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Bound By Oath by IJ

By: Institute for Justice
  • Summary

  • Bound by Oath is a podcast series from the Center for Judicial Engagement at the Institute for Justice. It’s where the Constitution’s past catches up with the present. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution requires every judge to be “bound by Oath” to uphold “this Constitution.” But to understand if judges are following that oath, it’s important to ask, “What is in ‘this Constitution’?” Your host John Ross takes a deep dive into the Constitution’s text, history, and characters, and interviews historians, legal scholars, and the real people involved in historic and contemporary cases.
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Episodes
  • Before the 14th: John Rock and the Birth of Birthright Citizenship | Episode 1
    Dec 4 2018
    Name just about any modern constitutional controversy—abortion, civil forfeiture, gun rights, immigration, etc.—and chances are that the Fourteenth Amendment is playing a big part. After all, if you are suing a state or local government under the federal constitution, you’re usually making a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. But you can’t fully appreciate the Amendment’s modern significance without delving into its origins. In Episode One, we do just that, but by way of a story you’ve probably never heard before—through the story of a little known American hero named John Rock: It’s February 1, 1865. President Lincoln has just signed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. But a crowd of reporters and onlookers have gathered instead at the Supreme Court to witness John Rock, a Boston attorney, sworn in to the Supreme Court bar. The moment was as dramatic and historic as they come; John Rock was the first African-American admitted to argue cases before the Court, and he was sworn in before some of the very same justices who had ruled just a few years earlier in Dred Scott that blacks could never be citizens. Click here for transcript. Click for iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • The Fight for the 14th | Episode 2
    Dec 19 2018
    At the close of the Civil War, some 4 million slaves became free. But almost immediately after hostilities ceased, leaders in the ex-Confederate states began to impose a series of laws, the Black Codes, that re-instituted slavery in all but name. Just as swiftly, a wave of terrorist violence swept across the South, targeting blacks seeking education, economic independence, and a voice in civic and political life—and also whites with Union sympathies. In Washington, D.C., Republican leaders grappled with another problem: When the Southern states rejoined the Union, they would do so with more political power than they'd enjoyed prior to secession—the consequence of each African-American now counting as five-fifths, rather than three-fifths, of a person. On Episode Two of Bound By Oath, the fight for the 14th Amendment, which nearly plunged the country into war, again. Click here for transcript. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • All But Redacted: The Privileges or Immunities Clause | Episode 3
    Jan 30 2019
    [Click here for Episode 1. And click here for Episode 2.] The Privileges or Immunities Clause was meant to be one of the key liberty-protecting provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Clause says: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” That sounds like a big deal, right? It’s not. The Clause has been virtually read out of the Constitution, and for people trying to vindicate their civil rights in court, it’s been of little practical use. That story—the near redaction of the Clause—begins with the Slaughterhouse Cases, which the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1873. On Episode Three of Bound By Oath: What rights were the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment seeking to protect through the Privileges or Immunities Clause? And what happened to the Clause? Click here for transcript. Click for iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.
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    51 mins

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