University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tag: Rogers M. Smith

The Civic Order of Progressive America: The Fitter Families Ideal and the Acquisition and Loss of U.S. Citizenship

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In the first third of the twentieth century, American leaders affiliated with both political parties and the broader Progressive movement restructured the nation’s “legal civic order” to advance a Fitter Families ideal of American citizenship.

The Reconstruction Amendments, American Constitutional Development, and the Quest for Equal Citizenship

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By Rogers M. Smith. If we accept that the Reconstruction Amendments are the central hinge and bridge in American constitutional development, then we must conclude that a quest to secure equal citizenship for all should be taken as the lodestar of the American constitutional project, not just in the past but in the present and future.