and two segments of history. eric just pointed us to one of them. they need to really read those debates in 1866, over the creation of the 14th amendment. but i would guess they are also going to be looking, if not explicitly, implicitly, at bush v. gore. i mean to me, this colorado decision, it seems to me is going to depend on whether there are five justices who will be good textualists, and do as -- said, read carefully and do what it says. but whether they are truly going to be -- by bush v. gore, which was their step into determining who wins elections, and determines somehow to never do that again. only one member of this court was there in bush v. gore, of course, and that's clarence thomas. now i doubt he is going to be haunted by it. but i really think that is part of what they are going to have to look at. and today, i just went and read
bankroll this type of frivolous litigation. i, mean that really kind of highlights what's going on here, right? the idea that if conservatives are trying to look out like you just said by trying to pressure private companies to be able to change their policies, they are just going to take the tact of litigation. is there any resource for hello alice for example because of a frivolous litigation those brought like this lawsuit? >> well certainly because it is frivolous, we will be making arguments to that effect. we are not going to get into their funding sources or anything like that, you know. that is for others to look and do with what they want. but, look we think that would hello alice is doing is absolutely part of the american tradition, and indeed, the congress that passed the one law that they're able to even point to to try and claim that we're doing something wrong, that is the very congress that did affirmative action for african americans in 1866. reconstruction congress, which set up the bureau in so many other things that benefited african americans.
came when someone challenged the world water challenge dogmao and said there's a better way.s and that's what our universitys should encourageshou instead of just one point of view, which i think dr dr.. was guily of. well, we all know how conservatives are treatevesd college campuses around the country. diversity, equit divey and die, as they call it. what is your reaction that.y >> well, let me let me answerred by responding to reverend sharpton. now that i i've read his comments and he, of course, is entitled to to his opinion, his man. >> america is not perfecerfectt but we are good like every other civilization every. o america caught the disease of slavery, but we beat it . ck and we're proud of that >> and since then, we passed civil rights laws in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1960, 1964, 1968,
does not bar them from running for office. and it does not bar them from being elected to office. it just burns them from holding office. what you do you make of that distinction? >> well, it's word salad. it's nonsense. it's a miss reading of section three of a 14th amendment. without a doubt. you mentioned earlier, when you are talking to professor tribe that the supreme court ought to be, i don't know, doing its homework or something. so why not? let's give them some homework. they obviously or their clerks, i hope, our reading all the great debates of the winter and spring of 1866 when the 14th amendment was debated. incredible debates. these were men reinventing a constitution and fighting like hell over it. they can also start by reading
here, and first of all i have to say, as a historian reconstruction, there are a lot of those who study this, and i am by no means the only so-called expert. but it's like section three is risen from the dead. it was just gone. nobody ever cared about. nobody ever read it. not every time i turn on the news i read the paper. i'm seeing the full text of it. thank god for this constitutional education. but again, that came out of first what was known as the joint committee on reconstruction, a group of 15 members of congress brought together in the winter of 1866 to assess, okay, what has this civil where rot, and what should we do about reconstruction? and that led to the debates of how to fashion an amendment in various parts that would begin to put the union back together and define just who these freed
sense, she is dead right on the text of the law. and another thing people should understand is that section three of the 14th, about anyone engaging an insurrection, is part of an omnibus bill. it's a great omnibus bill that was debated for months in 1866 on the floor of congress. it was about birthright citizenship, equality before law, the right to vote, although that was couched in cutting a states representation if they denied the right to vote. then it was barring people from holding office who engaged in insurrection, and the fourth part was about denying confederate date by the federal government, saying we're not gonna pay those states debts. all of those bills were complex and complicated and they put them all together for a very large simple purpose, and that is what is going on right now in an unprecedented way. it was to make sure that the confederacy was once and for
>> professor david blight, we are up against the dreaded commercial again. thank you very much for joining us tonight. thank you for giving us our reading assignments about 1866. we will do it before our next class reconvenes here. thank you very much, professor. >> thank you, lawrence. >> coming up, the breaking corruption news of the night is that new jersey senator robert menendez is facing another superseding indictment, this time for bribery involving the government of qatar, after already being accused of bribery involving the government of a chipped. that's next. that's next. i'm feeling better. cough? congestion? all in one and done with new mucinex kickstart. aaaaah! ah! hated that. headache? better. ah! fever? body pain? better now. aaaaah!
they can also start by reading chapter two of the book the second founding. it's called toward equality. it's a single chapter on, how do these parts of the 14th amendment come about? they can read that in 20 minutes. then they can go spend hours on the great debates of 1866. and they should especially learn the speeches by john bingham, it was bingham who voiced that quote i use the other day, put them in terror of their laws. that was bingham, and by the way, bingham was an anti slavery genuine abolitionist republican from eastern ohio. almost over to pittsburgh. he never made it into the senate or ran for the presidency but he's one of the great unsung heroes of american history. he authored section one, and he had a lot to do with author-ing section three of the 14th amendment. and if you're giving me a little time on section three
and the legal filing says, it does not bar them from running for office. and it does not bar them from being elected to office. it just bars them from holding office. what you do you make of that distinction? >> well, it's word salad. it's nonsense. it's a misreading of section three of the 14th amendment. without a doubt. you mentioned earlier, when you are talking to professor tribe that the supreme court ought to be, i don't know, doing its homework or something. so why not? let's give them some homework. they obviously or their clerks, i hope, are reading all the great debates of the winter and spring of 1866 when the 14th amendment was debated. incredible debates. these were men reinventing a constitution and fighting like hell over it.
office. now, if indeed his lawyers can win in court on the definition of section three of the 14th amendment, then it is as if we are going back and erasing the very reason it was put there in the first place, which, to the radical republicans who wrote it, the original republicans, in 1866, they were trying to prevent a new slave power. a new organized attempt to create a slave holding republic. they were trying to prevent a new confederacy of some kind that would come out of the south if they were not afraid of the law. and above all, john bingham wanted, out of this 14th amendment, in this is what he called it, he said he wanted to federalize the bill of rights.