This book is an interesting and thought-provoking analysis of the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, with a close and scholarly analysis of primary sources to discern the “original public-meaning” of the text. An impressive effort that makes a considerable contribution to legal scholarship and furthers the argument that the 14th amendment in fact constitutionalizes many of the ideals of the original Declaration. Whether an originalist or not, the legal reader will learn much that will prove useful and enlightening from this book.

The Fourteenth Amendment gets less shine than the First and Second, but right now in America, it's one of the most crucial to our political conversations. Black Lives Matter protests made a generation interested in the Constitution as a way to reckon with our past. Though dense and definitely not for the casual reader seeking to dip their toes in US law, this book provides an interesting take on an amendment that transformed society. Using a little-known 19th-century letter to show how a Supreme Court Justice interpreted the law at the time, Barnett and Bernick seek to outline how even Justice Bradley lost track of the original meaning and intent of the Fourteenth Amendment.