How did the South violate the 14th Amendment?

Asked by: Daniella Boyer IV  |  Last update: March 18, 2025
Score: 4.3/5 (72 votes)

Unlike the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896, the Supreme court unanimously ruled that “separate, but equal” was unconstitutional and that the segregation of public schools, and other public spaces, violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments.

What is an example of the 14th Amendment being violated?

College admissions programs violated the Equal Protection Clause when they lacked sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employed race in a negative manner, involved racial stereotyping, and lacked meaningful end points.

How did the South react to the 14th and 15th Amendment?

When enfranchised African Americans began exercising political power, white southerners and organizations like the Ku Klux Klan targeted them with violence and intimidation (especially after 1867).

How did Congress enforce the 14th Amendment in the South?

In enforcing by appropriate legislation the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees against state denials, Congress has the discretion to adopt remedial measures, such as authorizing persons being denied their civil rights in state courts to remove their cases to federal courts, 2200 and to provide criminal 2201 and civil 2202 ...

Why did Republicans require southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment?

In addition, each state was required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. After meeting these criteria related to protecting the rights of African Americans and their property, the former Confederate states could gain full recognition and federal representation in Congress.

What the 14th Amendment says about birthright citizenship

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Why did the South not like the 14th Amendment?

Southerners defended these laws as honest attempts to restore order in the South. They also said these codes protected blacks from the results of their own "laziness and ignorance." Southerners thought the 14th Amendment had been passed to punish them for starting the Civil War, and they refused to ratify it.

How did Southern states undermine the 14th Amendment?

Over the next two decades, the 14th Amendment's power to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans would be undermined by legal challenges that reestablished the primacy of states' rights, allowed racial segregation, and relegated Black people to second-class citizenship.

What states did not ratify the 14th Amendment?

The three states that rejected the Amendment before later ratifying it were Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The two states that ratified the Amendment and later sought to rescind their ratifications were New Jersey and Ohio.

How did the South use the Constitution to justify slavery?

The Constitution therefore gave representation in the Congress and the electoral college for 3/5ths of every slave (the 3/5ths clause). The clause gave the South a role in the national government far greater than representation based on its free population alone would have given it.

How did the southern lawmakers respond to the passage of the 14th Amendment?

Southern lawmakers responded to the 14th Amendment by enacting various discriminatory laws, including poll taxes and literacy tests, aimed at disenfranchising African American voters. These tactics were part of a broader effort to maintain white supremacy in the post-Reconstruction South.

Why did the 14th Amendment fail?

The amendment was limited by the fact that the Supreme Court largely ignored the Black Codes and did not rule on them until the 1950s and 1960s, almost a century after they were passed.

How did the South violate the 15th Amendment?

Throughout the next few decades, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, literacy tests, property owning requirements, and Jim Crow laws prevented Black men from being able to vote. In addition to legal obstacles, white Southerners also threatened and used intimidation to further keep Black men from voting.

Which Amendment had the biggest impact on America?

The 1865 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment was a transformative moment in American history. The first Section's declaration that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist” had the immediate and powerful effect of abolishing chattel slavery in the southern United States.

What is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment?

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.

What amendment overturned Roe v. Wade?

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action the right to privacy, and a woman's right to choose to have an abortion falls within that right to privacy. A state law that broadly prohibits abortion without respect to the stage of pregnancy or other interests violates that right.

What amendment abolished slavery?

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "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."

How did the South justify slavery?

Some slaveholders believed that African Americans were biologically inferior to their masters. During the 1800s, this arguement was taken quite seriously, even in scientific circles. Defenders of slavery argued that slavery had existed throughout history and was the natural state of mankind.

Why were slaves counted as 3/5 of a whole person?

Viewed the opposite way, by including three-fifths of slaves in the legislative apportionment (even though they had no voting rights), the Three-fifths Compromise provided additional representation in the House of Representatives of slave states compared to the free states, if representation had been considered based ...

Were any of the founding fathers black?

Richard Allen (1760-1831) was perhaps the most important Black activist in early American history — a precursor to more familiar civil rights leaders like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. Every American should know his story.

How did the South react to the 14th Amendment?

") With the exception of Tennessee, the Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which set the conditions the Southern states had to accept before they could be readmitted to the union, including ratification of the 14th Amendment.

Which 3 states did not ratify the Constitution?

The Constitution encountered stiff opposition. The vote was 187 to 168 in Massachusetts, 57 to 47 in New Hampshire, 30 to 27 in New York, and 89 to 79 in Virginia. Two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, refused to ratify the new plan of government.

What are the six unratified amendments?

These unratified amendments address the size of the U.S. House (1789), foreign titles of nobility (1810), slavery (1861), child labor (1924), equal rights for women (1972), and representation for the District of Columbia (1978).

How did the 14th Amendment fail?

For many years, the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment did not extend the Bill of Rights to the states. Not only did the 14th Amendment fail to extend the Bill of Rights to the states; it also failed to protect the rights of Black citizens.

Are Black people still considered 3-5?

It's out of date. Slaves (black people) in the US *were* counted as 3/5 of a free (white) person before and during the Civil War. When slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War, each free male citizen of the US counted as one person (for establishing the number of representatives a state had in Congress).

Which Amendment did southern states violate?

Ferguson case of 1896, the Supreme court unanimously ruled that “separate, but equal” was unconstitutional and that the segregation of public schools, and other public spaces, violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments.