In Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920, constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar delivers his analysis of how the United States Constitution has evolved toward greater equality. In the second of his planned three part series on the Constitution, Amar focuses on the march towards greater representative government through a number of amendments related to equal rights and voting rights.
Born Equal starts with the lurches towards Civil War, with sectional conflict around slavery and territorial expansion towards the west driving increased hostility between northerners and southerners. After the Civil War, Amar goes in depth into the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and talks about their impact on American life, albeit briefly in the 19th Century due to state and judicial reversals in various cases. His other major focus was on the march towards women’s suffrage, starting in the 1840’s and continuing through the 19th Amendment's adoption in 1920.
Focusing on several key political characters, Amar offers his strong views on their contributions to American history. He pulls no punches in this book, speaking very highly of Abraham Lincoln and panning many others for not living up to the ideals of the Constitution as he believes the American founders would have wanted it.
His first book, The Words That Made Us, was a more balanced view of constitutional history and our nation’s beginning. Amar’s passion and opinions in Born Equal are more pronounced by comparison. He also breezily glides through the adoption of amendments that bring about federal income tax (16th Amendment), direct representation of senators (17th), and prohibition (18th) without offering substantial commentary on the history of how those amendments came about and impacts on the country. Despite these weak spots, Born Equal is still a good book; however, it felt editorially brief in some areas that have had significant impact on American life to this day.
MY RATING: 4
