Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

{{Short description|1868 amendment addressing citizenship rights and civil and political liberties}}

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law at all levels of government. The Fourteenth Amendment was a response to issues affecting freed slaves following the American Civil War, and its passage was bitterly contested. States of the defeated Confederacy were required to ratify it to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954; prohibiting racial segregation in public schools), Loving v. Virginia (1967; ending interracial marriage bans), Roe v. Wade (1973; recognizing federal right to abortion until overturned in 2022), Bush v. Gore (2000; settling 2000 presidential election), Obergefell v. Hodges (2015; extending right to marry to same-sex couples), and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023; prohibiting affirmative action in most college admissions).

The amendment's first section includes the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. The Citizenship Clause broadly defines citizenship, superseding the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that Americans descended from African slaves could not become American citizens. The Privileges or Immunities Clause was interpreted in the Slaughter-House Cases (1873) as preventing states from impeding federal rights, such as the freedom of movement. The Due Process Clause builds on the Fifth Amendment to prohibit all levels of government from depriving people of life, liberty, or property without substantive and procedural due process. Additionally, the Due Process Clause supports the incorporation doctrine, by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been applied to the states. The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people, including non-citizens, within its jurisdiction.

The second section superseded the Three-Fifths Compromise, apportioning the House of Representatives and Electoral College using each state's adult male population. In allowing states to abridge voting rights "for participation in rebellion, or other crime," this section approved felony disenfranchisement. The third section disqualifies federal and state candidates who "have engaged in insurrection or rebellion," but in Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court left its application to Congress for federal elections and state governments for state elections. The fourth section affirms public debt authorized by Congress while declining to compensate slaveholders for emancipation. The fifth section provides congressional power of enforcement, but Congress' authority to regulate private conduct has shifted to the Commerce Clause, while the anti-commandeering doctrine restrains federal interference in state law.

Section 1: Citizenship and civil rights

{{quote box|align=center|Section 1. 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.}}

=Background=

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| footer = The two pages of the Congressionally-signed original of the Fourteenth Amendment in the National Archives, written with iron gall ink on parchment. It was last publicly displayed in 2013. As of 2025, it is stored in the research wing of the archives inside a boxed book of Acts of Congress from its 39th session.{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1229487068 |title=I went hunting for the 14th Amendment, the document that could bar Trump from ballots |author=Luke Garrett |date=February 7, 2024}}

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Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment formally defines United States citizenship and protects various civil rights from being abridged or denied by any state law or state action.{{cite news |author1=Sherrilyn A. Ifill |title=Freedom Still Awaits |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/freedom-still-awaits/412660/ |access-date=May 5, 2024 |work=The Atlantic|date=October 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606164121/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/freedom-still-awaits/412660/ |archive-date=June 6, 2023}}{{cite news |last1=Blight |first1=David W. |title=Slavery Did Not Die Honestly |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/slavery-did-not-die-honestly/411487/ |access-date=May 5, 2024 |publisher=The Atlantic |date=October 21, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240223224625/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/slavery-did-not-die-honestly/411487/ |archive-date=February 23, 2024}} In Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's historical context of countering the discriminatory Black Codes of Southern states must be used in its interpretation.{{Cite journal |last1=Saks |first1=J. Harol |last2=Rabkin |first2=Sol |date=Spring 1960 |title=Racial and Religious Discrimination in Housing: A Report of Legal Progress |journal=Iowa Law Review |volume=45 |pages=488–524}} Primarily written by Representative John Bingham, Section 1 is the most frequently litigated part of the amendment,Harrell, David and Gaustad, Edwin. Unto A Good Land: A History Of The American People, Volume 1, p. 520 (Eerdmans Publishing, 2005): "The most important, and the one that has occasioned the most litigation over time as to its meaning and application, was Section One." and this amendment is the most frequently litigated part of the Constitution.{{Cite journal |last=Finkelman |first=Paul |date=28 July 2003 |title=John Bingham and the Background to the Fourteenth Amendment |url=https://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/727387.pdf |journal=Akron Law Review |volume=36 |pages=671–692}}Stephenson, D. The Waite Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy, p. 147 (ABC-CLIO, 2003).{{cite web |title=14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History |url=https://guides.loc.gov/14th-amendment |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=May 3, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503140514/https://guides.loc.gov/14th-amendment |archive-date=May 3, 2024}}

=Citizenship Clause=

File:Jacob M. Howard - Brady-Handy.jpg of Michigan, author of the Citizenship Clause]]

The Citizenship Clause overruled the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that African Americans could not become citizens.Multiple sources:

{{cite journal|ssrn=1023809|last=Tsesis|first=Alexander|author-link=Alexander Tsesis|title=The Inalienable Core of Citizenship: From Dred Scott to the Rehnquist Court|journal=Arizona State Law Journal|volume=39|date=2008}}
McDonald v. Chicago, {{ussc|561|742|2010}}, 807–808 ("This [clause] unambiguously overruled this Court's contrary holding in Dred Scott.")
{{cite news|title=The Atlantic Argument: Trump Is Trying to Change 'What it Means to Be American'|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/575062/us-citizenship/|access-date=March 18, 2020|publisher=The Atlantic|date=November 8, 2018|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215252/https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/575062/us-citizenship/|url-status=live}} The clause constitualized the Civil Rights Act of 1866's grant of citizenship to all born within the United States, except the children of foreign diplomats.{{Cite journal |last=United States House of Representatives |author-link=39th United States Congress |date=9 March 1866 |title=Rights of Citizens |url=https://www.congress.gov/congressional-globe/congress-39-session-1-part-2.pdf |journal=Congressional Globe |pages=1290–1296}}{{cite news |author1=Garrett Epps (Professor of constitutional law at the University of Baltimore) |date=October 30, 2018 |title=Ideas: The Citizenship Clause Means What It Says |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/birthright-citizenship-constitution/574381/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307180608/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/birthright-citizenship-constitution/574381/ |archive-date=March 7, 2020 |access-date=March 18, 2020 |publisher=The Atlantic}} Compared against European jus sanguinis laws that assign citizenship by one's parents, historians have framed the United States' Citizenship Clause as an extension of the Fourteenth Amendment's egalitarian principles.{{Cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |date=2015-08-27 |title=Birthright Citizenship Is the Good Kind of American Exceptionalism |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/birthright-citizenship-is-the-good-kind-of-american-exceptionalism/ |access-date=2025-04-02 |work=The Nation |language=en-US |issn=0027-8378}}{{Cite web |last=Epps |first=Garrett |date=2018-10-30 |title=The Citizenship Clause Means What It Says |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/birthright-citizenship-constitution/574381/ |access-date=2025-04-02 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}

Congress' debate over the Citizenship Clause shows explicit rejection of Senator Edgar Cowan's anti-Romani sentiment, affirming that birthright citizenship cannot be revoked from children born to disfavored ethnic minorities.{{Cite journal |last=United States Senate |author-link=39th United States Congress |date=30 May 1866 |title=Reconstruction |url=https://www.congress.gov/congressional-globe/congress-39-session-1-part-4.pdf |journal=Congressional Globe |pages=2890–2902}}{{Cite journal |last=Ho |first=James C. |date=Summer 2006 |title=Defining "American": Birthright Citizenship and the Original Understanding of the 14th Amendment |url=https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/publications/Ho-DefiningAmerican.pdf |journal=The Green Bag |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=367–378}} In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court confirmed that children born in the United States receive birthright citizenship, regardless of whether their parents are non-citizen immigrants.{{cite journal |last=Rodriguez |first=Cristina M. |date=2009 |title=The Second Founding: The Citizenship Clause, Original Meaning, and the Egalitarian Unity of the Fourteenth Amendment |url=https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1177&context=jcl |journal=University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law |volume=11 |pages=1363–1475 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2 April 2025}}

In Elk v. Wilkins (1884), the Supreme Court interpreted the Citizenship Clause as granting birthright citizenship to all born within the jurisdiction of the United States and allowing Congress to establish alternative pathways for naturalization.{{cite journal |last=Magliocca |first=Gerard N. |date=2007 |title=Indians and Invaders: The Citizenship Clause and Illegal Aliens |url=https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1210&context=jcl |journal=University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law |volume=10 |pages=499–526 |ssrn=965268}} Consistent with the views of the clause's author, Senator Jacob M. Howard, the Supreme Court held that because Indian reservations are not under the federal government's jurisdiction, Native Americans born on such land are not entitled to birthright citizenship.{{Cite journal |last=United States Senate |author-link=39th United States Congress |date=2 February 1866 |title=Protection of Civil Rights |url=https://www.congress.gov/congressional-globe/congress-39-session-1-part-1.pdf |journal=Congressional Globe |pages=497-507 and 569-578}}{{Cite web |last=LaFantasie |first=Glenn W. |date=2011-03-20 |title=The erosion of the Civil War consensus |url=https://www.salon.com/2011/03/20/lafantasie_civil_war_consensus/ |access-date=2025-04-02 |website=Salon |language=en}} The 1887 Dawes Act offered citizenship to Native Americans who accepted private property as part of cultural assimilation, while the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act offered citizenship to all Native Americans born within the nation's territorial limits.{{Cite web |last=Stroud |first=Elizabeth L. |date=26 February 2025 |title=The Struggle for Native American Citizenship: From Elk v. Wilkins to the Indian Citizenship Act |url=https://jgrj.law.uiowa.edu/news/2025/02/struggle-native-american-citizenship-elk-v-wilkins-indian-citizenship-act |access-date=2 April 2025 |website=Journal of Gender, Race & Justice |publisher=University of Iowa College of Law}}

In Mackenzie v. Hare (1915), the Supreme Court upheld the Expatriation Act of 1907, which dictated that all American women who voluntarily married a foreign alien renounced their American citizenship.{{Cite journal |last=Calvo |first=Janet M. |date=2010 |title=Gender, Wives, and U.S. Citizenship Status |url=https://calvo.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2016/10/02/gender-wives-and-u-s-citizenship-status/ |journal=International Review of Constitutionalism |volume=9 |issue=2}} Perez v. Brownell (1958) similarly held that Congress could designate voting in foreign elections or draft evasion as renunciations of citizenship. However, in Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) and Vance v. Terrazas (1980), the Supreme Court reversed itself, holding that renunciations of American citizenship must be formally expressed.{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=John Paul |date=1979 |title=Limiting Congressional Denationalization After Afroyim |url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1203&context=law-faculty-publications |journal=San Diego Law Review |volume=17 |pages=121–148}}

In January 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14160 to deny birthright citizenship to children with parents of illegal or temporary immigration status.{{Cite news |last=Totenberg |first=Nina |date=14 March 2025 |title=Trump takes birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/03/14/nx-s1-5327552/trump-takes-birthright-citizenship-to-the-supreme-court |access-date=2025-04-02 |work=NPR |language=en}} While this topic was not considered by the 39th Congress, nor has it been addressed by the Supreme Court, enforcement of the Executive Order has been blocked as unconstitutional by multiple federal judges.{{Cite report |url=https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL33079.pdf |title=Birthright Citizenship Under the 14th Amendment of Persons Born in the United States to Alien Parents |last=Lee |first=Margaret Mikyung |date=10 January 2012 |publisher=Congressional Research Service |access-date=2 April 2025}} Furthermore, many of the freed slaves whose children were covered by the Citizenship Clause were illegal immigrants brought in violation of the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves.{{Cite news |last=Somin |first=Ilya |date=15 February 2025 |title=Birthright Citizenship - A Response to Barnett and Wurman |url=https://reason.com/volokh/2025/02/15/birthright-citizenship-a-response-to-barnett-and-wurman/ |access-date=2 April 2025 |work=The Volokh Conspiracy}}

=Privileges or Immunities Clause=

The Privileges or Immunities Clause was written to provide congressional power of enforcement to the similar Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article Four of the Constitution.{{Cite journal |last=Lash |first=Kurt T. |date=2011 |title=The Origins of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Part II: John Bingham and the Second Draft of the Fourteenth Amendment |url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2455&context=law-faculty-publications |journal=Georgetown Law Journal |volume=99 |issue=329 |pages=329–433}} In 1823, Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington decided Corfield v. Coryell, interpreting the latter clause as protecting the right to travel, seek habeas corpus, and hold property in multiple states, among other rights.{{Cite journal |last=Harrison |first=John |date=1992 |title=Reconstructing the Privileges or Immunities Clause |url=https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/8698/60_101YaleLJ1385_1991_1992_.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y |journal=Yale Law Journal |volume=101 |pages=1385–1474|doi=10.2307/796881 |jstor=796881 }} In the Slaughter-House Cases (1873), the Supreme Court rejected arguments that the Privileges or Immunities Clause further incorporated the Bill of Rights against state governments or transferred police power to the federal government.{{cite book|last=Beatty|first=Jack|title=Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865–1900|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U3eG_QoBRzsC&q=%22To%20Miller%20the%20first%20sentence%20of%20the%20Fourteenth%22&pg=PA135|access-date=July 19, 2013|year= 2008|publisher=Vintage Books|location=New York|isbn=978-1400032426|page=135|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215257/https://books.google.com/books?id=U3eG_QoBRzsC&q=%22To+Miller+the+first+sentence+of+the+Fourteenth%22&pg=PA135|url-status=live}}Shaman, Jeffrey. Constitutional Interpretation: Illusion and Reality, p. 248 (Greenwood Publishing 2001). In McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) and Timbs v. Indiana (2019), Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas advocated transferring the incorporation doctrine from the Due Process Clause to the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but this has been criticized as a veiled attempt to restrict the rights of non-citizens within the United States.{{Cite journal |last=Aceves |first=William J. |date=2019 |title=A Distinction with a Difference: Rights, Privileges, and the Fourteenth Amendment |url=https://texaslawreview.org/a-distinction-with-a-difference/ |journal=Texas Law Review |volume=98 |issue=1}}

=Due Process Clause=

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| quote = Due process has not been reduced to any formula; its content cannot be determined by reference to any code. The best that can be said is that, through the course of this Court's decisions, it has represented the balance which our Nation, built upon postulates of respect for the liberty of the individual, has struck between that liberty and the demands of organized society. If the supplying of content to this constitutional concept has of necessity been a rational process, it certainly has not been one where judges have felt free to roam where unguided speculation might take them. The balance of which I speak is the balance struck by this country, having regard to what history teaches are the traditions from which it developed as well as the traditions from which it broke. That tradition is a living thing. A decision of this Court which radically departs from it could not long survive, while a decision which builds on what has survived is likely to be sound. No formula could serve as a substitute, in this area, for judgment and restraint.

| source = —Associate Justice John M. Harlan II in his dissenting opinion to Poe v. Ullman {{ussc|367|497|1961}}

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The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly applies the Fifth Amendment's similar clause to state governments. In protecting all people against arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property, courts have recognized both procedural and substantive due process.{{cite web |author1=Nathan S. Chapman and Kenji Yoshino |title=Interpretation & Debate: The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause |url=https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/amendment-xiv/clauses/701 |publisher=National Constitution Center |access-date=April 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240411165439/https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/amendment-xiv/clauses/701 |archive-date=April 11, 2024}}{{cite book|last=Curry|first=James A.|title=Constitutional Government: The American Experience|year=2003|publisher=Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company|isbn=978-0787298708|page=[https://archive.org/details/constitutionalgo0000curr/page/210 210]|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qWR3pvfyI1sC&q=two%20Due%20Process%20Clauses%20fifth%20fourteenth%20interpreted%20identically&pg=PA210|author2=Riley, Richard B.|author3=Battiston, Richard M.|access-date=July 14, 2013|chapter=6|url=https://archive.org/details/constitutionalgo0000curr/page/210}} Procedural due process deals with the processes for restraining life, liberty, or property, such as the right to be notified of a hearing by a neutral decision-maker.{{Cite journal |last=Chemerinsky |first=Erwin |date=2000 |title=Procedural Due Process Claims |url=https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2388&context=lawreview |journal=Touro Law Reivew |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=871–893}} In comparison, substantive due process involves the government's justification for engaging in those processes.{{Cite journal |last=Chemerinsky |first=Erwin |date=1999 |title=Substantive Due Process |url=https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1638&context=faculty_scholarship |journal=Touro Law Review |volume=15 |pages=1501–1534}} In deciding whether legislation unconstitutionally infringes on one's liberty, most government acts are subject to rational basis review, under which the government must present a legitimate state interest. When the government infringes on fundamental rights, such as racial equality, strict scrutiny requires its actions to instead be narrowly tailored to address a compelling state interest.{{Cite news |last1=Alicea |first1=Joel |last2=Ohlendorf |first2=John D. |date=Fall 2019 |title=Against the Tiers of Constitutional Scrutiny |url=https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/against-the-tiers-of-constitutional-scrutiny |access-date=4 April 2024 |work=National Affairs}}

The early 20th century has been referred to as the Lochner era for the Supreme Court's embrace of a freedom of contract in cases like Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897) and Lochner v. New York (1905).{{Cite journal |date=June 2023 |title=The Contract Clause: Reawakened in the Age of COVID-19 |url=https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-136/the-contract-clause-reawakened-in-the-age-of-covid-19/#footnote-77 |journal=Harvard Law Review |volume=136 |issue=8 |pages=2130–2151}} While that freedom was ultimately curtailed in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), those early cases recognized substantive due process rights within the Due Process Clause. For example, Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) struck down anti-immigrant state education laws as violations of substantive due process.

In 1890, future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and his law partner, Samuel D. Warren II, published "The Right to Privacy" in the Harvard Law Review.{{Cite journal |last1=Warren |first1=Samuel D. |last2=Brandeis |first2=Louis D. |date=1890-12-15 |title=The Right to Privacy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1321160 |journal=Harvard Law Review |volume=4 |issue=5 |pages=193 |doi=10.2307/1321160 |jstor=1321160}} While the article only advocated for tort actions to protect one's privacy, the Supreme Court later elevated privacy to a fundamental right, protecting contraceptive sales in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), consensual sex in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), and same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges under substantive due process.{{Cite magazine |last=Lepore |first=Jill |date=2015-05-18 |title=Sex and the Supreme Court |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/to-have-and-to-hold |access-date=2025-04-04 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}} In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court recognized a substantive due process right to abortion, but that holding was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), which claimed that "a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions."{{Cite journal |last=Tang |first=Aaron |date=11 April 2024 |title=Lessons from Lawrence: How "History" Gave Us Dobbs—And How History Can Help Overrule It |url=https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/lessons-from-lawrence-how-history-gave-us-dobbsand-how-history-can-help-overrule-it |journal=Yale Law Journal |volume=133 |pages=65–98}}

==Incorporation of the Bill of Rights==

Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court held in Barron v. Baltimore (1833) that the Bill of Rights only restrained the federal government.{{Cite journal |last=Lash |first=Kurt |date=Fall 2022 |title=Respeaking the Bill of Rights: A New Doctrine of Incorporation |url=https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11467&context=ilj |journal=Indiana Law Journal |volume=97 |issue=4 |pages=1439–1453}} However, in Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago (1897), the Supreme Court applied the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause to the eminent domain power of state governments under the Due Process Clause, beginning an ongoing process of incorporation. Legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar has argued that while Congress intended the Fourteenth Amendment to reverse the Barron decision, Representative Bingham expected incorporation to rely on the Privileges or Immunities Clause.{{cite journal|last=Amar|first=Akhil Reed|year=1992|title=The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment|journal=Yale Law Journal|volume=101|issue=6|pages=1193–1284|doi=10.2307/796923|url=http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Amar1.html|jstor=796923|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081019233856/http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Amar1.html|archive-date=October 19, 2008}} The Supreme Court has explicitly rejected incorporation of the Fifth Amendment's Grand Jury Clause and Seventh Amendment, and it has never addressed the Third Amendment.{{Cite journal |last=Fairfax Jr. |first=Roger A. |date=2022 |title=Interrogating the Nonincorporation of the Grand Jury Clause |url=https://cardozolawreview.com/interrogating-the-nonincorporation-of-the-grand-jury-clause/ |journal=Cardozo Law Review |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=855–919}}

=Equal Protection Clause=

File:BinghamFacingForward.jpg of Ohio was the principal author of the Equal Protection Clause.{{cite web |author1=Tom Donnelly |date=July 9, 2018 |title=John Bingham: One of America's forgotten "Second Founders" |url=https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/happy-birthday-john-bingham-one-of-americas-forgotten-second-founders |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503143458/https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/happy-birthday-john-bingham-one-of-americas-forgotten-second-founders |archive-date=May 3, 2024 |access-date=May 3, 2024 |publisher=National Constitution Center}}]]

The Equal Protection Clause was written to constitutionalize the anti-discrimination principles of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, preventing enforcement of the southern states' Black Codes.{{harvp|Goldstone|2011|pp=20-24}} In Strauder v. West Virginia (1880), the Supreme Court recognized exclusion of African Americans from West Virginian juries as an unconstitutional infringement of this clause, triggering the 1866 law's provision to remove the underlying case to federal court.{{Cite journal |last=Levinson |first=Sanford |date=Spring 2018 |title=Why Strauder v. West Virginia is the Most Important Single Source of Insight on the Tensions Contained Within the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment |url=https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=lj |journal=Saint Louis University Law Journal |volume=62 |issue=3 |pages=603-622}} In Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the Supreme Court clarified that race-neutral laws administered in discriminatory ways were similarly unconstitutional.{{Cite journal |last=Bernstein |first=David E. |date=December 1999 |title=Lochner, Parity, and the Chinese Laundry Cases |url=https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1512&context=wmlr |journal=William & Mary Law Review |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=211-294}}

Whereas the Privileges or Immunities Clause refers to citizens, this clause refers to all people within the jurisdiction of the United States. Accordingly, in Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Supreme Court prohibited state governments from restricting public education on the basis of a child's immigration status.{{Cite journal |last=Ruth |first=Jones |date=1983 |title=Plyler v. Doe - Education and Illegal Alien Children |url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt2hz3v32w/qt2hz3v32w.pdf |journal=National Black Law Journal |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=132-137}} In that decision, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. noted that in Wong Wing v. United States (1896), the Supreme Court had already recognized illegal immigrants as within American jurisdiction for the purposes of due process rights.{{Cite journal |last=Warfield |first=David A. |date=January 1983 |title=Illegal Aliens Have Right to Free Public Education |url=https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2310&context=law_lawreview |journal=Washington University Law Review |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=591-606}}

While the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause incorporates the Bill of Rights against state governments, the Fifth Amendment's similar clause has been used for reverse incorporation of the Equal Protection Clause against the federal government. In Bolling v. Sharpe (1954), the Supreme Court used this doctrine to prevent the federal government from maintaining segregated public schools in Washington, D.C.{{cite journal|last=Primus|first=Richard|title=Bolling Alone|journal=Columbia Law Review|date=May 2004|volume=104|issue=4|pages=975–1041|doi=10.2307/4099366|jstor=4099366|ssrn=464847}}

The Supreme Court also decided whether foreign corporations are also within the jurisdiction of a state, ruling that a foreign corporation which sued in a state court in which it was not licensed to do business to recover possession of property wrongfully taken from it in another state was within the jurisdiction and could not be subjected to unequal burdens in the maintenance of the suit.{{cite web |title=Annotation 18 – Fourteenth Amendment: Section 1 – Rights Guaranteed: Equal Protection of the Laws: Scope and application state action |url=http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14/annotation18.html#t94 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215318/https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14/annotation18.html#t94 |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |access-date=November 23, 2013 |publisher=FindLaw for Legal Professionals – Law & Legal Information by FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters business}} When a state has admitted a foreign corporation to do business within its borders, that corporation is entitled to equal protection of the laws but not necessarily to identical treatment with domestic corporations.

In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), the court reporter included a statement by Chief Justice Morrison Waite in the decision's headnote:

{{blockquote|The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.}}

This dictum, which established that corporations enjoyed personhood under the Equal Protection Clause, was repeatedly reaffirmed by later courts.{{cite book|last=Johnson|first=John W.|title=Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XPDqMQv0Y6QC&pg=PA446|access-date=June 13, 2013|year=2001|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0415937559|pages=446–447|archive-date=February 6, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004636/https://books.google.com/books?id=XPDqMQv0Y6QC&pg=PA446|url-status=live}} It remained the predominant view throughout the twentieth century, though it was challenged in dissents by justices such as Hugo Black and William O. Douglas.{{cite encyclopedia|year=2003|title=Corporations|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues: 1789–2002|publisher=ABC-CLIO|editor-first=John R.|editor-last=Vile|page=116}} Between 1890 and 1910, Fourteenth Amendment cases involving corporations vastly outnumbered those involving the rights of blacks, 288 to 19.{{Cite book|publisher=Collier Books|last=Logan|first=Rayford Whittingham|title=The betrayal of the Negro, from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson|url=https://archive.org/details/betrayalofnegrof0000loga_q7j6/page/100/mode/1up|url-access=registration|location=New York|date=1965|page=[https://archive.org/details/betrayalofnegrof0000loga_q7j6/page/100/mode/1up 100]|isbn=9780306807589 }}

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896),Plessy v. Ferguson, {{ussc|163|537|1896}}. the Supreme Court held that the states could impose racial segregation so long as they provided similar facilities—the formation of the "separate but equal" doctrine.{{cite web|url=http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wwno/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1468970|title=Plessy/Ferguson plaque dedicated|last=Abrams|first=Eve|date=February 12, 2009|publisher=WWNO (University New Orleans Public Radio)|access-date=April 17, 2009|archive-date=January 29, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120129224157/http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wwno/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1468970|url-status=live}} The Court went even further in restricting the Equal Protection Clause in Berea College v. Kentucky (1908),Berea College v. Kentucky, {{ussc|211|45|1908}}. holding that the states could force private actors to discriminate by prohibiting colleges from having both black and white students. By the early 20th century, the Equal Protection Clause had been eclipsed to the point that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. dismissed it as "the usual last resort of constitutional arguments."{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0274_0200_ZO.html|title=274 U.S. 200: Buck v. Bell|last=Holmes| first=Oliver Wendell Jr. |publisher=Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute|access-date=June 12, 2013|archive-date=May 30, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130530002742/http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0274_0200_ZO.html|url-status=dead}}File:Thurgood-marshall-2.jpg served as chief counsel in the landmark Fourteenth Amendment decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954).]]

The Court held to the "separate but equal" doctrine for more than fifty years, despite numerous cases in which the Court itself had found that the segregated facilities provided by the states were almost never equal, until Brown v. Board of Education (1954) reached the Court.Brown v. Board of Education, {{ussc|347|483|1954}}. In Brown the Court ruled that even if segregated black and white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers, segregation was inherently harmful to black students and so was unconstitutional. Brown met with a campaign of resistance from white Southerners, and for decades the federal courts attempted to enforce Brown{{'}}s mandate against repeated attempts at circumvention.{{cite book|last=Patterson|first=James|title=Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History)|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0195156324|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/brownvboardofedu2001patt}} This resulted in the controversial desegregation busing decrees handed down by federal courts in various parts of the nation.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912178,00.html|title=Forced Busing and White Flight|date=September 25, 1978|magazine=Time|access-date=June 17, 2009|archive-date=September 1, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090901003733/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912178,00.html|url-status=dead}} In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), the Court ruled that race could not be the determinative factor in determining to which public schools parents may transfer their children.Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, {{ussc|551|701|2007}}.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/washington/29scotus.html|title=Justices Limit the Use of Race in School Plans for Integration|last=Greenhouse|first=Linda|date=June 29, 2007|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=June 30, 2013|archive-date=February 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202040557/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/washington/29scotus.html|url-status=live}}

In Hernandez v. Texas (1954), the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects those beyond the racial classes of white or "Negro" and extends to other racial and ethnic groups, such as Mexican Americans in this case.Hernandez v. Texas, {{ussc|347|475|1954}}. In the half-century following Brown, the Court extended the reach of the Equal Protection Clause to other historically disadvantaged groups, such as women and illegitimate children, although it has applied a somewhat less stringent standard than it has applied to governmental discrimination on the basis of race (United States v. Virginia (1996);United States v. Virginia, {{ussc|518|515|1996}}. Levy v. Louisiana (1968)Levy v. Louisiana, {{ussc|361|68|1968}}.).{{Cite book|last=Gerstmann|first=Evan|title=The Constitutional Underclass: Gays, Lesbians, and the Failure of Class-Based Equal Protection|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0226288604|url=https://archive.org/details/constitutionalun00gers}}

The Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, {{ussc|438|265|1978}}. that affirmative action in the form of racial quotas in public university admissions was a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; however, race could be used as one of several factors without violating of the Equal Protection Clause or Title VI.{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3457000109.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004636/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3457000109.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 6, 2016|chapter=Regents of the University of California v. Bakke 1978|author1=Daniel E. Brannen|author2=Richard Hanes|year=2001|title=Supreme Court Drama: Cases that Changed America|access-date=June 27, 2013}} In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)Gratz v. Bollinger, {{ussc|539|244|2003}}. and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003),Grutter v. Bollinger, {{ussc|539|306|2003}}. the Court considered two race-conscious admissions systems at the University of Michigan. The university claimed that its goal in its admissions systems was to achieve racial diversity.{{cite web|url=http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/overview/challenge.html|title=Gratz/Grutter and Beyond: the Diversity Leadership Challenge|last=Alger|first=Jonathan|date=October 11, 2003|publisher=University of Michigan|access-date=June 30, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813090527/http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/overview/challenge.html|archive-date=August 13, 2011}} In Gratz, the Court struck down a points-based undergraduate admissions system that added points for minority status, finding that its rigidity violated the Equal Protection Clause; in Grutter, the Court upheld a race-conscious admissions process for the university's law school that used race as one of many factors to determine admission.{{Cite journal|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-535368561.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004636/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-535368561.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 6, 2016|title=Race-Conscious Admissions Programs: Where Do Universities Go From Gratz and Grutter?|last=Eckes|first=Susan B.|date=January 1, 2004|journal=Journal of Law and Education|access-date=June 27, 2013}} In Fisher v. University of Texas (2013), the Court ruled that before race can be used in a public university's admission policy, there must be no workable race-neutral alternative.Fisher v. University of Texas, {{ussc|570|297|2013}}.{{cite web|url=http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=165685|title=Finally! The Fisher decision in Plain English|last=Howe|first=Amy|date=June 24, 2013|publisher=SCOTUSblog|access-date=June 30, 2013|archive-date=June 29, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130629185348/http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=165685|url-status=live}} In Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014), the Court upheld the constitutionality of a state constitutional prohibition on the state or local use of affirmative action.Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, {{ussc|572|291|2014}}.{{cite web|url=http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/opinion-analysis-affirmative-action-up-to-the-voters/|title=Opinion analysis: Affirmative action – up to the voters|last=Denniston|first=Lyle|date=April 22, 2014|publisher=SCOTUSblog|access-date=April 22, 2014|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215305/https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/opinion-analysis-affirmative-action-up-to-the-voters/|url-status=live}}

Reed v. Reed (1971),Reed v. Reed, {{ussc|404|71|1971}}. which struck down an Idaho probate law favoring men, was the first decision in which the Court ruled that arbitrary gender discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause. In Craig v. Boren (1976),Craig v. Boren, {{ussc|429|190|1976}}. the Court ruled that statutory or administrative sex classifications had to be subjected to an intermediate standard of judicial review.{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3425000655.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004636/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3425000655.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 6, 2016|title=Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976)|last=Karst|first=Kenneth L.|date=January 1, 2000|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of the American Constitution|access-date=June 16, 2013}} Reed and Craig later served as precedents to strike down a number of state laws discriminating by gender.{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3457000128.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004636/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3457000128.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 6, 2016|chapter=Reed v. Reed 1971|date=January 1, 2001|title=Supreme Court Drama: Cases that Changed America|access-date=June 12, 2013}}

Since Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)Wesberry v. Sanders, {{ussc|376|1|1964}}. and Reynolds v. Sims (1964),Reynolds v. Sims, {{ussc|377|533|1964}}. the Supreme Court has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause as requiring the states to apportion their congressional districts and state legislative seats according to "one man, one vote".{{cite book|last1=Epstein|first1=Lee|last2=Walker|first2=Thomas G.|title=Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Rights, Liberties, and Justice|edition=6th|publisher=CQ Press|year=2007|location=Washington, D.C.|page=775|quote=Wesberry and Reynolds made it clear that the Constitution demanded population-based representational units for the U.S. House of Representatives and both houses of state legislatures.|isbn=978-0871876133}} The Court has also struck down redistricting plans in which race was a key consideration. In Shaw v. Reno (1993),Shaw v. Reno, {{ussc|509|630|1993}}. the Court prohibited a North Carolina plan aimed at creating majority-black districts to balance historic under-representation in the state's congressional delegations.{{cite journal|last1=Aleinikoff|first1=T. Alexander|last2=Issacharoff|first2=Samuel|year=1993|title=Race and Redistricting: Drawing Constitutional Lines after Shaw v. Reno|journal=Michigan Law Review|volume=92|doi=10.2307/1289796|issue=3|jstor=1289796|pages=588–651|url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3200&context=mlr|access-date=December 9, 2019|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215321/https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3200&context=mlr|url-status=live}}

In Pitts v. Black (1984) the Court established that, by refusing the homeless to register to vote, the New York City Board of Elections was in breach of the Equal Protection Clause. As a result, homeless voters were allowed to cast their ballots.{{cite web |title=Pitts v. Black, 608 F. Supp. 696 |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/608/696/1464605/ |website=Justia}}

The Equal Protection Clause served as the basis for the decision in Bush v. Gore (2000),Bush v. Gore, {{ussc|531|98|2000}}. in which the Court ruled that no constitutionally valid recount of Florida's votes in the 2000 presidential election could be held within the needed deadline; the decision effectively secured Bush's victory in the disputed election.{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/934324/Bush-v-Gore|title=Bush v. Gore|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=June 12, 2013|date=|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215307/https://www.britannica.com/event/Bush-v-Gore|url-status=live}} In League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006),League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, {{ussc|548|399|2006}}. the Court ruled that House majority leader Tom DeLay's Texas redistricting plan intentionally diluted the votes of Latinos and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause.{{Cite journal|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-302110471.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004636/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-302110471.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 6, 2016|title=Fred Gray: life, legacy, lessons|last=Daniels|first=Gilda R.|date=March 22, 2012|journal=Faulkner Law Review|access-date=June 12, 2013}}

=State actor doctrine=

Before United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876) was decided by United States Supreme Court, the case was decided as a circuit case (Federal Cases No. 14897). Presiding of this circuit case was judge Joseph P. Bradley who wrote at page 710 of Federal Cases No. 14897 regarding the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution:{{cite book |title=United States of America Congressiona Record – Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 88th Congress Second Session, Volume 110, Part 5, March 19, 1964 to April 6, 1964 (Pages 5655 to 7044), here page 5943 |year=1964 |publisher=United States Congress |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8g7ceuaqW1IC&q=he+enforcement+of+the+guarantee+does+not+require+or+authorize+Congress+to+perform+%27the+duty+that+the+guarantee+itself+supposes+it+to+be+the+duty+of+th&pg=PA5943 |access-date=April 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200414184250/https://books.google.de/books?id=8g7ceuaqW1IC&pg=PA5943&lpg=PA5943&dq=he+enforcement+of+the+guarantee+does+not+require+or+authorize+Congress+to+perform+%27the+duty+that+the+guarantee+itself+supposes+it+to+be+the+duty+of+th&source=bl&ots=1r-azEiAly&sig=ACfU3U1w_5eEqMzRxVB31zidd2_IlbV-dg&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiz0pu8tujoAhVI6aQKHXVZCYoQ6AEwAHoECAwQKw#v=onepage&q=he%20enforcement%20of%20the%20guarantee%20does%20not%20require%20or%20authorize%20Congress%20to%20perform%20%27the%20duty%20that%20the%20guarantee%20itself%20supposes%20it%20to%20be%20the%20duty%20of%20th&f=false|archive-date=April 14, 2020}}

{{Blockquote|text=It is a guarantee of protection against the acts of the state government itself. It is a guarantee against the exertion of arbitrary and tyrannical power on the part of the government and legislature of the state, not a guarantee against the commission of individual offenses, and the power of Congress, whether express or implied, to legislate for the enforcement of such a guarantee does not extend to the passage of laws for the suppression of crime within the states. The enforcement of the guarantee does not require or authorize Congress to perform 'the duty that the guarantee itself supposes it to be the duty of the state to perform, and which it requires the state to perform'.}}

The above quote was quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629 (1883) and supplemented by a quote from the majority opinion in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876) as written by Chief Justice Morrison Waite:{{cite web|title=United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629 (1883)|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/106/629/|publisher=US Supreme Court Center|access-date=April 14, 2020|archive-date=December 22, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201222212630/https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/106/629/|url-status=live}}{{cite web |title=United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/92/542/ |publisher=US Supreme Court Center |access-date=April 14, 2020 |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215316/https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/92/542/ |url-status=live }}

{{Blockquote|text=The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, but it adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any encroachment by the States upon the fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society. The duty of protecting all its citizens in the enjoyment of an equality of rights was originally assumed by the States, and it still remains there. The only obligation resting upon the United States is to see that the States do not deny the right. This the Amendment guarantees, but no more. The power of the National Government is limited to the enforcement of this guaranty.}}

Individual liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, other than the Thirteenth Amendment's ban on slavery, protect not against actions by private persons or entities, but only against actions by government officials.{{cite web|last=Dunn|first=Christopher|title=Column: Applying the Constitution to Private Actors (New York Law Journal)|url=http://www.nyclu.org/oped/column-applying-constitution-private-actors-new-york-law-journal|publisher=New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) – American Civil Liberties Union of New York State|access-date=November 23, 2013|date=April 28, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200229234200/https://www.nyclu.org/en/publications/column-applying-constitution-private-actors-new-york-law-journal|archive-date=February 29, 2020}} Regarding the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948):Shelley v. Kraemer, {{ussc|334|1|1948}}. "[T]he action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful." The court added in Civil Rights Cases (1883):Civil Rights Cases, {{ussc|109|3|1883}}. "It is State action of a particular character that is prohibited. Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject matter of the amendment. It has a deeper and broader scope. It nullifies and makes void all State legislation, and State action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or which injures them in life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or which denies to any of them the equal protection of the laws."

Vindication of federal constitutional rights are limited to those situations where there is "state action" meaning action of government officials who are exercising their governmental power. In Ex parte Virginia (1880),Ex Parte Virginia, {{ussc|100|339|1880}}. the Supreme Court found that the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment "have reference to actions of the political body denominated by a State, by whatever instruments or in whatever modes that action may be taken. A State acts by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way. The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Whoever, by virtue of public position under a State government, deprives another of property, life, or liberty, without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibition; and as he acts in the name and for the State, and is clothed with the State's power, his act is that of the State. This must be so, or the constitutional prohibition has no meaning. [...] But the constitutional amendment was ordained for a purpose. It was to secure equal rights to all persons, and, to insure to all persons the enjoyment of such rights, power was given to Congress to enforce its provisions by appropriate legislation. Such legislation must act upon persons, not upon the abstract thing denominated a State, but upon the persons who are the agents of the State in the denial of the rights which were intended to be secured."{{cite web |title=Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1879), at 347 |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/100/339/ |website=Justia US Supreme Court Center |access-date=March 2, 2023}}Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co, {{ussc|419|345|1974}}.

There are however instances where people are the victims of civil-rights violations that occur in circumstances involving both government officials and private actors. In the 1960s, the United States Supreme Court adopted an expansive view of state action opening the door to wide-ranging civil-rights litigation against private actors when they act as state actors (i.e., acts done or otherwise "sanctioned in some way" by the state). The Court found that the state action doctrine is equally applicable to denials of privileges or immunities, due process, and equal protection of the laws.

The critical factor in determining the existence of state action is not governmental involvement with private persons or private corporations, but "the inquiry must be whether there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action of the regulated entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State itself." "Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance."Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, {{ussc|365|715|1961}}.

The Supreme Court asserted that plaintiffs must establish not only that a private party "acted under color of the challenged statute, but also that its actions are properly attributable to the State."Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, {{ussc|436|149|1978}}. "And the actions are to be attributable to the State apparently only if the State compelled the actions and not if the State merely established the process through statute or regulation under which the private party acted."

The rules developed by the Supreme Court for business regulation are that (1) the "mere fact that a business is subject to state regulation does not by itself convert its action into that of the State for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment,"{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., {{ussc|419|345|1974|pin=350}}; Blum v. Yaretsky, {{ussc|457|991|1982|pin=1004}}. Cf. Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, {{ussc|407|163|1972}}.}} and (2) "a State normally can be held responsible for a private decision only when it has exercised coercive power or has provided such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice must be deemed to be that of the State."{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Yaretsky, 457 U.S., at 1004; Flagg Bros., 436 U.S., at 166; Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S., at 357.}}

Section 2: Apportionment of representatives

{{quote box|align=center|{{anchor|Section 2}}Section 2. 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.}}

{{anchor|Apportionment of representation in House of Representatives}}

Under Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, the basis of representation of each state in the House of Representatives was determined by adding three-fifths of each state's slave population to its free population. Because slavery (except as punishment for crime) had been abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, the freed slaves would henceforth be given full weight for purposes of apportionment. This situation was a concern to the Republican leadership of Congress, who worried that it would increase the political power of the former slave states, even as such states continued to deny freed slaves the right to vote.{{cite journal|first=Arthur Earl|last=Bonfield|url=http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol46/iss1/5/|title=The Right to Vote and Judicial Enforcement of Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment|journal=Cornell Law Review|volume=46|issue=1|date=1960|access-date=December 18, 2016|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215330/https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol46/iss1/5/|url-status=live}}

Two solutions were considered:

reduce the Congressional representation of the former slave states (for example, by basing representation on the number of legal voters rather than the number of inhabitants)
guarantee freed slaves the right to vote

On January 31, 1866, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would reduce a state's representation in the House in proportion to which that state used "race or color" as a basis to deny the right to vote in that state. The amendment failed in the Senate, partly because radical Republicans foresaw that states would be able to use ostensibly race-neutral criteria, such as educational and property qualifications, to disenfranchise the freed slaves without negative consequence. So the amendment was changed to penalize states in which the vote was denied to male citizens over twenty-one for any reason other than participation in crime. Later, the Fifteenth Amendment was adopted to guarantee the right to vote could not be denied based on race or color.

The effect of Section 2 was twofold:

Although the three-fifths clause was not formally repealed, it was effectively removed from the Constitution. In the words of the Supreme Court in Elk v. Wilkins, Section{{nbsp}}2 "abrogated so much of the corresponding clause of the original Constitution as counted only three-fifths of such persons [slaves]."
It was intended to penalize, by means of reduced Congressional representation, states that withheld the franchise from adult male citizens for any reason other than participation in crime. This, it was hoped, would induce the former slave states to recognize the political rights of the former slaves, without directly forcing them to do so—something that it was thought the states would not accept.

=Enforcement=

The first reapportionment after the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment occurred in 1873, based on the 1870 census. Congress appears to have attempted to enforce the provisions of Section 2, but was unable to identify enough disenfranchised voters to make a difference to any state's representation. In the implementing statute, Congress added a provision stating that {{blockquote|should any state, after the passage of this Act, deny or abridge the right of any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, to vote at any election named in the amendments to the Constitution, article fourteen, section two, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the number of Representatives apportioned in this act to such State shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall have to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.{{cite web|url=http://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=17&page=29#|title="An Act for the Apportionment of Representatives to Congress among the States according to the ninth Census," Forty-Second Congress, Sess. ii, Ch. xi, section 6. February 2, 1872|access-date=December 21, 2016|archive-date=January 14, 2021|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215333/https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=17&page=29}}}} A nearly identical provision remains in federal law to this day.{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/6?qt-us_code_temp_noupdates=0#qt-us_code_temp_noupdates|title=2 U.S. Code § 6 – Reduction of representation|website=LII / Legal Information Institute|access-date=December 21, 2016|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215310/https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/6?qt-us_code_temp_noupdates=0#qt-us_code_temp_noupdates|url-status=live}}

Despite this legislation, in subsequent reapportionments, no change has ever been made to any state's Congressional representation on the basis of the Amendment. Bonfield, writing in 1960, suggested that "[t]he hot political nature of such proposals has doomed them to failure." Aided by this lack of enforcement, southern states continued to use pretexts to prevent many blacks from voting until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3444700477.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714223753/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3444700477.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 14, 2014|title=Fourteenth Amendment|author=Friedman, Walter|date=January 1, 2006|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History|access-date=June 12, 2013}}

In the Fourth Circuit case of Saunders v Wilkins (1945),{{cite web|url=https://casetext.com/case/saunders-v-wilkins|title=Casetext|website=casetext.com|access-date=December 21, 2016|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215321/https://casetext.com/case/saunders-v-wilkins|url-status=live}} Saunders claimed that Virginia should have its Congressional representation reduced because of its use of a poll tax and other voting restrictions. The plaintiff sued for the right to run for Congress at large in the state, rather than in one of its designated Congressional districts. The lawsuit was dismissed as a political question.

=Influence on voting rights=

Some legal scholars have argued that Section 2 was implicitly repealed by the Fifteenth Amendment,{{cite journal|last=Chin|first=Gabriel J.|year=2004|title=Reconstruction, Felon Disenfranchisement, and the Right to Vote: Did the Fifteenth Amendment Repeal Section 2 of the Fourteenth?|journal=Georgetown Law Journal|volume=92|page=259}} although other legal scholars contest this claim,{{Cite journal |last1=Froomkin |first1=David |last2=Eisner |first2=Eric |date=18 May 2024 |title=The Second Coming of the Second Section: The Fourteenth Amendment and Presidential Elections |url=https://arizonastatelawjournal.org/2024/05/18/the-second-coming-of-the-second-section-the-fourteenth-amendment-and-presidential-elections/ |journal=Arizona State Law Journal |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=127–186}} and the Supreme Court acknowledged Section{{nbsp}}2 in later decisions.

In Minor v. Happersett (1875), the Supreme Court cited Section{{nbsp}}2 as supporting its conclusion that the right to vote was not among the "privileges and immunities of citizenship" protected by Section 1.{{blockquote|Why this if it was not in the power of the legislature to deny the right of suffrage to some male inhabitants? And if suffrage was necessarily one of the absolute rights of citizenship, why confine the operation of the limitation to male inhabitants? Women and children are, as we have seen, "persons." They are counted in the enumeration upon which the apportionment is to be made, but if they were necessarily voters because of their citizenship unless clearly excluded, why inflict the penalty for the exclusion of males alone? Clearly, no such form of words would have been elected to express the idea here indicated if suffrage was the absolute right of all citizens.}} Women would not achieve equal voting rights throughout the U.S. until the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

In Richardson v. Ramirez (1974), the Court cited Section{{nbsp}}2 in holding that Section 1's Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit states from disenfranchising felons.Richardson v. Ramirez, {{ussc|418|24|1974}}.

In Hunter v. Underwood (1985), a case involving disenfranchising black misdemeanants, the Supreme Court concluded that the Tenth Amendment cannot save legislation prohibited by the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment. More specifically the Court concluded that laws passed with a discriminatory purpose are not excepted from the operation of the Equal Protection Clause by the "other crime" provision of Section 2. The Court held that Section{{nbsp}}2 "was not designed to permit the purposeful racial discrimination ... which otherwise violates [Section]{{nbsp}}1 of the Fourteenth Amendment."Hunter v. Underwood, {{ussc|471|222|1985}}.

There is debate among legal scholars as to whether Section 2 penalties would apply if a state legislature selected Presidential electors without—or in contravention of the result of—a popular election.{{Cite journal |last=Karlan |first=Pamela |date=2002 |title=Unduly Partial: The Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment in Bush v. Gore |journal=Florida State University Law Review |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=587–602}}

=Criticism=

Abolitionist leaders criticized the amendment's failure to specifically prohibit the states from denying people the right to vote on the basis of race.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=255}} In 1937, Senator William Borah proposed a Substitute Constitutional Amendment,{{Cite news |last=AP |date=February 26, 1937 |title=Enemies of F.D.R. Plan Welcome Borah Move |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/958369885/?match=1&clipping_id=140673343 |access-date=February 10, 2024 |work=The Butte Daily Post |pages=9}} that included eliminating provisions that penalized those that supported the Confederacy.{{Cite news |last=United Press |date=February 26, 1937 |title=Borah Proposes Substitute Plan for Court Change |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer-senator-borah/140669300/ |access-date=February 10, 2024 |work=Philadelphia Inquirer |pages=6}}

Section 2 protects the right to vote only of adult males, not adult females, making it the only provision of the Constitution to explicitly discriminate on the basis of sex.Eric Foner, "The Second American Revolution", In These Times, September 1987; reprinted in Civil Rights Since 1787, ed. Jonathan Birnbaum & Clarence Taylor, NYU Press, 2000. {{ISBN|0814782493}} Section{{nbsp}}2 was condemned by women's suffragists, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who had long seen their cause as linked to that of black rights. The separation of black civil rights from women's civil rights split the two movements for decades.{{sfn|Foner|1988|pp=255–256}}

Section 3: Disqualification from office for insurrection or rebellion

{{quote box|align=center|Section 3. 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.}}

Soon after losing the Civil War in 1865, states that had been part of the Confederacy began to send unrepentant former Confederates (such as the Confederacy's former vice president, Alexander H. Stephens) to Washington as senators and representatives. Congress refused to seat them and drafted Section 3 (sometimes called the Insurrection Clause or Disqualification Clause){{Cite web |title=Overview of the Insurrection Clause (Disqualification Clause) {{!}} Constitution Annotated |url=https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S3-1/ALDE_00000848/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=Congress.gov |language=en |via=the Library of Congress}} to constitutionally bar from federal or state office anyone who, having taken an oath as a public official to support the Constitution, "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against that document or lent "aid or comfort" to its enemies.{{Cite news |last=Parks |first=MaryAlice |date=January 12, 2021 |title=Democrats cite rarely used part of 14th Amendment in new impeachment article |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-cite-rarely-part-constitution-impeachment-article/story?id=75177543 |access-date=February 15, 2021 |work=ABC News |language=en}}{{cite news|last1=Rosenwald|first1=Michael S.|date=January 12, 2021 |title=There's an alternative to impeachment or 25th Amendment for Trump, historians say|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/11/14th-amendment-trump-insurrection-impeachment/|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=January 18, 2021}}{{Cite news|last=Wolf|first=Zachary B.|title=What's the 14th Amendment and how does it work?|date=January 12, 2021|url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/politics/14th-amendment-explainer/index.html|access-date=February 15, 2021|work=CNN}} Congress can later remove a disqualification by a two-thirds majority of each house. Southerners strongly opposed the clause, arguing that it would hurt national reunification.{{r|3WaPo}}

Section 3 does not specify how it is to be invoked, but Section 5 says Congress has enforcement power. Accordingly, Congress enforced Section 3 by enacting Sections 14 and 15 of the Enforcement Act of 1870, the pertinent portion of which was repealed in 1948; there is still a current federal statute ({{USC|18|2383}}) that was initially part of the Confiscation Act of 1862 (and revised in 1948), disqualifying insurrectionists from any federal office.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Current text of 18 U.S. Code § 2383 – Rebellion or insurrection: "Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."{{cite web |last1=Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute |title=U.S. Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 115 § 2383 – Rebellion or insurrection |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2383 |website=www.law.cornell.edu |access-date=9 January 2024}}}}Lynch, Myles. "[https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol30/iss1/5/ Disloyalty & Disqualification: Reconstructing Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment]", 30 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 153, 206 n. 365 (2021). Based on precedent, Congress would need only a simple majority from both houses to impose a disqualification.{{cite news |last=Wolfe |first=Jan |date=January 14, 2021 |title=Impeachment or the 14th Amendment – Can Trump be barred from future office? |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-impeachment-explainer/explainer-impeachment-or-the-14th-amendment-can-trump-be-barred-from-future-office-idUSKBN29I356 |access-date=January 2, 2025 |work=Reuters}}{{Cite magazine |last=Weiss |first=Debra Cassens |date=January 12, 2021 |title=Could the 14th Amendment be used to disqualify Trump from office? |url=https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/could-the-14th-amendment-be-used-to-disqualify-trump-from-office |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240714070441/https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/could-the-14th-amendment-be-used-to-disqualify-trump-from-office |archive-date=July 14, 2024 |access-date=February 15, 2021 |magazine=ABA Journal |language=en}} Additionally, Congress can impeach a federal officeholder, as it did to disqualify federal judge West Humphreys for insurrection before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.Byrd, Robert. The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the history of the United States Senate, Volume 2, p. 80 (1988). In Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court held that Congress determines eligibility under Section 3 for federal officeholders and states may only bar candidates from state office.

After the amendment's adoption in 1868, disqualification was seldom enforced in the South.{{r|3ABC|3WaPo}} At the urging of President Ulysses S. Grant, in 1872 Congress passed the Amnesty Act, which removed the disqualification from all but the most senior Confederates.{{r|3ABA}} In 1898, as a "gesture of national unity"{{r|3WaPo}} during the Spanish–American War, Congress passed another law broadening the amnesty.Act of June 6, 1898, [https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/55th-congress/session-2/c55s2ch389.pdf ch. 389, 30 Stat. 432] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215236/https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/55th-congress/session-2/c55s2ch389.pdf|date=January 14, 2021}}{{cite web|url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/37.html|title=Sections 3 and 4: Disqualification and Public Debt|publisher=Caselaw.lp.findlaw.com|date=June 5, 1933|archive-date=August 5, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805165052/http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/37.html|url-status=live|access-date=August 1, 2010}} Congress posthumously lifted the disqualification from Confederate general Robert E. Lee in 1975,{{cite journal|year=2005|title=Pieces of History: General Robert E. Lee's Parole and Citizenship|journal=Prologue Magazine|volume=37|issue=1|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/spring/piece-lee.html|access-date=August 28, 2017|archive-date=January 14, 2021|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215313/https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/spring/piece-lee}} and Confederate president Jefferson Davis in 1978.{{r|3WaPo|3CNN}}{{cite web|url=http://hnn.us/blogs/archives/52/2006/10/|title=History Buzz: October 16, 2006: This Week in History|last=Goodman|first=Bonnie K.|year=2006|work=History News Network|access-date=June 18, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019004128/http://hnn.us/blogs/archives/52/2006/10/|archive-date=October 19, 2007}} These waivers do not bar Section 3 from being used today.{{r|3ABA}}

Between Reconstruction and 2021, Section 3 was invoked only once, being used to block Socialist Party of America member Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin{{mdash}}convicted of violating the Espionage Act for opposing U.S. entry into World War I{{mdash}}from assuming his seat in the House of Representatives in 1919 and 1920.{{r|3WaPo|3Reuters}}{{citation|title=Chapter 157: The Oath As Related To Qualifications|work=Cannon's Precedents of the U.S. House of Representatives|volume=6|date=January 1, 1936|url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-HPREC-CANNONS-V6/html/GPO-HPREC-CANNONS-V6-10.htm|access-date=April 9, 2013|archive-date=June 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130620130834/http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-HPREC-CANNONS-V6/html/GPO-HPREC-CANNONS-V6-10.htm|url-status=live}} Berger's conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Berger v. United States (1921), after which he was elected to three successive terms in the 1920s; he was seated for all three terms.{{cite web|url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/victor-l-berger/|title=Victor L. Berger {{!}} Encyclopedia of Milwaukee|website=emke.uwm.edu|language=en-US|access-date=February 5, 2018|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215311/https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/victor-l-berger/|url-status=live}}

=January 6 United States Capitol attack=

{{see also|Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election}}

On January 10, 2021, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, formally requested representatives' input as to whether to pursue Section 3 disqualification of outgoing president Donald Trump because of his role in the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack.{{r|3CNN|3ABC}}

On January 11, 2021, Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) and 47 co-sponsors introduced a resolution calling for expulsion, under Section 3, of members of Congress who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election or incited the January 6 riot. Those named in the resolution included Republican representatives Mo Brooks of Alabama and Louie Gohmert of Texas, who took part in the rally that preceded the riot, and Republican senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who objected to counting electoral votes to certify the 2020 presidential election result.{{r|3CNN|3ABC}}

In January 2022, after Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) declared his intent to run for re-election, a group of North Carolina voters from Cawthorn's district filed suit, alleging that a speech he gave immediately prior to the Capitol attack incited it, and that therefore Section 3 disqualified him from holding federal office. A federal judge ruled that then-representative Madison Cawthorn, who had participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, could not be barred from the ballot as an insurrectionist due to the Amnesty Act of 1872{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/us/politics/madison-cawthorn-north-carolina-insurrectionist.html |title=Judge Blocks Effort to Disqualify Cawthorn from Ballot as 'Insurrectionist' |date=March 4, 2022|last=Weisman|first=Jonathan |work=The New York Times |access-date=December 19, 2023 |archive-date=March 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220310025553/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/us/politics/madison-cawthorn-north-carolina-insurrectionist.html |url-status=live }} and entered a preliminary injunction in favor of Cawthorn, citing the Amnesty Act of 1872.{{cite web |last=Axelrod |first=Tal |date=2022-03-24 |title=Federal judge halts legal challenge to Madison Cawthorn's candidacy |url=https://thehill.com/homenews/house/596911-federal-judge-halts-legal-challenge-to-madison-cawthorns-candidacy |accessdate=2022-03-21 |website=The Hill |publisher=}} However, on May 24, 2022, an appeals court ruled that this law applied only to people who committed "constitutionally wrongful acts" before 1872.{{Cite news |last=Weiner |first=Rachel |date=24 May 2022 |title=Insurrectionists can be barred from office, appeals court says |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/24/madison-cawthorn-insurrectionist-challenge/ |access-date=25 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206072353/https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/24/madison-cawthorn-insurrectionist-challenge/|archive-date=February 6, 2023}}{{Cite news |last=Pengelly |first=Martin |date=May 25, 2022 |title=Blow to Madison Cawthorn as appeals court reverses 'insurrectionist' ruling |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/25/madison-cawthorn-appeals-court-insurrection-ruling |website=The Guardian |access-date=January 30, 2024 |language=en |archive-date=January 29, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240129211516/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/25/madison-cawthorn-appeals-court-insurrection-ruling |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-congress-north-carolina-primary-126d31acbcae9c10357e27c968728083 |title=After Cawthorn's Loss, Candidate Challenge Ruling Reversed |last=Robertson |first=Gary D. |date={{date|24 May 2022}} |website=AP News |publisher=Associated Press |access-date={{date|15 June 2022}}|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240714114015/https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-congress-north-carolina-primary-126d31acbcae9c10357e27c968728083|archive-date=July 14, 2024}} A similar challenge, which a federal court declined to block, was filed in March 2022 against Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA){{Cite web |last=Brumback |first=Kate |date=2022-03-24 |title=Voters challenge Greene's eligibility to run for reelection |url=https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-biden-marjorie-taylor-greene-elections-election-2020-7859ad020b3f453ed91fa1cb1329500a |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=AP News |language=en}} and heard in April 2022 in Atlanta.{{Cite web |last=Brumback |first=Kate |date=2022-04-22 |title=Marjorie Taylor Greene's candidacy challenged at hearing |url=https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-biden-presidential-atlanta-525429753ace40f5b6e01ceab6f79549 |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=Associated Press |language=en}} A Georgia administrative law judge ruled that Greene was eligible to appear on the 2022 Republican primary ballot in Georgia, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the Fulton County Superior Court affirmed this. Though Greene sued to strike down the state law as unconstitutional, a federal court said her complaint was moot, since this law ultimately did not deny her eligibility for re-election.{{Cite web |last=Shapero |first=Julia |date=2022-11-03 |title=Court ends Marjorie Taylor Greene's legal fight over 'insurrection' clause |url=https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3718673-court-ends-marjorie-taylor-greenes-legal-fight-over-insurrection-clause/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=The Hill |language=en-US}}

Couy Griffin, an Otero County, New Mexico commissioner, was barred from holding public office for life in September 2022 by District Court Judge Francis Mathew, who found his participation as the leader of the Cowboys for Trump group during the attack on the Capitol was an act of insurrection under Section 3.{{Cite news |last=Lopez |first=Ashley |date=2022-09-06 |title=A New Mexico judge cites insurrection in barring a county commissioner from office |language=en |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/09/06/1121307430/couy-griffin-otero-county-insurrection-fourteenth-amendment |access-date=2022-09-06}}{{Cite web |last=Miru |date=2022-09-06 |title=Judge removes Griffin from office for engaging in the January 6 insurrection |url=https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/press-releases/judge-removes-couy-griffin-from-office-for-engaging-in-the-january-6-insurrection/ |access-date=2022-09-06 |website=CREW {{!}} Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington |language=en-US}} After an appeal process, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his removal from public office and being disqualified for life from ever holding state or local public office again.{{Cite web|first1=Morgan|last1=Lee|first2=Nicholas|last2=Riccardi|first3=Mark|last3=Sherman|url=https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-insurrection-capitol-attack-new-mexico-cc69572ec4a4404c69947d7d91b3960a|title=Supreme Court rejects appeal by former New Mexico county commissioner banned for Jan. 6 insurrection|website=Associated Press|date=March 18, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240320200506/https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-insurrection-capitol-attack-new-mexico-cc69572ec4a4404c69947d7d91b3960a|archive-date=March 20, 2024}}{{cite news |author1=Morgan Lee and Nicholas Ricardi |title=Supreme Court opens new frontier for insurrection claims that could target state and local officials |url=https://apnews.com/article/14th-amendment-insurrection-supreme-court-new-mexico-bfae39fc022578fc23f5c19d9330653d |access-date=March 20, 2024 |work=Associated Press |publisher=Associated Press News |date=March 19, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240320203214/https://apnews.com/article/14th-amendment-insurrection-supreme-court-new-mexico-bfae39fc022578fc23f5c19d9330653d |archive-date=March 20, 2024}}

On January 2, 2024, a lawsuit seeking to bar Scott Perry (R-PA) from the 2024 ballot via Section 3 was filed.{{Cite web |last=Enright |first=Matt |date=2024-01-02 |title=Lawsuit seeks to bar Rep. Scott Perry from 2024 ballot using 14th Amendment |url=https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/local/york-county/2024/01/02/lawsuit-seeks-to-bar-rep-scott-perry-from-2024-ballot-using-14th-amendment/72087411007/ | website=York Dispatch |access-date=2024-01-03 |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Levy |first=Marc |date=2024-01-03 |title=Lawsuit aims to keep Pennsylvania congressman off ballot over Constitution's insurrection clause |website=Associated Press News |url=https://apnews.com/article/scott-perry-election-lawsuit-trump-jan-6-eecb31cae4ee3bb74d529e8513264bdb |access-date=2024-01-03 |language=en}}

On January 5, 2024, a lawsuit seeking to disqualify Burt Jones from holding office as Lieutenant Governor of Georgia via Section 3 was dismissed.{{Cite news |last=Amy |first=Jeff |date=2024-01-06 |title=Judge rejects lawsuit to disqualify Georgia's lieutenant governor for acting as Trump elector|url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/lawsuit-georgias-lieutenant-governor-disqualified-acting-trump-elector-106148301 |website=ABC News |access-date=2024-01-07 |language=en}}

{{anchor|Trump disqualification argument|Trump disqualification debate}}

= 2024 presidential eligibility of Donald Trump =

By October 30, 2023, lawsuits seeking to disqualify Trump from the ballot pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment via state courts had also been filed.{{Cite news |first=Nicholas |last=Riccardi |agency=Associated Press |date=2023-10-30 |title=State courts to consider blocking Trump from 2024 ballot under the 'insurrection' clause |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/state-courts-to-consider-blocking-trump-from-2024-ballot-under-the-insurrection-clause |access-date=2023-11-18 |via=PBS NewsHour |language=en-us}} Some legal scholars speculated that a court would be required to make a final determination that Trump was disqualified under Section 3.{{cite news |last1=Luttig |first1=J. Michael |last2=Wallace |first2=Nicole |date=August 22, 2023 |title=Fmr. federal judge: Trump, allies committed 'grave crimes' with 2020 election coup plot |work=MSNBC |url=https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/fmr-federal-judge-trump-allies-committed-grave-crimes-with-2020-election-coup-plot-191375429762 |url-status=live |accessdate=August 23, 2023 |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20230823211323/https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/fmr-federal-judge-trump-allies-committed-grave-crimes-with-2020-election-coup-plot-191375429762 |archivedate=August 23, 2023}}{{cite news |last1=Luttig |first1=J. Michael |last2=Wallace |first2=Nicole |title=Judge Luttig: Secretaries Of States Will Decline To Place Trump On The Ballot, Argue He Is Unqualified |url=https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/08/22/judge_luttig_secretaries_of_states_will_decline_to_place_trump_on_the_ballot_argue_he_is_unqualified.html |date=August 22, 2023 |work=RealClearPolitics |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://archive.today/wip/qNVot |archivedate= August 23, 2023 |accessdate=August 23, 2023 }} The U.S. Supreme Court had never ruled on the meaning or application of the insurrection clause. Legal experts expected at least one of these state cases to be appealed to the Supreme Court.{{Cite news |last=Cohen |first=Marshall |date=2023-11-14 |title=Trump to remain on Michigan ballot after judge rejects another 14th Amendment challenge |language=en |work=CNN |url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/politics/michigan-judge-trump-14th-amendment/index.html |access-date=2023-11-18}}{{Cite news |date=2023-11-18 |title=Donald Trump to remain on Colorado primary ballot after judge dismisses lawsuit |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67446313 |access-date=2023-11-18}}{{Cite news |last=Woodruff |first=Chase |title=Colorado Supreme Court hears arguments in Trump 14th Amendment case |url=https://coloradonewsline.com/2023/12/06/colorado-supreme-court-trump-14th-amendment/ |date=2023-12-06 |access-date=2023-12-08 |work=Colorado Newsline |language=en}}

On December 19, 2023, in the case Anderson v. Griswold, the Colorado Supreme Court held that Trump was disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.{{cite news |last=Astor |first=Maggie |title=Trump Ballot Ruling – Trump Is Disqualified From the 2024 Ballot, Colorado Supreme Court Rules – Former President Donald J. Trump's campaign said it planned to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/12/19/us/trump-colorado-ballot-news |date=December 19, 2023 |work=The New York Times |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20231220012941/https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/12/19/us/trump-colorado-ballot-news |archivedate=December 20, 2023 |accessdate=December 19, 2023 }}{{Cite web |date=2023-12-19 |title=Colorado Supreme Court bans Trump from the state's ballot under Constitution's insurrection clause |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/colorado-supreme-court-bans-trump-from-the-states-ballot-under-constitutions-insurrection-clause |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=PBS NewsHour |language=en}} The court further held that it would be a "wrongful act" under the Election Code for the Colorado secretary of state to list Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.{{cite web |title=Supreme Court Case No. 23SA300 |url=https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA300.pdf |website=Colorado Judicial Branch |publisher=The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado |access-date=20 December 2023}} The Colorado Republican Party appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on December 28, the Colorado secretary of state announced that Trump would be included on the primary ballot unless the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling.{{cite news | last =Valencia | first =Jamel | title =Colorado Secretary of State to leave Trump on state primary ballot for now| newspaper =KATU | location =Portland, Oregon | pages = | language = | publisher = | date =December 28, 2023 | url = https://katu.com/news/nation-world/colorado-secretary-of-state-to-leave-trump-on-state-primary-ballot-for-now-jena-griswold-us-supreme-court | accessdate =January 1, 2024 }}{{Cite web |date=2023-12-28 |title=Trump ballot ban appealed to US Supreme Court by Colorado Republican Party |url=https://apnews.com/article/trump-ballot-insurrection-colorado-supreme-court-c51a09d231a5b29475505b0c402a2d89 |access-date=2023-12-28 |website=AP News |language=en}} That same day, Maine announced that Trump would not appear on the ballot after its secretary of state concluded that Trump had committed insurrection; the ruling was stayed for judicial review.{{cite news |last1=O'Connell |first1=Oliver |last2=Kilander |first2=Gustaf |last3=Woodward |first3=Alex |date=December 29, 2023 |title=Maine removes Trump from 2024 ballot as California declines to act: Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows blocked Trump from the ballot over his role in the January 6 Capitol riots |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-maine-ballot-colorado-2024-latest-news-b2470705.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231229065502/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-maine-ballot-colorado-2024-latest-news-b2470705.html |archive-date=December 29, 2023 |access-date=December 29, 2023 |newspaper=The Independent |publisher= |location= |pages= |language=en}} On January 17, the case was remanded back to the Maine secretary of state for reconsideration after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Colorado case.{{Cite news |last=Schonfeld |first=Zach |date=January 17, 2024 |title=Maine judge defers decision on Trump 14th Amendment question until Supreme Court rules |url=https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4414169-maine-judge-trump-14th-amendment-primary-ballot-supreme-court/ |access-date=January 17, 2024 |work=The Hill |language=en-US}}{{Cite news |last=Murphy |first=Michaela |date=January 17, 2024 |title=Order and Decision (M.R. Civ. P. 80C) |url=https://www.courts.maine.gov/news/trump/order-and-decision.pdf |access-date=January 17, 2024 |work=Maine Judicial Branch}}

On January 3, 2024, Trump appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on the Colorado matter.{{Cite web |date=2024-01-03 |title=READ: Trump's appeal to Supreme Court in Colorado 14th Amendment case |url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/03/politics/read-trump-appeal-supreme-court-colorado/index.html |access-date=2024-01-04 |website=CNN Politics |language=en}} His attorneys argued that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment should not apply to the presidency because the president is not an Officer of the United States.{{Cite web |last=Collinson |first=Stephen |date=2024-01-04 |title=Analysis: Trump's appeals on ballot access raise existential constitutional arguments |url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/politics/trump-ballot-access-supreme-court/index.html |access-date=2024-01-04 |website=CNN Politics |language=en}}{{efn|In 2023, Trump's counsel in his New York criminal prosecution argued that the president is an Officer of the United States in an effort to remove that case to federal court.{{Cite web |last1=Blackman |first1=Josh |last2=Tillman |first2=Seth Barrett |date=May 31, 2023 |title=New York District Attorney Bragg Argues That President Trump Was Not An 'Officer Of The United States' |url=https://reason.com/volokh/2023/05/31/new-york-district-attorney-bragg-argues-that-president-trump-was-not-an-officer-of-the-united-states/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531194118/https://reason.com/volokh/2023/05/31/new-york-district-attorney-bragg-argues-that-president-trump-was-not-an-officer-of-the-united-states/ |archive-date=May 31, 2023 |access-date=May 31, 2023 |website=Reason.com |language=en-US}}}} On January 5, 2024, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear the Colorado case, scheduling oral arguments for February 8.{{cite news |last1=Cole |first1=Devan |title=Supreme Court agrees to decide whether Trump can be barred from holding office |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/05/politics/supreme-court-trump-colorado-14th-amendment-insurrectionist-clause/index.html |publisher=CNN |date=January 5, 2024 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240118212816/https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/05/politics/supreme-court-trump-colorado-14th-amendment-insurrectionist-clause/index.html |archive-date= Jan 18, 2024 }} On March 4, the Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court decision, holding that Congress determines eligibility under Section 3 for federal officeholders{{cite news |last=Mangan |first=Dan |date=March 4, 2024 |title=Supreme Court puts Trump back on Colorado Republican primary ballot |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/04/supreme-court-rules-in-trump-colorado-ballot-case.html |access-date=March 4, 2024 |publisher=CNBC}} and states may only bar candidates from state office.{{Cite web |last=Cooney |first=Dan |date=2024-03-04 |title=Read the Supreme Court ruling keeping Trump on the 2024 presidential ballot |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-supreme-court-ruling-allowing-donald-trump-on-to-the-2024-presidential-ballot |accessdate=2024-03-04 |work=PBS NewsHour |publisher=PBS |language=en-US |department=Politics}}

U.S. Code provides for objections to be petitioned during the Electoral College vote count arguing that electors cast votes in violation of the Constitution. No objection was made at Trump's certification on January 6, 2025,{{Cite web |last=Breuninger |first=Kevin |date=2025-01-06 |title=Trump's election win certified by Congress on anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/06/congress-trump-harris-election-certification-jan-6.html |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=CNBC |language=en}} which would have led to a simple majority vote to disqualification (and the electoral runner-up to be certified as president instead).{{Cite web |last1=Davis |first1=Evan A. |last2=Schulte |first2=David M. |date=December 26, 2024 |title=Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now |url=https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5055171-constitution-insurrection-trump-disqualification/ |access-date=January 2, 2025 |website=The Hill}}{{Cite web |last=Craig |first=Andy |date=September 1, 2022 |title=Valid Grounds for Objections in the Electoral Count Reform Act |url=https://www.cato.org/blog/valid-grounds-objections-electoral-count-reform-act |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=Cato Institute}}{{Cite web |title=3 U.S. Code § 15 – Counting electoral votes in Congress |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/3/15 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=LII / Legal Information Institute |language=en |via=Cornell Law School}}

== Biden disqualification counter-debate ==

Also on December 19, 2023, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick suggested that President Joe Biden could be removed from the ballot via Section 3 due to his immigration policy having permitted "invasion".{{Cite news |last=Lim |first=Clarissa-Jan |date=Dec 20, 2023 |title=Texas' lieutenant governor floats taking Biden off the state ballot |url=https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/texas-dan-patrick-biden-ballot-trump-colorado-rcna130590 |access-date=February 1, 2024 |website=MSNBC |language=en}} Missouri secretary of state Jay Ashcroft threatened to take such action in retaliation.{{Cite news |last1=Timm |first1=Jane C. |last2=Terkel |first2=Amanda |date=Jan 5, 2024 |title=Republican secretary of state threatens to kick Biden off the ballot as Trump payback |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/missouri-republican-secretary-of-state-biden-trump-ballot-rcna132600 |access-date=February 1, 2024 |website=NBC News |language=en}} Three Republican members of state Houses of Representatives announced intent to parody the Colorado decision via introducing legislation towards removing Biden as an insurrectionist from their states' ballots.{{Cite news |last=Gantt |first=Aleta |date=December 25, 2023 |title=Georgia is one of five states trying to remove Joe Biden from 2024 ballots |url=https://ktoy1047.com/georgia-is-one-of-five-states-trying-to-remove-joe-biden-from-2024-ballots/ |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131175606/https://ktoy1047.com/georgia-is-one-of-five-states-trying-to-remove-joe-biden-from-2024-ballots/ |archive-date=Jan 31, 2024 |access-date=February 1, 2024 |website=KTOY 104.7 |language=en}} On January 30, 2024, a challenge that cited Section 3 to argue against inclusion of Biden on the Illinois Democratic primary ballot was dismissed by the Illinois State Board of Elections.{{Cite news |last=Vinicky |first=Amanda |date=January 30, 2024 |title=Illinois Election Board Votes to Keep Trump, Biden on March Primary Ballot |url=https://news.wttw.com/2024/01/30/illinois-election-board-votes-keep-trump-biden-march-primary-ballot |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131154820/https://news.wttw.com/2024/01/30/illinois-election-board-votes-keep-trump-biden-march-primary-ballot |archive-date=Jan 31, 2024 |access-date=February 1, 2024 |website=WTTW News |language=en}}

Section 4: Validity of public debt

{{quote box|align=center|Section 4. 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 4 legitimizes all public debt appropriated by the Congress while rejecting debt associated with emancipation and the Confederacy. In the Gold Clause Cases, the Supreme Court held that Congress' authority over monetary policy allowed it to pass the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, despite the law's practical effect of invalidating gold clauses, which allowed creditors to demand payment in gold.{{Cite journal |last=Magliocca |first=Gerard N. |date=17 October 2012 |title=The Gold Clause Cases and Constitutional Necessity |url=https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=flr |journal=Florida Law Review |volume=64 |issue=5 |pages=1243–1278}} In the 21st century, constitutional law scholars have debated whether Section 4 authorizes the President to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling when Congress is unwilling.{{cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/our-national-debt-shall-not-be-questioned-the-constitution-says/238269/|title=Our National Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned,' the Constitution Says|newspaper=The Atlantic|date=May 4, 2011|access-date=March 7, 2017|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215339/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/our-national-debt-shall-not-be-questioned-the-constitution-says/238269/|url-status=live}}{{cite news |last=Liptak |first=Adam |date=July 24, 2011 |title=The 14th Amendment, the Debt Ceiling and a Way Out |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/politics/25legal.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215329/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/politics/25legal.html |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |access-date=July 30, 2011 |work=The New York Times |quote=}} In 2011, former President Bill Clinton argued that Section 4 requires the Executive Branch to ignore the debt ceiling in its fulfillment of congressional appropriations.{{Cite news |last=Daly |first=Corbett |date=19 July 2011 |title=Bill Clinton: I would raise the debt limit and "force the courts to stop me" |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-clinton-i-would-raise-the-debt-limit-and-force-the-courts-to-stop-me/ |access-date=1 April 2025 |work=CBS News}}

Section 5: Power of enforcement

{{quote box

| align = center|Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

}}

In the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873), the Supreme Court opined that Section 5 empowered Congress to enforce the Equal Protection Clause on states that refused to repeal their Black Codes.{{Cite journal|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-58054592.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061218012449/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-58054592.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 18, 2006|title=The McCulloch theory of the Fourteenth Amendment: City of Boerne v. Flores and the original understanding of section 5|author=Engel, Steven A.|date=October 1, 1999|journal=Yale Law Journal|volume=109|issue=1|pages=115–154|doi=10.2307/797432|jstor=797432|access-date=June 12, 2013}} However, the Civil Rights Cases (1883) held that the Fourteenth Amendment does not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals. In Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), the Supreme Court upheld similar legislation under the Commerce Clause instead.{{cite journal |last=Kovalchick |first=Anthony |date=February 15, 2007 |title=Judicial Usurpation of Legislative Power: Why Congress Must Reassert its Power to Determine What is Appropriate Legislation to Enforce the Fourteenth Amendment |url=https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=chapman-law-review |url-status=live |journal=Chapman Law Review |volume=10 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503220316/http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals%2Fchlr10&div=8 |archive-date=May 3, 2015 |access-date=July 19, 2013}}

In Katzenbach v. Morgan (1966), the Supreme Court upheld Voting Rights Act of 1965's elimination of literacy tests by claiming that Congress could expand civil rights further than the judiciary. However, City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) rejected application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on state governments because it modified rights under the Free Exercise Clause, rather than protecting existing rights.

Selected Supreme Court cases

{{see also|List of United States court cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment}}

=Citizenship=

=Privileges or immunities=

=Incorporation=

1833: Barron v. Baltimore
1873: Slaughter-House Cases
1883: Civil Rights Cases
1884: Hurtado v. California
1897: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Chicago
1900: Maxwell v. Dow
1908: Twining v. New Jersey
1925: Gitlow v. New York
1932: Powell v. Alabama
1937: Palko v. Connecticut
1947: Adamson v. California
1947: Everson v. Board of Education
1952: Rochin v. California
1961: Mapp v. Ohio
1962: Robinson v. California
1963: Gideon v. Wainwright
1964: Malloy v. Hogan
1967: Reitman v. Mulkey
1968: Duncan v. Louisiana
1969: Benton v. Maryland
1970: Goldberg v. Kelly
1972: Furman v. Georgia
1974: Goss v. Lopez
1975: O'Connor v. Donaldson
1976: Gregg v. Georgia
2010: McDonald v. Chicago
2019: Timbs v. Indiana
2022: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen

=Substantive due process=

1876: Munn v. Illinois
1887: Mugler v. Kansas
1897: Allgeyer v. Louisiana
1905: Lochner v. New York
1908: Muller v. Oregon
1923: Adkins v. Children's Hospital
1923: Meyer v. Nebraska
1925: Pierce v. Society of Sisters
1934: Nebbia v. New York
1937: West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
1965: Griswold v. Connecticut
1973: Roe v. Wade
1977: Moore v. City of East Cleveland
1990: Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health
1992: Planned Parenthood v. Casey
1996: BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore
1997: Washington v. Glucksberg
2003: State Farm v. Campbell
2003: Lawrence v. Texas
2015: Obergefell v. Hodges
2022: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

=Equal protection=

1880: Strauder v. West Virginia
1886: Yick Wo v. Hopkins
1886: Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
1896: Plessy v. Ferguson
1908: Berea College v. Kentucky
1916: The People of the State of California v. Jukichi Harada
1917: Buchanan v. Warley
1942: Skinner v. Oklahoma
1944: Korematsu v. United States
1948: Shelley v. Kraemer
1954: Hernandez v. Texas
1954: Brown v. Board of Education
1954: Bolling v. Sharpe
1962: Baker v. Carr
1967: Loving v. Virginia
1971: Reed v. Reed
1971: Palmer v. Thompson
1972: Eisenstadt v. Baird
1973: San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez
1976: Examining Board v. Flores de Otero
1978: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
1982: Plyler v. Doe
1982: Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan
1986: Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico
1996: United States v. Virginia
1996: Romer v. Evans
2000: Bush v. Gore
2003: Grutter v. Bollinger
2023: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard

=Felon disenfranchisement=

1974: Richardson v. Ramirez
1985: Hunter v. Underwood

=Power of enforcement=

1883: Civil Rights Cases
1966: Katzenbach v. Morgan
1976: Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer
1997: City of Boerne v. Flores
1999: Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank
2000: United States v. Morrison
2000: Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents
2001: Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett
2003: Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
2004: Tennessee v. Lane
2006: United States v. Georgia
2012: Coleman v. Court of Appeals of Maryland
2013: Shelby County v. Holder
2020: Allen v. Cooper
2024: Trump v. Anderson

Adoption

=Proposal by Congress=

{{See also|Presidency of Andrew Johnson}}In the final years of the American Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction era, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of former slaves freed by the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment, the latter of which formally abolished slavery.{{cite book|title=The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine|last=Nelson|first=William E.|year=1988|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0674041424|page=47|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VMCXjRyyKTQC&q=thirteenth%20amendment%20%22three%20fifths%22&pg=PA46|access-date=June 6, 2013|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215246/https://books.google.com/books?id=VMCXjRyyKTQC&q=thirteenth+amendment+%22three+fifths%22&pg=PA46|url-status=live}} Concerned that southern states would use their African American residents to enlarge their congressional representation while infringing on the civil rights of these freedmen, Republicans sought to discourage such disenfranchisement.Stromberg, "A Plain Folk Perspective" (2002), p. 111-112.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteed citizenship without regard to race, color, or prior enslavement.{{Cite book|last=Foner|first=Eric|title=Reconstruction|pages=199–200|isbn=978-0807122341|year=1997|publisher=LSU Press }} The bill also guaranteed equal benefits and access to the law, attacking the discriminatory Black Codes passed by formerly Confederate states to restrict the movement, employment, self-defense, and legal rights of African Americans.{{Cite book |last=Halbrook |first=Stephen P. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/547103303 |title=Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the right to bear arms, 1866–1876 |date=1998 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-1-56750-782-9 |location=Westport, Conn. |pages=1–3 |oclc=547103303}} Ignoring the urging of moderate Republicans, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill on March 27, 1866. In his veto message, Johnson framed the expansion of citizenship to African Americans as racial discrimination for leaving eleven southern states without congressional representation.{{sfn|Foner|1988|pp=250–251}}{{cite book|last=Castel|first=Albert E.|title=The Presidency of Andrew Johnson|series=American Presidency|year=1979|publisher=The Regents Press of Kansas|location=Lawrence|isbn=978-0700601905|page=[https://archive.org/details/presidencyofandr00albe/page/70 70]|url=https://archive.org/details/presidencyofandr00albe/page/70}} Three weeks later, Johnson's veto was overridden and the measure became law.{{cite book|last=Castel|first=Albert E.|title=The Presidency of Andrew Johnson|series=American Presidency|year=1979|publisher=The Regents Press of Kansas|location=Lawrence|isbn=978-0700601905|page=[https://archive.org/details/presidencyofandr00albe/page/71 71]|url=https://archive.org/details/presidencyofandr00albe/page/71}} Unsure of their constitutional power to pass and enforce the law, especially if Southern Democrats retook Congress, the experience prompted drafting for a constitutional amendment to protect these civil rights.Rosen, Jeffrey. The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America, p. 79 (MacMillan 2007).Newman, Roger. The Constitution and its Amendments, Vol. 4, p. 8 (Macmillan 1999).

File:14th Amendment Senate & House votes June, 1866.jpg

More than seventy proposals for an amendment were drafted.Soifer, "Prohibition of Voluntary Peonage" (2012), p. 1614.{{cite web |last1=Yenor |first1=Scott |title=February 28, 1866: Congressional Debate on the 14th Amendment |url=https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/congressional-debate-on-the-14th-amendment/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220222201119/https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/congressional-debate-on-the-14th-amendment/ |archive-date=February 22, 2022 |access-date=February 22, 2022 |website=Teaching American History |publisher=February 22, 2022}} In an extensive appendix to his dissenting opinion in Adamson v. California (1947), Justice Hugo Black detailed statements made by "those who framed, advocated, and adopted the Amendment."{{cite web|title=Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947), dissenting opinion of Justice Hugo Black, Appendix, at page 332 U. S. 92 – Page 332 U. S. 123|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/332/46/|publisher=Justia US Supreme Court Center|access-date=February 17, 2022|date=June 22, 1947}} In late 1865, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction proposed an amendment where states would only receive representation for their citizens with voting rights.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=252}} This amendment passed the House, but it was blocked in the Senate by a coalition of Radical Republicans led by Charles Sumner, who considered the proposal a "compromise with wrong," and Democrats opposed to black rights.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=253}} Consideration turned to an amendment by Representative John A. Bingham of Ohio, enabling Congress to safeguard "equal protection of life, liberty, and property" of all citizens, but this proposal failed in the House.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=253}} In April 1866, the Joint Committee forwarded a third version to Congress, which combined the prior proposals, rejected Confederate debt, and addressed voting by ex-Confederates.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=253}} On May 29, 1866, the House passed this third version as House Resolution 127. The Senate amended Sections 2, 3, and{{nbsp}}4, passing the modified version on June 8 by a 33–11 vote (five not voting). The House agreed to the Senate amendments on June 13 by a 138–36 vote (ten not voting). A concurrent resolution requesting the President to transmit the proposal to state governors was passed by both houses of Congress on June 18.{{cite book|title=The Constitution of the United States and Amendments Thereto|year=1961|publisher=Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government|page=44|editor=James J. Kilpatrick}}McPherson, Edward LL.D., (Clerk of the House of Representatives of the United States) "A Handbook of Politics for 1868", Part I – Political Manual for 1866, VI – Votes on Proposed Constitutional Amendments. Washington City: Philp & Solomons. 1868, p. 102

The Radical Republicans lamented that the Fourteenth Amendment only expanded civil rights while leaving political rights unaddressed.Carter, Dan. When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865–1867, pp. 242–243 (LSU Press 1985). Thaddeus Stevens opined, "I find that we shall be obliged to be content with patching up the worst portions of the ancient edifice, and leaving it, in many of its parts, to be swept through by the tempests, the frosts, and the storms of despotism."Graber, "Subtraction by Addition?" (2012), pp. 1501–1502. Abolitionist Wendell Phillips called it a "fatal and total surrender," prompting the Fifteenth Amendment to prohibit government denial of the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

=Ratification by the states=

[[File:14th amendment ratification.svg|thumb|upright=1.8|right|

{{Legend|#0050ff|Ratified amendment pre-certification, 1866–1868}}

{{Legend|#2896aa|Ratified amendment pre-certification after first rejecting it, 1868}}

{{Legend|#d500ff|Ratified amendment post-certification after first rejecting it, 1869–1976}}

{{legend|#ffe680|Ratified amendment, withdrew ratification (rescission), then re-ratified. Oregon rescinded ratification post-certification and was included in the official count}}

{{legend|#b8b8b8|Territories of the United States in 1868, not yet states}}]]

File:Letter of Transmittal of 14th Amemdment to the Several States.jpg

On June 16, 1866, Secretary of State William H. Seward transmitted the Fourteenth Amendment to state governors for ratification. After state legislatures in every formerly Confederate state except Tennessee refused to ratify it, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which conditioned readmission on ratification.{{Cite web |last1=Guelzo |first1=Allen C. |last2=Miller |first2=Darrel A.H. |date= |title=Reconstruction Acts (1867-1868) |url=https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/reconstruction-acts-1867-1868 |access-date=1 April 2025 |website=National Constitution Center}} The first 28 states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment were:{{cite web |url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/HMAN-112/html/HMAN-112-pg99.htm |title=Amendment XIV |publisher=US Government Printing Office |access-date=June 23, 2013 |archive-date=February 2, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202115456/http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/HMAN-112/html/HMAN-112-pg99.htm |url-status=live}}

Connecticut: June 30, 1866
New Hampshire: July 6, 1866
Tennessee: July 19, 1866
New Jersey: September 11, 1866 (rescinded ratification February 20, 1868/March 24, 1868; re-ratified April 23, 2003)
Oregon: September 19, 1866 (rescinded ratification October 16, 1868; re-ratified April 25, 1973)
Vermont: October 30, 1866
New York: January 10, 1867
Ohio: January 11, 1867 (rescinded ratification January 13, 1868; re-ratified March 12, 2003)
Illinois: January 15, 1867
West Virginia: January 16, 1867
Michigan: January 16, 1867
Minnesota: January 16, 1867
Kansas: January 17, 1867
Maine: January 19, 1867
Nevada: January 22, 1867
Indiana: January 23, 1867
Missouri: January 25, 1867
Pennsylvania: February 6, 1867
Rhode Island: February 7, 1867
Wisconsin: February 13, 1867
Massachusetts: March 20, 1867
Nebraska: June 15, 1867
Iowa: March 16, 1868
Arkansas: April 6, 1868
Florida: June 9, 1868
North Carolina: July 4, 1868 (after rejection December 14, 1866)
Louisiana: July 9, 1868 (after rejection February 6, 1867)
South Carolina: July 9, 1868 (after rejection December 20, 1866)

After retaking the state legislatures of New Jersey and Ohio, Democrats rescinded their ratifications. On July 20, 1868, Seward certified that if recessions are invalid, the amendment became law with South Carolina's ratification as the 28th state. The following day, Congress rejected New Jersey's recession as "scandalous", declaring the Fourteenth Amendment as part of the Constitution and directing Seward to promulgate it as such, establishing that states cannot rescind their ratification:{{cite book |last=Killian |first=Johnny H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJjxj5gLRaEC&q=seward%20July%2028%2C%201868%20promulgate&pg=PA31 |title=The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation: Analysis of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 28, 2002 |publisher=Government Printing Office |year=2004 |isbn=978-0160723797 |page=31 |display-authors=etal |access-date=October 2, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215308/https://books.google.com/books?id=bJjxj5gLRaEC&q=seward+July+28%2C+1868+promulgate&pg=PA31 |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |url-status=live}}{{cite book |last=40th Congress |author-link=40th United States Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/llsalvol.llsal_015/?sp=740&st=image |title=Statutes at Large |publisher=Library of Congress |volume=15 |page=706-711 |access-date=January 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215321/https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=015%2Fllsl015.db&recNum=739 |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |url-status=live}}

{{ordered list|start=29

|Alabama: July 13, 1868

|Georgia: July 21, 1868 (after rejection November 9, 1866)

}}

Upon receiving Georgia's ratification on July 27, Seward officially proclaimed the Fourteenth Amendment's adoption, listing all thirty ratifying states to prevent federal courts from recognizing recession. On October 16, 1868, three months after adoption, Oregon rescinded its ratification, but this had no impact on Fourteenth Amendment's validity. The Fourteenth Amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:{{ordered list

| start = 31|Virginia: October 8, 1869 (after rejection January 9, 1867)|Mississippi: January 17, 1870|Texas: February 18, 1870 (after rejection October 27, 1866)|Delaware: February 12, 1901 (after rejection February 8, 1867)|Maryland: April 4, 1959{{cite news|title=Amendment of 1868 Ratified by Maryland|work=The New York Times|date=April 5, 1959|page=71|id={{ProQuest|114922297}}}} (after rejection March 23, 1867)|California: May 6, 1959{{cite news |last1=Cottrell |first1=Steve |title=Steve Cottrell: It took 92 years for California to ratify the 15th Amendment |url=https://www.theunion.com/news/steve-cottrell-it-took-92-years-for-california-to-ratify-the-15th-amendment/article_76bba709-3f17-58bd-af08-a6c424878d3a.html |access-date=19 November 2023 |work=The Union |date=26 June 2020 |language=en}}|Kentucky: March 30, 1976 (after rejection January 8, 1867)

}}

Since Ohio and New Jersey re-ratified the Fourteenth Amendment in 2003, all states that existed during Reconstruction have ratified the amendment.{{Cite journal |last1=Chin |first1=Gabriel J. |last2=Abraham |first2=Anjali |date=2008 |title=Beyond the Supermajority: Post-Adoption Ratification of the Equality Amendments |url=https://www.arizonalawreview.org/pdf/50-1/50arizlrev25.pdf |journal=Arizona Law Review |volume=50 |issue=25 |pages=25–47}}

Notes

References

=Bibliography=

{{cite book | last = Foner | first = Eric | author-link = Eric Foner | title = Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780060158514 | url-access = registration | year = 1988 | publisher = HarperCollins | isbn = 978-0062035868 }} [https://books.google.com/books?id=cwVkgrvctCcC Preview.]
{{cite book | last = Goldstone | first = Lawrence | title = Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865–1903 | url = https://archive.org/details/inherentlyunequa0000gold | url-access = registration | year = 2011 | publisher = Walker & Company | isbn = 978-0802717924 }} [https://books.google.com/books?id=r3CTEefvbQUC Preview.]
{{cite journal|last=Graber |first=Mark A. |title=Subtraction by addition?: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments |journal=Columbia Law Review |volume=112 |issue=7 |pages=1501–1549 |jstor=41708157 |date=November 2012 |url=http://columbialawreview.org/subtraction-by-addition-the-thirteenth-and-fourteenth-amendments/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117030319/http://columbialawreview.org/subtraction-by-addition-the-thirteenth-and-fourteenth-amendments/ |archive-date=November 17, 2015 }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20150923205536/http://www.columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/1501-1550.pdf Pdf.]
{{cite journal|last=Soifer |first=Aviam |author-link=Aviam Soifer |title=Federal protection, paternalism, and the virtually forgotten prohibition of voluntary peonage |journal=Columbia Law Review |volume=112 |issue=7 |pages=1607–1639 |jstor=41708160 |date=November 2012 |url=http://columbialawreview.org/federal-protection-paternalism-and-the-virtually-forgotten-prohibition-of-voluntary-peonage/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117015332/http://columbialawreview.org/federal-protection-paternalism-and-the-virtually-forgotten-prohibition-of-voluntary-peonage/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 17, 2015 }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20140316183615/http://www.columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/1607-1640.pdf PDF.]

==Works cited in Trump disqualification debate subsection==

{{cite journal|last1=Blackman|first1=Josh|last2=Tillman|first2=Seth Barrett|year=2021|title=Is the President an 'Officer of the United States' for Purposes of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment?|journal=New York University Journal of Law & Liberty|publisher=New York University School of Law|volume=15|issue=1|ssrn=3978095|ref={{sfnRef|Blackman|Tillman|2021a}}|url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f6103f36b5eee6bf0ab2c1d/t/61bfe1e7f415793ae6492815/1639965161489/15.1_Blackman_Final+12.16.21.pdf|access-date=December 8, 2023}}
{{cite report|last1=Rybicki|first1=Elizabeth|last2=Whitaker|first2=L. Paige|date=December 8, 2020|title=Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress|publisher=Congressional Research Service|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32717|access-date=July 5, 2023}}
{{cite report|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|date=October 9, 2020|title=Presidential Elections: Vacancies in Major-Party Candidacies and the Position of President-Elect|publisher=Congressional Research Service|ref={{sfnRef|Neale|2020c}}|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44648|access-date=July 5, 2023}}
{{cite report|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|date=October 6, 2020|title=Contingent Election of the President and Vice President by Congress: Perspectives and Contemporary Analysis|publisher=Congressional Research Service|ref={{sfnRef|Neale|2020b}}|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R40504|access-date=July 5, 2023}}
{{cite report|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|date=July 14, 2020|title=Presidential Succession: Perspectives and Contemporary Issues for Congress|publisher=Congressional Research Service|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46450|ref={{sfnRef|Neale|2020a}}|access-date=July 19, 2023}}
{{cite report|title=Preserving Our Institutions: The Continuity of the Presidency|date=June 2009|publisher=Continuity of Government Commission|url=https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf|ref={{sfnRef|Continuity of Government Commission|2009}}|access-date=May 18, 2023}}
{{cite book|title=The Federalist Papers|editor-first=Clinton|editor-last=Rossiter|editor-link=Clinton Rossiter|publisher=Signet Classics|year=2003|isbn=9780451528810|title-link=The Federalist Papers}}
{{cite report|last=Gamboa|first=Anthony H.|title=Elections: The Scope of Congressional Authority in Election Administration|date=March 13, 2001|publisher=General Accounting Office|url=https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-01-470.pdf|access-date=June 8, 2023}}
{{cite journal|title=Third Session of the 42nd Congress|date=February 12, 1873|journal=United States Senate Journal|publisher=Library of Congress|volume=68|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(sj06845))|ref={{sfnRef|Senate Journal 42(3)}}|access-date=July 1, 2023}}

External links

{{cite web|url=http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/pdf/con001.pdf|title=Amendments to the Constitution of the United States|work=GPO Access|access-date=September 11, 2005|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050918042603/http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/pdf/con001.pdf|archive-date=September 18, 2005}} (PDF, providing text of amendment and dates of ratification)
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14 CRS Annotated Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment]
[https://guides.loc.gov/14th-amendment Fourteenth Amendment and related resources at the Library of Congress]
[http://stafnelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Congressional-Debates-of-the-14th-Amendment.pdf Congressional Debates of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution], provides a transcript of the debates in Congress.
{{cite journal |title=Basic Equal Protection Analysis |url=https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1787&context=lawreview |first=Russell W. Jr. |last=Galloway |journal=Santa Clara Law Review |volume=29 |number=1 |year=1989 |access-date=February 8, 2021}}

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Category:Reconstruction Amendments

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Category:1868 in American politics

Category:Aftermath of the American Civil War

Category:Police legislation

Category:History of civil rights in the United States

Category:Reconstruction Era

Category:United States Fourteenth Amendment case law

Category:July 1868

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1: Citizenship and civil rights

=Background=

=Citizenship Clause=

=Privileges or Immunities Clause=

=Due Process Clause=

==Incorporation of the Bill of Rights==

=Equal Protection Clause=

=State actor doctrine=

Section 2: Apportionment of representatives

=Enforcement=

=Influence on voting rights=

=Criticism=

Section 3: Disqualification from office for insurrection or rebellion

=January 6 United States Capitol attack=

= 2024 presidential eligibility of Donald Trump =

== Biden disqualification counter-debate ==

Section 4: Validity of public debt

Section 5: Power of enforcement

Selected Supreme Court cases

=Citizenship=

=Privileges or immunities=

=Incorporation=

=Substantive due process=

=Equal protection=

=Felon disenfranchisement=

=Power of enforcement=

Adoption

=Proposal by Congress=

=Ratification by the states=

See also

Notes

References

=Bibliography=

==Works cited in Trump disqualification debate subsection==

Further reading

External links