The Importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new won “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights. They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and

After the Civil War, the southern whites were extremely resentful and bitter. In 1865 the southern states began issuing “black codes,” which were laws made subsequent to the Civil War that had the effect of limiting the civil rights and civil liberties of blacks. This term tends to refer to the legislation passed by southern states to control the labor, migration, and other activities of newly freed slaves. When the slaves were freed, they still had

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.

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 and the amendment was put in place to protect former slaves and their rights in life. The most important part of the amendment reads, “No state shall ‘deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person… the equal protection of the laws.’” This simple statement has one of the most profound and incredible parts of the United States today. The equal protection of the laws show that there must be equal treatment for all citizens regardless of race, class, or gender. Although there has been many racial events happening after this amendment was passed this clause still stands to today and has helped shape the United States for the better. Having this clause in the Fourteenth Amendment protects the ‘little guy’ and makes sure that everyone has the same ability to do whatever everyone else is doing.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is commonly regarded as a major victory against racism that further advanced democracy in America. Adopted on July 9, 1868, it attempted to transform the oppressive culture of the Confederacy by granting citizenship rights to all people born or naturalized in the United States and affording equal protection under the law to all U.S. citizens. Nonetheless, in spite of aiming to put an end to discrimination against African-Americans and other minority groups, this important amendment did not entirely succeed in eradicating racism during the Reconstruction era.

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.

The promise of freedom to all “slaves” came with the end of the Civil War. The 13th amendment, ratified on December 6, 1885 officially freed any remaining slaves. Then, the 14th amendment was ratified in the summer of 1968; it stated that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” would be given citizenship. The 15th amendment followed and gave all men, but not women, the right to vote regardless of race. It appeared as if all freed men and women would soon be as fortunate as any white person. Unfortunately, this was an illusion. While Congress could ratify amendments, the states retained a massive amount of power and utilized this to reissue the Slave Codes as Black Codes. While all of the southern states passed Black Codes,

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

John A. Bingham, Republican of Ohio had long been a believer in the idea of equal protection of the laws for all people, and was one of the leaders of the effort to pass the Fourteenth Amendment. While aware of the need to prove the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act with the Fourteenth Amendment, Bingham did not actually believe that the Fourteenth Amendment created any new rights. Rather, he believed that it created a new understanding of rights already in the Constitution. Bingham maintained that, “The…equal protection of each [in] those sacred rights which are as universal and indestructible as the human race…are by this Constitution guaranteed…’” The guarantee to which Bingham was referring is contained in the Fifth

The fourteenth amendment is also known as equal protection clause. Under the fourteenth amendment, the U.S. Constitution prohibits the states from denying a person that lives in the state the equal rights of the law (LII, 2017). The fourteenth amendment applies to education, especially those that are English language learners (ELL), this means that these students cannot be denied the same rights as non-English language learners. In the Supreme Court case of Lau v Nichols in 1974, this case involved a Chinese American student that attended the San Francisco Unified School District, this student was placed into a general education classroom despite the lack of being proficient in English (Wright, 2010). The school in which this student attended was found in violation, the school was giving ELL students the same material as all other students who speak proficient English and expected the Chinese American student to be able to comprehend the information that is being taught. School districts need to provide the same material, but in a modified form where the student’s will be able to access the information to learn it in the same manner as those non-English language learners.

The newly passed laws became known as “Black Codes” and socially, they directly impacted the lives of all freedmen and indirectly benefited the white race. These laws restricted the rights of free African-American men and women (Doc A). In Opelousas, Louisiana, some of these restrictions were the denied right to keep or own a house in the town, the denied right to enter the town without special permission, the denied right to hold public meetings, the denied right to carry firearms or any kind of weapon, and a requirement that every negro must be in service of some white person (Doc A). The elite members in the South did everything they could to prevent blacks from gaining civic power, and the reasoning for supporting these codes ranged from fearing black political influence to the comfort of knowing farmers still had a stable and reliable work force. Even in the post civil war North, people believed blacks were unfit to be government officials (Doc E). Pro-freedman presses ran racist letters arguing blacks were not fit for the proper exercise of political duties, and their generation needed a period of probation and instruction in order to learn the ways in which society ran (Doc E). Many northerners felt blacks were incompetent to hold important jobs; therefore, the government was in no way aiding the reconstruction efforts to provide equality to all people in America.

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).

In 1865, the American government successfully passed the thirteenth amendment: ending the institution of slavery in America. “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, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The thirteenth amendment opened up economic opportunity for African Americans as slaves were no longer owned by someone else. However, not long after the thirteenth amendment was passed, former slaveholders and southerners created the black codes. Black Codes were a set of laws intended to restrict African American freedoms, causing them to go into low wage labor. A black code passed in the state of South Carolina stated, “To do farm work, a black in South Carolina had to have a written contract, attested to by white witnesses; failure to obtain one before commencing to work was a misdemeanor

This Paper will examine the Impact of the 14th and 15th Amendment in America. These Amendments were known as reconstruction amendments, including the 13th amendment in the Unites States. Both amendments took a big role in America, and its people. This paper will also show the people that helped take these amendments into place and also the changes.

Through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution, the republicans tried to protect and establish black freedoms. At the same time southern state legislators were passing laws to restrict free blacks’ freedoms. Through the use of black codes and vagrancy laws, the south attempted to keep blacks in a state of slavery. These laws were worded in a way such that blacks rights would be so restricted that it would remain impossible for them to gain any real freedom.