Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America

“Engaging . . . With a novelist’s eye for biographical detail, Epps has written an . . . enthralling book.”—David W. Blight, Chicago Tribune?The last battle of the Civil War wasn’t fought at Appomattox by dashing generals or young soldiers but by middle-aged men in frock coats. Yet it was war all the same—a desperate struggle for the soul and future of the new American Republic that was rising from the ashes of Civil War.? It was the battle that planted the seeds of democracy, under the bland heading “Amendment XIV.” Scholars call it the “Second Constitution.” Over time, the Fourteenth Amendment—which at last provided African Americans with full citizenship and prohibited any state from denying any citizen due process and equal protection under the law—changed almost every detail of our public life.
Democracy Reborn tells the story of this desperate struggle, from the halls of Congress to the bloody streets of Memphis and New Orleans. Both a novelist and a constitutional scholar, Garrett Epps unfolds a powerful story against a panoramic portrait of America on the verge of a new era.