i understand you look at foote or mcphearson, they all talk about, of course, the conflict after the civil war and there were people who felt very strongly about retaliating against the south. the radical republicans. but they did not think about authorizing the south to disqualify national candidates and that's the argument you are making. and what i would like to know is do you have any examples of this? >> many of those historians have filed briefs in our support in this case making the point that the idea of the 14th amendment was both states and federal government would insure rights and if states failed to do so, the federal government certainly would also step in. but i think the reason why there aren't examples of states doing this the fact that elections worked differently back then. states have a [ground power in the 10th amendment to run presidential elections. they didn't use that power to police ballot access until the 1890s. by the 1890s, everyone had received amnesty and issues were mute. >> i would like to look at justice thomas's question. the whole point of the 14th