where he was admitted to their Bar and to practice before their House of Lords. Many admiralty cases were heard there, and he was among the best of their legal minds. He made a substantial fortune representing various clients for more than twenty years after he left the United States, as a scoundrel, a fugitive, and a traitor to his adopted land.

The original Thirteenth Amendment was suppressed by men who were interested in protecting the economics of the slavery trade, and the cotton-dependent plantation system; and who knew that both Spanish gold and British pounds-sterling were at risk if they failed. In their day, the Bar Association was not what it is today -- but there may be much more to the story than the TONA Research Committee and I have been able to uncover -- and certainly it behooves the Legislature of South Carolina to undertake this effort. I cannot think of anything which will do more to erase their legacies of secession and slavery, than to undertake this action -- and I don't think their ratification attempt would fail, when the basic facts are put on display.