July 9 1868 The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified

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Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to former slaves

 

Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to black citizens. The major provision of the 14th amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to former slaves. Another equally important provision was the statement that “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 right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the Federal and state governments. On June 16, 1866, the House Joint Resolution proposing the 14th amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states. On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and became part of the supreme law of the land.

 

Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, the primary author of the first section of the 14th amendment, intended that the amendment also nationalize the Federal Bill of Rights by making it binding upon the states. Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan, introducing the amendment, specifically stated that the privileges and immunities clause would extend to the states “the personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments.” Historians disagree on how widely Bingham's and Howard's views were shared at the time in the Congress, or across the country in general. No one in Congress explicitly contradicted their view of the Amendment, but only a few members said anything at all about its meaning on this issue. For many years, the Supreme Court ruled that the Amendment did not extend the Bill of Rights to the states.

 

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The Fourteenth Amendment

 

On

July 28

, 1868, Secretary of State William Seward issued a proclamation certifying without reservation that the

Fourteenth Amendment

was a part of the

United States Constitution

. The required number of states had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment a few weeks earlier on July 9, 1868. Known as one of the "Reconstruction Amendments" along with the

Thirteenth

and

Fifteenth

Amendments, the Fourteenth Amendment forbids any state to deny to any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." With its broadly phrased language, the Fourteenth Amendment continues to provide a basis for civil rights claims in the United States.

U.S. Supreme Court

(detail), Washington, D.C.,

Theodor Horydczak, photographer,

circa 1920-1950,

Washington as It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959

Soon after ratification, the

Slaughterhouse Case

tested the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. Brought before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873, the suit argued that the monopoly the Louisiana legislature granted to a New Orleans slaughtering company abridged other businessmen's privileges as American citizens and deprived them of property without due process of the law. The court ruled against the slaughterhouses, narrowly interpreting "the privileges and immunities" of citizens and stating that the amendment did not extend to the property rights of businessmen. In their

dissenting opinion

, Justices

Field

,

Bradley

, and Swayne wrote that, in considering the Fourteenth Amendment,

the right to pursue any lawful trade or avocation, without other restraint than such as equally affects all persons, is one of the privileges of citizens of the United States which can not be abridged by state legislation.

 

Stephen Johnson Field, Joseph P. Bradley, and Noah Haynes Swayne,

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution Considered…

,

1873.

African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907

Women tried to use the new amendment to affirm their right to vote. In 1871, Sara J. Spencer and Sarah E. Webster each brought cases before the District of Columbia court arguing that they were enfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Their lawyers argued

that while District law specified that "male residents" could vote, passage of the Fourteenth Amendment nullified that requirement.

…in the presence of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which confers the elective franchise upon "all persons," this word "male" is as if unwritten, and, [therefore], the statute, constitutionally, reads, "That all citizens shall be entitled to vote."

 

Albert Gallatin Riddle,

Suffrage Conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment...

,

1871.

Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Women Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921

Riddle further argued on the women's behalf that "the right to vote is a natural right," central to the notion of citizenship. Today, the right to vote is considered a fundamental civil right of all Read More loc.gov/ammem/today/jul28.html