Matthew J. Hegreness

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An Organic Law Theory of the Fourteenth Amendment: The Northwest Ordinance as the Source of Rights, Privileges, and Immunities

120 Yale L.J. 1820 (2011).  Since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, judges and scholars have struggled to coherently identify the rights, privileges, and immunities that no state should abridge. Debates over the ambit of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, have consistently overlooked a crucial source that defines the fundamental civil liberties of American citizens. The Northwest Ordinance of...