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Amendment XIV Section 1. Section 2. Section 3. Section 4. Section 5. New York Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government, and did not restrict state legislatures. Its long history of litigation traces the struggle for civil and legal rights for all Americans. 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.
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 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. The 14th Amendment to the U. It also upheld the national debt, but exempted federal and state governments from paying any debts incurred by the former Confederate states.
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.
In creating the Civil Rights Act of , 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 —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.
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 , 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 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, , Louisiana and South Carolina voted to ratify the 14th Amendment, making up the necessary three-fourths majority. The opening sentence of Section One of the 14th Amendment defined U. 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. 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.
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