The 14th Amendment was intended for the formerly enslaved and for the children of the formerly enslaved (Foundational) Black Americans
Deconstructing the 14th Amendment
The 13th Amendment, ratified in December 1865, made slavery illegal throughout the United States. But it did not address other fundamental questions about the status of newly freed African Americans. Were they citizens? Did they have the same rights as other Americans? To resolve these issues, Congress passed the 14th Amendment, which contained key provisions on the definition of citizenship, the protection of civil rights, and the power of the federal government.
Birthright 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.
— 14th Amendment, Section 1
From the nation’s founding, African Americans regarded themselves as citizens. When the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, it did not restrict citizenship based on race. However, it only counted enslaved people as 3/5ths of a person, rather than as full citizens, in state populations.
Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott
Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, filed suits to claim their freedom while still enslaved, based on having lived in free territory. Dred Scott appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court, which denied his claim on the basis that he was not a citizen and had no right to sue in federal court. Delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote: "[slaves and their descendants] had for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior order … they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
The U.S. Supreme Court declared in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford that Black people, whether free or enslaved, were not citizens, but “a separate class of persons.” This decision protected the institution of slavery, which defined enslaved people as property, and supported discriminatory laws that denied equal citizenship status to free Black people.
The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was specifically intended to repeal the Dred Scott decision. It established the principle of birthright citizenship, meaning a person born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen.
Under the 14th Amendment, African Americans could now legally claim the same constitutional rights afforded to all American citizens.
Civil Rights, Due Process, and Equal Protection
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.
— 14th Amendment, Section 1
Protesting Black Codes
After the abolishment of slavery in 1865, southern states passed laws known as Black Codes, which restricted the civil rights of newly freed African Americans and forced them to work for their former enslavers. African Americans organized conventions across the South to protest the Black Codes and petition Congress for equal rights.
We simply desire that we shall be recognized as men; that we have no obstructions placed in our way; that the same laws which govern white men shall direct colored men; that we have the right of trial by a jury of our peers; that schools be opened or established for our children; that we be permitted to acquire homesteads for ourselves and children; that we be dealt with as others, in equity and justice.
Address of the Colored State Convention to the People of the State of South Carolina, 1865
The State Convention of Colored People of South Carolina, held in Charleston in November 1865, issued a 54-foot-long petition signed by hundreds of men. The petitioners asked Congress to help them secure “our equal rights before the law” and “an equal voice with all loyal citizens.”
The 14th Amendment revoked the Black Codes by declaring that states could not pass laws that denied citizens their constitutional rights and freedoms. No person could be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process (fair treatment by the judicial system)…
The 14th Amendment also included provisions relating to voting and representation in Congress. It amended the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution, stating that population counts would be based on the “whole number of persons” in a state—all people would be counted equally.
Reconstruction and the 14th Amendment
Congress passed the 14th Amendment on June 13, 1866, and sent it to the states to be ratified. But changing the Constitution to fulfill the promise of equality for African Americans would not be an easy process. Slavery, which defined Black people as property, not as citizens, had shaped the United States since its founding. In order for the 14th Amendment to become the new law of the land, it would need more than a ratification—it would need Reconstruction.
White Resistance
Twenty-two states ratified the 14th Amendment within a year after it was passed, out of a total of 28 needed to make the amendment part of the U.S. Constitution. But most southern states, led by the same white men who had passed the Black Codes, refused to ratify an amendment that defined African Americans as equal citizens. Black men and women who attempted to exercise their rights and freedoms faced resistance, violence, and retaliation from their fellow white citizens.
On May 1, 1866, mobs of white civilians and police attacked the Black community in Memphis, Tennessee. The first major outbreak of racial violence after the Civil War, the Memphis Massacre lasted three days and resulted in the deaths of 46 African Americans. National outrage over the incident helped fuel support for passage of the 14th Amendment.
Opposition to the 14th Amendment was not limited to the South. In northern and western states, the Democratic Party appealed to white voters who opposed the idea of equal rights for African Americans. Three states—Ohio, Oregon, and New Jersey—that initially ratified the 14th Amendment rescinded their ratifications in 1868 after Democrats gained control of those state legislatures.
Reconstruction Acts
In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which placed former Confederate states under military rule until they ratified the 14th Amendment and established new constitutions guaranteeing equal rights and protections to African Americans. The Reconstruction Acts also granted Black men in southern states the right to vote and hold elected office. Once African Americans were able to participate in the political process, the 14th Amendment gained the final votes it needed in the South. On July 9, 1868, Louisiana and South Carolina voted to ratify the amendment, making it officially part of the U.S. Constitution.
Enforcement Acts
After the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, white southerners continued to violently oppose Black civil rights. In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed three laws known as the Enforcement Acts, which invoked the power of the federal government under the 14th Amendment to intervene when states failed to protect the rights of citizens.
The Enforcement Acts specifically targeted the Ku Klux Klan for conspiring to prevent Black men from voting. During federal grand jury investigations, hundreds of African Americans came forward to testify about being terrorized by the Klan. In South Carolina, this testimony led to the indictment of 220 Klansmen for civil rights violations, but only five were ultimately tried and convicted.
“We, as Foundational Black Americans, are deeply rooted and constitutionally cemented in the fabric of this nation.”
“We’re the only group whose citizenship was guaranteed as a remedy for slavery.”
*the term African American or people of color is used in text from an article that I copy/pasted — I don’t use those terms
