The Fourteenth Amendment From Political Principle To Judicial Doctrine [Paperback]

An important and timely study...Nelson successfully demonstrates the substance and consistency of pre-Lochner Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence. This is a significant achievement.Improves our understanding of how the Fourteenth Amendment was able to be read so expansively...Adds enormously to our constitutional history.In a remarkably fresh and historically grounded reinterpretation of the American Constitution, William Nelson argues that the fourteenth amendment was written to affirm the general public's long-standing rhetorical commitment to the principles of equality and individual rights on the one hand, and to the principle of local self-rule on the other.