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Legal Theory Bookworm: “The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents,” edited by Kurt Lash

The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents (Volume 1) (and Volume 2), edited by Kurt Lash.  Here is a description:

Ratified in the years immediately following the American Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution—together known as the Reconstruction Amendments—abolished slavery, safeguarded a set of basic national liberties, and expanded the right to vote, respectively. This two-volume work presents the key speeches, debates, and public dialogues that surrounded the adoption of the three amendments, allowing us to more fully experience how they reshaped the nature of American life and freedom.

Volume I outlines a broad historical context for the Reconstruction Amendments along with materials related to the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, while Volume II covers the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on the rights of citizenship and enfranchisement. The documents in this collection encompass a sweeping range of primary sources, from congressional talks to court cases, public speeches to newspaper articles. As a whole, the volumes meticulously depict a significant period of legal change even as they illuminate the ways in which people across the land grappled with the process of constitutional reconstruction. Filling a major gap in the literature on the era, The Reconstruction Amendments will be indispensable for readers in politics, history, and law, as well as anyone seeking a better understanding of the post–Civil War basis of American constitutional democracy.

And from the reviews:

I just finished teaching a course on the Reconstruction Amendments and Acts at Stanford Law School, using a judicious sub-set of Kurt Lash's marvelous set of original source materials. This opens up possibilities for teaching as well as research which never existed before. The students commented especially on how helpful Lash's introductory essays to each part of the materials were. This publication is a magnificent academic achievement and a public service.–Michael W. McConnell, Director Stanford Constitutional Law Center

 
"In his The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship, Kurt Lash demonstrated how thoroughly he owns the title deeds to understanding the key constitutional events of Reconstruction. Now, Lash has gone a long step beyond that, and in The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents, Volume One, he provides the most comprehensive collection ever assembled of original sources on the most famous of the three great Reconstruction-era amendments to the Constitution, the Thirteenth. Not only does Lash reach backwards to lay out a strategic sampling of the 'background' texts on federalism, slavery and secession, but he then assembles Congressional speeches, newspaper opinion, and state ratification procedures to form a veritable encyclopedia of Reconstruction constitutionalism – almost a day-by-day chronicle of "a new birth of freedom."–Allen Carl Guelzo, author of Reconstruction: A Concise History
 
"This remarkable work of scholarship is a gift to those who seek to understand the United States.  The debates over the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments confronted fundamental and enduring issues of justice and equality.  Kurt Lash's masterful survey of the vast public discussion of the Amendments makes clear just how much was at stake.  Exploring the words of anonymous citizens as well as legendary lawmakers, Lash's collection reveals this pivotal moment in American history as we have never seen it before."–Edward L. Ayers, recipient of the Lincoln Prize
 
"Lash is the nation's leading authority on documents pertaining to civil rights in the Reconstruction era, and these volumes will be an indispensable source for scholars, abetted by Lash's incisive commentary."–George White, author of Law in American History: Volume One, From the Colonial Years Through the Civil War
 
Magnificent accomplishment!  If you work on any aspect of the Fourteenth Amendment, you must have this in your library!
Lawrence Solum

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