THE RATIFICATION OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

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After President Johnson announced the end of the Reconstruction in 1865 and 1866, Southern States began passing discriminatory state laws collectively referred to as black codes. The goals differed from state to state bur had a fairly similar goal: to maintain the socioeconomic system of racial slavery. The black codes systemized white supremacy by restricting freed slaves from civic participation. The codes deprived blacks of the rights to vote, to serve on juries, to carry or own weapons, and to rent or lease land. The members of the Congressional Joint Committee felt that the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 and the passing of the first Civil Rights Act in 1866 had done little to change the plight of the freed slaves because it posed legal questions over black citizenship. Therefore in 1866 Radical Republicans drafted the Fourteenth Amendment and was ratified by state legislatures in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment stated, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It, therefore, gave all citizens equal protection under state and federal law and eliminated the notion that freed slaves were three-fifths of a free white person. Because of its emphasis on equal justice and equal protection, the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment is to date, one of the most important events in the country, not only did the Amendment equalize the American people, it also established the United States as a multicultural society.

The Fourteenth Amendment dramatically transformed the realities of Americans and made the federal government an advocate and guardian of civil liberties. According to an article by Eric Foner dubbed, “The Original Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment” the Civil War changed the roles and powers of the government with the roles of the federal government expanding in Abraham Lincoln’s government as the Republicans tried to manage the dual challenge: maintenance of a Union and eradicating slavery. This expansion of federal powers is evident in the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. The Civil War had also forced American leaders to acknowledge their responsibility to the four million black slaves who yoked with the bondage of chattel slavery. By ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, the lives of African Americans took on a different turn for the better.

The Fourteenth Amendment established equal protection and due process for all citizens in the nation by bridging the gap between legal positivism and natural law. The Radical Republicans who drafted the Fourteenth Amendment foresaw the protection of man’s natural rights protected by a social contract (natural law) but also acknowledged the role of the legislature in imposing the law despite natural law. Before the Civil War, the Republican Party condemned chattel slavery on the premise of higher laws. They debated that slavery was in violation of natural rights, to solidify their argument even in territories that lacked legislative sanctions. The natural law tradition had been adopted in the Declaration of Independence and had been used to shape the ideology of the American Revolution. For instance, in a radical pamphlet by Thomas Paine’s that incited colonists on the need for independence from Great Britain titled “Common Sense”, Paine argues that “[all] mankind [was] originally equals in the order of creation…no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever”. Republicans therefore based the emancipation on the same premise used by Americans while fighting for independence from Great Britain.

The Fourteenth Amendment did not only provide a set of rights for the blacks, but it aimed to also embrace all “races, classes, and conditions of men.” Today, the Court acknowledges the Fourteenth Amendment to have “a broader principle” than to meet the immediate plight of the newly freed black slaves. The Amendment was of course designed to free the slaves and grant them equality in all aspects. However, it was not only confined to the African American slaves, but to all races and classes. The Amendment did not confine the rule to any race but granted all Americans equal protection, privileges, and the right to due process. The concerns of the freed black slaves were obviously present in the Republicans and Congress as they drafted and debated the Amendment but they also concerned by challenges facing other groups such immigrants into the nation, Northern migrants to the South, and Southern Unionists. The integration of foreign-born persons into American society was a primary challenge in antebellum society. White citizens were aware of the influx of immigrants such as the Chinese, and most of the immigrants were met with hostility due to perceived differences and the notion that they would rob them of economic opportunities. The Citizenship Clause, in its non-racial language, protected all persons born in the nation, despite the origin of their parents.

The clauses in The Fourteenth Amendment: the representation clause, the disfranchisement clause, the debt clause, the pardon clause, and other parts of this Amendment are meant to avoid inequality. “These clauses were not only meant to attack the undemocratic socioeconomic system in the South but to avoid future repetition of the same.” Issues such as public debt aim to dissociate the government from insurrections and rebellions against the country. The clause specified that all debts incurred by fighting to defeat the Confederacy would be honored. However, Confederate debt would not be honored since the government would not pay for insurrection or rebellion against the nation. Moreover, the Amendment stated that claims for the emancipation or loss of any slave would be held illegal and void. Therefore, the framers of the amendment aimed at reaching deeply into the political lives of the states to ensure that the amendment would meet Republican standards.

In conclusion, the Fourteenth Amendment is one of the great foundations on which the democracy of America is based. It is said that more litigation is based on this Amendment or the Amendment’s implementing statues than any other provision in the United States Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment shows the determination of the 39th Congress to do away with Chattel Slavery and to build a more integrated nation whose citizens were all equal regardless of their race, gender, class. The Fourteenth Amendment grants all citizens fundamental rights to be protected against the local, state, and federal governments. It not only assisted in demanding equal rights for African Americans but its generality incorporates all peoples hence prompting the multicultural character of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment takes the primary ideal of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and incorporates it into the U.S. Constitution.

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bartley, Abel A. 2003. “The Fourteenth Amendment: The Great Equalizer of the American People.” Akron Law Review 473-490.

Corbett, P. Scott, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, and Paul Vickery. 2017. U.S. History. Houston: OpenStax.

Farber, Daniel A., and John E. Muench. 1994. “The Ideological Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Berkelely Law Journal 235-279.

Foner, Eric. 2006. “The Original Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment: A Conversation with Eric Foner .” Nevada Law Journal 426-446.

Paine, Thomas. 2008. “Common Sense (2nd ed.: Philadelphia, 1776), pp.1. 6-12, 15-30.” In Voices of Freedom : A Documentary History, by Eric Foner, 93-98. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.