“An important contribution to our understanding of the 14th Amendment.” —Wall Street Journal
“By any standard an important contribution…A must-read.” —National Review
“The most detailed legal history to date of the constitutional amendment that changed American law more than any before or since…The corpus of legal scholarship is richer for it.” —Washington Examiner
Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment profoundly changed the Constitution, giving the federal judiciary and Congress new powers to protect the fundamental rights of individuals from being violated by the states. Yet, the Supreme Court has long misunderstood or ignored the original meaning of its key Section I clauses.
Barnett and Bernick contend that the Fourteenth Amendment must be understood as the culmination of decades of debate about the meaning of the antebellum Constitution. In the course of this debate, antislavery advocates advanced arguments informed by natural rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the common law, as well as what is today called public-meaning originalism.
The authors show how these arguments and the principles of the Declaration in particular eventually came to modify the Constitution. They also propose workable doctrines for implementing the amendment’s key provisions covering the privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law.
Randy E. Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. A Guggenheim Fellow and Supreme Court advocate, he is the author of The Structure of Liberty, Restoring the Lost Constitution, and Our Republican Constitution.
Evan D. Bernick is Assistant Professor of Law at Northern Illinois University College of Law. He was previously Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. His scholarship appears in the Georgetown Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, and William & Mary Law Review.
Table of Contents
Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Foreword / James Oakes Preface: The Letter�������������������������� Introduction: The Letter and Spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment Part I: The Privileges or Immunities of Citizenship Clause 1. The Early Origins of Privileges or Immunities 2. The Antislavery Origins of “Privileges or Immunities” 3. The Antislavery Origins of Republican Citizenship��������������������������������������������������� 4. Reconstructing National Citizenship��������������������������������������������� 5. The Letter: Writing and Ratifying the Privileges or Immunities Clause 6. Enforcing Citizenship������������������������������� 7. Competing Originalist Interpretations����������������������������������������������� 8. The Spirit: Implementing the Privileges or Immunities Clause������������������������������������������������ Part II: The Due Process of Law Clause 9. The Letter: The Original Meaning of “Due Process of Law” 10. The Spirit: Implementing the Due Process of Law Clause 11. The Proper Ends of Legislative Power����������������������������������������������� Part III: The Equal Protection of the Laws Clause 12. The Letter: The “Equal Protection of the Laws” 13. The Spirit: Implementing the Equal Protection of the Laws������������������������������������������������&# Conclusion: The Fourteenth Amendment in Full���������������������������������������������������� Notes������������ Acknowledgments Index
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