Equality in Culture and Law: An Introduction to the Origins and Evolution of the Equal Protection Principle

To set the stage for this symposium on emerging issues in equal protection, this article introduces the reader to the historic cultural and philosophical origins of the notion of equality in western civilization, the antebellum state jurisprudence on equal protection under law, and the evolution of the meaning and use of the equal protection clause from the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the present.