Why was the Fourteenth Amendment controversial in women's rights circles? This is because, for the first time, the proposed Amendment added the word "male" into the US Constitution.
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.
14th Amendment - Citizenship Rights, Equal Protection, Apportionment, Civil War Debt | Constitution Center.
The 14th Amendment significantly transformed the legal status of formerly enslaved individuals by granting them U.S. citizenship and equal protection under the law. This was vital for Texans who had been denied basic rights prior to its ratification.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to anyone born in the United States or who became a citizen of the country. This included African Americans and slaves who had been freed after the American Civil War.
Finally, it granted Congress the power to enforce this amendment, a provision that led to the passage of other landmark legislation in the 20th century, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. 82 Stat.
The most common defensive use of constitutional rights is by criminal defendants. Persons may also assert constitutional rights offensively, bringing a civil suit against the government or government officials for a variety of relief: declarative, injunctive and monetary.
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.