The Public Debt Clause and the Debt Ceiling

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

The Public Debt Clause of the 14th Amendment states: “The Validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law …. shall not be questioned.” Recent debates—including the most recent standoff between President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling—have raised the question as to whether this clause can be invoked to overcome the crisis. In today’s episode, we drill down on why the public debt clause was written, how it's been interpreted by the Supreme Court, and how things might play out today if it were used by President Biden. Guests Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Eric Foner, author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution, and law professor Gerard Magliocca, author of American Founding Son: John Bingham and the Invention of the Fourteenth Amendment, discuss this often-overlooked section of the 14th Amendment written at the end of the Civil War. Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly. You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are just two sentences in section four of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution.
0:05.3	It's known as the Public Debt Clause and it's tucked away in a robust amendment that
0:11.1	was designed to achieve a new birth of freedom with guarantees of national citizenship, equal protection
0:17.5	of the law and due process.
0:20.0	The Public Debt Clause states, the validity of the public debt of the public debt of the United States, authorized
0:27.0	by law, shall not be questioned.
0:31.0	And that leads to a conundrum.
0:33.0	Given today's outcries about debt limits and fiscal cliffs,
0:38.0	once the public money has been authorized by Congress to be spent,
0:42.0	does the executive branch have the authority to act on its own,
0:46.4	to guarantee the debt is paid?
0:49.8	Hello friends, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National
0:57.1	Constitution Center and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of
1:01.0	constitutional debate. The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress
1:08.2	to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.
1:14.1	In this episode, the debt ceiling and the 14th Amendment
1:18.1	will drill down on why the public debt clause was written,
1:22.2	how it's been interpreted over time, and how things might play
1:25.6	out today if it were invoked by President Biden as a way out of the debt impasse.
1:31.9	Joining us are two of America's leading constitutional scholars and
1:35.7	historians.
1:37.1	Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University.
	...

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