This activity is part of Module 14: The 14th Amendment: Battles for Freedom and Equality from the Constitution 101 Curriculum.
Following the Civil War, the American people transformed the Constitution—its very text—forever. This is why some scholars—including leading Reconstruction historian Eric Foner—refer to the 14th Amendment as a core component of America’s “Second Founding.” Do you agree?
During this critical period, our nation confronted a series of vexing questions.
- What was the meaning of the Civil War—a bloody, bloody war—and what should be the terms of a lasting peace?
- How should our nation answer the Declaration of Independence’s prophetic call for freedom and equality?
- How should we define what it means to be a U.S. citizen?
- How broadly should the right to vote sweep?
- And what role—if any—should the national government play in protecting the civil and political rights of all?
And make no mistake, the Reconstruction Amendments transformed our Constitution forever. Recall where the Constitution stood before this critical period.
Of course, it didn’t mention the word “slavery.” However, various constitutional provisions—including the Three-Fifths Clause and the Fugitive Slave Clause—had increased the political power of the slaveholding states throughout the pre-Civil War period.
The Constitution was silent on the Declaration of Independence’s promise of equality and on the issue of African American voting rights.
States could violate key Bill of Rights protections like free speech with impunity—and many Southern states did just that, banning abolitionist speech and writings.
And citizenship rights were left to the states and the courts—with Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney infamously concluding in Dred Scott v. Sandford that African Americans could not be citizens and that they had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
And after our nation’s Second Founding?
- Our Constitution abolished slavery. (That’s the 13th Amendment.)
- It made everyone born on American soil a U.S. citizen. (That’s the 14th Amendment.)
- It promised equal protection of the laws for all. (That’s the 14th Amendment—again.)
- It protected us from state abuses of important rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights like free speech. (That’s the 14th Amendment—yet again)
- It guaranteed the right to vote free of racial discrimination. (That’s the 15th Amendment.)
- And it gave the national government the authority to protect the civil and political rights of all. (That’s the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.)
Now, of course, the Second Founding wasn’t perfect. It was thwarted in its own time by violence in the South, a mix of racism and indifference in the North, and a desire for North-South (white) reconciliation, more generally.
It would take nearly a century and the civil rights movement to begin to fulfill the promises enshrined in the Reconstruction Amendments.
Nevertheless, our Reconstruction founders made an important start.
To further explore this topic, download the attached info brief!
