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Lepore: Reconstruction amendments were a constitutional settlement after the Civil War
Summary
Jill Lepore told the Concord audience that the 13th–15th Amendments formed a constitutional settlement after the Civil War and altered the Constitution’s moral and legal framework, enabling subsequent reform movements.
Lepore described the post–Civil War period as a moment when constitutional amendment served as the mechanism for political settlement. She recounted that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments followed the Civil War’s upheaval and said they made constitutional change available to moral reform movements that followed.
She contrasted that settlement with the antebellum years in which slavery made amendment politically infeasible, noting tactics such as gag rules in Congress that suppressed abolitionist petitions. Lepore used these episodes to illustrate how political context shapes whether amendment is a practical tool for change.
