Amnesty and Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment

Abstract

This Article is the first scholarly account of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, which excluded many ex-Confederates from office unless a supermajority of Congress granted a waiver. Section Three was the first part of the Fourteenth Amendment applied by Congress--even before the Amendment was ratified. Section Three was the first part of the Fourteenth Amendment applied by the courts, with Chief Justice Chase's opinion in "Griffin's Case" setting the tone for future Fourteenth Amendment decisions that narrowed the text's scope. And Section Three was the part of the Amendment that received sustained attention in Congress when a broad amnesty was enacted in 1872 and Senator Charles Sumner tried (unsuccessful) to add a broad civil rights amendment to the amnesty bill.

The story of Section Three is a microcosm of the trajectory of the Fourteenth Amendment as a whole during Reconstruction. Radical aspirations were followed by judicial caution and vigorous enforcement by Congress, only to give way to exhaustion with the implacable anger of southern whites over the protests of the first Black Representatives in Congress. And in a final irony, the first man to claim the protection of Section Three (in 1868) was the last man to benefit from congressional relief under that provision (in 1978)--Jefferson Davis. Section Three is a constitutional failure that deserves closer scrutiny.