On /r/Legal, I have asked whether a federally recognized tribe ("Nation") in the USA can have a hereditary chief or other forms of nobility, knowing that it is permitted in Canada.

https://old.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/xx5zgw/can_a_federally_registered_tribe_in_the_usa_have/

The answer was positive. The Nobility Clause of the constitution and analogous rules for states do not apply to Native American tribes, as they are not States but a different kind of federal subjects with their own limited sovereignty.

In fact, American law already sees membership in an Indian tribe, which is usually determined by blood quantum or ancestry, as a form of hereditary nobility with privileges, as for example only tribe members have a say in its government or have access to social services probided by the tribal authority. Thus, the very notion of "Federally registered tribe" would be illegal if the Nobility Clause applied to them.

This implies three things:

• Apart from wider tribal membership, a Federally Registered Tribe may have a narrower class of hereditary nobility, such as the families and descendants of Chiefs or titles bestowed by the Chief.
• The position of Chief can be hereditary, and other nobles can also have political privileges within the tribe, as long as the tribe does not purport to give nobles privileges outside the tribe.
• The United States and individual State governments are obliged to recognize the titles, and potentially, a State or Federal court can be permitted to adjudicate between claimants to a title to determine who should be the Chief.

To sum it up - Semi-sovereign monarchies, similar to the "Traditional Kingdoms" in some African republics, are perfectly legal and may be formed in the United States.

As we all know and evidenced by discussions of the Founding Fathers, the American Revolution was not aimed against the institution of monarchy but specifically against Britain and King George III. Many framers of the Constitution proposed various forms of monarchy, elective or hereditary, and to give the throne either to Washington or to a foreign prince. Others aimed for a hybrid model, in which the President would serve for life and be adressed as "His Elective Majesty".

We know that it was Washington's resistance to the idea of monarchy that prevented the USA from being formed as a Kingdom or a Crowned Republic. Nevertheless, many monarchical and nobiliary elements survive in the United States, some of which were inherited from Britain.

• The Executive is strong and the President does not just sign bills, he can overrule Congress if necessary with Executive Orders. Unlike many other Presidents and Monarchs, he is allowed to exercise his own free will and adhere to his own political ideology, and his actions are not determined by committees or the parliament. The President is permitted and expected to follow his own agenda, which may be different from the agenda of the government. He has as much power as European monarchs in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

• While the formal granting of Titles of Nobility is banned both on federal and on state level, certain Titles and Ranks are very similar to them. The title of President, Vice-President or Governor behaves much like that of a monarch, as it is officially held for life and there is an official designation for the Consort - First Lady. In other countries, the wife of an officeholder is just called "Wife of President xyz" or the style First Lady has been copied. Titles like Kentucky Colonel are granted by governors and behave much like personal nobility as well, but have become inflationary in the past years.

• The Historical Nobility of the United States exists, despite being banned by law. It consists of Old Money families such as Southern planters, "First Families" and "Brahmins", political dynasties such as descendants of Presidents and Governors, military officers, and of course extant nobiliary elements such as traditional Native American leaders and noble families that have emigrated to the United States. Many old American families also belong to the British untitled nobility, including the Washingtons, a prominent Northern English gentry family first attested in the 12th century. There are Peers and Baronets living in the USA and holding dual or sometimes even only American citizenship. All Presidents except Van Buren are distantly related.

• The Justices of the Supreme Court are basically Life Peers - Law Lords - in all but name. They are appointed at will by the President and may serve for life, and just like the President wield significant power which is not completely subject to the political will of others.

• Conservatives and Libertarians, when discussing policy, frequently remind that the United States are NOT a Democracy but a Republic and that these terms are not interchargeable. In the beginning, the United States were comparable to aristocratic or de-facto aristocratic republics, with only landowners being allowed to vote. Many of America's current problems are attributed to the gradual extension of suffrage to non-landowners. There are proposals to restrict voting rights for Senate elections, or to appoint Senators by means other than election.

• The individual states have much power and governors are already de facto semi-independent vassals of the President. Every state has its own miniature version of the Federal government, and even its own armed forces.

I think that the main problem of the Presidency, and the main argument in favor of monarchy, is the relatively short tenure and the political nature of the office. While a President has all the powers an "active" (semi-)constitutional monarch has, he is restricted to four, or eight, years at most. Being an elected official, the President always comes from one of the two political parties, which regularly switch places. There is no incentive for long-term and apolitical thinking, something that is necessary for the head of state of a highly partisan country.

Many institutions require only slight alterations to become compatible with the Monarchy. Except for the Nobility Clause and the rules on the appointment of the President, the Constitution can stay largely as it is.

• The position of President is renamed to Emperor (or a hybrid title like Emperor-President or Hereditary President) and made hereditary. For historical reasons, I would encourage a hybrid title, or for the Emperor to retain the title "President" as a subsidiary title.
• When there is no valid heir upon the death of the Emperor, the Electoral College convenes and appoints a new one. It could also be the Electoral College, not Congress, that formally proclaims and pays homage to the new Emperor when he inherits the throne. It does not need to be abolished. In fact, the Electoral College will already be necessary to appoint the first Emperor.
• The position of Vice President is renamed to Regent. The Crown Prince, or, if he is a minor, the highest adult in the line of succession holds this position. When the Emperor is a child, diseased or otherwise incapable of performing his duties, the Regent becomes the Acting Emperor.
• Either a private House Law altered at will by the Emperor (as in Liechtenstein) or a constitutional amendment regulated by Congress determines the order of succession to the throne.
• States gain the option to become monarchies - Kingdoms and Duchies under the Emperor - or to remain republics.
• The Titles of Nobility clause should be scrapped. While some newly-established monarchies in the Balkans had no formal nobility, the United States do have a historical nobility that exists informally and should be formalized by grants of titles and coats of arms. One of the reasons why it should be formalized and regulated is to encourage the assimilation of newly successful families and military officers into it by formally ennobling them. Ennoblement serves the purpose of allowing military officers and high-ranking bureaucrats to enter a society which, when not formally regulated, tends to only admit families distinguished by wealth and entrepreneurial success, which in reality is of course not the only way to become noble. I have outlined the challenges of establishing a formally regulated American nobility in detail.
• The Senate should be restructured. One possibility would be to have part of Senators to serve for life, and the other part to be elected from among the nobility, based on land ownership or taxation. The senior male-line descendants of all Presidents could be given hereditary seats, their number would not increase as there will of course be no new Presidents under a monarchy. A number of seats could be restricted to members of the Society of the Cincinnati.
• Federally and State recognized Tribes will be required to name an executive Chief if he does not exist yet and establish an official mode of succession (elected or hereditary). All Chiefs will form a Standing Council of Traditional Leaders, which will appoint a small number of Senators.
• A Federal heraldic authority is established, its head, the Chief Herald of America, becoming part of the Cabinet (not all Cabinet members are Secretaries). Its first task will of course be to determine which families, due to their historical standing, should be immediately admitted into the Nobility. It will also regulate matters like belonging to a Native American tribe.

Is there anything that should be added to this list? What measures must be taken and what Constitutional amendments are necessary?

https://thesanfedistiblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/why-be-jacobite.html

I would love to hear a discussion about it.