What is the 14th Amendment?

The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, during Reconstruction, in the aftermath of the Civil War. Congress proposed it in June 1866 to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and to address the status of formerly enslaved people and of former Confederate officials seeking to return to public life. Its five sections address citizenship, civil rights, congressional apportionment, disqualification of insurrectionists from office, validity of federal debt, and congressional enforcement power. Of those five sections, Section 1 and Section 3 have the most direct bearing on who may seek and hold federal office.

Section 1 establishes birthright citizenship and two foundational constitutional rights. The citizenship clause reads: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' This clause overturned the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which had held that Black Americans could not be U.S. citizens. Section 1 also prohibits states from abridging the privileges or immunities of U.S. citizens, depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying any person within a state's jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. These clauses have been the textual basis for a large share of 20th- and 21st-century constitutional litigation, including desegregation cases, sex discrimination rulings, and cases involving government classifications by race, national origin, and religion.

Section 3, known as the disqualification clause, bars from federal or state office any person who previously swore an oath to support the Constitution -- as a member of Congress, officer of the United States, state legislator, or executive or judicial officer -- and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or gave aid or comfort to its enemies. Congress may remove this disability by a two-thirds vote of each house. Section 3 was originally aimed at former Confederate officials after the Civil War. It fell into near-complete disuse after the Amnesty Act of 1872 removed the disability from most former Confederates and remained dormant for roughly 150 years until it became the subject of litigation in 2023 and 2024.

The Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Anderson, issued March 4, 2024, is the controlling authority on how Section 3 operates against federal candidates. The Court ruled per curiam -- with all nine justices in agreement -- that individual states cannot independently enforce Section 3 to disqualify federal officeholders or candidates. The Court held that permitting each state to make its own Section 3 determinations about federal candidates would produce an unworkable patchwork of outcomes and that the Constitution assigns enforcement against federal officials and candidates to Congress. The Court expressly did not rule on whether the petitioner had engaged in insurrection; it decided only the enforcement mechanism question. For 2028, the practical implication is that Section 3 disqualification of any federal candidate would require Congress to enact enforcement legislation, not state-level action. No current 2028 candidate faces an active Section 3 challenge as of mid-2026, and Donald Trump -- who was the subject of Section 3 litigation in 2023 and 2024 -- is separately barred from seeking the presidency in 2028 by the 22nd Amendment's two-term limit.