The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.Some hold that this amendment in effect makes debt ceilings unconstitutional. Here is a good example of the deeper problems that underlie the concept of “a government of laws, and not of men.”† Those rather loose words of the amendment were written by men. What exactly does “shall not be questioned” mean? And what is the meaning of that qualifier, “authorized by law”? In turn it will take men to decide whether this amendment applies to our current situation.
In any case, an interesting wrinkle. It appears to provide the President with plenty to lean on if Congress does not extend the debt limit.
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†Words by John Adams in Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America, From Its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time. To be sure, Adams was attributing the concept to Aristotle, Livy, and James Harrington (a seventeenth century political theorist).
