The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
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