VI. THE SEQUENCE OF RECONSTRUCTION MATTERS
A careful executive review should examine the Reconstruction settlement in the order it was created.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 preceded the Fourteenth Amendment. It was enacted by Congress, vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, enacted over that veto, and became federal law before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.
That sequence is constitutionally significant.
The Reconstruction Amendments did not arise in isolation. They emerged within an existing legislative framework that Congress had already established to implement the constitutional settlement following the Civil War.
Accordingly, a faithful executive review should begin by examining the Reconstruction statutes in the sequence in which they were enacted, together with the historical record explaining their purpose, operation, and intended constitutional effect.
This memorandum does not ask the Executive Branch to prejudge the outcome of that examination. Rather, it respectfully recommends that the President direct a comprehensive legal review beginning with the Reconstruction statutes themselves, followed by the constitutional amendments that complemented and reinforced them.
Such an approach reflects a fundamental principle of constitutional administration: to understand a legal framework, one should first examine its original enactments before evaluating the subsequent constitutional provisions that incorporated, strengthened, or protected them.
By following the historical sequence established by Congress, the Executive Branch will be better positioned to determine whether any constitutional or statutory responsibilities remain capable of lawful execution today.
The recommendation is therefore one of constitutional method, not constitutional innovation. It asks only that the Executive faithfully examine the Reconstruction framework in the order the Nation itself created it.