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The Introduction outlines the argument of the book and its methodology, distinguishing the more reliable "language of the law" originalism fromless reliable versions that rely too much on legislative history or antislavery constitutional thinkers. Using this methodology, the book will show that the key provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment's first section had well-established antebellum legal meanings that chart a satisfactory middle course between interpretations that rely on what people thought in 1868 and those that allow judges to pour into the text their own extratextual values.

In The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment, Ilan Wurman provides an illuminating introduction to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's famous provisions 'due process of law,' 'equal protection of the laws,' and the 'privileges' or 'immunities' of citizenship. He begins by exploring the antebellum legal meanings of these concepts, starting from Magna Carta, the Statutes of Edward III, and the Petition of Right to William Blackstone and antebellum state court cases. The book then traces how these concepts solved historical problems confronting framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, including the comity rights of free blacks, private violence and the denial of the protection of the laws, and the notorious abridgment of freedmen's rights in the Black Codes. Wurman makes a compelling case that, if the modern originalist Supreme Court interpreted the Amendment in 'the language of the law,' it would lead to surprising and desirable results today.

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Introduction

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The Second Founding

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Introduction

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The Second Founding