See the 14th Amendment to the constitution, added after the civil war. It prevents citizens who previously swore an oath to support the constitution (so any federal employee, person in the military, or federally elected politician including President), and who engaged in insurrection against the United States from being eligible to hold public office.
Edit: We really shotgunned you there, didn’t we 🦆
Edit 2: Added info about oath
I’m curious why that only prevents people who have sworn an oath. Why should anyone who has engaged in insurrection be able to hold office? Forgive me if this is a dumb question, I am only half awake.
They didn’t want to completely disenfranchise southerners after the Civil War. There’s an argument to be made that they should have, but I can see their logic in not wanting to antagonize people while trying to put the country back together.
At the time, people were a lot more loyal to their states than to the US as a whole, so it would have been a lot like punishing patriots for fighting for their country.
Probably because they’ve proven that they won’t follow the oath they swore. So if they get reelected and swear the same oath (that they’ve already broken once) again, we already know they can’t be trusted to uphold it. So we don’t even give them the opportunity to be sworn in a second time.
But since an unsworn person never violated an oath of office, they’re still an unknown and could potentially be trusted. It’s a sort of “innocent until proven guilty” situation, where the person hasn’t broken any oath so by default they’re assumed to be trustworthy. But as soon as you break that oath, you’re not going to be trusted again.
Another situation I could see is if you had a massive power grab by an authoritarian group and a subsequent insurrection that actually led to them being overgrown. Wouldn’t make sense to disqualify the ones that fought for it.
Is it any citizen or just ones who previously held office? Just curious, it sounds to me like it is directed at people who previously or currently hold office.
It says anyone who had previously taken an oath to support the constitution, which is pretty much any federal government employee, including civilian workers, members of the military, members of Congress, members of the Executive Branch (including the president), members of the Judicial Branch, etc.
Emphasis mine. Below is the text of section 3 of the 14th amendment. It disqualifies anyone who has previously taken an oath to support the constitution who engages in insurrection or rebellion against the constitution.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
