The Fourteenth Amendment: Securing Equal Rights and Citizenship for All

Abstract

The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 is a document that was passed the Congress on the 13th day of June 1866. The states later ratified the document on the 9th day of July 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Upon its ratification, the document aimed at guaranteeing all citizens within the United States equal protection of Law and citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in America. The document came in response to issues related to slavery which had fostered the American civil war. Though bitterly contested by states of the defeated confederacy, the same states were forced to ratify the Reconstruction Amendments to regain representation in the Congress. African Americans and slaves served as the target of the Reconstruction Amendments as their civil and legal rights were ignored. For this reason, the document advocated for these populations' civil and legal rights, having become victims of emancipation after the American Civil War. It is a document that came after a long struggle in search of equality for all Americans regardless of color, status, race, ethnicity, and gender, among others. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the Reconstruction Amendment contained three primary provisions. One of the provisions in the Citizenship Clause granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. The Due process Clause served as the second provision, which denied states any powers/rights to deny any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law." And finally, Equal Protection Clause declared that states might not deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Following the three provisions, one can argue that one of the primary significance of the document is that it strengthened the federal government powers over states regarding state treatment of citizens. The African Americans and slaves had endured strong agony in the name of the powers vested on states. The document aimed to ensure that the...