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== Legal History & Constructions of the Fourteenth Amendment ==

== Legal History & Constructions of the Fourteenth Amendment ==

 

The Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment as a Constitutional Moment

The Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment as a Constitutional Moment

Passed in the heat of the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was only shortly debated in Congress.  In fact, after the long debate on the first of the [[Civil Rights Act]], few were willing to debate the Amendment for long.  Other strange circumstances surrounded the passage of the Amendment; notably, its ratification was rescinded by a few Northern states shortly after passage, and ratification was secured only by compulsion in the Southern states.  This has led to scholarly speculation about the "legality" of the Fourteenth Amendment.  While the subject continues to be debated in academic circles, though, the argument's practical validity has declined sharply: it is an integral part of America's constitutional framework, as it stands, and encompasses the most frequently litigated causes of action today.  To call it illegal, and end its domain, would be to tear down 1/2 of American constitutional law.  Further, a general historical consensus advocated by legal academia is that the Amendment was passed in a [[Constitutional Moment]] - i.e., a period of crisis when the state of affairs justifies a suspension of standard procedural rules, and instead, the country takes stock of its base morals in an extralegal, but moral, sense.<ref>Michael W. McConnell, The Forgotten Constitutional Moment, 11 Const. 115</ref>

Passed in the heat of the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was only shortly debated in Congress.  In fact, after the long debate on the first of the [[Civil Rights Act]], few were willing to debate the Amendment for long.  Other strange circumstances surrounded the passage of the Amendment; notably, its ratification was rescinded by a few Northern states shortly after passage, and ratification was secured only by compulsion in the Southern states.  This has led to scholarly speculation about the "legality" of the Fourteenth Amendment.  While the subject continues to be debated in academic circles, though, the argument's practical validity has declined sharply: it is an integral part of America's constitutional framework, as it stands, and encompasses the most frequently litigated causes of action today.  To call it illegal, and end its domain, would be to tear down 1/2 of American constitutional law.  Further, a general historical consensus advocated by legal academia is that the Amendment was passed in a [[Constitutional Moment]] - i.e., a period of crisis when the state of affairs justifies a suspension of standard procedural rules, and instead, the country takes stock of its base morals in an extralegal, but moral, sense.<ref>Michael W. McConnell, The Forgotten Constitutional Moment, 11 Const. 115</ref>