The Fourteenth Amendment

Section 1. Citizenship

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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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.


Section 2. Number of Representitives

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.


Section 3. Penalty for Rebellion

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. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.


Section 4. Government Debt

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.


Section 5. Enforcement

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Summarizing the 14th Amendment

       The Fourteenth Amendment is basically about issues that need to be resolved during the Civil War. The people were wondering how to treat blacks that used to be slaves and how they will be represented. So, Section One in the Fourteenth Amendment was to protect the rights of the just freed blacks. Section Two is about the number of representatives and a states representation. This section canceled out the Three-Fifths Compromise in Article One. Section Three in the Fourteenth Amendment is dealing with the fact that anyone who rebelled against the country in the Civil War, cannot run, or be, involved in any national or state governments. Government Debt, Section Four, talks about during the Civil War, the United States paid all of the union debts, but any confederate debts had to be paid from the states that rebelled, otherwise known as the confederate states. Therefore, the Confederate states, such as Georgia, cannot use the public money. Section Five, which is Enforcement, says that Congress can pass laws to carry out this amendment.

The Importance of the 14th Amendment

       This Amendment was important while the Civil War was going on.  This amendment talks about just freed blacks slaves, confederate states verses the union, Civil War government debt, and enforcement during the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The importance of this amendment is becasue it expands the definition of who is considered a legal United States citizen.