Fourteen Amendment

The fourteenth amendment provides a definition of a citizen of The United States. The fourteenth amendment was adopted on July 9, 1868 shortly after the Union victory in the American Civil War. It was adopted as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. It has many different clauses. The fourteenth amendment was adopted as one of the longest amendments to the Constitution with a total of five different parts. The Citizenship clause, Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause are some of the clauses. The Citizenship clause is the first section in the fourteenth amendment.

The Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving people of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights. The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. The fourteenth amendment states that all people 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.

The fourteenth amendment provides that all state will provide equal protection to everyone within their jurisdiction. In addition, the fourteenth amendment gave people of different minorities a whole new sense of hope and inspired them in many different ways. Congress passed the fourteenth amendment not knowing how it would affect people of different minorities. In 1868, when the amendment was passed, people of different minorities were treated with disrespect and incivility from the white culture.

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The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was passed by both houses of congress. The stated purpose of the fourteenth amendment was to grant citizenship and to protect and define the civil rights of freed slaves. The Amendment was designed to prohibit state governments from curtailing the rights of former slaves after the Civil War; however it has been used to grant all of the personal liberties and rights conveyed in the Bill of Rights. Moreover, section one defines citizenship and protects a person civil and political rights from being denied by any state.

Section one was formed in response to the “Black Code” that southern starts had passed in the beginning of the thirteenth amendment, which removed slavery from the United States. The Citizenship Clause can also be known as the Naturalization Clause. The Citizenship Clause refers the first sentence of section one in the fourteenth amendment. The clause showed how congress decided to reverse it so that African Americans could then vote, become citizens of the United States, and also enjoy any of the other privileges that citizens got.

Although, the fourteenth amendment does not provide any procedures from removing someone privileges as being a citizen of The United States. The citizenship clause is what overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling stating that blacks could not be citizens. Loss of citizenship can happen when there is fraud in the naturalization process. Also, decades after the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, the Supreme Court got rid of laws saying that blacks could not be in juries. The Supreme Court found the laws to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. The Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving people of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. The Due Process Clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. Furthermore, the first section of the amendment includes four main parts. First, anyone born in American is guaranteed full American citizenship.

Second, no state can take away any of its residents of the full privileges of American citizenship. Third, all citizens are guaranteed "due process of law," which means that states cannot pass unfair laws. Fourth, all citizens are guaranteed equal protection of the laws, which means that states cannot discriminate against any citizens. The second section says, “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 umber of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. ” The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment repealed the three-fifths clause (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3) of the original Constitution. This section also guaranteed that all male citizens over age 21, no matter their race, had a right to vote.

In the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment made it impossible for the president to allow the former leaders of the Confederacy to regain power within the United States government after regaining full citizenship rights. The fourth section banned any form of payment to former slaveholders for the loss of their slaves. The fifth section states that congress will have the power to enforce all the provisions of the article.

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