Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 December 21

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December 21

Italo-German protocol of 23 October 1936 Citation

Hi all, I've been doing research about Spanish civil war and the Nazi's involvement and was looking into the Italo-German protocol of 23 October 1936 but when I was looking for the citation for the text of the protocol which is reference 4. I couldn't find the original source, though I found a NYT article which was paywalled and I'm unsure if it has the correct info. I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers in finding this citation. I'm not sure if this is relevant but I'm not a US citizen so I'm unsure if I can access the US gov. printing office easily.

The citation is this

"Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Series C (1933–1937), The Third Reich: First Phase, Volume V (March 5–October 31, 1936) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1966), pp. 1136–1140, s.v. no. 624 ("German-Italian Protocol")."

Thanks in advances for all who help out

Wren (talk) 11:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

@WrenderBender: The volume is available to borrow on Archive.org (you'll need a free account). Volume and Page DuncanHill (talk) 12:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much! Wren (talk) 01:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

insurrection

I hear that the supreme court of Colorado has declared Donald Trump ineligible for federal office under the Fourteenth Amendment, as having participated in insurrection after swearing to uphold the Constitution. An objection has been raised that he was never formally convicted of insurrection. But was anyone prosecuted for the actions for which that clause was written? —Tamfang (talk) 18:17, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

If you follow the link to Insurrection Clause, it claims [a]fter the amendment's adoption in 1868, disqualification was seldom enforced in the South. It doesn't seem to give any examples where it was enforced, so assuming there were some, we'd have to find those first. The only unequivocal example I see of the clause actually being directly enforced was against Victor L. Berger in 1919 and 1920, and he was in fact convicted of violating the Espionage Act. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

A few years later the Supreme Court overturned the verdict against Berger, after which he was again re-elected and served several more years.  --Lambiam 20:19, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

But the relevant point here is that the conviction, though later overturned, was considered valid at the time he was disqualified, so Berger is not an example of the clause being enforced without a conviction (much less without a prosecution).

That's not to say there aren't any such examples. I would be interested to know.` --Trovatore (talk) 20:41, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The original question was, "was anyone prosecuted for the actions for which [the disqualification clause] was written?" I assume such actions to be: engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the US Constitution after having taken an oath, in an official capacity, to support this Constitution. This is the question I meant to address. Then Berger is an example: before being convicted he was prosecuted. If an impeachment trial counts as prosecution, Judge West Hughes Humphreys is another example. He was banned for life from holding office after having been impeached and, after a trial, convicted by the House of Representatives.

It is an interesting and in the present situation highly relevant question whether there are examples of people who were disqualified from holding office for violating their oath without a prior conviction, but it is a different question.  --Lambiam 23:13, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I suspect "the actions for which that clause was written" refers specifically to supporting the Confederacy after previously taking an oath yada yada yada. So Humphreys seems like a much better example, although the conviction in question was not a criminal one.

(One could wish the drafters of the clause had been a little clearer about exactly who was supposed to determine whether the conditions of the clause were satisfied. But in the case of ex-Confederates I suppose it was pretty clear.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:43, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The explanation in CREW's list has No one who has been formally disqualified under Section 3 was charged under the criminal “rebellion or insurrection” statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) or its predecessors. fiveby(zero) 00:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks; the table there is very informative and, if someone were interested, could be a good resource for expanding our article on the clause. It's not a neutral source, of course (this is the group that filed the lawsuit in Colorado) but the entries in the table don't seem to have a large interpretive content. --Trovatore (talk) 00:42, 23 December 2023 (UTC)