What do you think?
Rate this book
Inventing Equality: Reconstructing the Constitution in the Aftermath of the Civil War
On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood in front of a crowd in Rochester, New York, and asked, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" The audience had invited him to speak on the day celebrating freedom, and had expected him to offer a hopeful message about America; instead, he'd offered back to them their own hypocrisy. How could the Constitution defend both freedom and slavery? How could it celebrate liberty with one hand while withdrawing it with another? Theirs was a country which promoted and even celebrated inequality.
From the very beginning, American history can be seen as a battle to reconcile the large gap between America's stated ideals and the reality of its republic. Its struggle is not one of steady progress toward greater freedom and equality, but rather for every step forward there is a step taken in a different direction. In Inventing Equality, Michael Bellesiles traces the evolution of the battle for true equality - the stories of those fighting forward, to expand the working definition of what it means to be an American citizen - from the Revolution through the late 19th century.
He identifies the systemic flaws in the Constitution, and explores through the role of the Supreme Court and three Constitutional amendments - the 13th, 14th, and 15th - the ways in which equality and inequality waxed and waned over the decades.
From the very beginning, American history can be seen as a battle to reconcile the large gap between America's stated ideals and the reality of its republic. Its struggle is not one of steady progress toward greater freedom and equality, but rather for every step forward there is a step taken in a different direction. In Inventing Equality, Michael Bellesiles traces the evolution of the battle for true equality - the stories of those fighting forward, to expand the working definition of what it means to be an American citizen - from the Revolution through the late 19th century.
He identifies the systemic flaws in the Constitution, and explores through the role of the Supreme Court and three Constitutional amendments - the 13th, 14th, and 15th - the ways in which equality and inequality waxed and waned over the decades.
Audible Audio
Published November 24, 2020
6 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 15, 2020
I'm not sure what I expected from this book, but in the end I found it somewhat disappointing and conventional. Though there's a very good chapter of the abandonment of southern Blacks in 1877 + the Supreme Court's gutting of the Reconstruction amendments, Bellesiles often uses a very strange definition of "equality," insisting that during the Civil War the majority of Americans believed in racial equality, something which, given the racism of both regions of the country both during and after the war, is absurd on its face. (Since Bellesiles takes Lincoln tipping his cap to a Black man as evidence of his assertion, I think it's safe to say that the "equality" he sees was superficial at best.)
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.
August 21, 2020
This book will change how you see race, the constitution, and equality. One of those wonderful history books that challenges your assumptions about the past, and also the present. A particularly essential read right now, as the US grapples with racism and how our ongoing Black Lives Matter protests are part of a longer legacy.
May 22, 2021
This book does a good job covering the rise and fall of equality in Civil War-era America. There are a pair of chapters covering pre-Civil War America, in which Bellesiles argues equality was a largely meaningful, though often invoked, word in which people were always comfortable denying rights to those on bottom, and if anything that was becoming more common.
Then came the Civil War and all the havoc and social change it wrought - and part of that social change was an actual focus on equality. Freeing the slaves became a key goal of the war, and once it was over, that gain needed to be protected, which caused the Amendments to pass. #13 obviously abolished slavery, but to ensure the gains were preserved, Republican leader felt it was imperative to spell out those rights and what they entailed. Then led to Amendments #14 (which created national citizenship, said citizens must have equal rights, and the federal government could defend those rights), and #15 (giving the right to vote to black Americans).
Bellesiles does a nice job talking not only about race, but also gender, which is a key theme in this book. Suffragettes and abolitionists had been united before the war, but they split apart as many suffragettes were upset that Amendment #15 didn't apply to them. Some openly argued that women deserved the vote first because they were smarter than black people.
Maybe the best part if Bellesiles showing how the Supreme Court almost immediately gutted the amendments, turning 13 & 15 into fossils, and using #14 to aid the rich, even though that was clearly not the point of it. Cruikshank is one such infamous case. The US v. Reese in 1876 killed enforcement of the 15th Amendment. The Supreme Court in 1883 nullified the 1875 Civli Rights Act. Santa Clara v. South Pacific paved the way for how the Court would see Amendment #14. Hodges v. the US in 1906 even negated the government's ability to protect contract rights for freedmenn. By 1890, the GOP in Congress made their last effort to look after black rights. In 1885, Carl Schurz toured the South and viewed early segregation efforts favorably. 20 years earlier, he'd been horrified by the white supremacy he saw there. Such was a sign of how the nation had changed.
It's a very good book, but Bellesiles argues beyond himself sometimes. He argues that rising inequality was the tide of America before the Civil War, even though the vote was expanded. (True, obviously not to all people, but to some. Seems like it's all or nothing for Bellesiles). Similarly, he denounced an abolitionist who didn't want to include the right for women to vote in the 1860s, saying "one question at a time." Bellesiles says this guy missed the point - but mostly he's just asserting it. It's like because the auhor thinks they should've pushed for women's rights at the same time they pushed for black rights, therefore it should've happpened. Also, here's a minor nitpick: he puts Plessy v. Ferguson in 1893, which is off by a few years.
Overall, a very good book, but with some issues.
Then came the Civil War and all the havoc and social change it wrought - and part of that social change was an actual focus on equality. Freeing the slaves became a key goal of the war, and once it was over, that gain needed to be protected, which caused the Amendments to pass. #13 obviously abolished slavery, but to ensure the gains were preserved, Republican leader felt it was imperative to spell out those rights and what they entailed. Then led to Amendments #14 (which created national citizenship, said citizens must have equal rights, and the federal government could defend those rights), and #15 (giving the right to vote to black Americans).
Bellesiles does a nice job talking not only about race, but also gender, which is a key theme in this book. Suffragettes and abolitionists had been united before the war, but they split apart as many suffragettes were upset that Amendment #15 didn't apply to them. Some openly argued that women deserved the vote first because they were smarter than black people.
Maybe the best part if Bellesiles showing how the Supreme Court almost immediately gutted the amendments, turning 13 & 15 into fossils, and using #14 to aid the rich, even though that was clearly not the point of it. Cruikshank is one such infamous case. The US v. Reese in 1876 killed enforcement of the 15th Amendment. The Supreme Court in 1883 nullified the 1875 Civli Rights Act. Santa Clara v. South Pacific paved the way for how the Court would see Amendment #14. Hodges v. the US in 1906 even negated the government's ability to protect contract rights for freedmenn. By 1890, the GOP in Congress made their last effort to look after black rights. In 1885, Carl Schurz toured the South and viewed early segregation efforts favorably. 20 years earlier, he'd been horrified by the white supremacy he saw there. Such was a sign of how the nation had changed.
It's a very good book, but Bellesiles argues beyond himself sometimes. He argues that rising inequality was the tide of America before the Civil War, even though the vote was expanded. (True, obviously not to all people, but to some. Seems like it's all or nothing for Bellesiles). Similarly, he denounced an abolitionist who didn't want to include the right for women to vote in the 1860s, saying "one question at a time." Bellesiles says this guy missed the point - but mostly he's just asserting it. It's like because the auhor thinks they should've pushed for women's rights at the same time they pushed for black rights, therefore it should've happpened. Also, here's a minor nitpick: he puts Plessy v. Ferguson in 1893, which is off by a few years.
Overall, a very good book, but with some issues.
June 6, 2020
Michael A. Bellesiles (October 2020). Inventing Equality: Reconstructing the Constitution in the aftermath of the Civil War. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Inventing Equality is a frustrating book to read, not due to the author’s writing, but to the subject matter. The publisher highlights the author’s focus on the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments; the author additionally explores in depth the priorities of the American public and the political parties that evolved over time to address their needs. While never made explicit, the description of actions by Democrats, Republicans, Supreme Court justices, and Presidents supports the argument that relatively little has changed in the years since the Reconstruction era. The same political machinations keep grinding away to limit identifiable aspects of a democratically based government. To present, as the author does, a spotlight on “inventing equality,” he has created a project with no clear beginning and end, no clear heroes (although the actions of specific individuals at certain points approach our current understanding of equality), and a massive collection of villains.
The author recognizes that any history of equality within the United States must account for the language of the Constitution and its amendments. Bellesiles devotes time to a close examination of the processes that produced the Constitution, although many other texts provide a deeper dive into major themes. The author instead maintains a tight focus on key events surrounding the Civil War, when the stability if not the survival of the United States was under intense challenge. While I have quibbles with a few aspects of later chapters (especially the author’s look at social Darwinism), I recommend the book to the reader who is interested in the Reconstruction period and an important slice of the political intrigues and battles that slowly, all too slowly, expanded the country’s willingness to consider let alone promote equality among citizens. Readers interested in the equality theme will come away informed if their interest is mainly historical (who did what and when).
Inventing Equality is a frustrating book to read, not due to the author’s writing, but to the subject matter. The publisher highlights the author’s focus on the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments; the author additionally explores in depth the priorities of the American public and the political parties that evolved over time to address their needs. While never made explicit, the description of actions by Democrats, Republicans, Supreme Court justices, and Presidents supports the argument that relatively little has changed in the years since the Reconstruction era. The same political machinations keep grinding away to limit identifiable aspects of a democratically based government. To present, as the author does, a spotlight on “inventing equality,” he has created a project with no clear beginning and end, no clear heroes (although the actions of specific individuals at certain points approach our current understanding of equality), and a massive collection of villains.
The author recognizes that any history of equality within the United States must account for the language of the Constitution and its amendments. Bellesiles devotes time to a close examination of the processes that produced the Constitution, although many other texts provide a deeper dive into major themes. The author instead maintains a tight focus on key events surrounding the Civil War, when the stability if not the survival of the United States was under intense challenge. While I have quibbles with a few aspects of later chapters (especially the author’s look at social Darwinism), I recommend the book to the reader who is interested in the Reconstruction period and an important slice of the political intrigues and battles that slowly, all too slowly, expanded the country’s willingness to consider let alone promote equality among citizens. Readers interested in the equality theme will come away informed if their interest is mainly historical (who did what and when).
June 16, 2020
A little history lesson on the focus of this book:
The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery and servitude.
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship born or naturalized in the United States which included slaves and recently freed slaves.
The 15th Amendment gives any US citizen the right to vote regardless of race, color or previous condition to servitude.
Pretty intense ideas? Absolutely and this is the focus on the book and how these concepts have declined and improved throughout the years since their creation. I find this quite relevant to what is happening in the US today with all the protests and the scary riots. I find it disgusting that race is still an issue 200+ years later and that it will continue to be. How can there be equality when there is such injustice and treatment of someone based on their skin.? A person is still a person.
The author obviously did a lot of research for this book. But there is a lot opinions and sensitive subjects throughout this book. There are better books about race and inequality to this but it is nice to see someone tracing racism back to the Constitution. Definitely thought provoking. Just an ok read for me.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Available: 10/20/20
The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery and servitude.
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship born or naturalized in the United States which included slaves and recently freed slaves.
The 15th Amendment gives any US citizen the right to vote regardless of race, color or previous condition to servitude.
Pretty intense ideas? Absolutely and this is the focus on the book and how these concepts have declined and improved throughout the years since their creation. I find this quite relevant to what is happening in the US today with all the protests and the scary riots. I find it disgusting that race is still an issue 200+ years later and that it will continue to be. How can there be equality when there is such injustice and treatment of someone based on their skin.? A person is still a person.
The author obviously did a lot of research for this book. But there is a lot opinions and sensitive subjects throughout this book. There are better books about race and inequality to this but it is nice to see someone tracing racism back to the Constitution. Definitely thought provoking. Just an ok read for me.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Available: 10/20/20
May 20, 2021
While many have argued that the United States is reliving the 1930s with a slide into autocracy, this book makes a good case that we are in fact reliving the 1850s and 1860s.
March 23, 2024
A fast-moving survey of the formation and reception of the Reconstruction amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th). Frequent endnotes. Helpful for someone not too familiar with the Reconstruction era.
July 7, 2021
San Francisco Book Review
Inventing Equality: Reconstructing the Constitution in the Aftermath of the Civil War
This book is at times an anachronistic mess, that I hope is not the future of historical academic writing. Because if it is, then I truly worry about historical writing.
The idea of equality is a modern concept, yet Michael Bellesiles looks at the creation of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, often called the Civil War amendments, in a larger equitable context.
Besides the talk of equality, which would have been foreign to the ears of Americans living in the 1800s, is his use of terms that ring more true in a college campus than society back then.
Bellesiles takes to task the role of women, or more specifically the lack of any role they truly had. He also faults oftentimes the Radical Republicans for not going far enough.
Yet in his search to be modern-day politically correct, he often ignores the fact that many people who wanted to end slavery did not necessarily want them to live equally in America. Many of them supported sending them to Africa, or somewhere else.
This book sadly hides an interesting story with modern-day lingo and ideas that had no place in the 1800s.
Review Kevin Winter
---
much more troubling, was his book from 2000
Arming America - wikipedia
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in the Journal of American History.
Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used fabricated research to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century.
Although the book was initially awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize, it later became the first work for which the prize was rescinded following a decision of Columbia University's Board of Trustees.
---
Emory investigation and resignation
As criticism increased and charges of scholarly misconduct were made, Emory University conducted an internal inquiry into Bellesiles's integrity, appointing an independent investigative committee composed of three leading academic historians from outside Emory.
Bellesiles failed to provide investigators with his research notes, claiming the notes were destroyed in a flood.
In the initial hardcover edition of the book, Bellesiles did not give the total number of probate records which he had investigated, but the following year, after the "flood," Bellesiles included in the paperback edition the claim that he had investigated 11,170 probate records.
"By his own account," writes Hoffer, "the flood had destroyed all but a few loose papers of his data. It was a mystery how supposedly lost original data could reappear to enable him to add the number of cases to the 2001 paperback edition, then disappear once again when the committee of inquiry sought the data from him."
One critic tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy penciled notes on yellow pads by submerging them in his bathtub, in order to prove that water damage would not have destroyed Bellesiles' notes.
The scholarly investigation confirmed that Bellesiles' work had serious flaws, calling into question both its quality and veracity.
The external report on Bellesiles concluded that "every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed" and called his statements in self-defense "prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory." It concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."
Bellesiles disputed these findings, claiming to have followed all scholarly standards and to have corrected all errors of fact known to him.
Nevertheless, with his "reputation in tatters," Bellesiles issued a statement on October 25, 2002, announcing the resignation of his professorship at Emory by year's end.
In 2012 Bellesiles was working as a bartender while continuing to write history.
Inventing Equality: Reconstructing the Constitution in the Aftermath of the Civil War
This book is at times an anachronistic mess, that I hope is not the future of historical academic writing. Because if it is, then I truly worry about historical writing.
The idea of equality is a modern concept, yet Michael Bellesiles looks at the creation of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, often called the Civil War amendments, in a larger equitable context.
Besides the talk of equality, which would have been foreign to the ears of Americans living in the 1800s, is his use of terms that ring more true in a college campus than society back then.
Bellesiles takes to task the role of women, or more specifically the lack of any role they truly had. He also faults oftentimes the Radical Republicans for not going far enough.
Yet in his search to be modern-day politically correct, he often ignores the fact that many people who wanted to end slavery did not necessarily want them to live equally in America. Many of them supported sending them to Africa, or somewhere else.
This book sadly hides an interesting story with modern-day lingo and ideas that had no place in the 1800s.
Review Kevin Winter
---
much more troubling, was his book from 2000
Arming America - wikipedia
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in the Journal of American History.
Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used fabricated research to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century.
Although the book was initially awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize, it later became the first work for which the prize was rescinded following a decision of Columbia University's Board of Trustees.
---
Emory investigation and resignation
As criticism increased and charges of scholarly misconduct were made, Emory University conducted an internal inquiry into Bellesiles's integrity, appointing an independent investigative committee composed of three leading academic historians from outside Emory.
Bellesiles failed to provide investigators with his research notes, claiming the notes were destroyed in a flood.
In the initial hardcover edition of the book, Bellesiles did not give the total number of probate records which he had investigated, but the following year, after the "flood," Bellesiles included in the paperback edition the claim that he had investigated 11,170 probate records.
"By his own account," writes Hoffer, "the flood had destroyed all but a few loose papers of his data. It was a mystery how supposedly lost original data could reappear to enable him to add the number of cases to the 2001 paperback edition, then disappear once again when the committee of inquiry sought the data from him."
One critic tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy penciled notes on yellow pads by submerging them in his bathtub, in order to prove that water damage would not have destroyed Bellesiles' notes.
The scholarly investigation confirmed that Bellesiles' work had serious flaws, calling into question both its quality and veracity.
The external report on Bellesiles concluded that "every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed" and called his statements in self-defense "prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory." It concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."
Bellesiles disputed these findings, claiming to have followed all scholarly standards and to have corrected all errors of fact known to him.
Nevertheless, with his "reputation in tatters," Bellesiles issued a statement on October 25, 2002, announcing the resignation of his professorship at Emory by year's end.
In 2012 Bellesiles was working as a bartender while continuing to write history.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews