However, -- Billybob insists that our oath of office "-- does not cover legislative officials outside the state legislatures. This would exclude the occasional state or federal constitutional convention, and also the roughly 250,000 local and county officials. It is a matter of tradition, not constitutional requirement, that such elected officials use the same form of oath as all others. --".
The XIV is the most interpreted Amend. Everything is in there, just not in actual words. Intent, yes, that?s the ticket.
After the 14th was ratified, Congress passed this to show their ~intent~:
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties.
This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
Referring to the intent of the writers of the Amend. That is of record, but some of the testimony is not backed up by minutes of the sessions.
What Congress and the courts made of the Amend afterwards has given us the modern US.