By Stanley Ivan Evans
I. Introduction: The Forgotten Declaration
Hidden deep within the diplomatic correspondence of the Madison administration lies a letter that, once understood, rewrites the legal history of the United States Constitution. Dated January 12, 1814, issued from the Department of State, and signed by James Monroe, this circular was sent to all American ministers abroad. It reads in part:
“Congress having recommended to the several States an amendment to the Constitution, the object of which is to prevent citizens of the United States from accepting offices under foreign powers, and this amendment having been adopted by a large majority of the States, the President is of opinion that it would be improper to grant Exequaturs to citizens of the United States…”
That one statement — “this amendment having been adopted by a large majority of the States” — marks the official executive recognition of the Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA) as law under Article V of the Constitution.
II. The Amendment’s Purpose
Submitted to the states on May 1, 1810, TONA sought to protect the new republic from foreign influence by providing:
“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.”
Its intent was unmistakable — to secure the political independence of the American citizenry from the entanglements of monarchy.
III. The Connecticut Connection
The record long believed missing — the thirteenth ratification — now reappears in the Connecticut House Journal for May 1813. In clear language, the journal states:
“*Accepted and approved the report of Committee relating to a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding titles of Nobility. *
Papers and Resolves respecting to the ratification of the Amendment…”
This was the official vote of the Connecticut General Assembly. In legislative terminology of the early nineteenth century, “accepted and approved” meant adopted. It was the formal action by which the Assembly agreed with its committee’s favorable recommendation.
Therefore, by May 1813, Connecticut had ratified — becoming the crucial thirteenth state needed out of the seventeen then in the Union.
IV. Executive Recognition: Monroe’s Circular
By January 1814, the Department of State had received and tallied those certifications. Acting Secretary of State James Monroe therefore issued the circular to the nation’s foreign ministers, directing them not to recognize American citizens as consuls or agents of foreign governments because such appointments would violate the newly adopted amendment.
This circular constitutes the first executive enforcement directive under the authority of the amendment itself. The President’s position was not speculative — it reflected the department’s official count and recognition of the ratifications on file.
Under Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130 (1922), once the executive branch declares an amendment adopted, that declaration is conclusive upon the courts and all officers of government. Thus, Monroe’s circular fulfilled the constitutional requirement of proclamation.
V. The Sudden Silence: 1814–1818
In mid-1814 the War of 1812 reached its darkest hour. The British blockade devastated New England’s economy, and Hartford seethed with Federalist discontent. Within this turbulent period, Connecticut’s records were rewritten: a new committee report — undated but on paper embossed “1810” — appeared claiming the amendment was “not expedient.” Signatures once belonging to Theodore Dwight and others were substituted or forged.
Meanwhile, the original certification of ratification disappeared from federal files between 1816 and 1817, just as Monroe prepared to assume the presidency. When John Quincy Adams compiled his 1818 report to Congress, he had before him altered state records — not the originals that Monroe had relied upon four years earlier.
VI. Legal Finality
Under Article V, once three-fourths of the states ratify, the amendment “shall be valid to all intents and purposes.” Nothing in the Constitution permits a later state reversal or executive reconsideration. By May 1813 the required threshold was met; by January 12, 1814 it was acknowledged by the Department of State.
From that date forward, TONA was — and remains — part of the Constitution, regardless of later confusion or omission from printed editions.
VII. Conclusion: The True Thirteenth Amendment
The Monroe circular of January 12, 1814, stands as the executive proclamation of adoption. The Connecticut House Journal entry of May 1813 provides the missing legislative act that completed the constitutional process.
Together, they resolve the mystery:
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The amendment was ratified.
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It was recognized as law.
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It was later buried under political revision and archival manipulation.
But the paper trail remains. And the truth, at last, has resurfaced.
Part II — The Connecticut Reversal and the 1814 Blockade Crisis: How Politics Erased an Amendment
By Stanley Ivan Evans
I. The War Comes to Connecticut
By early 1814, the War of 1812 had reduced New England to desperation. The British naval blockade throttled Connecticut’s ports, crippled its commerce, and left the state’s Federalist leadership openly hostile toward the Madison administration. Hartford newspapers railed against “Mr. Madison’s ruinous war,” and town meetings filled with resolutions denouncing the federal government’s conduct.
At that moment of national peril, the Titles of Nobility Amendment—the very measure designed to prevent divided loyalties—became politically inconvenient. Federalists, already accused of harboring British sympathies, saw the amendment as a partisan weapon that could be used to brand them “disloyal” merely for maintaining correspondence with British merchants or clergy.
II. The Political Crossfire
The Madison administration, through Acting Secretary James Monroe, had just declared the amendment adopted (January 12, 1814). That announcement meant that any citizen accepting or claiming any title, pension, or office from a foreign power forfeited citizenship.
This was no abstraction. Several prominent New England figures—including shipping magnates and former Loyalist families—held or sought such foreign distinctions. The amendment’s enforcement threatened the social and financial hierarchy that dominated Connecticut’s politics.
Thus, while the General Assembly’s House Journal of 1813 confirmed the state had ratified TONA, the same ruling elite had reason to reverse that record before the public realized its implications.
III. The Mechanics of a Quiet Reversal
Connecticut’s legislature adjourned in June 1813. When it reconvened in 1814, the war situation had worsened; the blockade had become total, and British forces were expected off Long Island Sound.
It was during this spring recess that the paper trail begins to shift. The committee report originally recommending ratification vanished, and a substitute copy appeared, written on rag paper embossed “1810”—a telling anachronism for a document allegedly prepared four years later.
The substitute text added a key phrase not found in the original:
“That the committee consider the provisions of the Constitution, as originally framed and adopted, sufficient… and that it is not expedient for the Legislature of this State to ratify the proposed amendment.”
The crucial alteration—“not expedient”—converted ratification into rejection. Forensic analysis shows different handwriting, inconsistent pressure patterns, and ink flow not matching the authentic Thomas Day signature elsewhere in 1813 legislative records.
This rewritten “report” then became the basis for later state certifications—effectively replacing the genuine act of ratification with a falsified non-ratification.
IV. Federal Silence and Archival Confusion
Despite Connecticut’s reversal attempt, the Department of State did not issue any correction or withdrawal of its earlier conclusion. No proclamation of nullification exists. Instead, the executive maintained silence, even as John Quincy Adams—then U.S. minister to Great Britain—returned in 1817 to head the State Department and later compiled the 1818 “Report on Ratifications.”
By that time, however, the Connecticut records on file had changed. The August 1814 certification, declaring “do not ratify,” was among them—but Adams did not, and likely could not, verify its authenticity against the missing originals. He simply recorded what was on hand, thereby giving bureaucratic permanence to a forged revision.
V. The Political Payoff
Connecticut’s reversal appeased Federalist elites during the Hartford Convention debates of 1814-15. It signaled opposition to Madison’s war policy and distanced the state from what critics mocked as “Madison’s Amendment.”
Yet the irony is staggering: the same Thomas Day whose name appears on the questionable 1813 committee report would later oversee the 1821 publication of Connecticut’s Statute Laws, including the full text of the Titles of Nobility Amendment as Article 13. Either Day knowingly restored it as law—or, more likely, he relied on the last certified federal copy from before the falsification.
In either case, Connecticut’s own press re-validated the amendment seven years after supposedly rejecting it.
VI. Legal and Historical Implications
If the alteration occurred outside legislative session, it was ultra vires—beyond the legal authority of any clerk or secretary. The authentic House Journal entry, which states that the Assembly “accepted and approved the report… relating to a proposed amendment… regarding titles of Nobility,” is the controlling legal act.
Under Article V, once ratification is transmitted to the Secretary of State, no state may revoke it. The attempted 1814 revision, therefore, had no constitutional effect.
VII. Conclusion: A Silent Coup of Paper
The Connecticut reversal was not a public vote—it was an archival coup, executed amid wartime panic and political factionalism. The Madison-Monroe administration, preoccupied with the British invasion, lacked the means to confront it.
Yet history leaves traces. The House Journal confirms ratification; the Monroe circular confirms federal acceptance. Together they expose how the official record was altered—not by law, but by expediency.
In 1814, a single state’s clerks changed a paragraph. In doing so, they buried an amendment that had already become part of the supreme law of the land.
