“The Northern Man and His Corporations, the Southern Man and His Slaves”: Revisiting the Conspiracy Theory of the Fourteenth Amendment

by Evelyn Atkinson

The “conspiracy theory” of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has haunted legal scholarship for over a hundred years, has a basis in fact: for John A. Bingham and other advocates of corporate citizenship, the rights of corporations were as deserving of protection as the rights of Black Americans.

The Civil War and Reconstruction Amendments’ Effects on Citizenship and Migration

by Anna O. Law

In defining US national citizenship for the first time, the Reconstruction Amendments produced contradictory effects for European immigrants, African Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Native Americans for their citizenship rights, mobility, and ability to remain in the place of their choice.