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Fourteenth amendment class essay
Critical analysis of 14th amendmentessay
Fourteenth amendment class essay
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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, …show more content…
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 …show more content…
In reality, the result of the fourteenth amendment was that the northern states had a political and economic advantage over the southern states. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution affects us today by granting citizenship, civil rights, and congressional representation. Although civil rights makes up a very small part of the fourteenth amendment the textbook chose this one area to focus on. The positive elements of the fourteenth amendment 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. The negative elements of the fourteenth amendment 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. By doing so the fourteenth amendment disallowed women the right to vote. By in large, the fourteenth amendment virtually denied the right to vote to almost all southern white
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
The 14th Amendment was made in 1868 to allow every person who was born in America or who had become an American citizen to have the same rights as any other citizen. Additionally, they were also a citizen of whatever state they lived in. No state in America was allowed to make laws that limit US citizens’ rights and protection, execute people, imprison people or take their property away without a legal process.
Now the question is how has it affected our present day lives. Over time, the fourteenth amendment has been used to cover almost all of the Bill of Rights. These rights are the standard for all US citizens and are protected by the Federal government. Selective Incorporation is thought to cover the first through eighth amendments, with the ninth and tenth being exclusively guaranteed by the Federal government. A present day example of this debate is that of the 2nd amendment. The right to bear arms is a critical issue when thinking of Selective incorporation.
Throughout time there have been many amendments to the United States Constitution. Some have had little to no effect on the population. One amendment that this writer will take a look at is the Fourteenth Amendment. The wording of the amendment has been debated here recently but bottom line it abolished slavery. This amendment also made an attempt to equalize everyone that is born here in America or naturalized. The ripple effect of this change to the constitution is still being felt today. It is hard to imagine living in a world where the African American community was not considered equal to the white man. A ground breaking distinction in the language written out in the document was that of it applying on the federal level as well as the state jurisdiction. This is especially important as we see the civil union marriages have conflict
...ious slaves the right to citizenship, meaning they were able to do anything that a normal citizen could do, for example hold seats of power. The Fifteenth amendment ensured that they were given the right to vote. However, the reason that their accomplishments were in vain was because they did not get rid of racism. Whatever advancement they made was taken back due to whites still believing in racism. After the Reconstruction era, the South feared an African American with power so they formed hate groups and technicalities to get around amendments. Even though the Fourteenth amendment ensured that slaves were given the right to citizenship, the whole ideal of “separate but equal” came into play. With the Fifteenth amendment, the South was able to justify the racist action of enforcing a literacy clause or a grandfather clause by writing it into their constitution.
...as one of the most influential Amendments passed in the U.S. ended slavery, but African Americans still did not have the same rights that white Americans did. The 13th amendment made everyone seem the same. People should not be treated different and we are all equal.
According to the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Though last in the Bill of Rights, it is one of the most powerful and ever changing in interpretation over the course of America’s history. Some historical events that altered its meaning include the Civil War, The Civil Right’s Movement, and even modern event’s like the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. In this paper I will discuss how the Tenth amendment has a large effect in both America’s history, but also how it is now portrayed America’s present.
... many other things! “The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute quality of the two raves before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinction based upon color, or to enforce social as distinguished from political quality, or a commingling of the two raves upon terns unsatisfactory to either.” This is a quote from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court thought that the two raves should be separate but equal. But even though the two races were separate, it was still not equal because there were much less public restrooms, restaurants, and other things for the blacks in America.
Roland, J. (2013, 10 31). Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to Protect All Rights. Retrieved from www.constitution.org : http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm
There were many aspects in our amendment that was in common with the actual fourteenth amendment, as well as many differences. Both amendments agreed on full citizenship for the black population. Both had disbanded the three fifths rule regarding representation. Both amendments included the punishment that no Confederate members were allowed to run for any kind of position of power in the United States. However, our amendment were a little more detailed in how exactly the Southerners will be readmitted. Our amendment included that the Southerners must swear an oath and sign a contract to never succeed from the Union to be readmitted back into the nation and get their rights of representation. Our amendment also mentioned that African Americans
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation. The Antifederalists were extremely concerned that the national government would trample their rights. Rhode Island and North Carolina refused to ratify until the framers added the Bill of Rights. These first ten amendments outlined things that the government could not do to its people. They are as such:
... liberties so inflicting upon one and another from person to person seems like a useless loop. The government is supposed to provide for the people, and the Fourteenth Amendment is so universal that, even when written in 1860s, it has served as a cornerstone for some of the most significant cases in United States History.
Our really cool Civics teacher told us to pick an amendment and write about it. So I picked the 15th Amendment with is “Reserves citizens the suffrage rights regardless of their color, race, or previous slave status.” The 15th amendment summed up is pretty much just the Constitution granted African American man the right to vote by declaring and shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of color, race, or previous conditions of servitude. The 15th amendment was a Civil War amendment along with 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. They were all right after the Civil War. The real purpose of the 15th amendment was to ensure that states or communities we're not denying men the right to vote simply based on their
The fourteenth amendment took place in the year 1866. It gave people especially slaves new rights that they never had before. It stated that anyone who was born in the United States are considered citizens and there not any rules that can make any different rules or laws in order to treat them differently or
Will and in this essay the author challenges the citizenship status of children born to illegal immigrants. Will argues that the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to any person born in the United States, is being misinterpreted. He explains how this misinterpretation leads to the actual act of illegal immigration. For example, by essentially rewarding the children of illegal immigrants with an American citizenship Will demonstrates how this provides an incentive for illegal immigration. The author makes clear the idea that when the 14th Amendment was written in 1866 it could not have included illegal immigrants since that concept did not exist at that time. He continues by using Indians as an example of people not included in the 14th Amendment since Indians and their children owed allegiance to their tribes. Finally, the author uses a decision by the Supreme Court in 1884 that declared both person and country must consent to the citizenship; therefore, if the source is illegal then the child should not be considered a