The Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment 

There’s a terrific symposium on an important new book by Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit, at Law and Liberty. It’s especially interesting because much of the focus of Barnett and Bernick’s book is rightly on the Privileges or Immunities clause, which should have pride of place in Section 1 of the amendment. Yet it’s been neglected by the Court, and even dismissed by Justice Scalia as the “darling of the professoriate” (an odd move for a putative originalist). The essays engaging the book—especially by Christopher Green, Julia Mahoney, and Ilan Wurman—are really worth reading, as is the response by Barnett and Bernick. It’s all an excellent introduction to current debates about the central meaning and importance of the Fourteenth Amendment, which in many ways is best understood as a second founding.   

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