CSPAN book talk with Barnett and Bernick
Randy E. Barnett and Evan D. Bernick, Georgetown Law School professors argue in their new book The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment that the 14th Amendment has been misunderstood: that it affords the national government full power to enforce the promises of equal protection and due process which were promised in the Declaration of Independence but obstructed by slavery.
Barnett and Bernick - as originalists - come to conclusions that are novel in many ways. They surprise me by rejecting the `state action' limitation on the 14th Amendment's promises of equal protection, due process, and the privileges and immunities of citizens.
I have long felt that the 14th is best understood as compelling the states to themselves guarantee the rights set forth in the 1866 Civil Rights Act, [now 42 USC 1982] which, inter alia guaranteed to all citizens" the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property." This principle was embedded in the Enforcement Acts of 1971 and 1872. But those laws were spiked by the United States Supreme Court in Cruikshank v. U.S. and the Civil Rights Cases.
- GWC
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