Republicans vs. the Fourteenth Amendment

David explains why Brexit has not only been a failure but has led to years of political instability in the U.K. in the decade following the British vote to leave the European Union.Then, David is joined by Professor David W. Blight to discuss the blood-soaked aftermath of the Civil War and the stumbling project to bring freedom to the former slaves of the South through the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. David and Blight discuss Trump’s project to gut the Fourteenth Amendment to say that some people born on American soil will no longer be Americans.Finally, David ends the episode with a discussion of 1873 by Liaquat Ahamed. David reflects on the financial crisis of that year and the long price depression that followed.The following is a transcript of the episode:David Frum: Hello, and welcome to The David Frum Show. I’m David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. My guest this week will be David Blight: professor of history at Yale, biographer of Frederick Douglass, and expert on post–Civil War American history. We will be discussing the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed through Congress in June of 1866, and we’ll be talking about what that foundational document tells us about what it means to be an American, who counts as an American, who counted then, who should count now. My book discussion this week will be 1873 by Liaquat Ahamed, an economic history of the crisis of that year, the financial crisis of that year, and of the long deflation that followed and that helped to doom the Reconstruction hopes that are encapsulated in the Fourteenth Amendment.Before either the dialogue or the book discussion, some opening thoughts on another anniversary: that of the British vote to quit the European Union, a vote that was cast 10 years ago this month in June