Lost Cause revisionists claim that the Fourteenth Amendment was a hatchet-job, illegally passed, and, therefore, quite unconstitutional. Can you help me answer this charge?
A. Lots of people, for whatever reason (Lost Cause supporters or not) think that the 14th was illegally passed. The surest answer to the charge is that the amendment could have been challenged any time since 1868, and was not. The admitted blackmail that the United States exerted on the former Confederate states to ratify the 14th may have been questionable, but it is undeniable that the states all ratified it. There is also nothing in the Constitution that says that states or the federal government cannot exert pressure on another state to ratify an amendment. Again, the tactics may have been questionable in several cases, but not unconstitutional. One argument is that some states rescinded ratification after they ratified and before full ratification. This has been the subject of some debate, but there has been a general constitutional argument that once a state ratifies an amendment, it cannot be unratified. Some focus on Ohio and New Jersey, which rescinded prior to July 9, 1868, t
