Main content
AP®︎/College US History
The 14th Amendment
AP.USH:
KC‑5.3.II.A (KC)
, PCE (Theme)
, Unit 5: Learning Objective K
Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center in conversation with Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute. Created by Aspen Institute.
Want to join the conversation?
why was the 14th Amendment hated?(6 votes)
It took away state's rights to have their own laws about property.(4 votes)
Does the 14th Amendment apply to the children born in the US of non-naturalized immigrants who came into the US?(3 votes)
Technically, Yes, but actually no.
In fact, that is why illegal immigrants today cross the border, so their kids born here CAN become citizens.(1 vote)
Why in the 14 amendment they say that Congress should pass no laws(5 votes)
It says that they should pass now laws that would go against the 14th amendment, or create any laws that would take the rights away from a citizen. This was needed to try and stop the south from making it legal to have slavery, or a watered down version of slavery.(2 votes)
- Why they had to ratifie just to come back to the Union(2 votes)
- If they didn't, they would be in big crud.(4 votes)
- what was the the 14th amendment connection to former slaves(2 votes)
The 14th amendment was ratified to give freed slaves rights. Many slaves were born in the United States, so the 14th amendment said that anyone born in the U.S. is now a citizen. When slaves were treated unfairly, they weren't considered as citizens but as property. Therefore, being citizens of the United States allowed former slaves to have rights.(4 votes)
Why was the Fourteenth Amendment necessary if the Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created
equal?(2 votes)
The 14th amendment enforced that line. It also added and gave detail into being "equal."(3 votes)
- Is the 14th amendment as strong as the government makes it seem?(2 votes)
It depends on which period of American History you are talking about. When the 14th Amendment was first ratified, (the late 1800s) the law was rarely enforced and generally ineffective. From the 1920s and onwards, when the 14th Amendment was officiated, it had similar strength as any other Amendment.(1 vote)
- Have you noticed the Aspen Institute got the text of the 14th Amendment wrong? I thought the text was, "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States," not the text shown on the screen.(1 vote)
- I have not been able to verify the Aspen Institute text that you brought up. But if you do find that this organization is changing words, you should beware of what their agenda is.
Changing words to suit their needs or promote an agenda is dishonest, and as a student, you should steer away from them and search for what is true.(3 votes)
The 14th Amendment was imposed as the law of the land after the defeat of the Confederacy. At some point prior to the 14th Amendment the Confederate states were void of their representation in Congress pending their ratification of the 14th Amendment. Especially considering an announcement made by the then President Lincoln which declared that no State of the Union could secede from the Union, so then on what authority did the Union have to restrict the southern confederacy of representation in Congress? I would think that representation was a state's right.(1 vote)
Those states willingly left. They had no "rights". The states that did not leave amended the constitution legally. Get over it.(1 vote)
- Did this amendment as well as others inspire other groups in the United States to push for equality as well?(1 vote)
Video transcript
I'm Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute and we are here with the second of our lessons about the reconstruction amendments I'm with Jeffrey Rosen the CEO of the National Consitution Center in Philidelphia And Jeffrey now let's get on to the 14th amendment But first let's put it on our timeline When did Congress pass it and when did the 14th get ratified? Congress passed the 14th amendment on June 13th 1866 And it was ratified on July 9th 1868 And it's viewed by some as the most important amendment of the constitution, why? Because it contains our basic guarantees of equality and due process of law. The entire Civil War was fought to constitutionalize equality it wasn't until the North won at Appomattox that that vision was embraced by Lincoln and finally it was embedded in the 14th amendment Well what was Lincoln's theory of constitutional equality? You know, it was quite powerful. There were some radical reconstruction Republicans, Lincoln was not one of them who thought that slavery was illegal even in the original constitution and basically that the so called "Privileges [or] Immunities Clause" of the original constitution forbade states to deny African Americans basic civil rights. But that wasn't the majority view. Lincoln's view was that it would require a constitutional amendment to overturn the Dred Scott decision which didn't recognize African Americans as having any legal rights, and to constitionalize equality and that's why the core of the 14th amendment is Section 1, which basically extends to African Americans the same civil rights that white people had taken for granted. Well let's read some of that, especially the "Privileges and Immunities Clause" read it to us here, what's important there? So the second sentence of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment says "No state shall make or enforce any law