Equal Protection Clause Of The 14th Amendment – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—and guarantees 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 notable Supreme Court decisions over the years.
In its later sections, the 14th Amendment authorized the federal government to punish states that violated or abridged the voting rights of their citizens by proportionately reducing the states’ representation in Congress, and charged anyone who “engaged in rebellion” against the United states, may not hold civil, military, or elective office (without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate).
Equal Protection Clause Of The 14th Amendment
It also reaffirmed the national debt, but exempted the federal and state governments from paying any debts incurred by the former Confederate states.
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The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 left his successor, President Andrew Johnson, to lead the complicated process of bringing former Confederate states back into the Union after the Civil War and establishing formerly enslaved people as free and equal citizens.
Johnson, a Democrat (and former slaveholder) from Tennessee, supported emancipation, but differed significantly from the Republican-controlled Congress in his view of how Reconstruction should proceed. Johnson showed relative leniency to the former Confederate states when they were readmitted to the Union.
But many Northerners were outraged when newly elected Southern state legislatures—largely dominated by former Confederate leaders—passed the 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 1866, Congress used the powers granted to it to enforce the recently ratified 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and protected the rights of black Americans.
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Johnson vetoed the bill, and although Congress successfully overrode his veto and passed it into law in April 1866—the first time Congress had overridden a presidential veto of a major bill—even some Republicans believed another amendment was needed to ensure solid constitutional grounds for the new legislation.
In late April, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens introduced a plan that combined several different legislative proposals (civil rights for blacks, how to apportion representatives in Congress, punitive measures against the former Confederate States of America, and the cancellation of the Confederate war debt) into a single constitutional amendment . After the House and Senate voted on the amendment by June 1866, it was submitted to the states for ratification.
President Johnson made it clear that he opposed the 14th Amendment while it was going through the ratification process, but congressional elections in late 1866 gave Republicans veto-power majorities in both the House and the Senate. The Senate.
Southern states also resisted, but Congress required them to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments as a condition of restoring representation in Congress, and the continued presence of the Union Army in the former Confederate states ensured their compliance.
Equality Before The Law. Equal Protection Clause 14 Th Amendment No State Shall Deny To Any Person Within Its Jurisdiction The Equal Protection Of.
On July 9, 1868, Louisiana and South Carolina voted to ratify the 14th Amendment, forming the necessary three-fourths majority.
The first sentence of Section One of the 14th Amendment defines US citizenship: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
This clearly overruled the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, in which Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that a black man, even if born free, could not claim citizenship rights under the federal constitution.
The next clause of Section One was, “No state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” This greatly expanded the civil and legal rights of all American citizens, protecting them from encroachment by the states , as well as by the federal government.
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The Third Clause, “no State shall 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 both the states and the federal government .
Over time, the Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to guarantee a wide range of rights from infringement by states, including those enumerated in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, right to bear arms, etc.) n.) as well as the right to private life and other fundamental rights not mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution.
Finally, the “equal protection clause” (“nor to 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 would play a key role over the years in many landmark civil rights cases.
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 purposes of apportioning representation in Congress. Since slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment, this made it clear that all residents, regardless of race, were to be counted as one person. This section also ensured that all male citizens over the age of 21, regardless of their race, had the right to vote.
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Southern states continued to deny black men the right to vote using a collection of state and local laws during the Jim Crow era. Subsequent constitutional amendments gave women the right to vote and lowered the legal voting age to 18.
Section Three of the Amendment gives Congress the power to bar public officials who have taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution from holding office if they “engage in insurrection or sedition” against the Constitution. The goal was to prevent the president from allowing former Confederate leaders to regain power in the U.S. government after securing a presidential pardon. It states that a two-thirds majority in Congress is required to allow government officials who participated in rebellion to regain the rights of American citizenship and to hold government or military office.
It states that: “No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or an elector for president and vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, in the United States or in any state, which , 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 United States, shall be engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or giving aid or comfort to its enemies.”
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 the payment of pensions and premiums for services in suppressing insurrection or insurrection, shall not be questioned” . Historians believe the clause was intended to ensure that the federal government would not default on its debts, as some former Confederate states had done.
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It also prohibited the payment of any debts owed to the defunct Confederate States of America and prohibited any payments to former enslavers as compensation for the loss of human “property” (enslaved people).
The fifth and final section of the 14th Amendment (“Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article”) repeated a similar enforcement clause in the 13th Amendment.
By giving Congress the power to enact laws to protect the broad provisions of Title One, in particular, the 14th Amendment effectively changed the balance of power between the federal and state governments in the United States.
Almost a century later, Congress used this power to pass landmark civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Due Process Clause
In its early decisions involving the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court often limited the application of its protections to the state and local level.
(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 the South’s infamous Jim Crow laws for decades to come.
But in the early 1920s, the Supreme Court increasingly applied 14th Amendment protections at the state and local level. Decision on appeal in the 1925 case
, the Court stated that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment protects First Amendment free speech rights from infringement by the state as well as the federal government.
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, ruling that segregated public schools did in fact violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
In other notable decisions, the Supreme Court cited the 14th Amendment in cases involving contraceptive use (1965
By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years of age or older and live in the United States. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is just like a similar provision in the Fifth Amendment that only limits the federal government. It states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Usually “due process”
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