Amendment XIV (14)

Amendment XIV

Ratified July 9, 1868

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 the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.


     This amendment was ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War. The 14th amendment made the once slaves, citizens. This amendment also forbids the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons and it guaranteed equal protection and due process. Southern states were forced to ratify this amendment in order to gain representation in Congress. A case that is included in this amendment is Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857. Dred Scott, an African American slave of a surgeon in Wisconsin, moved to Missouri (a free state) was supposed to be given to another master, but Scott said that he should be free. In a 7 to 2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court ruled that Scott could not sue for his freedom because he wasn't a citizen. He further declared that congress had no power to declare slavery, this was illegal in the west. This decision is now regarded as the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court.


     I chose this media post because it shows the fight versus pro-life and pro-choice which goes with a very important case, Roe v. Wade that also goes along with the fourteenth amendment. This case goes along with the portion that states that "this amendment also forbids the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons and it guaranteed equal protection and due process." This case ended with a 7-2 decision stating that a right to privacy under due process extended a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests: protecting prenatal life and protecting women's health.


     In this picture, a white person is handing over civil rights to what looks to be a former slave. This is a good example of the fourteenth amendment because it shows part of the reconstruction that is taking place in order to gain complete equality between the blacks and whites.