The Evaluation And Interpretation Of Reconstruction Amendments

Civil war and reconstruction is a very important period of change in American history. After the civil war and reconstruction, the United States maintained its unity and slavery was abolished. Nationalism trended to further strengthen and states’rights were suppressed.these changes broaden the road for the development of industrial capitalism.The manifestation of the social changes in the constitution is the legislation of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendment.The influence of reconstruction amendment is broad,not only confined to the liberation of black slaves, but mostly involved the adjustment of relationship between the federal government and the states.But this article tends to evaluate and interpret the reconstruction amendments only from the perspective of the black liberation.The so-called evaluation is the analysis of the significance of reconstruction amendments. This analysis is mainly from the two angles of entity and procedure.The substantive value of reconstruction amendments,mainly manifested in the normative level,is the re-definition of identity of the black slaves.As a result of the connotation of "we the people" in the constitution was reconstructed. The substantive value is revealed through the comparison between the reconstruction amendments and the previous constitutional clauses,relevant laws and cases. The procedure value of reconstruction amendments mainly reflected in the breakthrough and expansion of the the constitution amending procedure provided in the constitution.To present this value,i will compare the provided constitutional amending procedure with the actual process.Essentially speaking,this part is mainly about how to evaluate the of the tension between constitution norms and social reality. The so-called explanation is to grasp reconstruction amendment on the whole, placing the amendments in its social background and historical development process and revealing the casual relationship.This analysis is mainly from the view of the relation of politics and law.This article is mainly divided into four parts:the first part mainly demonstrates the status of the black slaves before the civil war by analyzing the constitution clauses, relevant laws and cases; The second part analyzes the content of the three reconstruction amendments from the angle of entity. And in this part we will see how the black person gradually transited from slave to citizens, reconstructing the meaning of "we the people"; The third part analyzes the revolutionary significance of reconstruction amendment from the angle of procedure,on the basis of quoting the theory of Bruce Ackerman and then providing a different theoretical explanation; The last part started from quoting a viewpoint of Ackerman that the actual process of amending constitution is the fusion of legal elements and other elements. Then i will interpret the reconstruction amendments from the view of relationship between politics and law.This article begins with evaluation and ends with interpreting.The goal i want to reach in this article is providing a nearly complete and consistent explanation for the content and actual procedure of reconstruction amendment.