The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was added to it in July of 1868, and is the second of the three so-called Civil War amendments, also sometimes referred to as Reconstruction Amendments. This is an amendment that is cited in a lot of case law, even today, and is considered one of the most legally important of the amendments to the Constitution.
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What Does it Say?
Section 1
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. 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.Section 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.Section 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.Section 4
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.Section 5
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
What Does it Mean?
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution does a number of important things. First of all, it gives US citizenship to all of the former slaves that were freed with the thirteenth amendment. They were not officially considered US citizens prior to this, despite they and their descendants often living in the United States for generations. It also guaranteed equal protection under the law for ALL US citizens, including the former slaves, naturalized citizens, non-citizens, and birth citizens within the jurisdiction of the individual states and the federal government.
While a few of the former Confederate states were convinced to ratify the thirteenth amendment, which freed the slaves and guaranteed slavery would no longer be legal in the United States, the fourteenth amendment was not popular among any of the former Confederate states, and was ardently opposed by them. Yet, the Union states were able to force the former Confederate ones to ratify this amendment by requiring them to ratify it in order to regain representation for their states in the US Congress.
The first section of the fourteenth amendment is a contentious one, even today, and is one of the most cited parts of the Constitution in case law. This amendment is contentious, because it limits the actions of all state and local officials, and those acting on their behalf, in matters of federal law, when those matters go against state law.
In addition to providing citizenship and equal protection under the law, there is also a Due Process clause in this amendment that prohibits state and local governments from depriving anyone of their life, liberty, or property without a fair and equitable process. The Supreme Court has ruled that this Due Process clause in the fourteenth amendment makes most of the Bill of Rights as applicable to the states as they are to the federal government. It also establishes substantive and procedural requirements that state laws have to abide by in order to be considered legal according to the Constitution.
In addition, this amendment gives Congress the power to enforce the amendment by enacting appropriate legislation. In 1997, the US Supreme Court ruled that this power of the states to enact legislation to enforce the amendment may not be used to contradict any Supreme Court decision that interprets the meaning of this amendment.