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Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution reads, in part:

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,…who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States,…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.

In the Review’s February 22 issue, Sean Wilentz argues that the text of the amendment “is unequivocal: if Donald Trump engaged, in any way, in the insurrection of January 6, he is automatically barred from holding any public office, federal or state.” Marshaling historical and legal precedent and scrutinizing the possible defenses of Trump—including the argument that, even if he is guilty, “enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment poses a greater threat to our wounded democracy than Trump’s candidacy”—Wilentz makes the case that Trump’s candidacy is exactly the kind of threat to the Constitution that the Reconstruction Amendments were designed to prevent.

Below, alongside Wilentz’s essay, we have compiled a selection of writing about January 6, insurrection, Reconstruction, and the Constitution.

Sean Wilentz
The Case for Disqualification

The Supreme Court must decide if it will honor the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment and bar Donald Trump from holding public office or trash the constitutional defense of democracy against insurrections.

Fintan O’Toole
Dress Rehearsal

“There is no doubt that the buck for January 6 started with Trump. What remains to be teased out is where he thought it would stop. The evidence suggests a fatal ambivalence on his part.”

Manisha Sinha
The Case for a Third Reconstruction

The enduring lesson of American history is that the republic is always in danger when white supremacist sedition and violence escape justice.

James Oakes
An Unfinished Revolution

“Disgusted by a president who seemed out of control, voters gave Republicans a huge electoral victory in November 1866, and in early 1867 Congress effectively started the Reconstruction process over again. A series of Reconstruction Acts required Southern states to write new constitutions that stripped former Confederates of the vote while enfranchising black men. States were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment before being readmitted to the Union. The results were astonishing. In the spring of 1867 less than one percent of black men could vote; by December, over 80 percent could. The Fourteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution in July 1868.”

James M. MacPherson
The Great Betrayal

“Grant’s administration did take strong action in 1871 and 1872 to break up the Klan. Federal marshals and troops arrested thousands of alleged Klansmen. Hundreds of others fled their homes to escape arrest…. The government’s vigorous action in 1871 and 1872 did bring at least a temporary peace to large parts of the former Confederacy. As a consequence, blacks voted in solid numbers and the 1872 election was the fairest and most democratic presidential election in the South until 1968.”

Edmund S. Morgan
The Fixers

“The difference of attitude [between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison], as might be expected, showed itself when the two contemplated rebellion, even rebellion against a republican government. Shays’ Rebellion in 1786 Madison regarded as ‘distressing beyond measure to the zealous friends of the Revolution’; but he refrained from even mentioning its existence to Jefferson. Jefferson, who heard about it from other correspondents, wrote to Madison in another famous letter that he thought

a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.

Madison’s only reply was to report the measures taken by Massachusetts, including an amnesty conditioned upon the disarming and temporary disfranchisement of the rebels.”

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