The 14th Amendment, the longest and most important amendment added to the Constitution since the Bill of Rights, basically - apart from a whole series of other kind of arcane points, like that the Confederate bonds that were issued will never be repaid, and the owners of slaves will never get monetary compensation for losing their property - but the key there is that it creates the principle of birthright citizenship. What does it mean to abolish slavery? What comes along with that? Yes, people can no longer be bought and sold, but are there other rights as a free American that you now have? What rights come with that is an interesting question which was debated very seriously in the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. Unlike the Emancipation Proclamation, which had numerous exemptions, the 13th Amendment applies to everybody in the United States. Give us a sense of the rights that Americans won in the 13th, 14th or 15th Amendments, just to give us a sense of the importance of those amendments.ĮRIC FONER: The 13th Amendment irrevocably abolished slavery in the United States everywhere. It's called "The Second Founding: How The Civil War And Reconstruction Remade The Constitution." Foner is the author of several books about the Civil War and Reconstruction and is the DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University.Įric Foner, welcome back to FRESH AIR. How those amendments became part of the Constitution and how they've been interpreted over the years is the subject of a new book by my guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner. The 15th gave the vote to black men but not any women.
a citizen and said that the state can't deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law or deny anyone equal protection under the law. These are the amendments that were added to the Constitution after the Civil War in the era known as Reconstruction. Some of today's most divisive issues related to racial equality, voting rights and voter suppression, women's rights, who gets to be a citizen, mass incarceration and what is the meaning of equal justice are issues you can't fully understand without understanding the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
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