Ratified July 9, 1868. Of course, like in all eras of American political history, Americans are also during the early Reconstruction years responding to events. Section 2. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. The issues central to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, the right to vote, are still part of our politics today. And some parts of the Fourteenth Amendment talk about persons, not just citizens. And that means more than just striking the chains off of people. Is being a citizen just a badge, or membership in a club that doesnt bring privileges or rights with it? Your book gestures at the fact that were still dealing with these issues today. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 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. These are the amendments that were added to the Constitution after the Civil War in the era known as Reconstruction. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. So in talking about the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment, put that in the context of the era of Reconstruction. One result of that interest is his new book, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. It examines the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which banned slavery, universalized due process, and granted black men the vote. Again, that's social equality, which cannot be legislated by Congress. document.documentElement.className += 'js'; It means intermarriage, interracial sexual relations -- this is [seen as] a horrible thing. And you know, this is central to the consolidation of what we call the Jim Crow system in the 20th century South. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. The Reconstruction Amendments were adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years which immediately followed the Civil War. And it brought the idea of birthright citizenship into effect. This is FRESH AIR. All three amendments radically altered the social and political landscape of American society at a time the Civil War was ending. As the 2020 elections approach, Stacey Abrams is leading the battle against voter suppression. Eric Foner, welcome back to FRESH AIR. The 14th made anyone born in the U.S. 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. Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people. It's not totally inconceivable that they would uphold such an executive order, even though, from my point of view, this would be totally unconstitutional for the president to do it. The 1875 law was declared unconstitutional. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. if ( 'querySelector' in document && 'addEventListener' in window ) { He died in 1874. Now, the 13th Amendment doesn't say what happens after slavery. One of the things that's very important to me - and I argue in my book - is you've got to look beyond Congress, beyond the courts, to understand the debate that was going on in this society all up and down American life in the Reconstruction period. Worldhistory.us - For those who want to understand the History, not just to read it. Any person born in the United States - it doesn't matter what the status of your parents are. And before the Civil War, the general opinion was it was only for white people. And since citizenship and immigration and who gets to be a citizen is so controversial today, let's talk about this. Ever since the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, female activists tied their cause of womens suffrage to abolition. It was on the minds of people in the Reconstruction era. Citizens have a right to equal treatment in the public sphere, they said. Legally speaking, I think he's got no case whatsoever because the language is very clear. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Pauli Murray pioneered using the equal protection clause to - against discrimination on the basis of gender. They were never repealed. Theres a lot of potential in those amendments. And they did crush the Klan in 1871, early 1872. There's a lot of potential in those amendments. So - you know, so there is - that was a terrible loophole in the 13th Amendment. They had no possessions, no means of income, often no education. There's political equality, which is the right to vote. What the court did in upholding the Civil Rights Law of 1964 was to say it's the commerce clause. It may be some archival discovery, which was not really the case here. I recently spoke by phone with Foner. And the court will rule that Congress has no power, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to outlaw private actions that may be discriminatory. It's called "The Second Founding: How The Civil War And Reconstruction Remade The Constitution." (SOUNDBITE OF TED NASH'S "THE FOUR FREEDOMS"). READ MORE: Does an Exception Clause in the 13th Amendment Still Permit Slavery? Three years later, the 14th Amendment provided blacks with citizenship and equal protection under the law. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. This is reverse discrimination against whites. It was actually only added at the very last minute when the Senate was debating the specific language after the House had passed the 14th Amendment. Amendments 13-15 are called the Reconstruction Amendments both because they were the first enacted right after the Civil War and because all addressed questions related to the legal and political status of the African Americans. The courts have never really seen it as that, at least in federal law. Today we think of the Democratic Party as the party of strong national programs and of strong African American support. But fundamentally, they were nullified in the generation after Reconstruction, that, little by little, the rights - the right to equal protection of the law, the right to vote, things like that - were just taken away in the South with the acquiescence of the Supreme Court of the United States. Section 2. Did you write this book because there was an area of Reconstruction you wanted to learn more about or teach people more about, or had things changed in your understanding of your previous scholarship? FONER: Separate is by definition unequal. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. But in fact, there are other loopholes. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. You know, this is a period of the - of economic depression now in the 1870s. Some people thought it meant, well, we can require the states to allow them to be educated. Only white people can be citizens of the United States. GROSS: I don't think most people think of the rights that you just enumerated as having come out of the period of Reconstruction, the period after the Civil War. 1996 - 2023 National Geographic Society. So it was - it's a very unfortunate long-term consequence of the amendment, which, on the other hand, was one of the great expansions of liberty in American history. The part that I liked the best, actually, was the articles trying to link things that we know in the present back to the legacy of slavery. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. They havent yet been put together into a coherent alternative narrative, but we know a lot more about what happened in Reconstruction now than when I was writing. Section 2. I think theres a tendency in a lot of the literature today to make these amendments too narrow, to look too narrowly at what they were trying to accomplish. His new book is called "The Second Founding: How The Civil War And Reconstruction Remade The Constitution." Can you imagine if presidents had the power to issue executive orders overturning parts of the Constitution? Or more to the point, your rights still come from the states, not the federal government, and the federal government does not have the power to enforce any of these privileges or immunities that black people think they are now entitled to. One of the things that I think needed to be corrected is that so much discussion of these amendments is based on just law-making places, like Congress and the Supreme Court. 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. Ratified Read More(1865) Reconstruction Amendments, 1865-1870 National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. It already established birthright citizenship. The whole question of what is citizenship, who is a citizen and what rights come along with it - that was central to the political conflict in Reconstruction. It would no longer be debated - course, it is being debated - and then the House agreed with that. It took another century for this country to try to live up to the ideals that were implemented temporarily in Reconstruction. Moving along with the three constitutional amendments that came out of Reconstruction, let's get to the 14th, which is very relevant today. In this period, two of the most iconic amendments were implemented. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. The amendment used both the terms slavery and involuntary servitude. The only exception was in cases of punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted This exception allowed for the use of slave labor by the state in regard to prison inmates. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. They're only half emancipated after the Civil War. Widely enacted throughout the South following the Civil War a period called Reconstruction these laws both limited the rights of Black people and exploited them as a labor source. ERIC FONER: The 13th Amendment irrevocably abolished slavery in the United States everywhere. So did the 14th Amendment, establishing who could be a citizen and establishing that black people were citizens if they were born in the U.S., did that imply that they had the right to vote? Historians review some myths and misconceptions about the Reconstruction era. But the federal government has no power to intervene to protect you against private acts of terrorism. And then there was the vexed question, is citizenship for white people only but - or for everybody? If you're just joining us, my guest is historian Eric Foner. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to people born in the United States. Everybody was debating these questions during Reconstruction. A group of, you know, African Americans in New Orleans calling themselves the Citizens' Committee - which is interesting - they saw this as an affront to their citizenship. Unfortunately, that was never enacted. Fifteenth Amendment. And that is still part of our law today. Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. AMENDMENT XV The amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, and ended the argument about whether slavery was legal in the United States. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Lincoln and other leaders realized amending the Constitution was the only way to officially end slavery. The 13th Amendment, which was ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. GROSS: And since there were so many laws enacted, particularly in the South, intended to limit the rights of black people, it was easy to violate those laws and be thrown into jail and then be forced into labor. And the consequences were not intended, but they were dire. Under slavery, you know, it was illegal to educate a slave in the South. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. Of the three, the 14th Amendment is still applied in contemporary cases that violate the "equal protection" clause. Ted Tunnell:The second Reconstruction is what historians call the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the time in which finally black people are truly emancipated. Is the Constitution pro-slavery or anti-slavery? (SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "REMEMBER ME AS A TIME OF DAY"). I think the level of the scholarship was good. 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. Most of Reconstruction legislation is far ahead of its time. They were not part of the Confederacy, so they retained the constitutional protections of slavery. The grandfather clause is a clause that allowed individuals who didn't pass the literacy test to vote if their fathers or grandfathers had voted before Reconstruction began; an exception to a law based on a preexisting circumstances. And in fact, that clause was not even debated when the amendment was before Congress, and almost no one in the press even noticed it because that was almost boilerplate language at the time. Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. The Fiery Trial, his story of Lincolns relationship to the idea and reality of American slavery, won the Pulitzer Prize, in 2011. Well, explain Section 14, Clause 3 of the Constitution of Mississippi. So that amendment freed the slaves. But the Civil rights Law of 1866, and of course the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, remain in the Constitution. GROSS: Right. Nobody, I think, thought that they were going to do that, but they did. They include the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; Historians describe the debate over extending civil rights to former slaves that divided the country after the Civil War. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. Foners narrative explores the radical aspirations of the politicians and activists who envisioned these amendments, and the Supreme Court decisions that narrowed their scope, leaving their promise of a racially equitable society unfulfilled. But starting way back, even during Reconstruction with the Slaughterhouse Cases, in 1873, the Supreme Court began whittling away, narrowing the . Reconstruction refers to the period following the Civil War of rebuilding the United States. My view is their aim was, to use a very modern term, regime change. Not just changing one law, not just changing one institution, but changing from a pro-slavery regime before the Civil War to an anti-slavery, post-slavery regime after the Civil War. Their proponents believed that they . Im looking at black organizations that are commenting on these amendments. FONER: Right. When we left off, we were talking about the 14th Amendment, which made anyone born in the U.S. 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. They had major ramifications for the country and especially for formerly enslaved African Americans. One might say that 1619 is an odd date to begin with, if its slavery and its aftermath were interested in, because there were slaves in St. Augustine, Florida, fifty years before 1619. Im looking at veterans of the anti-slavery movementpeople who were actually very involved in drafting these amendments. But if any state denies any group of men of the right to vote, they're going to lose part of their representation in Congress. Social equality is thrown up as an argument against Reconstruction. That's part of the end of slavery, to enable black people to, you know, enjoy the pursuit of happiness in this country. It reads, (reading) neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. FONER: (Laughter). FONER: Yeah. By establishing birthright citizenship, it remade the political map. We'll talk more after a break, and we'll remember journalist Cokie Roberts, who I'm so sad to say died today of complications related to breast cancer. ' Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. GROSS: And that opens the door to a lot of people using the Equal Protection Clause to fight for their rights, especially, you know, like, women's rights and African American rights. All rights reserved. And so by 1877, you know, all the Reconstruction governments have been overthrown or superseded, and white supremacist Democrats are back in control of the whole South. Future amendments and Civil Rights Acts during the turmoil of the post-World War II Civil Rights movement would resolve those issues. It has nothing to do with mass incarceration. But they all had the aim of restoring white supremacy and overthrowing Reconstruction using violent terrorism. Only slaves in the South, held in areas not yet occupied by advancing Union troops, were declared free. But what's - in the long-term, what's also very significant about this is that, again, the Supreme Court whittles away at the power of the federal government to enforce these rights because the question arises - does the 14th Amendment protect your rights only against what they call state actions - laws, actions by state officials? Eric Foner:In the language of the nineteenth century, there are various degrees of equality. SECTION. It may be the way debates are going on in the present. GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. This is a set of three amendments passed after the Civil War, following the Emancipation Proclamation, which is why they are also referred to as Civil War amendments. Involuntary servitude or peonage occurs when a person is coerced to work in order to pay off debts. Now, the women's movement objected bitterly because this introduces the word male into the Constitution for the first time. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are referred to as the Reconstruction Amendments. Each amendment addressed specific issues regarding Southern slavery, citizenship, and suffrage. Every historian knows that our fate is to be superseded by new historians. That's not what's in there. Nevertheless, I want you to describe the case and the way it limited the protections of the 14th Amendment. The right to equal treatment before the law, the right to, you know, public treatment - what they called public rights - that they no longer could be excluded from hotels and restaurants and transportation facilities and things like that - all those came with being a citizen of the United States, they said. And you know, these amendments remained in the Constitution. Ratified July 9, 1868. The Klan and other groups - we shouldn't think of the Klan as like a national institution; it was a whole bunch of local groups. I mean, that's why I call it the "Second Founding." But, I think, more importantly, Reconstruction is a historical process. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Most controversially, of course, women are not included at all. GROSS: Let's look at the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. He's evicted from the train, and what was the point? I think a lot will depend on whether Trump is relected. 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 . President Trump recent - has said a number of times that he feels he has the power to sort of abrogate the first sentence of the 14th Amendment as far as those children are concerned. Even coming to Washington as a member of the Congress, they sometimes have to sit in separate cars. And so Reconstruction is an effort to shatter those boundaries and to create a new - really, a new republic. What did the nineteenth-century civil rights legislation try to accomplish? It was everybody. But nothing really comes with that except you get a little key. There's civil equality, which is equality before the law. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. That is, based on the notion that they didnt really expand the rights of citizens very muchthat Congress didnt mean to cover private violence, private actions, that deprive people of their Constitutional rights, even though it was clearly the intent of Congress to do so. And that hampers, I think, creative uses of the law and Constitution to address racial inequality. 1865: The Black Codes Well, this isn't the state exactly. Not until the 1920 19th Amendment would gender be addressed. And it has a great deal to do with why, for at least a short period of time, the radical Republican vision of Reconstruction did manage enough support to sustain it, at least through the restoration of the Southern states between 1868 and 1870. Black Congressmen like Congressman John R. Lynchplay an important role in the debate, in really insisting on the importance of civil rights, in terms of the needs and desires of the black constituency. African Americans had their own ideas. But of course, a lot of white people thought that citizenship came - was much more narrow, and later, the Supreme Court would basically say, I'm sorry. Numerically, they are the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Nonetheless, the Proclamation did not apply to the four border states that remained in the Union, which were the slave states Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, which had nearly three-quarters of a million slaves, because the Proclamation was a war measure against the Confederacy. The 13th amendment was the first of three Reconstruction amendments. The 14th Amendment overturned that ruling, stating that All persons born or naturalized in the United Statesare citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Significantly, citizenship was defined in terms of both federal and state jurisdictions. National citizenship really didnt amount to almost anything. But of course, a law can be repealed by the next Congress. The people who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment thought that citizenship was substantivethat, if you were a citizen, you had basic rights, some of which we call natural rights, like what Jefferson talked about: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was settled from north to south in the French Empire, in the middle of the continent. Thats one of the problems for today, because court decisions are based on precedent, and, if you have decades of bad precedent, those things are still good law today. This was a remarkable, revolutionary act. So if you want to find out the meaning of these amendments, youve got to look way beyond Congress and the courts to see the general debate. The law can be violated. You know, Reconstruction was many things - reuniting the nation after the Civil War. It is like a "rule book" for how the government works. He refused to leave. And there were other exemptions also. And I felt that hadnt been really illuminated enough. And moreover, all those citizens are to enjoy the equal protection of the laws. It's ironic, I think, that the Equal Protection Clause, the core of the 14th Amendment has been used to greatly expand the rights of all sorts of people. It's not just achieving something in law and then going home and assuming that everything will be okay. There were very few prisoners in 1865, very few prisons. How do you think ideas of Reconstruction have changed in the past several decades since you wrote your big book? FONER: Well, black people thought that it did. It says you cannot deny black men the right to vote, basically. Tim Naftali published the text and audio of a taped call, from 1971, in which Reagan described the African delegates to the United Nations in luridly racist terms. Theres nothing in there that historians dont already know, people like me, who study this stuff. Eric Foner:Most of the Reconstruction legislation remains on the books. Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. If women are denied the right to vote, it makes no difference. And that's what the 13th Amendment does. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. So birthright worked for whites but not for blacks. It established who could be a citizen. } It really transforms the Constitution, not just adding a few things here and there, you know, to try to implement this principle of equal rights for all Americans. The Army acted in North Carolina. The 15th gave the vote to black men but not any women. What does equality before the law really mean? This is a question of slavery and freedom. GROSS: As you said, President Trump has said he would issue an executive order to overturn the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.