A while ago I wrote an editorial stating that elected officials who violate their Oath Of Office to support the U.S. Constitution must be held personally and financially accountable for their transgressions.
One reader replied that this is a bad idea and suggested that ends can justify means, citing as an example President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which freed slaves. That got me thinking.
The first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill Of Rights, went into effect 15 December 1791, pre-dating Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War.
President Lincoln’s 1 January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves living in the United States, violates the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and therefore is null and void.
The Fifth Amendment says, in part, “No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
The Emancipation Proclamation is an Executive Order from one man, not due process of law. Slaves were property of slave owners and were taken away by the federal government without any compensation to their owners, for use of a public which included former slaves. Former slave owners never received compensation for the value of their slaves as property and for lost income which the freed slaves would have produced for their owners.
A group of opportunistic lawyers is now filing lawsuits to recover “slavery reparations” payments to descendents of persons who were slaves in the United States many generations ago. Every person who participates in the lawsuit, and every person who declares eligibility to receive or does receive reparations from the lawsuit, is agreeing to be identified as a descendent of a former slave.
But slaves were freed by President Lincoln through an un-Constitutional Proclamation, which was invalid the moment it was issued. Therefore, slaves never were actually freed. If the Slavery Reparations lawsuit is valid, then the federal government owes descendents of former slave owners reparations payments for confiscated property, adjusted for inflation, and 139 years of lost income, plus interest. The federal government also owes the Confederate States reparations for the cost of fighting the Civil War and subsequent reconstruction.
The 5th Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution which President Lincoln swore to uphold upon taking office, requires that the Emancipation Proclamation be recognized as illegal and void, and that people who join the reparations lawsuit as descendents of former slaves must be arrested as fugitives and immediately returned to slavery as property of the descendents of their former masters.