Section Three as Self-Executing

"I suppose the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed by the Thirty-Ninth Congress, known as Article XIV, will soon be declared to have been ratified and become part of the Constitution, and I understand the effect will be at once to remove from office all persons who are disqualified by that amendment."

Secretary of War Schofield to Ulysses S. Grant (June 3, 1868), reprinted in The Evansville Daily Journal (June 4, 1868).