What is the documentary evidence Secretary of State Knox used to proclaim the Sixteenth Amendment ratified on February 25, 1913?
Executive summary
Secretary of State Philander C. Knox’s February 25, 1913 proclamation that the Sixteenth Amendment had been ratified rested not on a single parchment but on the Department of State’s file of “official documents” — the ratification resolutions sent by state legislatures — a record Knox explicitly cited in his proclamation [1], even as internal review in the State Department had flagged minor textual discrepancies in some submissions [2]. Contemporary and institutional histories treat Knox’s certification as the formal documentary act that made the Amendment effective [3] [4], while later critics who argue the Amendment was never valid point to perceived flaws in those state submissions — an argument courts and legal historians have repeatedly rejected [5] [6].
1. The document Knox pointed to: state ratification instruments on file in the State Department
Knox’s proclamation itself states that “it appears from official documents on file in this Department that the Legislatures [of specific states] have passed Resolutions ratifying the said proposed Amendment,” and he then declares the Amendment valid based on that departmental record [1]; in short, Knox relied on the collection of ratification certificates, resolutions, and communications that had been transmitted to and recorded by the State Department [1].
2. What those “official documents” typically are and how they were handled in 1913
The documentary trail for an amendment’s ratification ordinarily consists of certified copies of the state legislative resolutions or certificates of ratification sent to the Secretary of State; institutional accounts confirm that by February 1913 the necessary three‑quarters of state legislatures had approved the Sixteenth Amendment and that Knox’s certification followed the Department’s records of those ratifications [3] [4].
3. Internal caveats: the Solicitor’s memorandum and minor discrepancies
The State Department’s own legal office had flagged that some state submissions contained “minor discrepancies” in wording, punctuation, capitalization, or form, a point recorded in a February 15, 1913 memorandum from the Office of the Solicitor and later cited in litigation as evidence that Knox knew of variations before certifying ratification [2]; the Solicitor’s memo is documentary proof that Knox’s proclamation did not issue in ignorance of irregularities [2].
4. How Knox and later authorities treated those irregularities
Despite the Solicitor’s observations, Knox — exercising the authority to receive and accept state ratifications under the Revised Statutes — certified that thirty‑six (and by some counts more) states had ratified the Amendment based on the “official documents on file,” a determination that contemporaneous archival summaries and later federal accounts treat as the conclusive promulgation of the Amendment [1] [3] [4].
5. The dissenting narrative and the judicial response
Authors such as William J. Benson later argued that many of the state records were defective and that Knox’s February 25, 1913 proclamation was therefore invalid [7] [8]; that line of attack — collected under the “Law That Never Was” critique — has been examined and repeatedly rejected in courts and by legal historians, with federal decisions noting that Knox’s certification was informed by the Solicitor’s review and is not subject to retrospective nullification [5] [6] [2].
6. What the provided sources do and do not show — limits of public reporting
The primary documentary evidence cited in the sources is Knox’s proclamation referencing the State Department’s filed ratification instruments and the Solicitor’s February 15, 1913 memorandum noting discrepancies [1] [2]; the sources do not provide, in this reporting set, a full itemized inventory or facsimiles of every state submission Knox relied on, so precise textual comparisons of each state certificate against the congressional proposal are not documentable here [3] [4].
Conclusion: documentary basis and authoritative closure
The documentary evidence Knox used was the State Department’s compiled file of ratification resolutions and communications from the states, together with legal review by the Department’s solicitorship — materials Knox cited in his proclamation and which institutional histories and courts accept as the basis for his certification of ratification on February 25, 1913 [1] [2] [3]; challenges pointing to clerical or formal defects in some state papers have been aired but have not overturned the legal effect of Knox’s proclamation in historical or judicial records [5] [6].