https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-719.html

See *Brief amici curiae of American Historians filed*

"In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress devised the Disqualification Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment out of concern that office-holders who had violated their oaths to the Constitution would re-assume positions of authority, destabilize state and
federal governments, and suppress freedom of speech. The Republican framers of the Amendment believed that anything short of the disqualification of insurrectionists risked surrendering the governmentto anti-Constitutionalist rebels.

"(T)he framers of the Fourteenth Amendment hoped not only to prevent a resurgence of secessionism but also to protect future generations against insurrectionism. An early draft of Section Three limiting its reach to those who had participated in 'the late insurrection' was eliminated in favor of language that disqualified both past and future insurrectionists who had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. 'This is to go into our Constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present,' said (Senator Van Winkle) during floor debate.

"Without a disqualification clause that would endure, a Congressional committee warned, 'flagrant rebellion, carried to the extreme of civil war,' would become 'a pastime.' Future ...Insurrectionists could take over state legislatures, state houses, Congress, the cabinet, and *even the White House*. Section Three was meant to prevent that possibility. Its framers intended Section Three:
(1) to automatically disqualify insurrectionists; (2) to apply not only to the Civil War but also to future insurrections; and (3) *to bar anyone who has betrayed an oath to uphold the Constitution from becoming President of the United States.* It remains in place and in force today.

"In January (1866), these fears (of Confederates holding office) were all but realized when the Democrat Alexander H. Stephens, the former vice president of the Confederacy, was elected to the U.S. Senate. The clerk of Congress refused to call the names of the ex-Confederates at roll and they were never seated.

"The challenge confronting Congress at the end of the war, according to Massachusetts senator Henry Wilson, was to deprive both the leaders of the former Confederacy and any future insurrectionists of power in such a way, and with such permanence, that 'the
curse of civil war may never be visited upon us again.'

"The former Confederate states, (Rep John Bingham, Ohio (R)) acknowledged, might not pose an immediate military threat in their defeated condition. 'But, unless you put them in terror of your laws, made efficient by the solemn act of the whole people *to punish the violators of oaths*, (the South) may defy your restrictive legislative power when reconstructed. This legislation will be felt by generations of men after we all have paid the debt of nature.' And against partisan critics he claimed the Amendment 'towers above all party consideration; it touches the life of the Republic, and not the miserable inquiry whether this or that party should be successful in the coming contest.'

"(B)riefs filed in support of (Donald Trump) by individuals who are not historians claim that 'Historical records ... reveal that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment were not concerned that a Confederate leader could attain the presidency' and that 'No Republican seriously feared that the national electorate would place a former rebel like Jefferson Davis in the White House.' These assertions are mistaken.

"Obstacles to prosecuting Davis had made it increasingly likely that he would not be convicted on treason charges, thus underscoring the need for Section Three. Section Three augmented (the Second Confiscation Act's) disqualification provision by *eliminating the need for a treason conviction* before a federal jury, at least *insofar as prior oath-takers were concerned*. (The prosecution of Jefferson Davis showed) that lawyers and judges understood (Section Three) to be *self-executing*. Privately, (Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase) suggested to DavisrCOs attorneys that Davis could no longer be prosecuted for treason because, *having been automatically disqualified for office upon the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment*, he had already been punished. DavisrCOs
defense made this argument. '*It needs no legislation by Congress to give it effect*,' his lawyer said.

"In 1898, with a new generation in power, Congress enacted a blunderbuss amnesty for past (Civil War) oath violators, closing a chapter in the story of the Civil War.99 Yet it left Section Three in place for future generations, a bulwark against disunion and lawlessness.

"With an eye toward establishing enduring fundamental law and ensuring domestic tranquility, they framed a provision designed to hold future insurrectionists accountable
by the same means. They knew that no one in the United States is above the law, not even the President, and that no republican government can afford to return insurrectionists to office."

#
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (1:2320/105)