Amendment XIV

Amendmet 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 1st section of the Fourteenth Amendment ensures that all US-born individuals, regardless of whether they were slaves before or not, are considered US citizens and they cannot be denied any of their rights as a US citizen.
The 2nd section provides that Blacks (not Native Americans) were to be counted and represented as a whole person, nullifying the 3 fifths clause as it pertained to Blacks. Unfortunately, it did not do so for the Native Americans.
The 3rd section at first prevented from any former
Confederates from holding any kind of office, but shortly after President Grant signed the Amnesty Act of 1872.
The 4th section specifically declares that the US government WOULD NOT repay the South back for war debts during the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War.
The 5th section declares that Congress has to make laws to enforce the amendment.

This amendment backed up the Thirteenth Amendment because whites believed that Blacks and Native Americans were only 3/5 of a human. It also declared that any person who rebelled or supported the rebelling against the US could not hold any kind of office, and stated the US wouldn’t repay the South for their war debts. This protected Blacks from receiving harsh treatment because they were not considered legal citizens of the US. It is rather unfortunate that the US was negligent of the fact that the Native Americans deserved to count for one whole person… this amendment also attempted to keep former Confederates and its’ supporters from holding office for fear that they might prove disloyal to the country. However that effort was sort of contradicted when Pres. Grant signed the Amnesty Act. I think in the end, the greatest part of the amendment was that blacks were counted as a whole person (it sounds ridiculous to even say that).



This is a cartoon of the three-fifths compromise. The 3/5 compromise made slaves legally count as only 3/5 of a person, legalizing whites views of slaves as sub-human. The 14th Amendment nullified this compromise and made former slaves count as a whole citizen. I included this video as a short explanation of what the 14th Amendment protected against.



This is a video that explains why the 14th Amendment is important. It talks about some of the different cases that used the amendment to its own benefit. It briefly describes how the amendment changed the course of America and made history. I felt this video directly related to the 14th Amendment.