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[00:00.000 --> 00:02.200]  I'm Dave Champion.
[00:02.200 --> 00:08.680]  In the wake of the January 6th violent insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.,
[00:08.680 --> 00:14.120]  some people have been calling for Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to be removed from
[00:14.120 --> 00:20.460]  the Senate using the 14th Amendment, Section 3.
[00:20.460 --> 00:29.040]  Is that a thing?
[00:29.040 --> 00:34.260]  In this video, I am not going to address why people feel that Senators Josh Hawley
[00:34.260 --> 00:39.760]  and Ted Cruz shouldn't be removed from the Senate or whether I think that's appropriate
[00:39.760 --> 00:40.760]  or inappropriate.
[00:40.760 --> 00:41.760]  Not going to get into that.
[00:41.760 --> 00:47.340]  I simply want to address the mechanism that's being proposed, which is that they be removed
[00:47.340 --> 00:50.400]  using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
[00:50.400 --> 00:56.720]  Let's say Hawley and Cruz had done something that was worthy of removal.
[00:56.720 --> 01:03.200]  Could that be possible using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment?
[01:03.200 --> 01:06.880]  Let's start our inquiry by putting this in the proper context, which is that the 13th
[01:06.880 --> 01:11.640]  Amendment, the 14th Amendment, and the 15th Amendment were all passed in the couple of
[01:11.640 --> 01:15.920]  years immediately after the Civil War and pertained primarily, overwhelmingly, their
[01:15.920 --> 01:22.040]  main purpose was to address certain issues concerning the freed black slaves.
[01:22.040 --> 01:24.640]  So let's take a quick look at these three amendments.
[01:24.640 --> 01:25.640]  The 13th Amendment.
[01:25.640 --> 01:29.360]  You're probably aware that was the National Amendment that said, sorry, you can't hold
[01:29.360 --> 01:31.040]  people in slavery anymore.
[01:31.040 --> 01:33.120]  Yeah, pretty good idea.
[01:33.120 --> 01:41.840]  The 14th Amendment was to establish a separate, lesser, less robust, less complete form of
[01:41.840 --> 01:47.720]  citizenship possessed by white state citizens for the recently freed black slaves.
[01:47.720 --> 01:54.040]  And the reason for that is the constitutions of those southern states did not grant black
[01:54.040 --> 01:59.100]  people born into slavery in those states citizenship and citizenship throughout the
[01:59.100 --> 02:01.560]  history of the United States up until that moment.
[02:01.560 --> 02:03.720]  Citizenship had always come from birth within a state.
[02:03.720 --> 02:09.080]  So since their state constitutions did not permit black people who were born into slavery
[02:09.080 --> 02:14.720]  to become citizens, the fact that they lost the war, there was still no legal mechanism
[02:14.720 --> 02:18.760]  by which those freed black slaves could become citizens.
[02:18.760 --> 02:25.400]  So through the 14th Amendment, they were provided with a separate, distinct class of citizenship.
[02:25.400 --> 02:31.880]  Now if you think I'm pulling your leg, go look at Title 42 of the United States Code,
[02:31.880 --> 02:37.360]  Section 1981, Subsection A. Read that.
[02:37.360 --> 02:39.100]  It is still current law.
[02:39.100 --> 02:45.540]  It speaks to the mindset of the people who adopted the 14th Amendment and who then subsequently
[02:45.540 --> 02:51.260]  within just months of that passed what we now have codified at 42 U.S.C. 1981.
[02:51.260 --> 02:55.620]  Yeah, so you read Subsection A, it will blow your mind.
[02:55.620 --> 03:02.860]  The 15th Amendment was ratified in order to prevent the states from prohibiting this new
[03:02.860 --> 03:09.100]  class of citizenship, 14th Amendment citizens, to prevent the states from blocking them from
[03:09.100 --> 03:10.100]  voting.
[03:10.100 --> 03:11.100]  That's it.
[03:11.100 --> 03:16.620]  Now that we've given our inquiry some context, let's look at the exact specific language
[03:16.620 --> 03:20.500]  of the 14th Amendment, Section 3.
[03:20.500 --> 03:26.020]  No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress or elector of president or vice
[03:26.020 --> 03:31.700]  president or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state
[03:31.700 --> 03:37.260]  who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the
[03:37.260 --> 03:42.620]  United States or as a member of any state legislature or as an executive or judicial
[03:42.620 --> 03:48.060]  officer of any state to support the Constitution of the United States shall have engaged in
[03:48.060 --> 03:53.540]  insurrection or rebellion against the same or give an aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
[03:53.540 --> 03:59.740]  But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.
[03:59.740 --> 04:05.480]  Let's start with the principle that when you're analyzing a constitution for its meaning,
[04:05.480 --> 04:12.120]  we use a different set of rules than to analyze a statute in order to discern its correct
[04:12.120 --> 04:13.400]  meaning.
[04:13.400 --> 04:20.640]  When interpreting a statute, the rule is we look at the exact language chosen by the legislature.
[04:20.640 --> 04:24.880]  It was written out, enough of the people in the legislature rose their hand, that it was
[04:24.880 --> 04:29.320]  enacted into law, and the governor or president signed it into law.
[04:29.320 --> 04:32.640]  And so when we're looking at a statute, we say, okay, all these people agreed on this
[04:32.640 --> 04:34.400]  language.
[04:34.400 --> 04:37.880]  So this language is what we're going to run on.
[04:37.880 --> 04:44.000]  And recourse to what perhaps the people who first envisioned that statute, recourse to
[04:44.000 --> 04:48.800]  what they might have thought it should have meant is disfavored.
[04:48.800 --> 04:53.520]  And it's something that is done very, very rarely and only under very limited circumstance.
[04:53.520 --> 04:56.120]  Now that statute, let's put that aside.
[04:56.120 --> 05:00.280]  Now constitutional interpretation, completely different.
[05:00.280 --> 05:08.880]  The words in a constitution mean exactly, specifically, and precisely what the men who
[05:08.880 --> 05:14.120]  wrote them believed them to mean.
[05:14.120 --> 05:22.480]  So when we read in section three of the 14th Amendment, shall have engaged in insurrection,
[05:22.480 --> 05:23.720]  that's past tense.
[05:23.720 --> 05:29.520]  Okay, so it's the guys who framed out the 14th Amendment saying, if you took an oath
[05:29.560 --> 05:35.120]  and you were in any of these job positions in the state or federal government, and then,
[05:35.120 --> 05:43.120]  back then, you engaged in rebellion or insurrection against the same, then you cannot now hold
[05:43.120 --> 05:44.280]  office.
[05:44.280 --> 05:50.760]  It does not mean if anybody in the future who takes an oath or whatever to whatever
[05:50.760 --> 05:56.080]  job position it is and then engages in insurrection, that section three can be invoked to remove
[05:56.080 --> 05:59.280]  them from whatever their official office is.
[05:59.280 --> 06:03.560]  It doesn't mean that because, according to the constitutional rules of interpretation,
[06:03.560 --> 06:09.440]  it means only what the men who wrote it believed it to mean, and that was clearly in the context
[06:09.440 --> 06:12.440]  of being passed immediately after the Civil War.
[06:12.440 --> 06:17.560]  And it meant the people who were already under oath to obedience to the Constitution and
[06:17.560 --> 06:22.080]  then engaged in rebellion could not then, at that time, in the years immediately after
[06:22.080 --> 06:26.520]  the Civil War, sit in any sort of official government position unless that disability
[06:26.520 --> 06:30.240]  was removed by a two-thirds vote of Congress.
[06:30.240 --> 06:34.280]  So when you see these stories in the media about this guy or that guy or this group wants
[06:34.280 --> 06:40.400]  Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley or anybody else removed from the Senate or perhaps from the House
[06:40.400 --> 06:46.680]  using section three of the 14th Amendment, yeah, so no, that's absolute poppycock.
[06:46.680 --> 06:51.200]  Now if you want to learn more about the 14th Amendment, I want to encourage you to go to
[06:51.800 --> 06:54.720]  originalintent.org.
[06:54.720 --> 06:58.800]  You can see right here, education, click on that, and then this will appear in the top
[06:58.800 --> 07:07.440]  left-hand corner, and I suggest you read Constitution, Citizenship, and 14th Amendment Clarified.
[07:07.440 --> 07:11.240]  You can skip the one on the law unless you've got a lot more time on your hands, because
[07:11.240 --> 07:13.920]  that's not really relevant to the 14th Amendment per se.
[07:13.920 --> 07:19.040]  But that will help you get a really good grasp of what the 14th Amendment is really all about.
[07:19.080 --> 07:24.680]  And the important thing about the 14th Amendment is it's still with us today, even though it
[07:24.680 --> 07:30.000]  was passed immediately after the Civil War, and it was intended to give this second lesser
[07:30.000 --> 07:35.320]  class of citizenship to the freed black slaves and their posterity.
[07:35.320 --> 07:39.920]  So say the courts, not me, so says the Supreme Court.
[07:39.920 --> 07:43.440]  It's still in effect today.
[07:43.440 --> 07:52.160]  This bizarre 150-year-old mechanism, this second lesser class of citizenship is still
[07:52.160 --> 07:53.960]  operative in this country right now.
[07:53.960 --> 07:59.080]  So I think it's a fascinating thing, and I think it's sad that more Americans don't
[07:59.080 --> 08:02.400]  really understand the truth of the 14th Amendment, but it's going to be simple for you to do
[08:02.400 --> 08:06.920]  that at originalintent.org, click on education, and then read those three pieces I shared
[08:06.920 --> 08:07.920]  with you.
[08:07.920 --> 08:09.440]  We'll be fully ramped up to speed.