John Roberts's Refusal to Defend Federal Statutes in MetroBroadcasting

[Ilya Somin]

OK, I stand corrected. But what were the radicals' motives for taking 
this step? Was it to promote AA-type measures, or some other reason?

Earl Maltz wrote:

> This characterization is flatly wrong as a matter of historical fact.  
> On April 28, 1866, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction voted  10-3 
> to  adopt the current language as a replacement for language 
> specifically referring to race.  Among those supporting the change 
> were George Boutwell of Massachusetts, who was without question the 
> most radical member of the Joint Committee, and Thaddeus Stevens, the 
> leader of the Radicals in the House of Representatives.  Opposing the 
> change were three Republicans:  Jacob Howard, who is generally 
> classified as a Radical, James Grimes, who is generally classified as 
> a Moderate, and Justin Morrill, who was somewhere in between.
>
> The politics of this are quite complicated.  Anyone interested in 
> seeing everything I have to say on the subject should read Civil 
> Rights, The Constitution and Congress, 1863-1869, published by the 
> University Press of Kansas.  Anyone interested in reading the best 
> treatment of the subject (IMHO) should read MIchael Les Benedict, A 
> Compromise of Principle.
>
> At 06:41 PM 9/8/2005 -0400, Ilya Somin wrote:
>
>> That is certainly true. But as Kull also shows, the efforts to insert 
>> "colorblindness" were defeated not by the Radical Republican 
>> advocates of black rights (who tended to favor the color blind 
>> language), but by Democrats and Republican centrists who wanted to 
>> limit the range of issues to which the amendment would apply in order 
>> to reduce its ability to protect blacks. Certainly, those political 
>> actors were unlikely to have favored an interpretation of the 
>> language that banned  state and/or federal discrimination against 
>> blacks but permitted it against whites.
>>
>> Thus, there is a strong argument that, at least as an originalist 
>> matter, the rejection of the colorblindness language relates to the 
>> amendment's scope, rather than its symmetry as between racial groups.
>>
>> Sanford Levinson wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Andrew Kull has convincingly demonstrated that the Congress rejected 
>>> every opportunity to adopt "colorblind" language as part of the 14th 
>>> Amendment.  No serious historian could believe that it was part of 
>>> the original understanding as to how it would be interpreted.  One 
>>> can, of course, offer Dworkinian takes of the deep "concept" 
>>> underlying various conceptions, but it is not my perception that 
>>> conservative originalists are much taken with Dworkin's approach.
>>>
>>> Sandy
>>> - Sanford Levinson
>>> (Sent from a Blackberry)
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Ilya Somin
>> Assistant Professor of Law
>> George Mason University School of Law
>> 3301 N. Fairfax Dr.
>> Arlington, VA 22201
>> ph: 703-993-8069
>> fax: 703-993-8202
>> e-mail: <mailto:isomin at gmu.edu>isomin at gmu.edu
>> Website: 
>> <http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/>http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/_______________________________________________ 
>>
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>
>

-- 
Ilya Somin
Assistant Professor of Law
George Mason University School of Law
3301 N. Fairfax Dr.
Arlington, VA 22201
ph: 703-993-8069
fax: 703-993-8202
e-mail: isomin at gmu.edu
Website: http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/