Document Type
Article
Publication Title
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law
Abstract
Reconstruction, America's Second Founding, plays a remarkably small role in constitutional theory. This paper, prepared as part of a symposium aimed at addressing that neglect, discusses the serious interpretive problems posed by an attempt to work Reconstruction - and its aftermath - into the constitutional canon. These problems range from the paucity of extant materials to help understand the intentions of the ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, to the lack of any place in constitutional theory for dealing with constitutional events amendments the country ratifies then effectively rejects. Problems such as these pose an almost insurmountable difficulty for originalists - but they don't make life easy for other interpretive methodologies either. This paper bears upon the history of the Reconstruction Amendments, as well as interpretive theory.
First Page
1201
Volume
11
Publication Date
2009
Recommended Citation
Friedman, Barry, "Reconstructing Reconstruction: Some Problems for Originalists (and Everyone Else, Too)" (2009). Faculty Articles. 428.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-articles/428
