A Remarkable Ratification
February 19, 2013
Various news outlets have reported the most recent ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution by the state of Mississippi – on February 7, 2013. You read that correctly: February 7, 2013. That was just over a week ago, for any who are calendar-challenged. For those who might be inclined to think that this story is a fabrication of the liberal media, even Fox News reported the story, beginning with the pithy opening line, “File that under, ‘I thought they did that already.’” No doubt.
Many Americans have been reminded of the drama surrounding the amendment in the recent film Lincoln. The amendment reads simply:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
Upon seeing the film, Ranjan Batra, a professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, was inspired to learn about the ratification of the amendment by his own state. He discovered that the amendment had actually never been officially ratified by the state, despite the fact that the Misssissippi legislature had voted to ratify the amendment – in 1995. You read that correctly. Some 130 years after the ratification of the amendment by the necessary three-fourths of the then thirty-six states. Apparently the delay from 1995 until earlier this month was a “clerical error.” Though the state legislature had voted to ratify the amendment, the proper notification to the US Archives did not occur. Yes, these things happen.
While I suppose a state might be forgiven a clerical error from time to time, it would seem that the occasion of ratifying the amendment that frees people made in the image and likeness of God from enslavement would receive a bit more care from a state that claims to be one of the most religious in the Union and, at that, specifically one of the most Christian states in these United States.
For those who want to remind me that the Bible allows for slavery here and there, I’ll remind you that whatever the Bible might allow by way of voluntary slavery, it clearly condemns “enslaving” or “kidnapping” in 1 Tim 1:10. I don’t know of any compelling argument that would suggest that slavery as practiced in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries was anything but a form of enslavement like that condemned by the apostle Paul.
It is remarkable that after ratification of the thirteenth amendment, someone failed to follow the necessary procedures to inform the national archives of the action. More remarkable is that it took 130 years to ratify the amendment at all. Really, I don’t even know what else to say. This is just, well, remarkable.
Many Americans have been reminded of the drama surrounding the amendment in the recent film Lincoln. The amendment reads simply:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
Upon seeing the film, Ranjan Batra, a professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, was inspired to learn about the ratification of the amendment by his own state. He discovered that the amendment had actually never been officially ratified by the state, despite the fact that the Misssissippi legislature had voted to ratify the amendment – in 1995. You read that correctly. Some 130 years after the ratification of the amendment by the necessary three-fourths of the then thirty-six states. Apparently the delay from 1995 until earlier this month was a “clerical error.” Though the state legislature had voted to ratify the amendment, the proper notification to the US Archives did not occur. Yes, these things happen.
While I suppose a state might be forgiven a clerical error from time to time, it would seem that the occasion of ratifying the amendment that frees people made in the image and likeness of God from enslavement would receive a bit more care from a state that claims to be one of the most religious in the Union and, at that, specifically one of the most Christian states in these United States.
For those who want to remind me that the Bible allows for slavery here and there, I’ll remind you that whatever the Bible might allow by way of voluntary slavery, it clearly condemns “enslaving” or “kidnapping” in 1 Tim 1:10. I don’t know of any compelling argument that would suggest that slavery as practiced in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries was anything but a form of enslavement like that condemned by the apostle Paul.
It is remarkable that after ratification of the thirteenth amendment, someone failed to follow the necessary procedures to inform the national archives of the action. More remarkable is that it took 130 years to ratify the amendment at all. Really, I don’t even know what else to say. This is just, well, remarkable.