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Born Equal

Remaking America's Constitution, 1840–1920

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Born Equal

By: Akhil Reed Amar
Narrated by: Keval Shah, John Mulaney
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About this listen

 From America’s foremost constitutional scholar, the definitive history of how the ideal of birth equality reshaped the American Constitution, from antebellum debates over slavery and secession, to the Civil War and emancipation, to women’s suffrage

In 1840, millions of Black Americans groaned in the chains of slavery. By 1920, millions of American men and women of every race had won the vote.

In Born Equal, the prizewinning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across these eight decades, when four glorious amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of race or gender. At the heart of this era was the epic and ever-evolving idea that all Americans are created equal. The promise of birth equality sat at the base of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. But in the nineteenth century, remarkable American women and men—especially Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln—elaborated a new vision of what this ideal demanded. Their debates played out from Seneca Falls to the halls of Congress, from Bloody Kansas to Gettysburg, from Ford’s Theater to the White House gates, ultimately transforming the nation and the world.

An ambitious narrative history and a penetrating work of legal and political analysis, Born Equal is a vital new portrait of America’s winding road toward equality. Law Military Political Science Politics & Government Suffrage US Constitution War Abraham Lincoln

Critic Reviews

“Akhil Reed Amar is one of our most prodigious constitutional scholars, one of our finest teachers, and, as if that were not enough, a writer of stunning grace and power. Born Equal is a masterpiece—and one that could not be better timed, as we struggle yet again to define and deliver the American promise of equality. Essential reading.”—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of King: A Life

“A deep dive into the words that shaped and sharpened the American nation's fundamental founding principle of equality and equity under law, Born Equal is required reading for anyone seeking to understand, interpret, and apply the United States constitution today.”

—Edward J. Larson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History and author of Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters

“With deep conviction and engaging narrative flair, Amar weaves a fascinating constitutional history of a nation challenged to fulfill the promise that all were born equal. Amar asks the reader to think with him—perhaps even to argue—about the crucial nineteenth century constitutional struggles over the meaning of America.”

—Mary Sarah Bilder, Bancroft Prize–winning author of Madison's Hand

“This inspired and inspiring book combines in-depth scholarly research and analysis, original insights, and captivating stories to present a compelling view of our Constitution as designed to secure full and equal rights for all Americans. It should galvanize all readers—from Supreme Court Justices to school students—to do whatever we can to turn these founding ideals into present-day realities.”

—Nadine Strossen, New York Law School, former president of the ACLU
“Akhil Reed Amar is the most accomplished scholar of his age cohort in both law and history because he writes superb books like Born Equal, which will change the minds of everyone across the political spectrum from Federalist Society members to Bernie Sanders leftists. The history told in this book goes to the very core of what it means to be an American citizen and to understanding our Constitution. Amar knows, that for all our faults, the United States is, as President Ronald Reagan called it, ‘A Shining City on a Hill.’ This book brilliantly proves that Ronald Reagan was right! Born Equal is one of the most important books ever written.”—Steven Gow Calabresi, Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
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