[tpaine]

The 14th amendment was a power grab by a very power-hungry Congress.
-nic-


Who benefited, in what, where? Can you give some specifics?
What power did Bingham gain, for instance?

[nicollo]

Who benefited, in what, where? Can you give some specifics? What power did Bingham gain, for instance?

Bingham and the rest of the Republican majority very much gained from it, starting with the oaths of allegiance (especially those not taken) and very much starting with increased Federal powers, which were excercised mightily over the new states that replaced the old ones.

As I stated earlier, we must observe and be grateful for the 14th's extensions and guarantees of the Bill of Rights. We must also beware of the dangers of extensive and enlarged interpretation of it. It leaves me torn and wishing there was another way than the "equal protection of the laws" as it is currently understood, as to embody "fairness" and equality of outcome rather then equality before the law.

I wonder what Abe would have said about it all.

Here's an interesting conundrum presented by the 14th amendment, this from the article, Fair Interpretation

The actual text of the First Amendment — "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — raises the question of how an amendment that speaks only of Congress applies to the Texas school board. The short answer is that the Supreme Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which does apply to state and local governments, as incorporating some of the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights.

This interpretation was not "discovered" by the high court until half a century after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, however, and it was flatly rejected by the court upon reviewing the issue shortly after the Amendment was passed.

Although it may be too late in the day to contest this Incorporation Doctrine, honest scholars must nevertheless concede that the Incorporation Doctrine is at its weakest in the Establishment Clause context. By applying the Establishment Clause to the states, the courts have found implicit in the Fourteenth Amendment the very power to interfere with religion in the states that was explicitly prohibited to the federal government by the First Amendment. A strained reading, at the very least.