Congress has always acted when called upon to raise the debt limit. Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 separate times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents.
On July 28, 1868, the final state necessary for ratification of the amendment agreed to it. Many white Ohioans initially approved of the Fourteenth Amendment. Members of the Union Party, a group of Ohio's Republican Party and pro-war Democrats, strongly supported the amendment.
Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment vests Congress with the authority to adopt “appropriate” legislation to enforce the other parts of the Amendment—most notably, the provisions of Section One.
The amendment's first section includes the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause.
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 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.
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments both contain a Due Process Clause, although the Fourteenth Amendment applies explicitly to the states.
Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, as we have seen, rejected the proposed amendment outright, and California did so later. Ohio, New Jersey, and Oregon rescinded their ratifications. If the rescissions were allowed, only nineteen states, not the requisite twenty, would have ratified.
The Constitution would take effect once it had been ratified by nine of the thirteen State legislatures; unanimity was not required. During the debate over the Constitution, two factions emerged: the Federalists, who supported adoption, and the Anti-Federalists, who opposed it.