Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 5

Cite as:  601 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

Per Curiam 

a wide array of offices—rather than by granting rights  to
all.  It is therefore necessary, as Chief Justice Chase con-
cluded and the Colorado Supreme Court itself recognized, 
to “ ‘ascertain[ ] what particular individuals are embraced’ ” 
by the provision.  App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a (quoting Grif-
fin’s Case, 11 F. Cas. 7, 26 (No. 5,815) (CC Va. 1869) (Chase,
Circuit Justice)).  Chase went on to explain that “[t]o accom-
plish this ascertainment and ensure effective results, pro-
ceedings,  evidence,  decisions,  and  enforcements  of  deci-
sions,  more  or  less  formal,  are  indispensable.”  Id.,  at  26. 
For  its  part,  the  Colorado  Supreme  Court  also  concluded 
that there must be some kind of “determination” that Sec-
tion 3 applies to a particular person “before the disqualifi-
cation holds meaning.”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a. 

The  Constitution  empowers  Congress  to  prescribe  how 
those determinations should be made.  The relevant provi-
sion is Section 5, which enables Congress, subject of course
to judicial review, to pass “appropriate legislation” to “en-
force”  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.    See  City  of  Boerne  v. 
Flores,  521  U. S.  507,  536  (1997).    Or  as  Senator  Howard 
put  it  at  the  time  the  Amendment  was  framed,  Section  5
“casts upon Congress the responsibility of seeing to it, for 
the future, that all the sections of the amendment are car-
ried out in good faith.”  Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.,
at 2768. 

Congress’s  Section  5  power  is  critical  when  it  comes  to
Section 3.  Indeed, during a debate on enforcement legisla-
tion less than a year after ratification, Sen. Trumbull noted 
that  “notwithstanding  [Section  3]  . . .  hundreds  of  men 
[were] holding office” in violation of its terms.  Cong. Globe,
41st Cong., 1st Sess., at 626.  The Constitution, Trumbull 
noted, “provide[d] no means for enforcing” the disqualifica-
tion, necessitating a “bill to give effect to the fundamental 
law embraced in the Constitution.”  Ibid.  The enforcement 
mechanism  Trumbull  championed  was  later  enacted  as
part of the Enforcement Act of 1870, “pursuant to the power