14th Amendment – Equal Protection of Law
About
5/14/2015
This class focuses on the Equal Protection of Law provision in the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Five years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Slaughterhouse Cases determined that United States citizenship, and not state citizenship, would be affected by the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, it would not restrict policing powers of the state. It was also determined that the Fourteenth Amendment was specifically intended to protect the rights of former slaves, therefore, undermining the broad intention of due process and equal protection of law. Because of this, progressives were forced to use selective inclusion of specific instances of protection under the due process of law provision of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Furthermore, because of the ruling of the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Equal Protection of Law provision could only be applied to former slaves so that the moderates had to, once again, determine conceptual devices to decide the parameters that would allow a group or individual equal protection of law. Such parameters are discussed at length.
Why did the court choose such a narrow definition of the Fourteenth Amendment with the ruling of the Slaughterhouse Cases? There is a discussion of the shift of consciousness that occurred with the presidential election of 1876 to explain this reactionary shift.
Professor Sheehan gives two examples of cases he litigated that were based on provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment: Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee and Morton v. Mancari.
This concludes the second part of the lecture series. Phase three will discuss how we apply the Constitution to create tools to confront upcoming issues: climate change, the rise of the national security state, and military conflict between the Northern Industrial Alliance and Asia.
Readings:
- Nazi Hydra in America by Glen Yeadon and John Hawkins read ch.5
- Judicial Procedures Reform Bill (1937)
- Court Packing Video (supremecourthistory.org)