The action then turned to the Senate. The Senate version passed on June 8, and five days later, the House agreed to approve that final version. President Andrew Johnson was notified that the amendment was being sent to the states for ratification, and he publicly expressed his disapproval.
Congressional approval -- and presidential opposition -- led to a two-year battle between President Johnson and the Republican Party over the 14th Amendment's ratification. 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.
This clause gives Congress the power to pass appropriate laws to enforce all of the provisions of this amendment. Debate and controversy have been high regarding the scope of power given to Congress by this section. In , the Supreme Court gave Congress significant authority. Since this time, however, decisions have been more conservative, giving Congress less authority in regulation.
Congress does not have the power to regulate the private conduct of citizens, but it can regulate actions by state and local governments. Congress has the authority to stop or resolve rights violations that have a legal precedent, but the remedies have to be proportionate to the violations.
Learn more from Tulane University. Master of Jurisprudence. Title IX Certificate Training. Why are you interested in earning a degree or certification from Tulane Law School? Advance My Career. Change Jobs. Gain New Skills. Which program are you interested in? MJ in Energy Law. MJ in Environmental Law. 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Section Two of the 14th Amendment repealed the three-fifths clause Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the original Constitution, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for the purpose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.
Section Four of the 14th Amendment prohibited payment of any debt owed to the defunct Confederate States of America. It also banned any payments to former enslavers as compensation for the loss of human "property" enslaved people.
In giving Congress power to pass laws to safeguard the sweeping provisions of Section One, in particular, the 14th Amendment effectively altered the balance of power between the federal and state governments in the United States. Nearly a century later, Congress used this authority to pass landmark civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of and the Voting Rights Act of In its early decisions involving the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court often limited the application of its protections on a state and local level.
In Plessy v. Ferguson , the Court ruled that racially segregated public facilities did not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, a decision that would help establish infamous Jim Crow laws throughout the South for decades to come. But beginning in the s, the Supreme Court increasingly applied the protections of the 14th Amendment on the state and local level.
Ruling on appeal in the case Gitlow v. New York , the Court stated that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment protected the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech from infringement by the state as well as the federal government. And in its famous ruling in Brown v. Ferguson , ruling that segregated public schools did in fact violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Fourteenth Amendment, HarpWeek.
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