What does 14th Amendment say?

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.

What is the 14th Amendment in simple terms?

Passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” extending the provisions of ...

What are the 3 main clauses of the 14th Amendment?

The amendment's first section includes several clauses: the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause.

What are the 4 main points of the 14th Amendment?

14th Amendment - Citizenship Rights, Equal Protection, Apportionment, Civil War Debt | Constitution Center.

What is the most important phrase in the 14th Amendment?

The most commonly used -- and frequently litigated -- phrase in the amendment is "equal protection of the laws", which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases, including Brown v. Board of Education (racial discrimination), Roe v. Wade (reproductive rights), Bush v. Gore (election recounts), Reed v. Reed ...

The 14th Amendment: Understanding its crucial legal impact

What rights are protected by 14th Amendment?

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.

Who isn't protected under the 14th Amendment?

When the 14th Amendment passed in 1868, it was intended to give former slaves equal protection and voting rights under the law; it was not meant to protect women. In fact, it specified equality for male slaves, female slaves were excluded as were all women, regardless of race.

Why is the 14th Amendment so crucial?

A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.

Why is the 14th Amendment so powerful?

The principle that everyone born in this country is a United States citizen is one of the sacred building blocks of our democracy. Enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, it reflects America's fundamental commitment to fairness.

How is the 14th Amendment used today?

The 14th Amendment also establishes the right to due process at the state level. Due process has been used by the Supreme Court to strike down state legislation that restricts personal liberties and interests not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, such as the right to privacy.

What is an example of violation of the 14th Amendment?

A violation would occur, for example, if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because he or she was a member of a particular race. The clause is not intended to provide equality among individuals or classes but only equal application of the law.

What are the two most important parts of the 14th Amendment?

The Citizenship Clause granted citizenship to All persons born or naturalized in the United States. The Due Process Clause declared that states may not deny any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law."

What does the 14th Amendment prohibit unfair actions from?

Among them was the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” When it was adopted, the Clause was understood to mean that the government could deprive a person of rights only according to law applied by a court.

What is a real life example of the 14th Amendment?

the United States Supreme Court ruled that marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore must be afforded to same-sex couples. The ruling ensured that statewide bans on same-sex marriage could not be held up as constitutional.

What was the biggest impact of the 14th Amendment?

Introduced to address the racial discrimination endured by Black people who were recently emancipated from slavery, the amendment confirmed the rights and privileges of citizenship and, for the first time, guaranteed all Americans equal protection under the laws.

Which group of people was most directly affected by the Fourteenth Amendment?

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is one of the nation's most important laws relating to citizenship and civil rights. Ratified in 1868, three years after the abolishment of slavery, the 14th Amendment served a revolutionary purpose — to define African Americans as equal citizens under the law.

Did the Fourteenth Amendment abolish slavery?

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was the centerpiece of the Reconstruction Amendments, which together abolished slavery, gave African-American men the right to vote, and guaranteed full citizenship, due process, and equal protection of the laws to all.

What are the 2 things that the 14th Amendment says states Cannot deny to citizens?

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.

What are my rights as a citizen?

Right to vote in elections for public officials. Right to apply for federal employment requiring U.S. citizenship. Right to run for elected office. Freedom to pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Can you sue for violation of 14th Amendment rights?

United States law allows an individual who believes that his or her constitutional rights have been violated to bring a civil action against the government to recover the damages sustained as a result of that violation.

Are there any exceptions to the 14th Amendment?

The Court found that these few discrete exceptions to U.S. born citizenship are rooted in the Common Law, dating back centuries. The Common Law provided that all children born in the territory of the sovereign were citizens except for those born to foreign diplomats or hostile occupying forces.

Why was the 14th Amendment difficult?

The Black Codes, laws enacted mostly in 1865, spurred the US legislative branch to pass the Fourteenth Amendment. The amendment was limited by the fact that the Supreme Court largely ignored the Black Codes and did not rule on them until the 1950s and 1960s, almost a century after they were passed.

What does Section 3 of the 14th Amendment mean?

Ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly disqualifies any person from public office who, having previously taken an oath as a federal or state office holder, engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

What does Roe v. Wade have to do with privacy?

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decided that the right to privacy implied in the 14th Amendment protected abortion as a fundamental right. However, the government retained the power to regulate or restrict abortion access depending on the stage of pregnancy.

How does the 14th Amendment apply to a woman's right to privacy?

Wade (1973), the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause “protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy,” and that “though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant ...