Full Description
At stage center of the American drama, maintains David A. J. Richards, is the attempt to understand the implications of the Reconstruction Amendments--Amendments Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen to the United States Constitution. Richards evaluates previous efforts to interpret the amendments and then proposes his own view: together the amendments embodied a self-conscious rebirth of America's revolutionary, rights-based constitutionalism. Building on an approach to constitutional law developed in his Toleration and the Constitution and Foundations of American Constitutionalism, Richards links history, law, and political theory. In Conscience and the Constitution, this method leads from an analysis of the Reconstruction Amendments to a broad discussion of the American constitutional system as a whole. Richards's interpretation focuses on the abolitionists and their radical commitment to the "dissenting conscience."
In his view, the Reconstruction Amendments expressed not only the constitutional arguments of a particular historical period but also a general political theory developed by the abolitionists, who restructured the American political community in terms of respect for universal human rights. He argues further that the amendments make a claim on our generation to keep faith with the vision of the "founders of 1865." In specific terms he points out what such allegiance would mean in the context of present-day constitutional issues. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Contents
Acknowledgments1Aims and methodologies3The Reconstruction Amendments as History6The Reconstruction Amendments as Political Theory9An Alternative Approach162Proslavery Constitutionalism versus the Theory of Union21Antebellum Constitutional Crisis: Slavery and the Founding21Proslavery Constitutionalism28The Constitutionalism of Union42Adams, Webster, and Story: Foundations of Theory of Union43Francis Lieber46Abraham Lincoln503The Argument for Toleration in Abolitionist Moral, Political, and Constitutional Thought58Abolitionist Ethical Criticism of Slavery: The Analogy of Anti-Semitism59The Argument for Toleration63Slavery as a Political Evil73The Political Evil of Racism80Abolitionist Constitutional Theory89Radical Disunionism92Moderate Constitutional Antislavery95Radical Constitutional Antislavery97Legitimacy of Revolution1044The Second American Revolution and the Reconstruction Amendments108Revolutionary Principles115Constitutional Principles of American Constitution119Analysis of Political Psychology123Comparative Political Science130American Political Experience133Constitutional Justification and Community1345A Theory of Equal Protection149Racism as a Constitutional Evil150Anti-Semitism as Racism156Racial Segregation as a Violation of Equal Protection160A Theory of Suspect Classification Analysis170Gender as a Suspect Classification178Sexual Preference as a Suspect Classification1916The Nationalization of Human Rights199Slaughter-House Cases204A Theory of Privileges and Immunities217Enumerated Rights221Unenumerated Rights2247Economic Justice and the Constitution2338Conscience and Constitutional Interpretation252Appendix I: Constitution, Statutes, and Legislative History259Appendix II: Case Law261Bibliography263Index285
