Recently, I critically reviewed Damon Root’s new book, Overruled: The Long-War for the Control of the Supreme Court (see Part 1 and Part 2). In response, Root and others have now taken to the blogosphere in defense of the book and of libertarian constitutionalism. Unfortunately, Root just digs a deeper hole and his defenders only illustrate the problem with libertarian readings of the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
The Fourteenth Amendment, Original Meaning Originalism and How to Approach the Historical Record: A Response to David Upham
My thanks to the Library of Law and Liberty for inviting me to respond to David Upham’s review of my new book, The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge U. Press 2014). Thanks also to Prof. Upham for taking the time to review the book and his gracious acknowledgement that it constitutes a step forward in our understanding of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Unfortunately, in some of his more critical comments, it appears that Upham has misunderstood the theory of the book and (worse) missed much of the evidence presented in the book.
Getting Right with the Fourteenth Amendment: A Conversation with Kurt Lash
Kurt Lash comes to Liberty Law Talk to discuss his newest book, The Fourteenth Amendment: The Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship. If you think the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873 gutted the Privileges or Immunities Clause of constitutional meaning and set us on our present course of strangely incorporating the Bill of Rights through the Due Process Clause, then you need to listen to this conversation. Lash argues that the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause is definite once you understand the context of the debate in the 39th Congress. Rather than emerging from the Comity…
