Andrew J. Rogers

Radical Republicans believed that a constitutional amendment was needed in order to guarantee citizenship and equality to former slaves. In response to these concerns, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction—a fifteen-member committee established by Congress in December 1865 to study conditions in the South and offer suggestions for reconstruction bills—began to draft the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866. Not surprisingly, many Democrats opposed the latest step in Radical Reconstruction. New Jersey Democrat Andrew J. Rogers—a minority member of the Joint Committee—states his opposition to the amendment in the following viewpoint. In his speech before Congress, Rogers argues that the U.S. Constitution does not allow the federal government to rule on the validity of state laws. He also asserts that state governments have the right to ban interracial marriages, segregate schools, and...