Reconstruction is part of our lives even today. Issues that agitate American politics--who is an American citizen and what rights come along with citizenship, the relative powers of the national government and the states, affirmative action, the relationship between political and economic democracy, the proper response to terrorism--are Reconstruction questions. Reconstruction is embedded in our judicial processes. Every session of the Supreme Court adjudicates issues arising from the Fourteenth Amendment and the civil rights legislation of Reconstruction.