14th Amendment | What is the Fourteenth Amendment?

The Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution is the second of three Reconstruction amendments protecting all people born or naturalized in the United States with citizenship.

Read the Additional Amendments

Fourteenth Amendment

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.

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.

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.

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

What is the 14th Amendment?

The 14th Amendment protects citizenship for all born in naturalized in the U.S., due process of law, and equal protection under the law.

Read the Essay

14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause

The 14th Amendments grants equal protection, due process, and the process of incorporation applying the Bill of Rights to the states.

Read the Essay

14th Amendment Incorporation

The 14th Amendment led to the debate if the Bill of Rights should apply to states as well as the federal government.

Watch the Video

Selective Incorporation Interactive

A quiz game that helps students review the concept of incorporation.

Start the Interactive

What is the 14th Amendment in Simple Terms?

View the Full Playlist

Text document titled "Primary Source (Scaffolded)" discussing Reconstruction Amendments and related questions.

Activity

The Reconstruction Amendments: Thirteenth Amendment, 1865, Fourteenth Amendment, 1868, and Fifteenth Amendment, 1870

A historical newspaper headline reporting the end of school segregation by court ruling on May 17, 1954.

E Lesson

14th Amendment and Equal Protection

20 Min

How did two Supreme Court Cases, fifty-eight years apart, come to such radically different conclusions? Explore the cases of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka (1954) to discover how the court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause in each case.

A historical photograph of a group of African American workers in a cotton field, posing together.

Lesson

The Emergence of Black Codes DBQ

1 Activities90 Min

Use this Lesson once students have a strong understanding of the rights of African Americans both before and after the passing of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. It would also be helpful for students to have read the O. O. Howard and the Freedmen’s Bureau and The Ku Klux Klan and Violence at the Polls Narratives.

A close-up of two hands exchanging an engagement ring with a diamond on a person's finger.

E Lesson

Loving v. Virginia (1967)

20 Min

During Black History month we spotlight the landmark Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia(1967), which declared anti-miscegenation laws (laws banning interracial marriages) to be unconstitutional. The Court unanimously held that prohibiting and punishing marriage based on racial qualifications violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A handout discussing James Madison's views on the Fourteenth Amendment and individual states' rights.

Activity

Handout C: The Founders, the Fourteenth Amendment, and Me

Reconstruction Amendments

The Reconstruction Amendments are comprised of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. They were ratified during the era of Reconstruction and were an attempt to both unify the Union after Civil War and protect the freedoms of African Americans after the war.

Substantive Due Process and the Fourteenth Amendment Infographic

A visual resource outlines essential terms, foundational concepts, and critical clauses related to the Fourteenth Amendment, with a focus on substantive due process.