Simone Lawson
The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868, addressed several constitutional inadequacies. The amendment was designed to extend liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people, guaranteeing equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. It also aimed to address issues affecting freed slaves following the American Civil War, including granting citizenship to All persons born or naturalized in the United States, thereby granting citizenship to those previously enslaved. The Fourteenth Amendment is considered one of the most consequential amendments, with its provisions frequently litigated in landmark Supreme Court cases.
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What You'll Learn
Citizenship rights
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which was adopted in 1868, addressed several constitutional inadequacies, particularly regarding citizenship rights and the civil rights of African Americans. Here is a detailed overview of how the 14th Amendment strengthened and expanded citizenship rights:
Overturning the Dred Scott Decision
Before the 14th Amendment, the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857 had You may want to see also The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868, as part of the Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. The amendment addresses many aspects of citizenship and the rights of citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment states that "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 provision granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people. The Fourteenth Amendment also includes the following provision: "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". This provision extended the right to due process of law and equal protection of the law to both the federal and state governments. The phrase "equal protection of the laws" is the most commonly used and frequently litigated phrase in the amendment. It has been central to 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). The Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" means that all people within a state's jurisdiction are entitled to equal protection under the law, regardless of race, gender, or any other characteristic. This provision has been crucial in ensuring that all citizens are treated equally and fairly under the law and has been used to challenge discriminatory laws and policies. You may want to see also The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868, addressed several constitutional inadequacies, particularly regarding voting rights. The amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people, granting them citizenship and, by extension, the right to vote. This was a significant step towards racial equality, as it established birthright citizenship and gave voting rights to people of colour, who had previously been denied them. However, the amendment did not explicitly mention women's voting rights, and Representative James G. Blaine defeated proposals for Section 2, which would have based representation on each state's voting population, due to concerns that it would incentivize voting rights for women. This prompted the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which prohibited the denial of voting rights based on sex. The Fourteenth Amendment also provided for a proportionate reduction in a state's representation in the House if it denied the right to vote to its qualified male citizens over 21 years of age. This provision addressed specific discriminations based on race, sex, and age, which were further clarified in subsequent amendments. While the Fourteenth Amendment established the right to vote for formerly enslaved people, it did not address all political rights concerns. Abolitionists like Wendell Phillips considered it a "fatal and total surrender," leading to the Fifteenth Amendment, which explicitly prohibited the government from denying the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been invoked in landmark cases, such as Dunn v. Blumstein (1972), to protect citizens' constitutionally protected right to participate in elections. This clause ensures that all citizens should be treated equally under the law, including in the exercise of their voting rights. You may want to see also
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The Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause addresses the constitutional inadequacy of states depriving individuals of their rights without due process of law. The Due Process Clause states that "no state shall [...] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". This clause has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to provide protections in two main contexts. Firstly, it guarantees procedural due process, meaning that government actors must follow certain procedures before depriving an individual of their protected rights. Secondly, the clause has been construed to protect substantive due process, which holds that there are certain fundamental rights that the government may not infringe upon, even if procedural protections are provided. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been used to protect substantive rights that are not explicitly listed in the Constitution. The Court's decision to protect these unenumerated rights through the Due Process Clause is based on the idea that certain liberties are so important that they cannot be infringed without a compelling reason, regardless of the amount of process given. This interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause has been used to extend the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states, a doctrine known as "incorporation against the states". The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been invoked in numerous high-profile Supreme Court cases, including W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, Gideon v. Wainwright, Griswold v. Connecticut, and McDonald v. Chicago. In the case of Goldberg v. Kelly, the Court found that some governmental benefits, such as welfare benefits, amount to "property" with due process protections. This decision set a precedent for evaluating the procedure for depriving someone of a "new property" right by considering the nature of the right, the adequacy of the procedure, and the burdens that other procedures would impose on the state. The Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause has been interpreted to provide protections similar to those of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. While the Fifth Amendment applies only to federal government actions, the Fourteenth Amendment binds the states. This distinction is important because, prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, individuals seeking to protect their rights from state governments had to rely on state constitutions and laws. The Fourteenth Amendment addressed this inadequacy by providing federal protection of individual rights against state interference. You may want to see also The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution was a significant step towards ensuring that all people born or naturalised in the country were guaranteed equal protection under the law. This amendment addressed constitutional inadequacies that had allowed for the denial of civil rights to African Americans, particularly those who had been enslaved, and their descendants. One of the key provisions of the 14th Amendment is the Citizenship Clause, which states that "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 clause granted citizenship to former slaves and ensured that their civil rights could not be denied based on their race or colour. The 14th Amendment also includes the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which states that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of US citizens." This clause was intended to prevent states from enacting laws that would discriminate against citizens based on race or deny them their fundamental rights, such as the You may want to see also The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. It addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law at all levels of government. The 14th Amendment was a response to issues affecting freed slaves following the American Civil War. It was designed to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. It also extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people. The 14th Amendment changed a portion of Article I, Section 2. It also overruled the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that African Americans could not become citizens.The First Amendment: A Historical Addition to the Constitution
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