A Constitutional Umbrella for a Progressive Coalition

Back in 2015, I proposed a “Declaration of Rights And Grievances” [link is to TOP] for the Progressive Movement, having in mind the Declarations of earlier American political movements. Here's the Constitutional basis for that proposal, and how I believe it can unify our movement.

The core argument of the Declaration which I drafted was that Caucasian, male, Christian, Heterosexual, Cisgender, wealthy and corporate “persons” still enjoyed greater liberty, protection, political influence, opportunity, deference and respect than other Americans, so the current political order had failed to meet its Constitutional obligation to provide equal protection to all of its citizens, and political action was necessary to correct that.

I had in mind the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Naturally, Conservatives object to this interpretation. Allow me to address some of their arguments, and explain why I believe the 14th Amendment provides a Constitutional umbrella for a coalition of Progressives, one that covers all Progressives, regardless of which disadvantaged group or groups they identify with – their “political identity,” if you will.

The 14th Amendment was approved by Congress in 1866 and became part of the Constitution in 1868. Its first paragraph states:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[source] [emphasis added]

What does it mean, that no State shall deny any person within its jurisdiction the “equal protection of the laws?”

Conservatives have argued for a narrow interpretation of this phrase. For example, a writer for the Federalist Society has argued that:

  • The phrase “equal protection of the laws” means only that all persons shall be tried and punished equally before courts of law, and nothing more.

  • The clause does not speak of equal rights, equal treatment or equal benefits, etc., it only speaks of laws of “protection,” which historically meant laws of “due process.”

  • Yes, “due process” is mentioned earlier in the Amendment, but only to say that no persons shall be deprived of due process; “equal protection of the laws” means that due process shall be provided equally, as well.
  • [At the time of it’s passage,] nobody thought it was directed against sex discrimination, segregation, elections, marriage or local civil law.

But there are a number of facts which argue against such a narrow interpretation of the clause. Consider the following:

  • The 14th Amendment was researched, drafted and debated by a Joint Committee on Reconstruction , beginning in December 1865 (the 39th Congress). In May 1866 the Committee presented a final version of the proposed Amendment to both houses of Congress. The Committee later published a report which included the testimonies of numerous witnesses questioned by members of the Committee from January to May of 1866. [source] The questions posed by the Committee members indicate that they wanted to know, among other things, how Union loyalists were treated in those States, and whether Blacks were being treated fairly and paid reasonably. Many of the witnesses reportedly answered that Blacks and Union loyalists were being mistreated: Blacks were being subjected to violence, lower pay, wage theft and denial of employment in some quarters, and some former rebels made it more difficult to educate Black children; Union loyalists were allegedly subjected to threats, violence, rent increases, refusal to do business and other practices which made them feel like they might have to leave. This was denial of equal protection, not just on the basis of race, and not just with regard to “due process.” The Committee responsible for the 14th Amendment was clearly interested in addressing social, economic and political discrimination, or they would not have inquired about these conditions.*
  • Committee-member Jacob Howard presented the final version of the 14th Amendment in the Senate during the 39th Congress (1886). He stated the following in his presentation:

“I look upon the first section, taken in connection with the fifth, as very important. It will, if adopted by the States, forever disable every one of them from passing laws trenching upon those fundamental rights and privileges which pertain to citizens of the United States, and to all persons who may happen to be within their jurisdiction. It establishes equality before the law, and it gives the humblest, the poorest, the most despised of the race the same rights and the same protection before the law as it gives to the most powerful, the most wealthy, or the most haughty.”

[source]
What were the “rights and privileges” covered by the Amendment? Jacob Howard described them as the personal rights guaranteed by the second section of the fourth Article of the Constitution, by the Constitution’s first eight Amendments, and those “privileges and immunities” mentioned by Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell:

“...Protection by the government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject nevertheless to such restraints as the government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole….”

[source]

  • When the final version of the Amendment was debated in the House (May 8, 1866), an opponent of the Amendment, Representative Benjamin Boyer, asserted that “The first section embodies the principles of the civil rights bill, and is intended to secure ultimately, and to some extent indirectly, the political equality of the negro race.” [source]
  • During the 40th Congress (1869), another member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, George Boutwell, offered his interpretation of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:

"...that provision of the Constitution is for all the people or it is for none of them. Under that Constitution we cannot select and say that a man born in this country shall be entitled to certain privileges as a citizen to which a man born elsewhere and naturalized shall not be entitled. We cannot say that a white citizen shall enjoy privileges which are denied to a black citizen or to a naturalized citizen, white or black.”

[source]

  • During the 42nd Congress (1871), the primary author of the Section 1, Committee-member John Bingham specifically addressed the meaning of the phrase “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws:”

“...it means that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the Constitution of the United States, as that Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and, of course, that no State should deny to any such person any of the rights which it guarantees to all men, nor should any State deny such person any right secured to him either by the laws and treaties of the United States or of such State.”

[source]

Other members of Congress subsequently gave speeches indicating that they, too, understood Section 1 of the Amendment to have implications beyond a mere requirement that “due process” be provided equally:

  • In 1871, Representative Samuel Shellabarger asserted that the phrase requiring “equal protection of the laws” meant that “The laws must be, first, equal, in not abridging rights; and second, the States shall equally protect, under equal laws, all persons in them.” [source] Shellabarger had been a Representative during the 39th Congress, and he had voted in favor of the 14th Amendment. [source]
  • Representative James Garfield also spoke about the phrase requiring “equal protection of the laws” in 1871. To Garfield, this is what the phrase meant:

“Taken in connection with the other clauses of this section, it restrains the States from making or enforcing laws which are not on their face and in their provisions of equal application to all the citizens of the State...The laws must not only be equal on their face, but they must be so administered that equal protection under them shall not be denied to any class of citizens, either by the courts or the executive officers of the States.”

[source] Garfield had also been a Representative during the 39th Congress, and he had voted in favor of the 14th Amendment. [source]

  • In 1874, Representative William Lawrence had this to say about the phrase “equal protection of the laws:"

“If a doubt could arise as to how these words are to be interpreted, if any question could exist as to their construction, let it be remembered they are provisions in favor of human rights, and all such are to be liberally construed to effectuate their object. The object of this provision is to make all men equal before the law. If a State permits inequality in rights to be created or meted out by citizens or corporations enjoying its protection it denies the equal protection of the laws. What the State permits by its sanction, having the power to prohibit, it does in effect itself.”

[source] Lawrence had also been a Representative during the 39th Congress, but he didn’t vote on the 14th Amendment. A colleague said that Lawrence was absent due to the death of his father, but would have voted “ay.” [source]

In fairness to the writer for the Federalist Society, there were members of Congress who expressed a more limited view of the 14th Amendment. There were even other members of Congress who complained that the 14th Amendment was taking away States’ Rights. My point here is that there were members of Congress who did believe that the 14th Amendment was meant to address perceived and anticipated discrimination among citizens with regard to their civil and legal rights.

As a matter of fact, the 14th Amendment was not just an Act of Congress; to take effect, it had to be ratified by voters in the States. What did voters understand it to mean? As you can imagine, newspapers of the day presented the Amendment in many different ways to their readers. For example, the Weekly North-Carolina Standard, of Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, October 10, 1866 [right column, center] informed prospective voters:

“...The provisions of this amendment are as follows:
‘1. That all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens thereof and of the States in which they reside, and on a footing of equality in regard to their civil rights.’
...We have tried to state the provisions of this amendment so that the people may understand them….”

[source]

And how has the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the clause requiring “equal protection of the laws?”

The Supreme Court first analyzed and applied the 14th Amendment in the so-called Slaughterhouse Cases, decided in 1873. In those cases, a majority of the Court declared, among other things, that

“…it is not difficult to give a meaning to this clause [“equal protection of the laws”]. The existence of laws in the States where the newly emancipated negroes resided, which discriminated with gross injustice and hardship against them as a class, was the evil to be remedied by this clause, and by it such laws are forbidden. It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency that a strong case would be necessary for its application to any other.”

Which is to say, the same provision could be applied to other races, if a “strong case” could be made for discrimination “with gross injustice and hardship against them as a class.”

Later, in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court granted that “The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law.” However, the majority of the court concluded that “Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race.” Justice Harlan disagreed on this point, declaring in his Dissent that,

“...in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens....
“But it seems that we have yet, in some of the States, a dominant race -- a superior class of citizens, which assumes to regulate the enjoyment of civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race.”

[source]

Justice Harlan’s interpretation would later become the majority opinion of Supreme Court Justices. In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), all the Justices agreed that “the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group,” and such a policy failed to provide “the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.” In Reed v. Reed (1971), the Court concluded that a State law which arbitrarily favored males over females was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And in Romer v. Evans (1996) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), majorities on the Court held that State Constitutions which expressly denied protection on the grounds of sexual orientation were in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
You can see how, over time, majorities of the Supreme Court Justices have concluded that this clause has applications beyond equality of due process.

I think at least one of the Constitution’s framers would approve. In “Federalist No. 45,” James Madison made the following remark concerning the grand purpose of the U. S. Constitution:**

“It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.”

[emphasis added]

I take this to mean that the Constitution was intended to address the general welfare of living citizens and residents, not just the desires of those who wrote it. The Constitution is meaningless to those who’ve passed on. It can only affect the general welfare of the living. And 14th Amendment provides a Constitutional umbrella under which today’s Progressives can unite, whatever their personal issues and identities, to secure the general welfare and equal protection of living Americans.*** To quote one of the Slaughterhouse dissenters, Justice Swayne:

"The equal protection of the laws" places all upon a footing of legal equality and gives the same protection to all for the preservation of life, liberty, and property, and the pursuit of happiness...The protection provided was not intended to be confined to those of any particular race or class, but to embrace equally all races, classes, and conditions of men…It is necessary to enable the government of the nation to secure to everyone within its jurisdiction the rights and privileges enumerated, which, according to the plainest considerations of reason and justice and the fundamental principles of the social compact all are entitled to enjoy. Without such authority, any government claiming to be national is glaringly defective.” April 14, 1873

Women's_March_2017-01_(04).jpg

[source]

___________________
Additional Notes

* Note to historians and social scientists: the testimonies in the Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction provide fascinating first-hand accounts of social conflict and adaptation in the former Confederacy in the 12 months following the collapse of its government. The witnesses included Blacks, Union officers, former Confederates, Northern investors (aka “Carpetbaggers”), Union sympathizers (aka “Scalawags”), preachers, reporters, Southern politicians, and Southern businessmen.
[source]

** Madison also addressed, in Federalist No. 45, those who complained about the Federal government treading upon “States’ Rights:”

“...if, in a word, the Union be essential to the happiness of the people of America, is it not preposterous, to urge as an objection to a government, without which the objects of the Union cannot be attained, that such a government may derogate from the importance of the governments of the individual States? Was, then, the American Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the precious blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety, but that the government of the individual States, that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty? [emphases added]

...“Were the plan of the convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union. In like manner, as far as the sovereignty of the States cannot be reconciled to the happiness of the people, the voice of every good citizen must be, Let the former be sacrificed to the latter.”

[source]

*** A law professor’s defense for applying the “Reconstruction Amendments” to civil rights can be found here: http://www.nyulawreview.org/sites/default/files/pdf/NYULawReview-85-6-Balkin.pdf

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Amanda Matthews's picture

people here to go to the place that ran everyone off because they thought they should have the ‘right’ to support the candidate they preferred and not be told who they HAD to support?

Now it’s come on over and give us your support? Since your whatever is posted at TOP, how would any of us Bernie Bros and Bitches get to add to the conversation? Or would we just have to settle for giving our ‘support’ and nothing more while you all chew the fat?

Just honestly curious.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Amanda Matthews

I must be confused. You’re asking the people here to go to the place that ran everyone off because they thought they should have the ‘right’ to support the candidate they preferred and not be told who they HAD to support?

Now it’s come on over and give us your support? Since your whatever is posted at TOP, how would any of us Bernie Bros and Bitches get to add to the conversation? Or would we just have to settle for giving our ‘support’ and nothing more while you all chew the fat?

Just honestly curious.

I went and looked up the linked Daily Kos Diary. I was one of only five commenters on it, and now comments are disabled. So we "Bernie Bros and Bitches" can't get an oar in any more.

Alex, I hate to be a wet blanket, but in this case your cause would have been better served by you actually re-publishing that whole Diary text here on c99. I know that reconstructing those links is a pain, but I feel it's necessary. Too many of us here flatly will not go back there for any reason at all.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Amanda Matthews's picture

@thanatokephaloides

there’s a few of us who CAN’T go over. And it’s just a way to drag people back into supporting the Dims.

Some people here do support them and that’s cool. They see that as a viable road to something, I’m not sure what. And it’s not my business. But for people like me, I see nothing positive in supporting the conservative right leaning Dims and their CIA/lobbyist candidates.

Happily for some they didn’t get booted off and can go over and sign in. Many of us thought we should be allowed to support the candidate of out choice (or if you’re me, be allowed to say the ACA was a boondoggle) and cannot. As for me, I wouldn’t even if I could.

But I’m sure you get my drift. They only want us ehen they need something.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Amanda Matthews

(that's an agreement BTW)

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Alex Budarin's picture

@Amanda Matthews
I guess I didn't see this post as requiring anyone to go to TOP. I summarized the content of the 2015 post in the second paragraph above. I also stated that the link was to TOP, so that anyone who couldn't stand to go there could avoid it. If you don't follow the link, it's okay, it was just an introductory reference. This post stands on its own.

As was noted, the essay at TOP drew few comments, so I figured there wasn't much interest in it. If you want me to post it here, I can work that out.

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"All Life is Problem Solving" - Karl Popper

@Alex Budarin derangement syndrome. So if that came through I apologize.

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but speaking for myself, it's kinda the Island of Misfit Toys here, or refugees or Opposition in Exile. Our most heated discussions are whether we should burn everything down and start over, or burn almost everything down, and start from there. Right now corporations trump people in constitutional terms, money equals speech, the government is almost exclusively responsive to political donors, we have no idea what truth means anymore and we're about to be under constant covert surveillance by our government at will without recourse. I'm pretty sure dkos will give this a fair hearing, but, no offense meant, it seems to me like tinkering around the edges. The only amendment that can't be ignored or twisted into a pretzel seems to be the 2nd.

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@Snode @Snode They have primaries coming up. Republican primaries anyway, I saw no ads for Democrats. Governor and A-G ads are a competition to assure the voters that their candidate:
1. Supports their 2nd amendment rights to shoot their neighbors. Exemplified by ads (more than one candidate!) featuring the candidate firing a pistol rapid fire. The woman for A-G actually shooting AT the screen!
2. Support and defend your religious freedom! (I suspect that means your right to stop your neighbor from having an abortion).
3. Preserve our Monuments (You know, like traitor Robert E. Lee and KKK founder/War Criminal Nathan Bedford Forrest)
4. Supports President Trump 100%!

A few mentioned immigration (they were against it) and some didn't mention it at all.

The people were actually pretty friendly. The AA's in the restaurants and hotels were VERY friendly as was the black retired cab driver that gave me directions at a filling station on a two-lane road. Not an employee, just a hanger-on. White people were polite.

Strange Strange politics.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@The Voice In the Wilderness That last part bothers me. If I were AA I'd be friendly too, hoping to stave off getting my head bashed in because of my color. Kind of like living in occupied territory. At least when I was living in NYC if somebody didn't like you, or did like you, it was because of how they thought of you, not you color or accent (mostly).

There are so many things that need fixing....it's like trying to put out a house fire, and just when you're getting ahead you hear there are 10 more fires and you only have so much water. Also there's a couple of Bmws and Volvos blocking the hydrants and won't move 'cause they're having a party.

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@Snode
The old guy just volunteered information, being friendly. Maybe they were more friendly because I was obviously an old Northern guy?
I get what you are saying, but they seemed extra friendly.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Personally, I'd rather not go back to that propaganda censor-mill now, even if you gave me a free hazmat suit for the purpose, in part because I'd also rather not give them the appearance of legitimacy of an extra click.

I used to virtually live there and had a great deal of respect for many posting there; it's painful going back to see it populated by zombies apparently unable to nourish any thought processes even after consuming many good brains exploding there while trying to introduce a little reality and reason to the current denizens. Besides, suppose it's catching?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Ellen North

Those folks — most of them — did not deserve the indignity of what's about to taint them, down the long melancholy hallways of history.

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@Ellen North
Booman Tribune is as bad. All Russophobia all the time. I posted a link and quoted a front page posting here. Buried under troll ratings. Booman is obsessed with impeaching Trump for colluding with Putin to hack the election and also with restoring Her Majesty afterward. Cries that then we get Pence or Ryan are brushed aside with "going to the courts to overturn the fraudulent election". I despise Trump, but I would take up arms to fight anyone who who tried to overturn an election like that.

The link was this one: https://caucus99percent.com/content/russiagate-destroying-democratic-party

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

...that you link to above, made some pithy points:

The incessant spotlight on the lawyers, on their clients and subjects and targets, not only occupies the attention of Democrats and the anti-Trump Resistance to the exclusion of other topics. It also relieves them of any responsibility to come up with a substantive message. The voters, by contrast, read the headlines with a cursory or prurient interest as they go about their lives in the real world of work, family, community, and faith.

I would also add that it relieves the Dems of acknowledging their own epic failures of policy since the 1990's, and especially under Obama.

But what happened today is going to require an adjustment. Apparently, Mueller is now saying that it was never his intention to indict Trump, a sitting President. They are just going to write a report and be done with it. Guiliani retorted, "Go ahead. But if it is filled with lies and innuendo, we're going to kick your ass. Just end this mess, already!"

I think the FBI and CIA are done screwing the country for the Dems. But the media monopolies, not so much. Stormy Daniels lawyer has been interviewed 167 times in the last month or so. The majority of those were CNN interviews. The media now has the power to make or break kings with unlimited propaganda. The Fairness Doctrine once protected the People's democracy. Now it is dead.

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Alphalop's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Can't we just roll it back to the Democratic primary if we are gonna redo fraudulent elections? Wink

Lol, seriously though, the things these people focus on would be surprising if it's motive wasn't so obvious.

Focusing on the real issues and root causes would lead to too much uncomfortable self reflection for a lot of people, people who's primary goal it seems is to avoid such painful introspection at all cost...

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

snoopydawg's picture

@Alphalop

If there is a do over then it has to go back to the primary where the cheating for the last election started.

But if people think that if Trump is removed from office then Herheinous gets to take her throne I have a surprise for them. There is no path that allows the second place winner to become president. This is not how elections work.

If Trump is removed then Pencil-head becomes president. If he's removed to then doesn't it go to Ryan or the Secretary of State? This would be Pompey, right? Pompey is what autocorrect calls Pompeo. I like Pompey better.

Even if Mueller had found evidence that Trump "colluded" with Putin collusion is not a crime as far as I know. If Mueller only writes a letter and then let's Trump stay president, can you imagine what people's heads are going to do? Oh Lordy, I can't wait to see Rachel's reaction to this?

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mimi's picture

sorry ... melodrama on the rise. If it kills you to go over to TOP to look something up, then I think you should post a photo of your dead body...

I don't understand a word. May be that's ok. Saves me some troubles, I guess.

No offense, I am not a lawyer and I feed myself and don't intend to feed the lawyers more than absolutely necessary.

I wished I would be able to get something out of the essay just scanning through it. I think that's impossible and that's sad.

Peace. I do understand that your essay is much to be respected and worthwhile, it just asks too much of the reader, imho. KISS.

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Thanks for sharing with us. Looks like you put a lot of time and thought into that. We did something similar here, but it was more bullet pointish. Ultimately, we decided wtf. There is no point. We have no power.

Sorry your link to DailyKos and your warning was such a trigger. Most of us wrote that place off and have zero interest in what’s left. Some still have hard feelings. I am not banned, and I never go back. Deleted all my content, logged off, and left.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Alphalop's picture

@dkmich agreed. Asking people here to go to that fetid anus of a site is little different than popping into a vegan co op in the Bay area and trying to convince the patrons there that they, "Really, really need to check out Alex Jones & Glenn Beck's podcasts."

We would just be a little more polite... Wink

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me