The Second Founding: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

In The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment, Ilan Wurman provides an illuminating introduction to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s famous provisions “due process of law,” “equal protection of the laws,” and the “privileges or immunities” of citizenship. He begins by exploring the antebellum legal meanings of these concepts, from Magna Carta, the Statutes of Edward III, and the Petition of Right to William Blackstone and antebellum state court cases. The book then traces how these concepts solved historical problems confronting the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, including the comity rights of free blacks, private violence and the denial of the protection of the laws, and the notorious abridgment of freedmen’s rights in the Black Codes. Wurman makes a compelling case that if the modern originalist Supreme Court were to interpret the Amendment in “the language of the law,” it would lead to surprising and desirable results today.