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At the Republic Builder, we aim to bring back the beauty and independence of self-governance through restoring the Republic form of government we enshrined in the Constitution for the united States of America. A government created, regulated, and managed by We the People. One in which the powers granted were few, specific, and highly regulated.
We did not put as many rails in place as we should have concerning those who could run for office, although we sought to correct that by the passing of the 10th Amendment, which restricted all powers not expressly granted the the government created in the Constitution to the states and to the People.
We further reinforced the restriction of power available to the government in a new manner with the passage of the original 13th Amendment. After the War for Independence the King of England abandoned the rest of his troops on American soil and gave them one directive: To work their way in the government of this country.
See, the issue with this is that all of those troops had first sworn an oath to the King of England. An oath they would be executed for breaking the terms of. Knowing this, Representative Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts proposed the first known version of what would become the original 13th Amendment:
“Congress shall at no time consent that any person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall accept a title of nobility or any other title or office from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
This went through varying different versions, getting batted back and forth with a final version, proposed by Senator Phillip Reed on April 27th, 1810, which read:
“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.”
Both versions have their merit, although it is safe to say that we might tighten it up even more than Senator Reed did since we have another 200 plus years of experience.