Montana Motor Stables: Neglected Voices

Monday, February 6, 2012

Neglected Voices

Sixteen African-American men served in the United States Congress
during the Reconstruction period.

Many of these people also served as members of the state conventions by which
the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.

Despite their centrality to Reconstruction’s experiment in
multi-racial democracy, they are largely forgotten.

Despite their special perspective on the meaning of the Reconstruction Amendments,
by which basic civil rights and civil liberties are defined and protected in the United States,
their voices are largely ignored in constitutional jurisprudence.

Reproduced here are the speeches they gave in debates of the
Civil Rights Act of 1875
and the
Ku Klux Klan Act.

As a result of the characteristic and admirable generosity of
Eric Foner,
who graciously gave his consent,
biographies of each of the sixteen are hereafter reproduced
from Foner’s invaluable book,
Freedom’s Lawmakers.

Read their words.
They enrich the meanings of liberty and citizenship.