LETTER: To Prof. Eastman

Hey Prof., Shalom!

My sincere apologies for not calling you back last Saturday morning; I was unable to call because of my workshop presentation.

Also, please pardon and indulge this long discourse, but as you know, the matter is ever more crucial to me for obvious reasons.

Some moments arrive when the nation must pause and reflect.

There are moments in the life of a nation when the meaning of its founding promises returns to the center of public life. Such moments are rare, and when they arrive, they test not only the language of our laws but the character of the Republic itself. I believe the question now before the Court may prove to be one of those moments.

I write out of deep concern regarding the upcoming April 1st Supreme Court oral arguments concerning the meaning of the phrase “Any person born…” in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment — the matter popularly referred to as Birthright Citizenship.

The fact that the Court will hear such a case on April 1st — of all days — is striking. Yet the decision expected later this spring may prove to be the most consequential ruling affecting the descendants of American chattel slavery since President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

For the first time in generations, the legal foundation established by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of federal citizenship is again being examined in the highest court of the land.

This moment must be understood within its full historical context.

More than a century and a half ago, the nation endured its greatest trial in order to resolve the contradiction between its founding declaration of liberty and the institution of human bondage.

Today, we stand in a different but related moment, when the constitutional meaning of the citizenship secured by that struggle is again being examined.

It therefore falls to our generation to reflect carefully upon that inheritance and to ensure that the promises born in the crucible of emancipation and Reconstruction are neither forgotten nor diminished.

The Civil War and Reconstruction were not merely historical episodes. They began a constitutional transformation that remains unfinished. In that sense, every American presidency since Lincoln has inherited some responsibility to continue the work of Reconstruction until its promise is fulfilled.

The Department of Justice itself was created during this very struggle.

Established by the Civil Rights Act of 1870, the Department exists in large part to defend the rights and participation of federal citizens, ensuring those rights are protected “as is enjoyed by white citizens,” as declared in Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

The present case, therefore, touches more than technical legal doctrine.
It reaches into the constitutional identity of those whose citizenship was secured through the sacrifice, struggle, and legislation of the Civil War era.

President Lincoln himself recognized this responsibility when he declared in the Emancipation Proclamation, Sentence Two, Section B, that the Executive Government of the United States would:

“recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

Those words carry an enduring implication.

Freedom can be weakened not only through acts of commission but also through acts of omission.
The promise of emancipation was not merely to declare freedom once, but to maintain the conditions in which that freedom could be defended and realized.

The legal architecture that followed — the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Reconstruction Amendments, and the establishment of the Department of Justice — all emerged from that same commitment.

As you know, I have been studying these matters carefully and preparing an Amicus Curiae brief addressing their historical and constitutional implications.

My concern arises not from personal ambition but from civic duty, as one whose citizenship and historical inheritance are directly tied to the Reconstruction amendments and the legal framework that secured them.

Participation in shaping national constitutional understanding has never been limited to attorneys or government officials.

Frederick Douglass was not an attorney.
Neither were Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King Jr., nor the late Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Yet each, in his own time, contributed to the national conversation when the country confronted questions larger than ordinary political debate.

Today, we stand more than 160 years removed from the Civil War amendments, with sufficient historical distance to begin seeing their deeper structural implications.

We are also approaching the 250th anniversary of the United States, a milestone that invites the nation to reflect upon how far its constitutional promise has traveled and how much of that promise remains unfinished.

History occasionally places individuals and institutions in moments larger than themselves.

At times, those moments arise when the nation must again confront the meaning of the promises enshrined in its founding documents and the Reconstruction amendments.

It is not insignificant that within the institutions of our government today sit individuals whose own ancestry traces directly back to the emancipated people whose citizenship the Fourteenth Amendment was written to secure.

That continuity alone speaks volumes about the long arc of the American constitutional journey.

Moments such as these invite reflection not only on the text of law but also on the generations of struggle, faith, sacrifice, and prayer that carried the nation from emancipation to citizenship.

For many descendants of those emancipated Americans, the question before the Court is not an abstract legal theory.
It is tied to identity, sacrifice, and the unfinished promise of Reconstruction.

That is why voices rooted in that historical experience can sometimes offer perspectives that purely academic analysis alone cannot supply.

The passing of Reverend Jesse Jackson also marks the closing of a particular era of civil rights activism.

Another chapter may now be opening — one that invites deeper reflection upon the constitutional architecture of the American experiment itself.

As someone who came of age during the civil rights and Black Power movements of the late 1960s, and who now approaches my 75th “Diamon Jubelee” birthday this Monday, March 9th, I feel a personal responsibility to reflect on these matters and contribute whatever perspective I can.

Professor, my hope is simply that this moment will be approached with the full weight of its historical meaning.

The question before the nation now reaches back through the long road from emancipation to citizenship, and forward into the future of the Republic itself. Moments like this do not come often in the life of a nation.

As the United States approaches its 250th year, we are reminded that the work begun during the trials of the Civil War and Reconstruction still echoes in our present debates.

It would be a worthy thing if this generation could help bring greater clarity and completion to that unfinished chapter of our constitutional story.

I look forward to speaking with you soon and will try to call again shortly.

With respect and gratitude,

Ted Hayes
Your #1 protégé

Agape — Shalom