What was the 14th Amendment in simple terms?
Asked by: Shaun McCullough | Last update: March 24, 2025Score: 4.1/5 (38 votes)
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 ...
What are the 5 main points of the 14th Amendment?
Moreover, the Fourteenth amendment includes citizenship, state action, privacy rights, apportionment, disqualification for rebellion, debt, and the enforcement clause, among other rights.
What is the 14th Amendment in kid words?
It says that anyone born in the United States is a citizen and that all states must give citizens the same rights guaranteed by the federal government in the Bill of Rights. The 14th Amendment also says that all citizens have the right to due process and equal protection under the law in all states.
What does the 14th Amendment say for dummies?
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.
What does the 14th Amendment have to do with the debt?
Fourteenth Amendment, 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.
The 14th Amendment Explained: US Government Review
Who is responsible to pay back all debts in the Constitution?
1 ( The Congress shall have Power . . . to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . . . . ). Jump to essay-10See Act of Aug.
What does section 5 of the 14th Amendment mean?
Howard explained, Section Five “enables Congress, in case the State shall enact laws in conflict with the principles of the amendment, to correct that legislation by a formal congressional enactment.”
What are the three main clauses of the 14th Amendment?
The amendment's first section includes the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause.
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.
What does section 2 of the 14th Amendment mean?
Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment focuses on the way individual citizens are counted to determine electoral power for the states. The previous Thirteenth Amendment eliminated the Three-Fifths Clause in Article I of the Constitution, as every slave in the United States had been legally freed.
Why is the 14th Amendment so controversial?
This is because, for the first time, the proposed Amendment added the word "male" into the US Constitution. Section 2, which dealt explicitly with voting rights, used the term "male." And women's rights advocates, especially those who were promoting woman suffrage or the granting of the vote to women, were outraged.
What is another name for the 14th Amendment?
The most commonly used -- and frequently litigated -- phrase in the amendment is "equal protection of the laws", which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases, including Brown v. Board of Education (racial discrimination), Roe v. Wade (reproductive rights), Bush v. Gore (election recounts), Reed v. Reed ...
What does section 3 of the 14th Amendment say?
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 ...
What is arguably the most important part 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 ...
What are the 3 main protections included in the 14th Amendment?
As the examples above suggest, the rights protected under the Fourteenth Amendment can be understood in three categories: (1) “procedural due process;” (2) the individual rights listed in the Bill of Rights, “incorporated” against the states; and (3) “substantive due process.”
What 3 things did the Fourteenth Amendment do?
14th Amendment - Citizenship Rights, Equal Protection, Apportionment, Civil War Debt. Constitution Center.
Do Americans have the right to overthrow the government?
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on ...
Is God mentioned in the Declaration of Independence?
While the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, nearly all state constitutions reference either God or the divine, according to a 2017 analysis. God also appears in the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and on U.S. currency.
What is Section 1 of the 14th Amendment?
Section 1 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.
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.
Is the president considered an officer of the United States?
Regarding the president of the United States. In December 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. president is an officer of the United States as pertains to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, reversing a November 2023 contrary ruling by a Colorado district court.
What Amendment allows Congress to tax income?
Amendment Sixteen to the Constitution was ratified on February 3, 1913. It grants Congress the authority to issue an income tax without having to determine it based on population.
What is the 14th Amendment in exact words?
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 type of tax is Congress forbidden to levy?
By the terms of the Constitution, the power of Congress to levy taxes is subject to but one exception and two qualifications. Articles exported from any State may not be taxed at all. Direct taxes must be levied by the rule of apportionment and indirect taxes by the rule of uniformity.
Which amendment was repealed?
Although the Constitution has been formally amended 27 times, the Twenty-First Amendment (ratified in 1933) is the only one that repeals a previous amendment, namely, the Eighteenth Amendment (ratified in 1919), which prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” In addition, it is the ...