By Earl M. Maltz. Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers University - Camden. 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 Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution contains a number of important concepts, most famously state action, privileges or immunities, citizenship, due process, and equal protection—all of which are contained in Section One.
Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment focuses on the way individual citizens are counted to determine electoral power for the states.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
14th Amendment - Citizenship Rights, Equal Protection, Apportionment, Civil War Debt | Constitution Center.
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 14th Amendment to the Constitution is one of the nation's most important laws relating to citizenship and civil rights. Ratified in 1868, three years after the abolishment of slavery, the 14th Amendment served a revolutionary purpose — to define African Americans as equal citizens under the law.
The 14th Amendment defines all persons born in the United States as citizens. It also extends the rights of due process and equal protection of the laws to any person, regardless of citizenship status.
The 14th Amendment guaranteed “equal protection” under the law regardless of race and many lawyers reasoned that if these segregated accommodations were “equal” than they were also constitutional. This argument was codified in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Case of 1896.
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 ...