Legal History Commons^™

Twins At Birth: Civil Rights And The Role Of The Solicitor General, Seth P. Waxman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is painful even today to contemplate the awful devastation wreaked upon this nation by the War Between the States. But like most cataclysms, the Civil War also gave birth to some important positive developments. I would like to talk with you today about two such offspring of that war, and the extent to which, like many sibling pairs, they have influenced each other's development. The first child - the most well-known progeny of the Civil War - was this country's commitment to civil rights. The war, of course, ended slavery. But it did not - and could not - …