Subject: Re: Help Wanted: Constitutional Grammarian
I doubt there is anything in the historical record that can prove drafters of the 14th amendment and those that voted for it meant to preserve a path for Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, et al to run for President of the United States and be allowed to take office because the people voted for them.

Perhaps - which is why the DQ Clause prohibits Rebels from serving as electors. Remember, the people don't technically vote for an individual to serve as President - they vote for Electors, which then elect the President. Without political allies to serve as your Electors, you can't get elected President, so keeping all the former Rebels out of the Electoral College would have been enough to keep those guys out of the Presidency.

Now, the specific insurrection that prompted the Reconstruction Amendments was a very large insurrection that consumed half the country. They likely weren't imagining a small insurrection, where only a few thousand people were engaged in an insurrection, so that a member of that insurrection could easily find sufficient folks who weren't part of it to serve as their electors.

But at the end of the day, the words say what they say. It can be very frustrating for lay people, but that's how laws operate.