David R. Upham, St. Thomas University, has posted The "Black and Tan Conventions," Diverse Originalism, and the Fourteenth Amendment
This essay will highlight the contributions of the biracial "Black and Tan Conventions" that drafted state constitutions pursuant to the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. I make the following conclusions: (1) that the work of these Conventions was necessary to the making of the Fourteenth Amendment, (2) that this work provides critical, if not dispositive, evidence as to that Amendment’s original meaning—especially as to what the Amendment did not prohibit—and (3) that members of the bench, bar, and academy have unjustly neglected this contribution—a neglect that has become a deafening silence among those advocating racial diversity or originalism, and the combination thereof as “diverse originalism.”--Dan Ernst