Reconstructing reconstruction : the Supreme Court and the production of historical truth / Pamela Brandwein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brandwein, Pamela.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constitutional history--United States.

Constitutional history.

Election law.

History.

United States.

Reconstruction.

Slavery--United States--History.

Slavery.

Election law--United States--History.

Civil rights--United States--History.

Civil rights.

Physical Description:

xi, 272 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 1999.

Summary:

Was slavery over when slaves gained formal emancipation? Was it over when the social, economic, and political situation for African Americans no longer mimicked the conditions of slavery? If the Thirteenth Amendment abolished it in 1865, why did most of the disputed points during the Reconstruction debates of 1866-75 concern issues of slavery? In this book Pamela Brandwein examines the post-Civil War struggle between competing political and legal interpretations of slavery and Reconstruction to reveal how accepted historical truth was established.

Delving into the circumstances, assumptions, and rhetoric that shaped the "official" story of Reconstruction, Brandwein describes precisely how a dominant interpretation of events Ultimately emerged and what its implications have been for twentieth-century judicial decisions, particUlarly for Supreme Court rulings on civil rights. While analyzing interpretive disputes about slavery, Brandwein offers a detailed rescoring of post-Civil War legislative and constitutional history, including analysis of the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment. She identifies the perspectives on Reconstruction that were endorsed by the Supreme Court, as well as those that were rejected. Explaining what it meant -- theoretically and practically -- to resolve these debates with a particular definition of slavery, Brandwein recounts how the Northern Democratic definition of "ending" slavery was not the only definition, just the one that prevailed. Using a familiar historical moment to do new interpretive work, Brandwein renders a sociology of constitutional law, showing how subjective narrative construction can solidify into opaque institutionalmemory.

Offering a fresh approach to the subject of original intent, Reconstructing Reconstruction will interest legal historians and scholars of constitutional law, American history, race and ethnicity, political theory, and the sociology of law.

Contents:

2 Slavery as an Interpretive Issue in the 39th Reconstruction Congress: The Northern Democrats 23

3 Republican Slavery Criticism 42

4 The Supreme Court's Official History 61

5 Dueling Histories: Charles Fairman and William Crosskey Reconstruct "Original Understanding" 96

6 Recipes for "Acceptable" History 132

7 History as an Institutional Resource: Warren Court Debates over Legislative Apportionment 155

8 Constitutional Law as a "Culture of Argument": Toward a Sociology of Constitutional Law 185.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [257]-265) and index.

ISBN:

0822322846

0822323168

OCLC:

39539167