The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

In this book, noted historian Eric Foner describes the constitutional transformation wrought by the Reconstruction amendments, which include: the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude; the Fourteenth Amendment, which established birthright citizenship, established federal rights enforceable against state governments and rules governing the political structure of the nation as it re-admitted the rebellious states; and the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Foner argues that the Reconstruction amendments “forged a new constitutional relationship between individual Americans and the national state and were crucial in creating the world's first biracial democracy” (p. xx). Battles over the extent of that transformation continue today, not only in U.S. courts but also in the nation's political culture.

In this concise and tightly written book, Foner describes the historical context in which each amendment was adopted, the debates over the amendments, and the primary controversies raised by each measure at the time. Some of those controversies continue today. For example, Foner explores the origins of both the Thirteenth Amendment's “exceptions” clause (which “excepts” the amendment's ban on slavery and involuntary servitude “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”) and the birthright citizenship established by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Foner also details the reasons why, rather than establishing universal suffrage, the Fifteenth Amendment merely prohibits states from expressly denying suffrage on the basis of race, enabling states to adopt racially neutral voting barriers to accomplish the same goal.