Such is the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that some have called it the amendment that "completed the Constitution." When ratified on July 9, 1868, the amendment became one of the legislative cornerstones of the Reconstruction era, an era in which Radical Republicans, led by John A. Bingham and Thaddeus Stevens, enacted a legislative agenda focused on racial equality before the law. Of the laws passed during the Reconstruction era, the Fourteenth Amendment was one of the most controversial, with one Republican congressman, Representative AJ Rogers of New Jersey, stating that it was "...but a another attempt to… consolidate the federal government, by the action of Congress, all the powers claimed by the Tsar of Russia or the Emperor of the French. The Fourteenth Amendment indeed constitutes the greatest expansion of federal power since the ratification of the Constitution. The amendment did not arise from nothing; the reason for this expansion of power, and the amendment as a whole, lies within the broader context of the mid-19th century South and the pervasive oppression of the free black population residing there. Considering the nature of race relations in the South before and after the Civil War, the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment came to believe that nothing short of a radical expansion of the federal government's powers over the states would allow them to " promote the general welfare” and “secure the blessings of liberty” to the African-American population of the United States. In order to fully understand the original intent of the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is necessary to understand its historical context. .... middle of paper ......tution.org/ussc/032-243a.htm. This website was my source for the text of the Barron v. Baltimore, a case John Bingham took into account when crafting the Fourteenth Amendment. Tenbroek, Jacobus. The Antislavery Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951. This source contains a detailed overview of the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment. He also discusses the extent of powers that the framers of the Amendment intended to create. Zuckert, Michael, P. “Completing the Constitution: The Fourteenth Amendment and Constitutional Rights.” Publius 22, no. 2 (1992): 69-91. This source provides an analysis of the Fourteenth Amendment as the culmination of the efforts of the Radical Republican Caucus. It places the amendment in the context of the Thirteenth, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1866.