Nothing [the State] has done commends her... more clearly than the fact that she has done precisely by her legislation what we are endeavoring to do by one article in our constitutional amendment—provided that no person shall hold any office under this Government who has [joined] the rebellion.

Instead, the framers of the Amendment expected state enforcement, including for federal office. The Congress of 1866 saw this as the “ark of safety” that would make it “impossible that [rebels] can be represented upon this floor.” As Sen. Benjamin Wade observed regarding Tennessee’s readmission:

I offer new historical evidence against the core reasoning of Trump v. Anderson: that states cannot enforce Section Three’s disqualification of insurrectionists from federal office because the Amendment's assumed overriding purpose was to “expand federal power at the expense of state autonomy.”