essay on the 14th amendment

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14th Amendment

By: History.com Editors

Updated: December 20, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” One of three amendments passed during the Reconstruction era to abolish slavery and establish civil and legal rights for Black Americans, it became the basis for many landmark Supreme Court decisions over the years.

In its later sections, the 14th Amendment authorized the federal government to punish states that violated or abridged their citizens’ right to vote by proportionally reducing the states’ representation in Congress, and mandated that anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States could not hold civil, military or elected office (without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate).

It also upheld the national debt, but exempted federal and state governments from paying any debts incurred by the former Confederate states.

Reconstruction

Abraham Lincoln ’s assassination in April 1865 left his successor, President Andrew Johnson , to preside over the complex process of incorporating former Confederate states back into the Union after the Civil War and establishing former enslaved people as free and equal citizens.

Johnson, a Democrat (and former slaveholder) from Tennessee , supported emancipation, but he differed greatly from the Republican-controlled Congress in his view of how Reconstruction should proceed. Johnson showed relative leniency toward the former Confederate states as they were reintroduced into the Union.

But many northerners were outraged when the newly elected southern state legislatures—largely dominated by former Confederate leaders—enacted black codes , which were repressive laws that strictly regulated the behavior of Black citizens and effectively kept them dependent on white planters.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

In creating the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Congress was using the authority given it to enforce the newly ratified 13th Amendment , which abolished slavery, and protect the rights of Black Americans.

Johnson vetoed the bill, and though Congress successfully overrode his veto and made it into law in April 1866—the first time in history that Congress overrode a presidential veto of a major bill—even some Republicans thought another amendment was necessary to provide firm constitutional grounds for the new legislation.

Thaddeus Stevens

In late April, Representative Thaddeus Stevens introduced a plan that combined several different legislative proposals (civil rights for Black people, how to apportion representatives in Congress, punitive measures against the former Confederate States of America and repudiation of Confederate war debt), into a single constitutional amendment. After the House and Senate both voted on the amendment by June 1866, it was submitted to the states for ratification.

President Johnson made clear his opposition to the 14th Amendment as it made its way through the ratification process, but Congressional elections in late 1866 gave Republicans veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate.

Southern states also resisted, but Congress required them to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments as a condition of regaining representation in Congress, and the ongoing presence of the Union Army in the former Confederate states ensured their compliance.

On July 9, 1868, Louisiana and South Carolina voted to ratify the 14th Amendment, making up the necessary three-fourths majority .

Section One: 14th Amendment

The opening sentence of Section One of the 14th Amendment defined U.S. citizenship: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

This clearly repudiated the Supreme Court’s notorious 1857 Dred Scott decision , in which Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that a Black man, even if born free, could not claim rights of citizenship under the federal constitution.

Section One's next clause was: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” This greatly expanded the civil and legal rights of all American citizens by protecting them from infringement by the states as well as by the federal government.

The third clause, “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law,” expanded the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to apply to the states as well as the federal government.

Over time, the Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to guarantee a wide array of rights against infringement by the states, including those enumerated in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, right to bear arms, etc.) as well as the right to privacy and other fundamental rights not mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution .

Finally, the “equal protection clause” (“nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”) was clearly intended to stop state governments from discriminating against Black Americans, and over the years would play a key role in many landmark civil rights cases.

Section Two: 14th Amendment

Section Two of the 14th Amendment repealed the three-fifths clause (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3) of the original Constitution, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning congressional representation. With slavery outlawed by the 13th Amendment, this clarified that all residents, regardless of race, should be counted as one whole person. This section also guaranteed that all male citizens over age 21, no matter their race, had a right to vote.

Southern states continued to deny Black men the right to vote using a collection of state and local statutes during the  Jim Crow era. Subsequent amendments to the Constitution granted women the right to vote and lowered the legal voting age to 18.

Section Three: 14th Amendment

Section Three of the amendment, gave Congress the authority to bar public officials, who took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, from holding office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the Constitution. The intent was to prevent the president from allowing former leaders of the Confederacy to regain power within the U.S. government after securing a presidential pardon. It states that a two-thirds majority vote in Congress is required to allow public officials who had engaged in rebellion to regain the rights of American citizenship and hold government or military office.

It states that: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

Section Four: 14th Amendment

Section Four of the 14th Amendment states that the "validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." Historians believe the clause was intended to ensure the federal government would not repudiate its debts, as some former Confederate states had done.

It also prohibited payment of any debt owed to the defunct Confederate States of America and banned any payments to former enslavers as compensation for the loss of human "property" (enslaved people).

Section Five: 14th Amendment

The fifth and final section of the 14th Amendment (“Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article”) echoed a similar enforcement clause in the 13th Amendment.

In giving Congress power to pass laws to safeguard the sweeping provisions of Section One, in particular, the 14th Amendment effectively altered the balance of power between the federal and state governments in the United States.

Nearly a century later, Congress used this authority to pass landmark civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 .

Impact of the 14th Amendment

In its early decisions involving the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court often limited the application of its protections on a state and local level.

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court ruled that racially segregated public facilities did not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, a decision that would help establish infamous Jim Crow laws throughout the South for decades to come.

But beginning in the 1920s, the Supreme Court increasingly applied the protections of the 14th Amendment on the state and local level. Ruling on appeal in the 1925 case Gitlow v. New York , the Court stated that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment protected the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech from infringement by the state as well as the federal government.

And in its famous 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education , the Supreme Court overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson , ruling that segregated public schools did in fact violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

In other landmark rulings, the Supreme Court has cited the 14th Amendment in cases involving the use of contraception (1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut ), interracial marriage (1967’s Loving v. Virginia ), abortion (1973’s Roe v. Wade ), a highly contested presidential election (2000’s Bush v. Gore ), gun rights (2010’s McDonald v. Chicago ) and same-sex marriage (2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges ).

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Amendment XIV, Constitution Center . Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography ( New York : Random House, 2005). Fourteenth Amendment, HarpWeek . 10 Huge Supreme Court Cases About the 14th Amendment, Constitution Center .

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The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868. The amendment granted citizenship to those born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteed freedom, due process, and equal protection under the law to all Americans. In doing so, it expanded the scope of the Constitution’s protection of individual liberty; now the Constitution protected rights not only from infringement by the federal government, but from infringement by state and local government as well.

The Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification generated some controversy for a time, particularly from legal scholars of the South who claimed that the amendment was invalid because of its ratification process. Despite withdrawing their approval of the amendment, two states (Ohio and New Jersey) were counted as ratifiers of the amendment. Aware of this difficulty, Secretary of State Seward waited until Alabama and Georgia had additionally ratified before officially certifying the Fourteenth Amendment on July 28. Southerners still argued that the amendment was invalid, however, because the beaten southern states, then ruled by federal military commissions, were forced to ratify the amendment in order to regain their full legal status.

Since the 1860s,  all of the originally dissenting states have approved the Fourteenth Amendment, putting to rest any question of its legal status. A number of landmark Supreme Court cases have relied on Section 1’s provisions for due process, equal protection, and privileges and immunities for all U.S. citizens.

Below is a collection of resources recognizing this important piece of American law. Browse these resources or jump from section to section by clicking the links below:

Full text of the Fourteenth Amendment

Relevant supreme court cases from the first amendment library.

Selected online resources

Commentary and articles from JMC fellows

Amendment XIV Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Explore the 14th Amendment at NCC’s Interactive Constitution >>

From JMC’s First Amendment Library:

Gitlow v. New York (1925)

Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government, and did not restrict state legislatures. In Gitlow , the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment extended the freedom of speech and press provisions in the Bill of Rights to apply to the individual states. During the first Red Scare in the wake of World War I, Benjamin Gitlow was charged under New York’s “Anarchy Law of 1902” for publishing a “Left Wing Manifesto” in a socialist newspaper. The court upheld Gitlow’s conviction, with vigorous dissents from Justice Brandeis and Justice Holmes, but in doing so ruled that the case fell under federal authority.

Read more about Gitlow v. New York >>

Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)

In Cantwell v. Connecticut , the Court applied the Free Exercise Clause to state and local government for the first time. Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, constitutional rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights, applied only to the federal government. In the Cantwell decision, the Free Exercise clause from the First Amendment was “incorporated” into the Court’s understanding of the protections guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against both federal and state authority.

Read more about Cantwell v. Connecticut >>

Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

The Court examined whether a New Jersey law allowing reimbursements to parents who sent their children on buses operated by the public transportation system to public and private schools, including parochial Catholic schools, was indirect aid to religion and thus a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the law was constitutional, because the transportation reimbursements were provided to all students regardless of religion. Also, the reimbursements were made directly to parents and not to any religious institution. This case also applied the Establishment Clause to the actions of state governments.

Read more about Everson v. Board of Education >>

Selected Online Resources

Selected online resources on the Fourteenth Amendment:

National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution

The National Constitution Center offers a collection of introductory essays by top liberal and conservative legal scholars that give overviews of each clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as agreed upon by both authors, as well as separate brief statements of these scholars’ disagreements about the meaning of each clause.

Visit NCC’s Interactive Constitution >>

The Library of Congress Web Guide to the Fourteenth Amendment

The Library of Congress has amassed a variety of resources on the Fourteenth Amendment, including primary documents from the time of ratification and related exhibitions and websites.

Explore the Library of Congress web guide >>

Harper’s Weekly Resources on the Fourteenth Amendment

Harper’s Weekly was one of the most widely read journals during the Civil War era. HarpWeek , an organization that has indexed all of Harper’s Weekly , has a webpage devoted to the journal’s coverage of the Fourteenth Amendment. The primary source materials on the site are include editorials, stories, illustrations, cartoons, as well as documents from key political and military figures of the time. Additionally, HarpWeek has added an annotated timeline, biographical sketches, and a glossary of terms.

Visit the HarpWeek Fourteenth Amendment page >>

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution

The Heritage Foundation’s Guide to the Constitution includes scholarly essays on each component of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Explore Heritage’s essays on the Fourteenth Amendment >>

* If you are a JMC fellow who’s published on the Fourteenth Amendment or its history and controversies, and would like your work included here, send it to us at [email protected] . 

Commentary and articles from JMC fellows:

The Impact of the Fourteenth Amendment

Rogers Smith, “Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and 2008.” ( University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 11, 2009)

Keith E. Whittington (co-author), American Constitutionalism: Powers, Rights, and Liberties . (Oxford University Press, 2014) TEXTBOOK

Keith E. Whittington, “Congress Before the Lochner Court.” ( Boston University Law Review 85.3, 2005)

Michael Zuckert, “Congressional Power under the Fourteenth Amendment.” ( Constitutional Commentary 3.123, 1986)

Michael Zuckert, “The Fourteenth Amendment.” ( Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia , Greenwood Press, 2005)

Reconstruction

Keith E. Whittington, “The Road Not Taken: Dred Scott, Constitutional Law, and Political Questions.” ( Journal of Politics 63.2, 2001)

Incorporation

George Thomas, “The Riddle of the Fourteenth Amendment: A Reply to Professor Wildenthal.” ( Ohio State Law Journal 68, 2007)

The Equal Protection Clause

Rogers Smith, “Equal Protection Remedies: The Errors of Liberal Ways and Means.” ( Journal of Political Philosophy 1.3, 1993)

The Due Process Clause and Privileges or Immunities Clause

George Thomas, “Who’s Afraid of Original Meaning?” ( Policy Review , Hoover Institution, December 2010 & January 2011)

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14th Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment addresses many aspects of citizenship and the rights of citizens. The most commonly used -- and frequently litigated -- phrase in the amendment is " equal protection of the laws ", which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases, including Brown v. Board of Education (racial discrimination), Roe v. Wade (reproductive rights), Bush v. Gore (election recounts), Reed v. Reed (gender discrimination), and University of California v. Bakke (racial quotas in education). See more ...

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Amendment xiv.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age , and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

wex resources

Privileges and Immunities Clause

Civil Rights

Slaughterhouse Cases

Due Process

Substantive Due Process

Right of Privacy: Personal Autonomy

Territorial Jurisdiction

Equal Protection

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Plyer v. Doe (1982)

Enforcement Power

Commerce Clause

The Fourteenth Amendment and Incorporation

The Bill of Rights originally applied only to the national government. Given the concerns about centralized power shared by Federalist and Anti-Federalists alike, this is no surprise. Federalist arguments for strong national power always presupposed strong power in states as well. Tellingly, all the states who proposed any amendments at all suggested the principle of the Tenth Amendment: if the Constitution does not give the national government a certain power, that power is kept by the states and the people. The idea that a distant national government knew better than the people of each individual state what kinds of laws that state should have would have been puzzling to most people during the Founding era and for the first century of the republic.

Not long after the amendment was ratified, its Due Process Clause became the subject of scrutiny. What did it mean for a state to deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process of law? What was “liberty”? What was “due process”?

The Supreme Court building of the United States.

The Supreme Court would begin to tackle these questions. In the case of U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court held that the First Amendment right to freely assemble and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms did not apply to state governments. States could limit these rights without violating the Fourteenth Amendment.

Over the next seventy-five years, the Court’s use of the Fourteenth Amendment increased. It used the Due Process clause to strike down many state laws and to incorporate parts of the Bill of Rights.

In the process of using its power to bring the states under the provisions of the Bill of Rights, several Supreme Court justices wondered how far incorporation should go. In 1937, Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote that the Court was “selectively incorporating” rights it considered “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” These fundamental rights, Cardozo added, included only those “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

Justice Benjamin Cardozo

Cardozo’s words, unfortunately, give little guidance for determining what rights are fundamental. The most famous debate on incorporation was waged between Justices Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter. Dissenting in  Adamson v. California  (1947), Black supported “total incorporation,” the idea that every provision of the Bill of Rights applies to the states. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Black argued, protects the life, liberty and property of Americans, and the most complete expression of American liberty is found in the Bill of Rights.

Black argued: “The words ‘No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ seem an eminently reasonable way of expressing the idea that henceforth the Bill of Rights shall apply to the states.”

But of course, the Fourteenth Amendment does not say that the Bill of Rights would now apply to the states. Its authors could have written that it would, but they did not. And so the debate raged. Justice Frankfurter argued that the Fourteenth Amendment does not require incorporation of any provision of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, the idea that the Due Process Clause meant the Bill of Rights would apply to the states was expressly rejected by the Court early on. Rather, it requires states to honor principles of “fundamental fairness.” While these principles might overlap with the Bill of Rights, they are not inevitably connected. In  Rochin v. California  (1952), Frankfurter argued that the Court should indeed apply the Bill of Rights when actions taken by a state “shock the conscience.”

Black retorted that Frankfurter’s flexible philosophy “must inevitably imperil all the individual liberty safeguards” found in the Bill of Rights.

Incorporation increased the Supreme Court’s power to define rights, and changed the meaning of the Bill of Rights from a series of limits on government power to a set of rights belonging to the individual and guaranteed by the federal government. With incorporation, the Supreme Court became busier and more influential.

The effect of the Fourteenth Amendment may or may not have been anticipated by its authors or the generation that ratified it. Some historians say that the post-Civil War amendments so fundamentally altered the Constitution that the time period was, in effect, a revolution and a new Founding. Looking back over the American history you have studied so far, and your knowledge of constitutional principles as the Founders understood them, what do you think?

The individual liberty safeguards in the Bill of Rights go beyond a list of rights. Individuals have natural rights that are not listed in the Bill of Rights. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments make clear that rights and powers not listed remain with the people. One consequence of incorporation has been for the Court to seemingly place more value on those individual rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights than those natural rights which are not listed. The Founders had worried that future generations might think that listing some rights would cause people to think that the others were less important. This worry was one reason the Federalists had opposed adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment was among the amendments added in 1791 for that reason.

As the Supreme Court’s responsibilities increased along with the legal protections afforded American citizens, the federal government has become larger, especially since 1900. The federal government has expanded in regard to business regulation in the early 1900s, New Deal programs (1930s), military strength during World War II, anti-poverty Great Society programs (1960s), environmental regulation and education (1970s), the war on drugs (1980s), health entitlements (1990s), education (2000s), and a mandate for individuals to buy health insurance in the 2010s.

Justice Felix Frankfurter

During the same period, state governments have also expanded. All this growth in local, state, and federal activities has extended the Supreme Court’s reach as the number of possible conflicts involving the law has risen.

Related Content

The Bill of Rights, setting limitations on Congress, originally applied only to the national government. In the effort to protect individual rights of the freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. It differs from every previous amendment because it limits what state governments may do. Over the next seventy-five years, the Court’s use of the Fourteenth Amendment increased. It used the Due Process clause in that amendment to strike down many state laws and to selectively incorporate parts of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment so as to make them apply to states as well as the federal government. This practice, known as “incorporation,” increased the Supreme Court’s power to define rights for the entire Union, and reduced the power of the states as compared to federal power. It also reduced the power of Congress as opposed to the Supreme Court, to define which rights are properly constitutional. This changed the meaning of the Bill of Rights from a series of limits on government power to a set of rights belonging to the individual and guaranteed by the federal government.

Milestone Documents

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)

Citation: The House Joint Resolution Proposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, June 16, 1866; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1999; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog

View Transcript

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people.

Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.

Another equally important provision was the statement that “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the federal and state governments.

On June 16, 1866, the House Joint Resolution proposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states. On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and became part of the supreme law of the land.

Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, the primary author of the first section of the 14th Amendment, intended that the amendment also nationalize the Bill of Rights by making it binding upon the states. When introducing the amendment, Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan specifically stated that the privileges and immunities clause would extend to the states “the personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments.” Historians disagree on how widely Bingham's and Howard's views were shared at the time in the Congress, or across the country in general. No one in Congress explicitly contradicted their view of the amendment, but only a few members said anything at all about its meaning on this issue. For many years, the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment did not extend the Bill of Rights to the states.

Not only did the 14th Amendment fail to extend the Bill of Rights to the states; it also failed to protect the rights of Black citizens. A legacy of Reconstruction was the determined struggle of Black and White citizens to make the promise of the 14th Amendment a reality. Citizens petitioned and initiated court cases, Congress enacted legislation, and the executive branch attempted to enforce measures that would guard all citizens’ rights. While these citizens did not succeed in empowering the 14th Amendment during Reconstruction, they effectively articulated arguments and offered dissenting opinions that would be the basis for change in the 20th century.

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AMENDMENT XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution Essay

Introduction.

• Interpretation of the 14th amendment

Affirmative action

This amendment was approved on July 1868. The amendment contained two important clauses that marked the history of Civil rights movement in the US. These are the Equal protection clause and the Due Process clause.

The former guaranteed equal protection of the law while the latter protected individuals from deprivation of life, liberty and property by the state without the due process of law. This article looks into the various interpretations given to the Fourteenth Amendment, limitations to its applications and the affirmative action.

Interpretation of the 14 th amendment

The problem that faced the court was in determining what could qualify as equal protection. The first attempt to interpret the Equal protection clause was made in the infamous case of Plessy Vs Ferguson (1896) , which advocated for racial segregation. Justice Brown was concerned with the reasonableness of the clause.

He argued that when the court is reviewing state legislation it should consider regulation of public order and the tradition or custom of the people. “In short, the Court created a very lenient standard when reviewing state legislation: If a statute promotes order or can be characterized as a tradition or custom… the statute meets the requirements of the clause” (Peter, 1998, Par 3).

In Brown Vs Board of Education (1954) however, the Equal Protection clause was given a new meaning. Justice Earl Warren found that segregated facilities did not amount to equal protection in law. He stated:

“…the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others…are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” (Brown Vs Board of Education, 1954).

Hernandez v. Texas (1954) the Court found that the Equal Protection clause to apply to not only whites and blacks but also other races and ethnic groups. Among these, other races were the Mexican-Americans. Since Brown case, women and illegitimate children have been included in the Equal Protection Clause.

“The Supreme Court accepted the concept of distinction by class, that is, between “white” and Hispanic, and found that when laws produce unreasonable and different treatment on such a basis, the constitutional guarantee of equal protection is violated” (Carl 1982. Par.2).

The Due Process Clause was not only meant to protect basic procedural rights but also substantive rights. In the case of Gitlow Vs New York (1925) , protection of press from abridgement by the legislature was held to be some of the fundamental freedoms protected by the ‘due process’ clause of the fourteenth Amendment from infringement by the state. Here it was dealing with the substantive rights incorporated in the bill of rights.

However, the decision in Muller Vs Oregon (1908), showed that the state could restrict working hours of women if doing so was in their best interest. This decision was made in due regard to the physical health of a woman. It was held that the physical role of women in childbirth and their social role in the society is an issue of public interest permitting the state to regulate their working hours notwithstanding the ‘due process’ clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Even though it offered a starting point, the Fourteenth Amendment was seen not to be enough to curb discrimination and racial segregation. More positive measures were needed to protect minority groups in the US.

“Affirmative Action refers to a set of practices undertaken… to go beyond non-discrimination, with the goal of actively improving the economic status of minorities and women with regard to employment, education, and business ownership and growth” (Holzer & Neumark 2005, Par. 1).

Affirmative Action was first introduced by President John F. Kennedy in the 1961 Executive Order 10925. Thereafter, several more orders were passed to deal with discrimination in employment. Other laws dealing with equal protection were subsequently enacted to outlaw discrimination such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Title II of the Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations while title IV prohibited race and sex discrimination in employment.

Courts too have joined hands in the fight. For example in Davis vs. Bakke (1978) , where the court found that Bakke had been denied equal protection of the law by the University of California by being refused admission in the school even though his grades were better than the minority’s admitted. This was done in line with a two-track admission system for blacks and whites. Even thought the decision overruled the affirmative action policy, it was viewed as a victory to proponents of affirmative action because it was a fight against racial segregation.

Affirmative action-together with anti-discrimination laws and legislation-has rendered rights of minority groups in the labor market as well as public academic institutions more apparent. Therefore we cannot bow to the critics propositions that affirmative action promotes discrimination and racism.

“Laws barring race- or sex-conscious behavior in hiring, promotions, and discharges are likely to undermine not only explicit forms of Affirmative Action, but also any prohibitions of discrimination that rely on disparate impact analyses for their enforcement” (Holzer and Neumark, 2006, Par, 11).

The Fourteenth amendment has been classified as the most far-reaching amendment in the history of the US constitution especially to the minority groups. “The Fourteenth Amendment itself was the fruit of a necessary and wise solution for a comparable problem” (Howard 2000).

It came at a time when civil rights movements were at the peak and has contributed significantly to the redemption of minority from past discriminatory activities. It created awareness to the whole world on the injustices of racial segregation and prompted the public to take corrective measures, which have no doubt yielded a lot of success.

Brown V Board of Education. (1945). Massive Resistance” to Integration . Web.

Carl. V. (1982). Allsup, Hernandez V state of Texas . Texas. Texas State Historical Association.

Gitlow V. New York . (2011). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.

Holzer H. and Neumark D. (2006). Journal of Policy Analysis and Management: Affirmative Action: What do we know? Published by Urban Institute.

Howard. N.M. (2000). The Amendment that Refused to Die: Equality and Justice Deferred: The History of the Fourteenth Amendment. Madison Books.

Peter, M. (1998). Princeton university law Journals: Past and future of Affirmative action Volume I. Issue 2 Springs. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 10). The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-fourteenth-amendment-to-the-us-constitution/

"The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution." IvyPanda , 10 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-fourteenth-amendment-to-the-us-constitution/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution'. 10 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution." October 10, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-fourteenth-amendment-to-the-us-constitution/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution." October 10, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-fourteenth-amendment-to-the-us-constitution/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution." October 10, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-fourteenth-amendment-to-the-us-constitution/.

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The first amendment, historic document, speech introducing the fourteenth amendment (1866).

Thaddeus Stevens | 1866

On May 8, 1866, Thaddeus Stevens delivered this speech introducing the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The leader of the Radical Republicans in the House, Stevens was a lawyer, politician, and staunch abolitionist.  As a politician in Pennsylvania, he supported free public education and suffrage for African Americans.  He also offered his home as a stop on the Underground Railroad.  As a leader in Congress, Stevens fought to end slavery and promote civil rights and racial equality.  He served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction and chaired the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.  In this speech, Stevens called on his colleagues to support the proposed Fourteenth Amendment—arguing that it would help to bring about legal equality for African Americans.  However, he also urged colleagues to remember the crimes of the Confederacy.

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The short time allowed by our resolution will suffice to introduce this debate. . . .

The [members of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction] are not ignorant of the fact that there has been some impatience at the delay in making this report . . . .

But I beg gentlemen to consider the magnitude of the task which was imposed upon the committee. They were expected to suggest a plan for rebuilding a shattered nation—a nation which though not dissevered was yet shaken and riven by the gigantic and persistent efforts of six million able and ardent men; of bitter rebels striving through four years of bloody war. It cannot be denied that this terrible struggle sprang from the vicious principles incorporated into the institutions of our country. Our fathers had been compelled to postpone the principles of their great Declaration, and wait for the full establishment till a more propitious time. That time ought to be present now. But the public mind has been educated in error for a century. How difficult in a day to unlearn it. In rebuilding, it is necessary to clear away the rotten and defective portions of the old foundations, and to sink deep and found the repaired edifice upon the firm foundation of eternal justice. If, perchance, the accumulated quicksands render it impossible to reach in every part so firm a basis, then it becomes our duty to drive deep and solid the substituted piles on which to build. It would not be wise to prevent the raising of the structure because some corner of it might be founded upon materials subject to the inevitable laws of mortal decay. It were better to shelter the household and trust to the advancing progress of a higher morality and a purer and more intelligent principle to underpin the defective corner.

I would not for a moment inculcate the idea of surrendering a principle vital to justice. But if full justice could not be obtained at once I would not refuse to do what is possible. The commander of an army who should find his enemy intrenched on impregnable heights would act unwisely if he insisted on marching his troops full in the face of a destructive fire merely to show his courage. Would it not be better to flank the works and march round and round and besiege, and thus secure the surrender of the enemy, though it might cost time? The former course would show valor and folly; the latter moral and physical courage, as well as prudence and wisdom. . . .

Let us now refer to the provisions of the proposed amendment.

The first section, prohibits the States from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or unlawfully depriving them of life, liberty, or property, or of denying to any person within their jurisdiction the “equal” protection of the laws.

I can hardly believe that any person can be found who will not admit that every one of these provisions is just. They are all asserted, in some form or other, in our DECLARATION or organic law. But the Constitution limits only the action of Congress, and is not a limitation on the States. This amendment supplies that defect, and allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States, so far that the law which, operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all. Whatever law punishes a white man for a crime shall punish the black man precisely in the same way and to the same degree. Whatever law protects the white man shall afford “equal” protection to the black man. Whatever means of redress is afforded to one shall be afforded to all. Whatever law allows the white man to testify in court shall allow the man of color to do the same. These are great advantages over their present codes. Now different degrees of punishment are inflicted, not on account of the magnitude of the crime, but according to the color of their skin. Now color disqualifies a man from testifying in courts, or being tried in the same way as white men. I need not enumerate these partial and oppressive laws. Unless the Constitution should restrain them, those States will all, I fear, keep up this discrimination and crush to death the hated freedmen. Some answer, “Your civil rights bill [the Civil Rights Act of 1866] secures the same things.” That is partly true, but a law is repealable by a majority. And I need hardly say that the first time that the South with their copperhead allies obtain the command of Congress it will be repealed. The veto of the President and their votes on the bill are conclusive evidence of that. And yet I am amazed and alarmed at the impatience of certain well-meaning Republicans at the exclusion of the rebel States until the Constitution shall be so amended as to restrain their despotic desires. This amendment once adopted cannot be annulled without two thirds of Congress. That they will hardly get. And yet certain of our distinguished friends propose to admit State after State before this becomes a part of the Constitution. What madness! Is their judgment misled by their kindness; or are they unconsciously drifting into the haven of power at the other end of the avenue? I do not suspect it, but others will.

The second section I consider the most important in the article. It fixes the basis of representation in Congress. If any State shall exclude any of her adult male citizens from the elective franchise, or abridge that right, she shall forfeit her right to representation in the same proportion. The effect of this provision will be either to compel the States to grant universal suffrage or so to shear them of their power as to keep them forever in a hopeless minority in the national Government, both legislative and executive. If they do not enfranchise the freedmen, it will give to the rebel States but thirty-seven Representatives. Thus short of their power, they would soon become restive. Southern pride would not long brook a hopeless minority. True it will take two, three, possibly five years before they conquer their prejudices sufficiently to allow their late slaves to become their equals at the polls. That short delay would not be injurious. In the meantime, the freedmen would become more enlightened, and more fit to discharge the high duties of their new condition. In that time, too, the loyal Congress could mature their laws and so amend the Constitution as to secure the rights of every human being and render disunion impossible. Heaven forbid that the southern states, or any one of them, should be represented by this floor until such monuments of freedom are built high and firm. Against our will they have been absent for four bloody years; against our will they must not come back until we are ready to receive them. Do not tell me that there are loyal representatives waiting for admission—until their States are loyal they can have no standing here. They would merely misrepresent their constituents. . . .

The third section may encounter more difference of opinion here. Among the people I believe it will be the most popular of all the provisions; it prohibits rebels from voting for members of Congress and electors of President until 1870. My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. I know that there is a morbid sensibility, sometimes called mercy, which affects a few of all classes, from the priest to the clown, which has more sympathy for the murderer on the gallows than for his victim. I hope I have a heart as capable of feeling for human woe as others. I have long since wished that capital punishment were abolished. But I never dreamed that all punishment could be dispensed with in human society. . . .

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Arizona Republic reporters read the 14th Amendment

On June 19, 2022, President Joe Biden, by executive order, made this day a federal holiday. Juneteenth, as it’s commonly called, marks the day when U.S. troops entered Galveston, Texas in 1865 to free people who were still suffering enslavement. This is despite the fact that slavery had officially ended two and a half years prior.

The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. 

Juneteenth is considered America's second independence day. 

In honor of that, we here on The Gaggle present to you a reading of the 14th Amendment. This amendment grants citizenship to all persons either born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people. The amendment also provides equal protection under law. 

Here to read the Amendment are staff and reporters of The Arizona Republic.

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The Legal Landmark: Mapp V. Ohio Unraveled

This essay about Mapp v. Ohio explores the landmark Supreme Court case that established the exclusionary rule, prohibiting the use of evidence obtained through unconstitutional searches and seizures in state criminal proceedings. It outlines the origins of the case, the legal arguments presented, and the eventual ruling’s far-reaching implications for civil liberties and law enforcement practices. The summary underscores the enduring significance of Mapp v. Ohio in shaping Fourth Amendment jurisprudence and safeguarding individuals’ constitutional rights against governmental overreach.

How it works

In the annals of American legal history, few cases resonate as loudly as Mapp v. Ohio. This landmark decision, handed down by the Supreme Court in 1961, fundamentally altered the landscape of criminal procedure and forever changed the way law enforcement operates in the United States.

At its core, Mapp v. Ohio centered around the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The case originated with the search of Dollree Mapp’s home in Cleveland, Ohio, by police officers looking for a bombing suspect.

Although the suspect was not found, the officers discovered obscene materials during their search, leading to Mapp’s arrest and conviction for possession of pornography.

Mapp’s legal team, led by renowned attorney Charles S. Wilkins, challenged the constitutionality of the search, arguing that the evidence obtained by the police should be inadmissible in court because it was obtained through an illegal search and seizure. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where the justices were tasked with determining whether the exclusionary rule, which prohibits the use of illegally obtained evidence in criminal trials, should be applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.

In a landmark 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mapp, holding that the exclusionary rule does indeed apply to the states. Writing for the majority, Justice Tom C. Clark declared that “all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by [the Fourth Amendment], inadmissible in a state court.” This ruling not only overturned Mapp’s conviction but also established the exclusionary rule as a constitutional mandate, ensuring that evidence obtained through unconstitutional means could not be used against defendants in state criminal proceedings.

The impact of Mapp v. Ohio cannot be overstated. By extending the exclusionary rule to the states, the Supreme Court bolstered the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment and curtailed the power of law enforcement to conduct warrantless searches and seizures. The decision marked a significant victory for civil liberties advocates and reinforced the principle that the ends do not justify the means in the pursuit of justice.

In the decades since Mapp v. Ohio was decided, its legacy has endured. The case continues to serve as a cornerstone of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, shaping the parameters of police conduct and the rights of individuals in encounters with law enforcement. Moreover, it stands as a testament to the enduring importance of safeguarding constitutional principles in the face of governmental overreach.

In conclusion, Mapp v. Ohio stands as a testament to the enduring power of the Constitution to protect the rights of individuals against government intrusion. By establishing the exclusionary rule as a constitutional mandate, the Supreme Court ensured that the Fourth Amendment’s protections would extend to the states, safeguarding the liberties of all Americans. As we reflect on this landmark decision, we are reminded of the vital role that the judiciary plays in upholding the rule of law and defending the rights enshrined in our Constitution.

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