The Fourteenth Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution that was adopted in 1868. It granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and enslaved people who had been emancipated after the American Civil War.
Congress last used Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1919 to refuse to seat a socialist Congressman accused of having given aid and comfort to Germany during the First World War, irrespective of the Amnesty Act.
After the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court, through a string of cases, found that the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth amendment included applying parts of the Bill of Rights to States (referred to as incorporation).
Section 1 Rights 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.
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.
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment does not expressly require a criminal conviction, and historically, one was not necessary. Reconstruction Era federal prosecutors brought civil actions in court to oust officials linked to the Confederacy, and Congress in some cases took action to refuse to seat Members.
However, following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause to impose on the states many of the Bill of Rights' limitations, a doctrine sometimes called incorporation against the states through the Due Process Clause.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident ...
Disenfranchising convicted felons beyond their sentence and parole does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
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.