Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/82

34 publicly mused about the need for equality as the foundation for government. E.g., 1 Cong. Register 430 (T. Lloyd ed. 1789) (Madison, J.); 1 Letters and Other Writings of James Madison 164 (J. Lippincott ed. 1867); N. Webster, The Revolution in France, in 2 Political Sermons of the Founding Era, 1730–1805, pp. 1236–1299 (1998). As Jefferson declared in his first inaugural address, “the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect.” First Inaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1801), in 8 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 4 (Washington ed. 1854).

Our Nation did not initially live up to the equality principle. The institution of slavery persisted for nearly a century, and the United States Constitution itself included several provisions acknowledging the practice. The period leading up to our second founding brought these flaws into bold relief and encouraged the Nation to finally make good on the equality promise. As Lincoln recognized, the promise of equality extended to all people—including immigrants and blacks whose ancestors had taken no part in the original founding. See Speech at Chicago, Ill. (July 10, 1858), in 2 The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 488–489, 499 (R. Basler ed. 1953). Thus, in Lincoln’s view, “ ‘the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence’ ” extended to blacks as his “‘equal,’” and “‘the equal of every living man.’ ” The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 285 (H. Holzer ed. 1993).

As discussed above, the Fourteenth Amendment reflected that vision, affirming that equality and racial discrimination cannot coexist. Under that Amendment, the color of a person’s skin is irrelevant to that individual’s equal status as a citizen of this Nation. To treat him differently on the basis of such a legally irrelevant trait is therefore a deviation from the equality principle and a constitutional injury.

Of course, even the promise of the second founding took time to materialize. Seeking to perpetuate a segregationist