It has long been common knowledge among modern U.S. historians that the American memory and understanding of the Civil War and Reconstruction was basically taken over and distorted for many years by Southern and white-supremacist sympathizers.
As late as 1977, Raoul Berger (GOVERNMENT BY JUDICIARY) swallowed it whole. I wrote EQUALITY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION (1983) largely in response to him. Bryan, welcome to the select group of Fourteenth Amendment history mavens--Mike, Earl, me, Bill Nelson, anyone else? Judy Baer
