TODAY IN HISTORY: A Very Significant Amendment

I know. The mere mention of Constitutional Amendments automatically sends most of us for the snooze button. But this one is different.

On July 9, 1868, the state of South Carolina ratified the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing the necessary three-fourths of the states to adopt this very significant Amendment as part of the law of the land. One of the "Reconstruction Amendments" ratified in the wake of the Civil War, it had far-reaching consequences in American history, touching o