Newspaper References to Section 3 and the Presidency

Before listing five examples that I found just today, let me make one methodological point.

Michael McConnell's groundbreaking article on "Originalism and the Desegregation Cases" relied in part on the debates in Congress over the 1872 Amnesty Act. As a result, I think I'm on firm originalist ground in using materials related to or preceding that debate as evidence for Section 3's original public meaning.

1. Chicago Tribune (May 24, 1872): stating that the Amnesty Act made "Alexander M. Stephens, the Vice President of the Rebel Confederacy, eligible to the Presidency of the United States."

2. The Public Ledger (Oct. 3, 1871: "Fred[erick] Douglass might be President. Carl Schurz cannot [he was foreign-born]. Every Southern man who lies under the ban of the Fourteenth Amendment cannot."

3. The Highland Weekly (Sept. 21, 1871): "The [Fourteenth] Amendment further provides that no rebel who had violated an official oath to support the Constitution of the United States, should ever be eligible to the Presidency."

4.  The New National Era (Aug. 31, 1871): stating that amnesty would make "these infamous men eligible to the presidency"

5. The Indiana Progress (Aug. 24, 1871): quoting by a speech by Senator Morton stating he would never vote for amnesty for Jefferson Davis and John C. Breckenridge to make them eligible "to the Congress of the United States, it may even be to the Presidency"

As the old Ginsu knife commercial used to say, "And that's not all." More later this week.