The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment echoes that of the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment, however, applies only against the federal government. After the Civil War, Congress adopted a number of measures to protect individual rights from interference by the states.
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.
Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War.
Wong Kim Ark case that was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1898. The Supreme Court ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, Wong Kim Ark was a U.S. citizen by birthright.
A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.
Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War.
In the interim, two other states, Alabama on July 13 and Georgia on July 21, 1868, had added their ratifications. The Amendment was rejected (and not subsequently ratified) by Kentucky on January 8, 1867. Maryland and California ratified this Amendment in 1959.
Oregon joined California as two of the five western states that considered and rejected the amendment. Oregon did not formally ratify the Fifteenth Amendment until 1959. This refusal was largely symbolic, since Oregon could not overturn the rule of the land.
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.