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.
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.
Amendments must first be approved by three-fifths of all the members elected to each of the two houses of the General Assembly, then published in newspapers around the state and approved by a majority of Maryland voters.
The amendment process is very difficult and time consuming: A proposed amendment must be passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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 Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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 ...
The bill or bills proposing amendment or amendments shall be publicized, either by publishing, by order of the Governor, in at least two newspapers, in each County, where so many may be published, and where not more than one may be published, then in that newspaper, and in three newspapers published in the City of ...
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.