The law that never was (The 16th Amendment was never ratified)

The income tax amendment was a fraud because it was never ratified by the States.


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A criminal investigator for the Illinois Department of Revenue
for approximately 10 years, William J. Benson of South Holland, Illinois has been at the vanguard of debate and controversy surround the 16th Amendment for almost two decades. In 1984 he embarked upon a year-long project to examine the process of the ratification of the 16th Amendment and to determine whether or not it had been lawfully adopted as part of the U.S. Constitution. The culmination of Benson's work is the book, "The Law That Never Was."

Question: You have been engaged in this 16th amendment battle for almost 20 years. How did it start?

Answer: I was a former investigator for the Illinois Department of Revenue. I discovered a great deal of corruption within that department and for that the Director fired me. I told him if he fired me, I would sue him for violation of First Amendment rights
. Six and half years later we were in court. We had a jury of six; it was a civil trial. They awarded me $353,000 for violation of First Amendment rights.

I began working with my attorney, Andy Spiegal. We had a willful failure to file case in Indiana. Red Beckman had some documentation
that showed there was some serious problem with the 16th Amendment. He got the documentation from a man named Dean Hurst, from Cheyenne, Wyoming. I purchased that documentation and made every attempt to have Andy get it before the court, and the Judge said no.

The judge gave us three real good reasons why he did that: The documentation is not notarized, it is not certified, and you do not have a witness to testify to.

That evening I said, "Okay, the judge has given us our marching orders. The only thing we have to do is go to all 48 states and get the documentation" to see if the documents have any validity. The attorney said, "Bill, you're crazy, you can't do that." I said, "Sure you can."

Q: How long did it take to do that?

A: It took a full year. There is not one state -- not one -- that has ratified the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution. One of the most amazing documents I found was in the national archives in Washington D.C. -- a 16-page memorandum written by Ruben J. Clark, then the attorney for Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox, on February 15, 1913. What he says is that in the certified copies of the amendment passed by the legislatures of the several states ratifying the 16th Amendment, it appears that only four of those resolutions -- Arizona, North Dakota, Tennessee and New Mexico -- have quoted absolutely accurately and correctly what was proposed by Congress. The other 33 resolutions contain either errors of capitalization, spelling or wording. ...

Q: So what's the big deal? Why are errors of capitalization, spelling or wording so significant?

A: On page 15 of the 16-page memorandum, the attorney says, "further under the Constitution, a Legislature is prohibited from altering 'in any way' the resolution proposed by Congress." The right of the Legislature is merely to approve or disapprove the amendment. The last page is also interesting because it says the department has not received the copy of the resolution passed by the state of Minnesota, but the secretary of the governor of the state has officially notified the department that legislators of that state have ratified the proposed 16th amendment.

Q: Here's the obvious question that comes up all the time. Say it was a bureaucratic oversight, a procedural glitch or something. Why are we still saddled with this thing? The reality check is, if you don't comply you end up in a whole world of hurt, as you know from personal experience.

A: Oh, there isn't any question about it. And that is why I continue to defy the federal government. That is why, when we were in Washington (at the National Press Club) I said, "I have waited 15 years to get behind these microphones, and I challenge the United States, I challenge the Justice Department, to come and get me. Take me, and leave these people alone." Let's get the 16th Amendment argument on the table once and for all before a jury and let them decide.

Q: Why don't they just drag you into court and resolve the controversy once and for all?

A: I wish they would. This has been going on now for 18 years. They cannot win with the 16th Amendment argument.

Q: Bill, at this event you guys had in Washington D.C. at the National Press Club in July, it seemed like a collection of former Geoff Metcalf guests, including Joe Banister.

Joe Banister is a former IRS agent -- a badge-carrying, gun-carrying agent who after listening to my radio program with interviews of other people and hearing discussions about this issue conducted a research analysis of his own to find out if he was enforcing a law that was a law or not. He submitted his findings to his superiors and asked them to either confirm or deny this stuff, or at least look into it. They basically said, "We'll be happy to accept your resignation, but we are not going to respond."

A: They forced him to resign. I think the entire nation owes Joe a great deal because of the courage it took for a special agent from the Internal Revenue Service to do what Joe Banister did. On C-SPAN Joe Banister told the entire listening audience that the IRS was a fraud, and that the 16th Amendment had not been ratified.

Q: It is fascinating that the first time you guys had a get together, it was broadcast on C-SPAN. I think they had the largest requests they ever had for any taped shows, and they ain't cheap. Yet, when you came back, they wouldn't even put you on the air.

A: That's true. I think the problem that arose was with the promoter of the program. He made a mistake. He went ahead and released a press announcement to the national press in Washington and to the President and right on down and told them what we were going to talk about.

The first session on July 2nd they had to bring in four people, two cameras, the lights and the whole thing, and we were on for three hours and 28 minutes. C-SPAN aired that program on four separate occasions. But they didn't show up on the second one and it was in my personal opinion because the cat was let out of the bag, so to speak, because of the error of the promoter.

Q: Bill, regarding this whole 16th Amendment issue, some folks say, "Well, it's an interesting academic argument, and they may be right on the 'technical' aspects of it, but the reality check is the golden rule -- and the guy with the gold makes the rules."

Were you ever approached by anyone "in government" regarding the documentation you had collected?

A: Yes I was. In 1985, prior to volume one being printed, Mrs. Benson had received a call from an attorney by the name of Warren Richardson. Warren said, "I am making this call on behalf of Senator Orrin Hatch. And of course," he said, "you know who he is? You tell Bill that it is an absolute emergency that he call Washington D.C. immediately."

Q: Did you call them immediately?

A: No, I had no emergency. I was lecturing on the 16th amendment. I did call them in a few days. Warren Richardson said, "I am making this call on behalf of Senator Orrin Hatch." He said "Bill, you cannot permit that book to get in the hands of the kooks out there. We know what you are doing."

I said, "Warren, by your making this telephone call to me you're one of the biggest kooks in D.C."

He said, "You don't understand what I'm trying to do? You have all of the books printed that you want. You name the number of books, and then you put a price on each and every book, and we will pay it. But then we want you never ever again to speak to one person, never again to get on one radio station, one television station or one group of people."

Q: Was that all?

A: No. Warren then said, "The last thing we want are all 17,000 certified, notarized documents that you have -- and you will be a multi-millionaire."

Q: What was your response?

A: I told him thank you, but no thanks. In fact, I told him to "go to hell!" I'm not for sale. America is not for sale. What I am fighting for is freedom, and that is exactly what I told Warren Richardson. I told him to carry that message right back to Orrin Hatch.

Q: You made that announcement at the second event in D.C. that C-SPAN chose not to broadcast. Did Orrin Hatch's office contact you to confirm, deny or threaten or try to sue you?

A: No, they have not.

Q: Have you made any effort to get in touch with them?

A: I haven't made any effort to get in touch with Orrin Hatch since 1985. I was waiting for the proper forum to release this information. I thought C-SPAN was that forum, because you're speaking to millions of people, not groups of 100 or 200, and it would get all over the country. But C-SPAN didn't show up.

Q: Bill, why is this whole 16th Amendment issue so critical?

A: In order for the federal government to collect anything from you, they must have a law. The 16th Amendment is what they collect the tax on. And I have proven beyond a doubt with 17,000 certified, notarized documents that not one state out of the 48 has ratified the law. They have all rejected it.

Q: Bill, thank you.

Final thoughts from interviewer Geoff Metcalf: Bill Benson claims that not a single state legally ratified the proposal to amend the Constitution in the manner required by law. According to Benson's book, "The Law That Never Was":

* The federal government claims Kentucky was the second state to ratify the 16th Amendment, on Feb. 8, 1910. However, the records of the State of Kentucky show that after the Kentucky House proposed a resolution to adopt the amendment and sent it to the Senate, on Feb. 8, 1910 the Kentucky Senate voted upon that resolution, but rejected it by a vote of 9 in favor and 22 opposed. Apparently, the Kentucky Senate never did ratify that amendment. Federal officials, who had possession of documents showing this rejection, nevertheless claimed Kentucky had ratified the amendment.

* In Oklahoma, the proposed amendment was passed by the Oklahoma House and the language of the resolution perfectly matched the one passed by Congress. However, the Oklahoma Senate obviously disliked what Congress had proposed, so it amended the language of the 16th Amendment in such a fashion as to have a precisely opposite meaning.

* The California legislative assembly never recorded any vote upon any proposal to adopt the 16th Amendment. And whatever California did adopt bore no resemblance to what Congress had proposed. Several states engaged in the unauthorized activity of amending the language of the amendment proposed by Congress, a power that these states did not possess.

* Minnesota sent nothing to the Secretary of State in Washington, but this did not deter Philander Knox from claiming that Minnesota ratified the amendment, regardless of the absence of any documentation from the State of Minnesota.

* Article V of the U.S. Constitution controls the amending process, which requires that three-fourths of the states ratify any amendment proposed by Congress. In 1913, there were 48 States in the American union, so to adopt any amendment required the affirmative act of 36 states. In February 1913, Knox issued a proclamation claiming that 38 states had ratified the amendment -- including Kentucky, California and Oklahoma. But since Kentucky had rejected the amendment, California had not voted on it, and Oklahoma wanted something entirely different, the amendment was not legally adopted, the number of ratifying States being only 35. Then again, a total of 11 states failed to vote on the amendment, 33 changed the language of the amendment and Minnesota sent in nothing. In the final analysis, if the process of the adoption of the 16th Amendment is subjected to strict legal scrutiny, the amendment was never adopted.



The law that never was

Facts about the investigation

Philander C. Knox

Defects In the Ratification of the 16th Amendment

The 16th Amendment was proclaimed to be ratified?

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Constitutional Amendments Procedures

On February 25, 1913, the Secretary of State Philander Knox proclaimed that the 16th amendment had been ratified by the necessary three-fourths of the states, and thus had become part of the Constitution. An income tax, the Revenue Act of 1913 was shortly passed by the Congress.
How do you just "proclaim" a constitutional amendment to be ratified?
The Secretary Of State is suppose to have certified the amendment!

The Constitutional Amendment Process

The Secretary of State performed these duties until 1950 The certification process. What the heck kind of process did Knox use?

Is there a "Fourteenth Amendment"!

Fourteenth Amendment

Controversy over ratification

In 1968, the Utah Supreme Court diverged from the habeas corpus issue in a case to express its resentment against recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court under the Fourteenth Amendment, and to attack the Amendment itself:

In order to have 27 states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, it was necessary to count those states which had first rejected and then under the duress of military occupation had ratified, and then also to count those states which initially ratified but subsequently rejected the proposal.

To leave such dishonest counting to a fractional part of Congress is dangerous in the extreme. What is to prevent any political party having control of both houses of the Congress from refusing to seat the opposition and then without more passing a joint resolution to the effect that the Constitution is amended and that it is the duty of the Administrator of the General Services Administration to proclaim the adoption? Would the Supreme Court of the United States still say the problem was political and refuse to determine whether constitutional standards had been met?

How can it be conceived in the minds of anyone that a combination of powerful states can by force of arms deny another state a right to have representation in the Congress until it has ratified an amendment which its people oppose? The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted by means almost as bad as that suggested above.

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This is very interesting.

The South was to be put under military rule.

"The bill passed. It was vetoed by Johnson and passed again over his veto. In the Senate it was amended in such fashion that any State could escape from military rule and be restored to its full rights by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment and admitting black as well as white men to the polls."

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"To get a clear idea of the succession of events let us review [President Andrew] Johnson's actions in respect to the ex-Confederate States.

"In May, 1865, he issued a Proclamation of Amnesty to former rebels. Then he established provisional governments in all the Southern States. They were instructed to call Constitutional Conventions. They did. New State governments were elected. White men only had the suffrage the Fifteenth Amendment establishing equal voting rights had not yet been passed]. Senators and Representatives were chosen, but when they appeared at the opening of Congress they were refused admission. The State governments, however, continued to function during 1866.

"Now we are in 1867. In the early days of that year [Thaddeus] Stevens brought in, as chairman of the House Reconstruction Committee, a bill that proposed to sweep all the Southern State governments into the wastebasket. The South was to be put under military rule.

"The bill passed. It was vetoed by Johnson and passed again over his veto. In the Senate it was amended in such fashion that any State could escape from military rule and be restored to its full rights by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment and admitting black as well as white men to the polls."

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"Can a State which is not a State and not recognized as such by Congress, perform the supreme duty of ratifying an amendment to the fundamental law? Or does a State — by congressional thinking — cease to be a State for some purposes but not for others?"

This is the tragic history of the so-called "Fourteenth Amendment" — a record that is a disgrace to free government and a "government of law."
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Wow! The northern states passed a "law" requiring the southern states to pass the
14th amendment to avoid military rule and be restored full rights after ratifying
the 14th amendment. (How could this be constitutional. The northern states
were telling the southern states how to vote on the 14th amendment! One state
can't require another state to vote yes on a Constitutional amendment!)

Of course if the southern states were admitted back into congress this
should have happened because a black man has as much right to vote as
a white man.

Because the southern states were forced to vote for the 14th amendment by
an unconstitutional law the 14th amendment is today not valid.

The Supreme Court, in case after case, refused to pass on the illegal activities involved in "ratification." It said simply that they were acts of the "political departments of the Government." This, of course, was a convenient device of avoidance. The Court has adhered to that position ever since Reconstruction Days


Today if a new state had met the requirements to be admitted to the union
and congress told the new state you must agree to vote on the "30th"
amendment so it will pass before your state can be admitted to the union
would this not be any different. It would be like a territory was asking
to be admitted to the union but the union was adding a special provision
to vote before the territory was a state. This is no where in the
constitution!

This is why the current 14th amendment is invalid

The 16th amendment is invalid for a different reason. It was never ratified
by the correct number of states.

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