The 1860s was when the United States fell apart. Four years of the catastrophic and bloody Civil War ruptured the nation. The South surrendered unconditionally after armies leveled many of its cities. On top of that, the president was assassinated.

And yet, the country survived. Out of this traumatic decade came three amendments to the United States Constitution that shifted the constitutional order so significantly that scholars have referred to it as the Second Founding.

Abolishing slavery ended the Southern cause for succession, ensuring that newly freed slaves would not be denied their right to vote, and limitations were imposed on the power of the states.

The middle Reconstruction Amendment — the 14th — is the longest amendment to the Constitution, and covers a lot of ground. For modern lawyers, judges, lawmakers, and politicians, the 14th Amendment’s most relevant part is Section 1, which redefines what it means to be a citizen and forces the states to protect a person’s “life, liberty, or property” with the due process and equal protection under the law.

But this year, deep from historical obscurity, another part of this radical amendment has come to the fore. Here is Section 3 in its entirety:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

For generations, Section 3 has been thought of as an old remnant of Reconstruction meant to disqualify disloyal government officials who waged war against the United States.

And while Congress would later “remove such disability” for most Southerners in the 1870s, Section 3 has remained part of our Constitution.

Then, last August, two conservative law professors, William Baude of the University of Chicago, and Michael Stokes Paulsen at the University of St. Thomas, co-authored “The Sweep and Force of Section Three” saying the section’s “full legal consequences have not been appreciated or enforced.”

They convincingly argued that the former president’s participation in the attempt to disrupt the counting of the electoral college votes in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an insurrection or at the very least giving “aid and comfort to” enemies of the republic.

Their scholarly efforts didn’t go unnoticed. Lawsuits sprang up around the country. Then came the bombshell decision from the Colorado Supreme Court in December. The court ordered the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the ballot because he was disqualified under Section 3. Not long after that, the Secretary of State in Maine removed Trump’s name from the ballot for the same reasons.

Our own history in the islands as well as the close calls this decade have shown that a country founded on law and not brute force is fragile.

It’s a stunning turn of events that has got everyone rethinking the 14th Amendment. Back in 1868, a congressman in support of adding Section 3 argued that it would require white people to “raise up a different class of politicians” and ensure that they protected the civil rights of all — former slave and free.

If that indeed is the intention behind Section 3, then Colorado and Maine may be on the right track.

Of course, Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and, perhaps to avoid an unfolding constitutional crisis, the high court accepted the appeal and is expected to provide guidance and answers to these intriguing constitutional questions.

Oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 8. It will surely be scrutinized heavily across the country. And while it is distressing that Justice Clarence Thomas has not recused himself in spite of the fact that his activist wife was sending text messages to Trump’s chief of staff on the day of the insurrection, I dare not guess what the high court will do with this case and how they will tackle the fairly clear language in Section 3.

What is promising is that we’ve come this far already. The invocation of Section 3 shows at the very least that activists, lawyers, and citizens are using the Constitution and the courts to raise fundamental questions on how we are to govern ourselves. It shows our Constitution is alive and at work.

But that doesn’t guarantee it will work forever. Our own history in the islands as well as the close calls this decade have shown that a country founded on law and not brute force is fragile.

On Jan. 14, 1893 a group of white businessmen convinced themselves that their monarch, Queen Liliuokalani, was making a power grab by urging the government to promulgate a new constitution that would restore more powers in the executive branch.

Some were in the Queen’s own cabinet – officials in the government they now plotted against. In the days that followed, these men, with the help of the United States, staged a coup against the monarchy, arrested the Queen with the help of an armed militia, and on Jan. 18, proclaimed a new government.

The monarchy never came back.

Many of the insurrectionists went on to lead very prominent roles on the islands. Their names are easily recognizable to most people from Hawaii like William Castle, Lorrin Thurston and William Wilder.

Section 3 wouldn’t have applied to them. Their rebellion was not against the United States and the “Bayonet Constitution” of 1887 did not contain a provision that prevented them from returning to public life.

The overthrow and what happened after that now serves as a chilling reminder that sometimes the insurrectionists win.