The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment

What amendment to the United States constitution is considered to be illegally ratified? What amendment both grants the right to vote to men and then takes away that right to vote? If you answered the fourteenth amendment to both questions you would be right. Although most people think of the fourteenth amendment as being a "civil rights" amendment, it also defines citizenship, voting rights, and states congressional representatives and electors numbers. In this paper I will talk about how the passage of the fourteenth amendment was a relevant event in history, how it impacts our country today, how it is viewed as the civil rights amendment in our textbook, how it has both positive and negative elements to it, and how I would have handled it.

The passage of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was a significant event in the history of our country because it made anyone born here citizens, established how representatives each state gets and paid off the war debts for the North. On June 8th and 13th, 1866 the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was passed by both houses of congress. The stated purpose of the fourteenth amendment was to grant citizenship and to protect and define the civil rights of freed slaves. In reality, the purpose of the fourteenth amendment was to ensure the northern states political and economic advantage over the southern states. Section two of the fourteenth amendment allowed the north to legally deny the right to vote to almost every white man in the south. This was done by using the line "for participation in the rebellion." The north made sure that the word "participation" could mean almost anything. The northern states use section three of the fourteenth amendment to expel almost the entire southern leadership from every level and branch of government. Section four of the fourteenth amendment protected northern politicians, military leaders, and businessmen from being prosecuted for financial fraud and guaranteed that the north would not have to pay for the southern losses from the war. All in all, the significance of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was that slaves were granted citizenship, and basic civil rights, but also guaranteed that the northern states would have a great advantage over the southern state for years to come.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution affects us today by granting citizenship, civil rights, and congressional representation. The Fourteenth Amendment is the main source of power for most of the laws concerning affirmative action, desegregation, hate crimes, voting, and congressional representation that are used today. Without the fourteenth amendment there would have been no basis for the civil rights movement, we would still have separate facilities for blacks and whites. We would have no base for determining citizenship, voting rights, or congressional representation.

The textbook discusses Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution as being primarily an amendment which focuses on civil rights. Prior to the fourteenth amendment there were no definitions of civil rights. Although originally designed to define and protect the rights of freed slaves the phrase "equal protection of the law" became one of the most important and widely used clauses of the constitution. Since the early 1900's many different groups have used the fourteenth amendment as a springboard to launch an "equal rights" or "equal protection" campaign for many different minority groups.

The positive elements of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution are citizenship, civil rights, and equal representation in congress. The Fourteenth Amendment defined a citizen as being anyone who was born within the United States. It is also the first document which spelled out our civil rights. Although section one of the Fourteenth Amendment was primarily designed to grant citizenship and civil rights to the recently freed slaves, it also grant citizenship and civil rights to everyone. Methods of determining the number of congressional representatives and electors each state received were also covered in the Fourteenth Amendment.

The negative elements of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution are twofold; First, it only established voting rights for men; and secondly, the way the fourteenth amendment was used by the northern states against the southern states. Section two of the fourteenth amendment establishes who is allowed to vote, but specifically states that only male citizens over the age of 21 are allowed to vote. By doing so the fourteenth amendment disallowed women the right to vote. So in other words, it told women that they were citizens and had civil rights, but you cannot vote. Another negative aspect of the fourteenth amendment was specific wording that the northern states used which specifically limited the rights and abilities of southern white men. An example of this is found in section two where it defines who is allowed to vote it uses the phrase "except for participation in rebellion". Of course participation in rebellion could mean anything that the northern states wanted. It could serving in the confederate army, to paying confederate taxes, to not rebelling confederate authorities. By in large, the fourteenth amendment virtually denied the right to vote to almost all southern white men. Another negative aspect of the fourteenth amendment