The 14th Amendment Incorporation Doctrine Due Process Clause

The 13th amendment abolished slavery. However the states made their own laws that still affected African Americans in a negative way. This caused for the making of the 14th amendment to be made. The 14th amendment gave a further blow on the fact that all persons born in the United States have The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This allowed for African Americans to get more rights within the states. However the states still made ways to retard the rights of the African American people. This can be seen in elections during reconstruction. The southern states found ways to block African Americans from voting. The 15th amendment is the amendment that allows for any citizen to vote and that this right can't be taken away By the federal government or the state

The originally Bill of Rights protected the rights of citizens from infringement by the federal government, but made no mention of the states. The Fourteen Amendment, adopted shortly after the Civil War, protected citizenship and individual rights from infringement by state governments. Under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, the United States Supreme Court began to apply the most important rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights against the states. This process began in the early 1900s and is known as the doctrine of selective incorporation. Duncan versus Louisiana was the landmark case in which the court incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial against the states.

On a date that will be remembered forever as a step forward for our nation, July 28, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment gave a new sense of hope and inspiration to a once oppressed people. It was conceived to be the foundation for restoring America to its great status and prosperity. The Amendment allowed “equal protection under the law”, no matter what race, religion, sex, sexual preference or social status. It was designed to protect the newly freed slaves. However, it only helped the white race.

Due to misinterpretations in the amendment, it allowed misconduct to occur within society. The 14th Amendment tried to establish universal citizenship and declare freedom and equality throughout the United States. However, there were many

Though the federal government created Amendments giving rights to slaves, opposers prevented them from benefitting from their rights. Within the 13th Amendment, the national government affirmed that slavery wouldn’t be accepted in our country “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”. The added exception allows states to determine what crime is appropriate for the punishment that is similar, if not identical, to slavery. The state governments used the exception to their advantage, creating minute laws with severe punishments. Then the national government establish the 15th Amendment, giving the freed black men the opportunity to vote, as the right to vote couldn’t be denied “on account of race, color,

When Confederate states wanted to join the Union after Civil war, they were required to undertake “Civil War” Amendments. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were developed, with each supporting equality within the states. However, these Amendments proved to be insufficient in the provision of equal rights to African American citizens (Medley,2003). In the late 19th Century, laws limiting civil rights of the Blacks swept through state legislatures. Segregation then became a requirement in both Southern and Northern states.

On July 9, 1868 the 14th amendment to the constitution was ratified. This amendment granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States," which included former slaves recently freed. Although the slaves were freed, there was still discrimination all around them. Discrimination is defined as "differences between things or treating someone as inferior based on their race". In 1800’s through 1900 there was a huge amount of cases that occurred due to violations of the 14th Amendment. Two well known landmark Supreme Court cases involving the 14th Amendment are Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education.

Imagine living in a world where everyone was considered equal. Imagine living in a world where people were considerate of others. Imagine living in a world where everyone had the same rights and privileges. The Framers took a step at achieving this world with the passage of the 14th amendment. The intent of the 14th amendment was to prevent state governments from denying African Americans in the U.S. from their citizenship. At the time Africans were unable to attain citizenship because of their skin color. The Framer’s objective in formulating the 14th amendment was to grant citizenship to everyone born in the U.S., regardless of skin color. The 14th amendment expanded the protection of civil rights to all citizens in America.

The success and the approval by the necessary three-quarters of U.S states, the 14th Amendment guaranteed to the newly freed slaves protection and citizenship along with all its privileges. This amendment resolved any pre-Civil War concerns of the African American community’s citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside” (Primary Documents of American History, 2011). This amendment also reinsured that they had the equal rights and privileges of the rest of the citizens, and granted all these citizens the “equal protection of the laws” (Primary Documents of American History, 2011).

At the time the fourteenth Amendment was made, The Civil War had recently arrived at an end, beating the Confederacy. Acting president,Abraham Lincoln, had proclaimed the slaves liberated toward the end of the war; but, there were still a great deal of waiting inquiries with respect to the previous Confederates and the status of slaves in the nation. The Amendment was made to give people below the jurisdiction of the statute the privilege to fairness. This was known as the Equal Protection Clause. At this time, the purpose behind the fourteenth Amendment is to guarantee that the Civil Rights Act was maintained. On the other hand, taking after the selection of the fourteenth Amendment, Supreme Court choices started putting limitations on the

The 13th Amendment says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” (Doc C) Although many years later African Americans still were not being treated like people, abolishing slavery was a big step to the stop of harsh treatment toward African Americans. The citizenship, and the right to vote are granted to African Americans by the 14, and 15 Amendments. The passing of these Amendments insured that the African Americans are people.

An understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment begins not in Congress, but in the history leading up to the Civil War. The first crucial story in understanding the Fourteenth Amendment is the striking changes in the law of race relations that took place in the North - especially in Bingham’s home state of Ohio - in the dozen or so years before the Civil War began. The second story is about the South, and the legal repression and brutal racial violence that took place there immediately after the Civil War ended (Finkelman, 2003).

The 14th Amendment was ratified July 9, 1868 giving citizenship to all persons including former slaves. Any state that went against the constitution was punished, reducing their representation in Congress. The Amendment banned those who engaged in rebellion against the States from holding any civil, military or elected office without approval of two-thirds of the Senate and the House of Representatives. This Amendment didn’t authorize any former Confederate States from repaying war debts and reimburse former slave owners for freeing slaves. This became very inconvenient for former slaves owners considering that Slaves did majority or all the work on a plantation, which later became a major problem.

Constitution. This amendment was to help African Americans with citizens rights and equal representation. The U.S Constitution stated that the 14th amendment said “all person 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.” The 14th amendment provided African Americans that was born in the United States equal citizenship with other natives in the U.S. It also limited the power of states that they could not take away the rights of the citizens of the United States.

By the summer of 1865, the United States of America emerged from one struggle directly into another. After years of tension over state rights and slavery, the nation had exploded into a civil war, only to emerge bloodied but still intact. The question now was how to keep the nation intact, while protecting the freedmen and ensuring that the same powers that had ignited the war could come back to power. To Garrett Epps argues in his book Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America that the 14th Amendment passed by the 39th Congress of the United States was the penultimate reaction to ensure that recently freed slaves were guaranteed the rights of a citizen, and more importantly, to