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The 14 th Amendment is widely known as the Reconstruction Amend-ment that affirmed racial diversity in the United States after the Civil War. In modern American history, the 14 th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause has been used as a legal mechanism to apply the Bill of Rights to the states. Cer-tain Supreme Court justices, legal histo-rians, and other academics have panned it as a revolutionary amendment that the Framers of the Constitution would not approve of. However, on September 24, Michael Zuckert, the Nancy R. Dreux Professor of Political Science at the Uni-versity of Notre Dame, emphasized that the 14 th Amendment is not as radical as it is made out to be.

It was altogether fitting for Dr. Zuckert to lecture in front of Nari Ward’s “We the People,” a piece of art in the Payne Room of the Tang that spells out of the first words of the Declaration of Independence with thousands of multi-colored shoelaces. Zuckert’s assertion of contextual conservatism of the 14 th Amendment against a multicultural back-drop created a lively juxtaposition of scholarship and history.

Dr. Zuckert painted a broad picture, explaining the relationships be-tween some of the most famous Found-ing Fathers and Framers of the Constitu-tion, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madi-

son. He then narrowed his focus on James Madison, the famously introvert-ed bookworm from Virginia. At the Constitutional Convention, Madison wanted to see a strong government that empowered the Executive to act while sanctioning the Legislative to work on the behalf of the people. Zuckert pro-ceeded cautiously, saying that the Con-stitution was well-framed but did not contain the two things that Madison wanted to see most: neutrality vís a vís competing interests within government and a restrained government that did not encroach on individual rights. He asserts that, because Madison’s two “desiderata” were not taken into consid-eration, the Constitution was not com-pleted until the 14 th amendment was ratified.

Special attention was given to the dominant political culture of the time. The Constitution did not bind states to protect individual rights, so states could intrude in that sphere with-out any serious fear of institutional re-percussions. Dr. Zuckert finished his lecture by saying that the ratification of the 14 th amendment was a conservative revolution: the American political sys-

tem was democratized along the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Finally, he emphasized that the ratification of the 14 th amendment not only completed Madison’s view of what the Constitu-tion should be, but protected the citi-zenry from the encroachment of state power.

After the captivating lecture, Dr. Zuckert and a select group of pro-fessors and students from the Govern-ment Department continued the con-versation at the Surrey Inn over dinner. We had the chance to debrief over a delicious dinner and to discuss every-thing from the current presidential cam-paign season, to the upcoming meeting of the UN general assembly, and the new season of Modern Family. Dinner was followed by a question and answer session mediated by Professor Jennifer Delton of the History Department. Stu-dents and professors asked questions that were not answered during the lec-ture. Everyone who attended was ap-preciative of Dr. Zuckert’s lecture and the fine night of wisdom he imparted on Skidmore.

Photos by Andrzej Pilarczyk