The 14th Amendment

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.

As noted in the discussion of the 13^th Amendment it took our politicians 60 years to find reason to amend the US Constitution between the 12^th and 13^th Amendment.  The purpose of the 13^th was to remove or limit the rights of the several states to manage the society within their territory and therein increase the role of the central government.  The 14^th Amendment carries this notion further.

Flush with the “thrill of victory” and the survival of the US following a long and costly Civil War the Congress set out to make sure the conditions that set us at each other’s throats were addressed in this amendment, and while they were at it, make sure those who had waged the insurrection, or loaned them money, didn’t come looking for the North to pay the bills.

The ratification took about three years once it went to the states but by 1868 it was approved by 28 of the 37 states and became the law of the land.  So, what does it do? 

Frankly, it does a whole lot and is the basis for much litigation including such milestone cases as Dred Scott v Sanford (1857) that said slaves were not citizens and therefore did not have the rights of a free person, Plessy v Ferguson (1896) that allowed “separate, but equal,” Brown v Board of Education, (1954), that overturned “separate but equal,” Roe v Wade, (1973) limiting a state’s right to prevent abortion, and United States v Windsor (2013) overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) with regards to same-sex marriage.

Let’s start with the next to last clause, since it should be the easiest to understand. 

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.

We had just ended the war, the soldiers who survived and the families of those who hadn’t wanted assurances they would be paid for their sacrifices.  The framers of the amendment made sure there would be no back peddling on this issue.  At the same time, they were not about to assume the debts of the southern states who succeeded and began the war with the firing on Fort Sumter.  Today, we see little about this clause, but in the 18oo’s, following the war, this was a big deal.

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.

Clearly, politicians being politicians didn’t want to see the same folks who started the ruckus returned by their constituents to the same seats they held prior to the war.  This clause prevented that, and made room for the northern carpet baggers to gain control of southern politics for a time.  But as in all things political, they gave themselves some wiggle room in allowing themselves to say by a 2/3 vote of both houses that some of the rebellious politicians might be okay, and could be welcome back into the fold.

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.

This clause rescinded the compromise reached in the original Constitutional Convention where the delegates assigned a 3/5 value to slaves held by the slave owners (primarily in the South, but at the time there were some Northern owners as well).  This compromise was reached to address the concerns of states like South Carolina who had a significantly smaller free population than many of the other states like Virginia and Massachusetts.  

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.

Finally, we come to the most important clause in the Amendment.  The clause that is at the heart of almost all the litigation that reaches the Supreme Court regarding the equal protection and due process protections of the Constitution and how the states and federal government attempt to subvert those basic safeguards.

For example, in Roe v Wade (1973), Texas argued it was exercising its duty to protect the life of the fetus when it established the laws dealing with abortion.  Those on the other side said the fetus was not a living being and the life of the mother took precedent.  The court sided with the plaintiffs, saying there was no universal standard as to when life began but at the time the first trimester was chosen as the point before which the mother and her physician could make a determination as to what was best for the mother.  Those favoring abortion have greatly extended the point of determination, up to the third trimester when a fetus is clearly viable outside the womb.  We seemed to have lost sight of this original court decision.

More recently, the case of United States v Windsor (2013) saw a sympathetic Solicitor General choose not to defend the DOMA, and the Congress hire a lawyer to fill the role of the Solicitor General.  In its decision, the Supreme Court of the United States found DOMA (which defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman) did not provide equal protection and afford the affected same-sex couples with the appropriate   due process safeguards.  It over turned the DOMA in its entirety.  

Then, of course we have a whole spate of civil rights cases dealing with the protections of the African-American population and the systemic discrimination they have been subject to.  Depending on the court make up, and the social pressures of the day we have seen the court take contrary positions on several of the cases.

The 14^th Amendment is probably one of the most important changes this nation made in how it would treat ALL its citizens, but it has also shown that writing nice words on a paper is a far cry from achieving equality, for it can’t change the nature of its citizens, that only comes through a change in the moral values of the larger community.