No Easy Walk to Freedom: Reconstruction and the Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and: Neglected Stories: The Constitution and Family Values (review)

l66CIVIL WAR HISTORY nineteenth century. They are fine additions to any Southern, Reconstruction, African American, or Florida history collection. Tracy Jean Revels Wofford College No Easy Walk to Freedom: Reconstruction and the Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. By James E. Bond. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1997. Pp. x, 295. $65.00.) NeglectedStories: The Constitution and Family Values. By Peggy Cooper Davis. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997. Pp. xi, 292. $25.00.) Both of these works discuss the creation and changing interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, this seems to be the last point of agreement between the two. Bond argues that the original intent of the amendment still should bind the judiciary today. He examines the ratification debates in each ofthe former states of the Confederacy, holding that none of these debates suggest that any of those ratifying saw the amendment incorporating the whole Bill of Rights, but rather as granting a much smaller set of property and natural rights. He posits that the amendment was supposed to allow state governments "broad discretion in defining the incidents of the rights which were guaranteed" (10). The work closes with a discussion ofhow the current Supreme Court incorrectly, in Bond's view, incorporates the Bill of Rights. He argues that the best way for the nation to "walk to freedom" would be to repudiate the incorporation doctrine and return large amounts of power to the states in a revitalized system of federalism. However, some areas of Bond's treatise give one pause. For instance, less than one half of the Southern states issued committee reports about the amendment ratification process, so the evidence he uses is sometimes sketchy. In addition , Bond questionably bases a large percentage of his argument on the statements made by those opposed to the amendment. Those who opposed the amendment also thought it would lead to a consolidation of all power at the national level, and, if these opponents were right, as Bond claims they were about incorporation, then it also follows that all power should now be concentrated in Congress, which Bond definitely does not favor. Secondly, the author sometimes unquestioningly accepts as accurate the Southern states' claim that they were treating African Americans fairly after the Civil War. Third, Bond focuses the entire debate on whether or not the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the whole Bill of Rights. However, most, if not all, recent Supreme Court cases have argued for partial incorporation. Thus, Bond seems to be chasing a red herring. This study also focuses on only the Southern states, ignoring what the Northern states and the original framers of the amendment intended. Thus, some reconsideration of the evidence utilized here seems in order. BOOK REVIEWS167 Bond also makes some disquieting arguments. He wholly ignores women's rights in this volume, never articulating how he thinks the Victorian conceptions embodied in this amendment should be reflected in today's society. This work also suggests that a state's creation of segregated but equal schools and miscegenation statutes might be allowable under the "correct" view ofthe Fourteenth Amendment, and that, at the very least, the federal government would not be able to prohibit such actions. Finally, Bond argues that the Supreme Court in the last sixty years has undermined equal protection. One wonders what Rosa Parks would think of those claims. In contrast, Peggy Cooper Davis contends that the key to understanding the amendment is examining its background in slavery, which proves that a wide grant of autonomy in family relations was included in it. In this well-written book, she captivates her audience with both the Supreme Court's treatment of cases that contested strictures on the family and the stories of how slavery denied slaves all rights concerning their families. Her basic treatise is that since slavery completely denied family autonomy to slaves, the Fourteenth Amendment , by granting former slaves the rights that had been denied them, created autonomy for the family to operate. Throughout she also emphasizes individuals ' discrepant convictions concerning family rights. "Whether or not we identify as liberals, we find it hard to be consistently libertarian; whether or not we identify as conservatives, we find that we are conflicted about authoritarian measures...