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Alternate titles: “Citizen rights not to be abridged” By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Article History Table of ContentsTop Questions What is the Fourteenth Amendment?The Fourteenth Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution that was adopted in 1868. It granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and enslaved people who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. It included them under the umbrella phrase “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” When was the Fourteenth Amendment ratified?The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was submitted for ratification on June 16, 1866, and on July 28, 1868, it was ratified and entered into force. What does the Fourteenth Amendment forbid?The Fourteenth Amendment forbids the states from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and from denying anyone equal protection under the law. The amendment also prohibits former civil and military office holders who had supported the Confederacy from again holding any state or federal office. Fourteenth Amendment, amendment (1868) to the Constitution of the United States that granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War, including them under the umbrella phrase “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” In all, the amendment comprises five sections, four of which began in 1866 as separate proposals that stalled in legislative process and were later amalgamated, along with a fifth enforcement section, into a single amendment. This so-called Reconstruction Amendment prohibited the states from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and from denying anyone within a state’s jurisdiction equal protection under the law. Nullified by the Thirteenth Amendment, the section of the Constitution apportioning representation in the House of Representatives based on a formula that counted each slave as three-fifths of a person was replaced by a clause in the Fourteenth Amendment specifying that representatives be “apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.” The amendment also prohibited former civil and military office holders who had supported the Confederacy from again holding any state or federal office—with the proviso that this prohibition could be removed from individuals by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress. Moreover, the amendment upheld the national debt while exempting the federal government and state governments from any responsibility for the debts incurred by the rebellious Confederate States of America. Finally, the last section, mirroring the approach of the Thirteenth Amendment, provided for enforcement. Britannica Quiz History: Fact or Fiction?The full text of the amendment is:
Among those legislators responsible for introducing the amendment’s provisions were Rep. John A. Bingham of Ohio, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, Rep. Henry Deming of Connecticut, Sen. Benjamin G. Brown of Missouri, and Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. The Congressional Joint Resolution proposing the amendment was submitted to the states for ratification on June 16, 1866. On July 28, 1868, having been ratified by the requisite number of states, it entered into force. However, its attempt to guarantee civil rights was circumvented for many decades by the post-Reconstruction-era black codes, Jim Crow laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). What does the 14th Amendment provide for?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 things that the 14th Amendment did?This so-called Reconstruction Amendment prohibited the states from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and from denying anyone within a state's jurisdiction equal protection under the law.
What is the 14th Amendment in simple terms?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.
What are the two most important issues included in 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."
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