Telepathic

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in the wake of the American Civil War to establish equal protection under the law for all American citizens regardless of race. Yet for over half a century, the amendment was used to endow corporations with rights as individuals and thus protect them from state legislation. In 1938, Howard Jay Graham, a deaf law librarian, successfully argued that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment were motivated by abolitionist fervor, debunking the notion of a corporate conspiracy at the heart of the amendment’s wording. By 1968, when Everyman’s Constitution was first published, the Fourteenth Amendment had become a tool for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to apply to all American citizens. These essays, written during the reversal of the amendment’s fortunes, are still relevant as the nation continues to interpret the framing legislation of our nation in light of the concerns of today and to balance citizens’ rights against those of corporations.