Full text of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, passed July 9, 1868.

Consider for a moment why the Fourteenth Amendment exists. It was drafted and adopted as a direct response to the US Civil War, which ended May 9, 1865. Many US states attempted to secede, leaving the United States to form a completely separate nation, and they did so to preserve legal slavery. The Fourteenth clarifies a number of things which the Confederacy used to justify and execute secession.

Section 1 makes all native born or naturalized people citizens, and the specific purpose was to make African-Americans citizens, with the full rights that citizenship carries.

Section 2 eliminates the three-fifths compromise, where each five slaves were counted as three “persons” for the purpose of representation in the House of Representatives. That was always a shitty compromise, because the slaves states got to have their cake (slaves with no rights, including the right to vote) and eat it too (but we get to count them so that we have greater power in the House). This basically made votes from citizens of slaves states, and their representatives in the House carry more weight than votes in non-slave states. (We still have the scale-tipping electoral college doing the same thing then, and today, but to a far lesser degree).

Section 3 is the part that’s being pointed out as pertinent to current events in 2023. This was important in the aftermath of the Civil War in order to prevent secessionists who had held office prior to the Civil War from holding office again. “Did you take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and then break that oath by engaging in insurrection or rebellion against that Constitution? You don’t get to be in charge of anything governmental ever again.” That “disability” exists, it does not require a trial, it does not require indictment, because in 1868, it was plain to all who was bound by this disability. But it clearly just exists, because a vote of two-thirds of each House of Congress can remove it. Donald Trump is absolutely not the only person to whom this section can apply. I would expect some state to prohibit Trump from the ballot on this basis, and then for that to end up before Congress for that vote. The outcome of that vote would determine the future of the United States in every meaningful way.

Section 4 basically says, “Hey assholes, you’re going to have to take part in paying the expense of having to put down the rebellion you started, and you’re not able to claim any expenses of that rebellion, and we’re not paying you because you lost your slave labor. Fuck you.”

Finally, section 5, “If this wasn’t clear enough, we’ll make it clearer with additional legislation.”