WI: 14th Amendment permanently disqualifies government officials who rebel against the USA from holding office again?

[Emperor of Pennsylvania]

So, the 14th Amendment was probably the most significant of the Reconstruction amendments to be ratified after the Civil War. Section 3 of the 14th amendment deals with disqualifying US government officials who sided with the CSA from holding public. The text of Section 3 is the following:

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.

What if the sentence in bold was not made part of the 14th amendment? This would mean that US government officials who sided with the CSA would be permanently disqualified from holding public office in the USA again.

IOTL, Congress used its ability to reverse the disqualification of rebels passed the Amnesty Act of 1872, which allowed more than one hundred thousand Confederate soldiers to hold public office. ITTL, the Amnesty Act would be unconstitutional and those Confederate soldiers would remain barred from holding public office for life. Would blocking thousands of former Confederates from holding public office make Reconstruction more successful and potentially prevent the rise of Jim Crow?

 

[sampleswift]

So, the 14th Amendment was probably the most significant of the Reconstruction amendments to be ratified after the Civil War. Section 3 of the 14th amendment deals with disqualifying US government officials who sided with the CSA from holding public. The text of Section 3 is the following:

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.

What if the sentence in bold was not made part of the 14th amendment? This would mean that US government officials who sided with the CSA would be permanently disqualified from holding public office in the USA again.

IOTL, Congress used its ability to reverse the disqualification of rebels passed the Amnesty Act of 1872, which allowed more than one hundred thousand Confederate soldiers to hold public office. ITTL, the Amnesty Act would be unconstitutional and those Confederate soldiers would remain barred from holding public office for life. Would blocking thousands of former Confederates from holding public office make Reconstruction more successful and potentially prevent the rise of Jim Crow?

I doubt it would prevent the rise of Jim Crow.
Simply put, even many northerners at that time were often suspicious of African Americans.
It would be way worse in the south even blocking thousands of former Confederates from holding public office. Patsies would be used to circumvent this.
Reconstruction, sadly, seems doomed to fail without much more northern support for it. This alone might not be enough.

 

[Don Corleone]

It would be way worse in the south even blocking thousands of former Confederates from holding public office. Patsies would be used to circumvent this.

Wouldn't have been quite that broad. Only would have applied to people who held office before the war and then joined the CSA.

 

[Plateosaurus]

Wouldn't have been quite that broad. Only would have applied to people who held office before the war and then joined the CSA.

But knowing southerners, they'll probably twist the facts to make it seem like it does.

 

[sampleswift]

Wouldn't have been quite that broad. Only would have applied to people who held office before the war and then joined the CSA.

Then it would have been even less effective! Then you could have an ex-Confederate soldier who never held any office prior to the war being allowed to run for office?
The "Shall have engaged in insurrection" has some modern implications, but that's a Chat topic and I won't discuss it further.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

So, the 14th Amendment was probably the most significant of the Reconstruction amendments to be ratified after the Civil War. Section 3 of the 14th amendment deals with disqualifying US government officials who sided with the CSA from holding public. The text of Section 3 is the following:

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.

What if the sentence in bold was not made part of the 14th amendment? This would mean that US government officials who sided with the CSA would be permanently disqualified from holding public office in the USA again.

IOTL, Congress used its ability to reverse the disqualification of rebels passed the Amnesty Act of 1872, which allowed more than one hundred thousand Confederate soldiers to hold public office. ITTL, the Amnesty Act would be unconstitutional and those Confederate soldiers would remain barred from holding public office for life. Would blocking thousands of former Confederates from holding public office make Reconstruction more successful and potentially prevent the rise of Jim Crow?

The wording of the reconstruction amendments was not he primary obstacle. Enforcement of them was. If you want to block the rise of Jim Crow you need to get the north angrier and more determined.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

It would have affected this man, and prevented him from becoming Secretary of the Interior and a Supreme Court justice:

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It also affects this man:

Joseph Wheeler - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And him:

James Longstreet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is more of an effect on the state level. But as shown by these examples, there is an issue that people who fell into this category tended to want to work with the federal government and make reconstruction succeed, so the policy would have had the opposite effect of what the OP seems to think.

 

[UCB79]

The wording of the reconstruction amendments was not he primary obstacle. Enforcement of them was. If you want to block the rise of Jim Crow you need to get the north angrier and more determined.

The north would also have to have been less- a GREAT deal less- racist, & thus willing fight for black civil
rights. Unfortunately, in the 19th century that simply wasn’t going to happen.

 

[BELFAST]

That sound like a very good way to make sure that America never becomes one nation again.
You now have a large number of experienced military and political leaders with no reason to cooperate with reconstruction and every reason to organise for independence for their state again.
Instead of the CSA being consigned to the circle filing cabinet of history as a "lost/hopeless/pointless cause" it becomes an ongoing active movement for a very long time.

 

[Tresckow]

Well you probably killed the chance of any hope of America moving past the civil war. Considering OTL you still have rebel flags in the south (I live in South Carolina so I see it first hand), I could imagine that barring people who served the Confederacy from holding office would give many white southerners the impression that they are under indefinite occupation, having no representation in government. Also, I do not see this being particularly foolproof, I imagine a lot of southerners would make up aliases to lie about their past to get elected.

White southerners will take out their anger on black freedmen even harsher than OTL. You’d probably have a race war that could be qualified as a genocide. The Klan and others would have no reason to hold back (which says a lot considering the atrocities they committed IOTL while also being allowed to seek office and get represented) and would probably go on lynching sprees to “exterminate” any ex-slaves living in southern soil. Why would they feel the need to follow the laws of a nation they can’t partake in the electoral process of?

So pretty much, this kills any chance of America being one nation again, and in my opinion, there would be a second civil war coming in a generation as the “yankee occupier” mindset sets in the young generation. The north would most likely lose it because by that point the people would be exhausted of trying to hold down the south. I’d imagine the mindset would be “if they want to leave so badly why are we keeping them for so long?” And now you’d have an even more radical Confederacy rising up, this time more unabashed about white supremacy.

TL;DR: This creates a stab-in-the-back myth in the south, leads to a race war, and eventually a second civil war where a Nazi Confederacy rises from the ashes

 

[Aluma]

TL;DR: This creates a stab-in-the-back myth in the south, leads to a race war, and eventually a second civil war where a Nazi Confederacy rises from the ashes

Did...did you just make a sightly more plausible TL 191?

 

[jmc247]

One needs to keep in mind a lot of recent mythologizing of the US Civil War and its aftermath happens to be as inaccurate as the worst of late 19th century southern revisionist history.

If better race relations in the South and more opportunity for the freedmen is what someone wants, there are a few big possible alternate directions things could have gone that would have achieved that.

1. Longer war and/or earlier use of black confederate troops. These people went home and often became semi trusted interlockers between white ex-soldiers and the black communities in areas.

2. Better economy in the South. The economy was dead and when there is no money to go around charity is limited so people are going to focus the limited resources on their tribes as they saw them. This could only come about through a shorter war or federal/state money for emancipation.

Radical Reconstruction itself fostered increased hostility to blacks in the South on the part of whites. More radical visions of that were southern blacks become seen by whites as aiding radicals to cut them out of politics forever would have just added to that.

 

[Tresckow]

Did...did you just make a sightly more plausible TL 191?

Perhaps, perhaps an even darker one too.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

People here seem convinced that the idea is either impractical or bad. I'm not so sure. it is easy to consider OTL the 'best' or 'middle of the road' set of events. I think with Reconstruction this is untrue and we got a bit of an outlier set-up, due to Johnson being President.

What is being suggested is not that different from the Ironclad Oath, just putting in in the Constitution, instead of a law.

I don't think it is impossible for a harsher Reconstruction to be tried and have it be more successful then OTL.

 

[Tresckow]

People here seem convinced that the idea is either impractical or bad. I'm not so sure. it is easy to consider OTL the 'best' or 'middle of the road' set of events. I think with Reconstruction this is untrue and we got a bit of an outlier set-up, due to Johnson being President.

I don't think anyone here thinks that we got the best possible outcome OTL.

 

[BELFAST]

One needs to keep in mind a lot of recent mythologizing of the US Civil War and its aftermath happens to be as inaccurate as the worst of late 19th century southern revisionist history.

If better race relations in the South and more opportunity for the freedmen is what someone wants, there are a few big possible alternate directions things could have gone that would have achieved that.

1. Longer war and/or earlier use of black confederate troops. These people went home and often became semi trusted interlockers between white ex-soldiers and the black communities in areas.

2. Better economy in the South. The economy was dead and when there is no money to go around charity is limited so people are going to focus the limited resources on their tribes as they saw them. This could only come about through a shorter war or federal/state money for emancipation.

Radical Reconstruction itself fostered increased hostility to blacks in the South on the part of whites. More radical visions of that were southern blacks become seen by whites as aiding radicals to cut them out of politics forever would have just added to that.

if you want to make things better for Africans Americans I think the best time to do that is in the early 1970s. By not having a war on drugs. The war on drugs had a much worse impact on African Americans that the rest of the population.

 

[BELFAST]

I don't think anyone here thinks that we got the best possible outcome OTL.

Indeed.
Reconstruction did achieve its aims to reunite the country. Helping former slaves at the time was not seen as something important.