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22 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 273 (1987)
No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights

handle is hein.journals/hcrcl22 and id is 279 raw text is: RECENT PUBLICATIONS No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights. By Michael Kent Curtis. Durham, North Caro- lina: Duke University Press, 1986. Pp. 275. $24.95 cloth. In Dred Scott v. Sandford,' the United States Supreme Court held that blacks were not citizens of the United States and were not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and im- munities guaranteed to citizens under the Constitution. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Republican members of Congress embarked on an ambitious campaign to remedy this deplorable state of affairs (pp. 36-37). Having seen the thirteenth amend- ment abolishing slavery ratified by the states in 1865, the Re- publican-controlled Congress sought to overrule Dred Scott by granting the former slaves federal citizenship (and its attendant privileges and immunities) through the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Still, many Republicans were not content to leave these newly-created rights to the caprice of future congresses certain to include considerable southern representation. As a condition for readmission to the union, then, Republicans sought to re- quire the southern states to ratify a constitutionalized version of the Civil Rights Act: the fourteenth amendment (ch. 2).2 In the 120 years since ratification, the question of whether the amendment's provisions incorporated the entire federal Bill of Rights and applied it against the states has defied resolution. Supreme Court decisions applying the Bill of Rights to the states have typically embodied changing notions of federalism, but have rarely relied on legislative history. Thus, in recent decades the Court has selectively incorporated major portions of the Bill I 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857). 2 Section 1 of the fourteenth amendment redefined United States citizenship to extend to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. The amendment further prohibits states from enacting laws which abridge the privileges and immunities of United States citizens, deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, or deny any citizen equal protection of the laws. U.S. Const., amend. XIV, § 1.

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