A Coherent Measure

Abstract

According to many contemporary scholars, an originalist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment is difficult, if not impossible, because the Amendment did not have a coherent original meaning. Its provisions, it is argued, were ambiguous and vague--and deliberately so. But as will be set forth in this article, a review of the commentary from the drafting and ratification of the Amendment provides substantial evidence that proponents of the Amendment held a coherent understanding of Section 1. Further this evidence indicates that the major interpretive disagreements arose not among supporters but between supporters and opponents, and even these were generally limited to disputes on only two (albeit major) interpretive issues: (1) whether the “privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States” included intermarriage and political rights, (2) whether these “privileges and immunities” would be subject to congressional redefinition.