"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...

snip
Ummm...trying to remember...didn't the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments
have a few other effects? And wasn't at least certain aspects of
returning power to the states evaluated, oh, between 1861 and 1865?

The 15th amendment may as well have not existed for the first 100 years it
was law.

Justice Thomas has not exactly been the spiritual or intellectual leader
of the Court.

If you take the 14th Amendment as a literal application of the Bill of
Rights imposed on the States, then you have to take the 2nd Amendment that
way as well.