Presidential Elections Ain't What They Used To Be

One question that was asked yesterday in the Colorado Supreme Court was why would the Fourteenth Amendment exclude the Presidency and President from Section Three. What reason could there be for that singular exclusion? One response goes something like this: The President and Vice-President are the only officials elected by the American people as a whole. The people have the right to elect an insurrectionist to the White House if they so desire.

Now there are many problems with this argument, but one of them is that it's anachronistic. The American people as a whole did not vote for President and Vice-President in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Three states were excluded from voting (Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia). And in Florida, the state legislature just appointed electors for Grant. There was no popular vote there at all.

Thus, it is wrong to say that people in 1868 held a special democratic view of the presidency. And, of course, nobody said that then in relation to Section Three. The provision was not designed to exclude the President/Presidency and does not do so.

UPDATE: And now for my "Carthago Delenda Est" ending to reiterate that Section Three was understood to apply to the presidency. The Sunbury Gazette of July 18, 1868 told readers that under universal amnesty "the worst rebels are to be eligible for the highest national offices, so that upon this Democratic platform Robert E. Lee might yet become President of the United States."