What did the 14th Amendment do to the South?
Asked by: Gaetano Cronin | Last update: July 13, 2025Score: 4.2/5 (14 votes)
The amendment prohibited former Confederate states from repaying war debts and compensating former slave owners for the emancipation of their enslaved people.
How did the 14th Amendment affect the South?
Southern Opposition and Military Occupation
Southerners thought the 14th Amendment had been passed to punish them for starting the Civil War, and they refused to ratify it. Indeed there were sections which prevented ex-Confederates from voting, holding office, or being paid back for lending money to the Confederacy.
What effect did the 14th Amendment have on state governments?
The 14th Amendment provides, in part, that no state can "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Title IX specifically prohibits sex discrimination.
What effect did the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments have on southern states?
One way that they tried to do this was to pass three important amendments, the so-called Reconstruction Amendments. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to all people born in the US. The 15th Amendment gave Black Americans the right to vote.
What three things did the 14th Amendment accomplish?
The 14th Amendment granted U.S. citizenship to former slaves and contained three new limits on state power: a state shall not violate a citizen's privileges or immunities; shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and must guarantee all persons equal protection of the laws.
What the 14th Amendment says about birthright citizenship
What was the biggest impact of the 14th Amendment?
Passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” extending the provisions of ...
Why did 13 southern states reject the 14th Amendment?
Curtis argued that opposition to the amendment ostensibly based on states' rights was really grounded in the state sovereignty view that justified secession in the eyes of the South, but which had been rendered obsolete by Confederate defeat in the Civil War.
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 most Southerners feel about the 15th Amendment?
Answer and Explanation: Many southern states reacted poorly to the 15th Amendment. In an attempt to circumvent the 15th Amendment, some states instituted a poll tax, charging money for the right to vote. This impacted both African Americans, who were excluded from most well-paying jobs, and poor white citizens.
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.
Why was the 14th Amendment considered unsuccessful?
However, the Fourteenth Amendment is often considered unsuccessful because its provisions were not fully protected or enforced. Discrimination by private individuals was not prohibited and the Supreme Court interpreted its powers narrowly.
Which Amendment gives the right to overthrow the government?
“The fanciful claim that the Second Amendment exists to allow armed groups to overthrow the government is the basis for the equally deranged claim that the people must have an arsenal equal to the government's.
Which statement best describes the effect of the 14th Amendment?
Explanation: The statement that best describes the impact of the Fourteenth Amendment is: The addition of the fourteenth amendment eventually forced state governments to abide by almost every provision in the Bill of Rights, but the process took over one hundred years.
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.
When did blacks get rights?
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution (1868) granted citizenship to formerly enslaved Americans, and the 15th Amendment (1870) established a constitutional right to vote for African American males.
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 14th Amendment change the South?
The 14th Amendment revoked the Black Codes by declaring that states could not pass laws that denied citizens their constitutional rights and freedoms. No person could be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process (fair treatment by the judicial system), and the law was to be equally applied to everyone.
How did Southerners react to the 14th Amendment?
Southerners still argued that the amendment was invalid, however, because the beaten southern states, then ruled by federal military commissions, were forced to ratify the amendment in order to regain their full legal status.
What did the 14th Amendment do?
Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights
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.
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.
Did the 14th Amendment free the slaves?
The Fourteenth Amendment was one of three amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to guarantee black rights. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth granted citizenship to people once enslaved, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men the right to vote.
Who opposed the 14th Amendment?
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton led the efforts of some women's suffrage supporters to defeat both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, because the Fourteenth Amendment included the offensive focus on male voters.
How did the Jim Crow laws violate the 14th Amendment?
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.
Did Lincoln have anything to do with the 14th Amendment?
The Fourteenth Amendment
With the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment, President Lincoln initiated a course of events that would evetually lead to the Constitutional protection of equal rights for former slaves.
What were the Black Codes in the South?
Black Codes restricted black people's right to own property, conduct business, buy and lease land, and move freely through public spaces. A central element of the Black Codes were vagrancy laws. States criminalized men who were out of work, or who were not working at a job whites recognized.