Investigate this complex period of national rebuilding and retrenchment further with these resources. This collection of resources includes features of prominent figures such as President Barack Obama and war heroine Mary Seacole. Read about part of Indiana's leg of the underground railroad, which many enslaved people used to run to freedom. Explore hands-on activities, maps, and more that will give students of all backgrounds new perspectives on this important part of American culture.
Voting rights in the United States have not always been equally accessible. African Americans and women of all ethnicities have fought, and continue to fight, especially hard to have their voices heard. Citizenship is the status of being a citizen, belonging to a nation, and having the associated rights and responsibilities.
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Background Info Vocabulary. On July 28, , the 14 th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified for ratification. The 14 th Amendment guarantee s the right s and privilege s of citizenship to all persons born or naturalize d as U. Civil War. These amendments abolish ed slavery and establish ed voting and citizenship rights primarily for African-American men.
These rights were later extend ed to women and other ethnic group s. The 14 th Amendment has four sections. The first section has four clause s: the citizenship clause, the privileges and immunities clause, the due process clause, and the equal protection clause.
The clauses of the 14 th Amendment—especially the equal protection clause—are among the most litigate d and controversial in U. Plyer v. Doe is an interpretation of the citizenship clause. It prevents states from deny ing public-school funding to undocumented immigrant s. Roe v. Wade is an interpretation of the due process clause.
The 14th Amendment to the U. It also upheld the national debt, but exempted federal and state governments from paying any debts incurred by the former Confederate states. Johnson, a Democrat and former slaveholder from Tennessee , supported emancipation, but he differed greatly from the Republican-controlled Congress in his view of how Reconstruction should proceed.
Johnson showed relative leniency toward the former Confederate states as they were reintroduced into the Union. But many northerners were outraged when the newly elected southern state legislatures—largely dominated by former Confederate leaders—enacted black codes , which were repressive laws that strictly regulated the behavior of Black citizens and effectively kept them dependent on white planters.
In creating the Civil Rights Act of , Congress was using the authority given it to enforce the newly ratified 13th Amendment , which abolished slavery, and protect the rights of Black Americans. Johnson vetoed the bill, and though Congress successfully overrode his veto and made it into law in April —the first time in history that Congress overrode a presidential veto of a major bill—even some Republicans thought another amendment was necessary to provide firm constitutional grounds for the new legislation.
In late April, Representative Thaddeus Stevens introduced a plan that combined several different legislative proposals civil rights for Black people, how to apportion representatives in Congress, punitive measures against the former Confederate States of America and repudiation of Confederate war debt , into a single constitutional amendment.
After the House and Senate both voted on the amendment by June , it was submitted to the states for ratification. President Johnson made clear his opposition to the 14th Amendment as it made its way through the ratification process, but Congressional elections in late gave Republicans veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate.
Southern states also resisted, but Congress required them to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments as a condition of regaining representation in Congress, and the ongoing presence of the Union Army in the former Confederate states ensured their compliance. On July 9, , Louisiana and South Carolina voted to ratify the 14th Amendment, making up the necessary three-fourths majority.
The opening sentence of Section One of the 14th Amendment defined U. Over time, the Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to guarantee a wide array of rights against infringement by the states, including those enumerated in the Bill of Rights freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, right to bear arms, etc.
Section Two of the 14th Amendment repealed the three-fifths clause Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the original Constitution, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning congressional representation. With slavery outlawed by the 13th Amendment, this clarified that all residents, regardless of race, should be counted as one whole person.
This section also guaranteed that all male citizens over age 21, no matter their race, had a right to vote. Southern states continued to deny Black men the right to vote using a collection of state and local statutes during the Jim Crow era. Subsequent amendments to the Constitution granted women the right to vote and lowered the legal voting age to Section Three of the amendment, gave Congress the authority to bar public officials, who took an oath of allegiance to the U.
Constitution, from holding office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the Constitution. The intent was to prevent the president from allowing former leaders of the Confederacy to regain power within the U.
It states that a two-thirds majority vote in Congress is required to allow public officials who had engaged in rebellion to regain the rights of American citizenship and hold government or military office. It states that: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Following a heated campaign between President Johnson and the Reconstruction Republicans over the future of the 14th Amendment, the Republican Party won a landslide victory in the congressional elections of , solidifying their political power over Reconstruction policy. However, even following this landslide victory, ex-Confederate states continued to reject the proposed amendment. The Republican Congress fought back, passing the Reconstruction Act of , which required ex-Confederate states to extend voting rights to African-American men and denied these states representation in Congress until they voted to ratify the 14th Amendment.
North Carolina, Louisiana, and finally South Carolina ratified the amendment after initially rejecting it. Here is a round-up of the latest from the Battle for the Constitution: a special project on the constitutional debates in…. Blog Post Battle for the Constitution: Week of November 1st, Roundup Here is a round-up of the latest from the Battle for the Constitution: a special project on the constitutional debates in….
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