Passing the 14th was aspirational at best.
At worst, it was a license to kill for the reprobate, traitor states who signed the 14th insincerely.
And the Union is "still" paying a price for their malfeasance.
1
As every law student discovers, often bemusedly, the 14th Amendment is a sort of magic wand the Supremes have waved to achieve all sorts of unexpected outcomes over the years. SCOTUS is a mandarin priesthood bending and twisting the words of a sacred document, like black-robed witches interpreting a mysterious book of spells written in a dead language.
I wonder if we'd be better off without our national fetishization of the Constitution. It certainly needs a software update, at the least.
As a friend of mine is fond of saying about the 2d Am: "I'm a member of a well ordered militia; it's called the US Army!"
And anybody who thinks the 1st Am was ever intended to make money = free speech, well, you're probably invited to join the other 1%ers for cocktails with J Thomas at Mr J Roberts's vacation home on his Maine island.
1
I haven’t lit off any fireworks since President Obama won his second term.
I will do so tonight to celebrate the 14th even if most of my neighbors won’t know what this celebration is about!
Cheers, 14th Amendment, a rocket to freedom!
2
The struggle against racism continues today. I live in a small Oklahoma city where people still vividly remember that African-Americans weren't allowed to reside here until relatively recently in 1967.
2
A complex issue, but no scholar accepts the decisions that have used the 14th to judicially transform our government from a federalist democracy to judicial rule.
Read, Democracy and Distrust, by John Hart Ely--
Ely's most notable work was his 1980 book Democracy and Distrust, which ranks as one of the most influential works about constitutional law ever written. In it, he argues against "interpretivism" of which Hugo Black was an exponent, "originalism" advanced by Robert Bork, and "textualism" advanced by Antonin Scalia, by contending that "strict construction" fails to do justice to the open texture of many of the Constitution's provisions; at the same time, though, he maintains that the notion that judges may infer broad moral rights and values from the Constitution is radically undemocratic, whether the "moralism" of Ronald Dworkin or the libertarian Richard Epstein. Instead, Ely argued that the Supreme Court should interpret the Constitution so as to reinforce democratic processes and popular self-government, by ensuring equal representation in the political process (as in the Court's decision in Baker v. Carr [1961]).
2
Our Constitution could really use a few adjustments:
1. An amendment with a more express definition of personal liberties, so that cases like Roe and Griswold do not need to be fought over "substantive due process" theories under the 14th amendment.
2. A stronger statement, probably by amendment, of the meaning of equal protection under the law.
3. A stronger demonstration of voting rights, probably through uniform voting processes applicable in all 50 states, and impartial redistricting process, also governed by federal law for federal offices.
Many would add elimination of the electoral vote system.
2
"In the last 50 years, the Supreme Court’s evolving interpretations of the 14th Amendment have led to an expansion of civil rights. Its decisions have also produced a system of federalism that significantly differs from that of 1868 through the reallocation of power from the states to the federal government."
"Expansion of civil rights"----Replacing legislative decision-making at the local and state levels, diminishing, even eliminating issues from democratic governance, and placing these and many new issues into the Federal courts does not establish an expansion of civil rights.
For any one who believes in the democratic control and responsiveness of government, an all powerful judiciary does not evoke an unmitigated good.
For example, for more than a decade courts coerced local school districts into forced busing. This failed effort to proportionately integrate schools was opposed by blacks, whites, conservatives, liberals, and many non-political parents. In the San Francisco East Bay (where I lived at the time)--the protests and anger exceeded that now directed towards Trump.
Few people believed that forced school busing by non-elected, power hungry judges represented an "expansion of civil rights." Space and time prevents a long list of other examples.
One final point. Read the history of the 14th's ratification. You will learn that the ratification process employed in this instance was itself unconstitutional.
2
If we really guaranteed equal protection of the laws, the poor kids in the third-world South would have schools as good as the kids in Connecticut. And health care. And jobs. And housing. And credit when they grow up.
The worst part of this great nation is our hypocrisy.
6
The Bill of Rights applies to the states.
The provision of the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to all persons born in the United States ensured citizenship for children born in this country to immigrant parents from countries like Poland, Greece and Italy, which were disfavored by subsequent immigration quotas. Many European countries did not recognize birthright citizenship; children of immigrants were citizens only of their parents' country of origin. Unfortunately, there are those who would enforce such a rule here against the pejoratively called "anchor babies."
1
Only part of the solution lies within revisiting the circumstances during which the 14th amendment came to be. A fruitful thought experiment, and one can only conclude the forefathers surely did not place heavy consideration, if any at all, for our present day immigration crisis. Veritably, things change over time. And as surely as we should revisit the 2nd amendment, we would be insulting our country's founding principles if we don't do the same for the 14th.
I am of the belief that a "consensus" empathy, above all else, is hidden but necessary to resolve this. The challenges facing these broken countries are not the kind we are capable of fixing. These immigrants are fleeing these countries for America, illegally, and the average American wholly disenfranchised is unsure how to feel about it. Degrees of empathy range from 0 to 100. We must thoroughly inspect our self AND American selves. Empathize. Without reservations based on skin color. Truthfully. Feel for what is right, and inevitably our constitution will transform to present America with the redeeming qualities the world knows and expects us to have.
I support the tenets of the 14th as it related then and now to the rights of African Americans. I do not agree about the citizenship for children born here to non citizens. It has created the circumstance of the so-called anchor babies.
Whatever history followed the 14th that discriminated against African Americans was and is wrong. Besides, citizenship is not a state issue but a federal government issue.
Our government, àll three parts need to be working on the means to define the limitations on citizenship and the rights. We should not grant these capriciously or at a dollar price.
No one should be able to buy our birthright.
2
And a Bronx cheer to the US Supreme Court for defining person in the 14th Amendment to include corporations. Everyone should read "WE THE CORPORATIONS - How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights" by UCLA law professor Adam Winkler.
6
With our soon to be , conservative activist court, do not be surprised when the venerable 14th amendment comes under direct assault. The cowards in congress will not stop them with appropriate legislation. They're too afraid of the new white nationalist base.
3
This piece misquotes the language of the 14th Amendment. The Amendment includes a "privileges OR immunities" clause that differs slightly from the Art. IV "privileges AND immunities" clause.
Of course the Supreme Court refused to recognize any privileges or immunities in the Slaughterhouse Cases, so the matter is, as they say, academic.
'The Amendment includes a "privileges OR immunities" clause that differs slightly from the Art. IV "privileges AND immunities" clause.'
You are right, but you have to look at the context to understand the meaning:
Article IV: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities ..."
Amendment 14: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities ..."
Consider an analogy:
1. I will give you buttons and bows.
2. I will not take your buttons or bows.
In 1, you get buttons and bows. (You get some of each.)
In 2, you keep whatever buttons and bows you already have. (You might not have both or any.)
2
Is America evolving or is it exceptional? If it were the latter, it wouldn’t need the 14th Amendment. The sad truth is that America and a Constitution that can be interpreted in different ways at the whim of nine unelected judges shows how deeply flawed it remains. A country founded by the white privileged class which, to this day, is still fighting any attempt to make it more equal; the 14th, the Civil Rights Act, and other attempts at equalizing the playing field notwithstanding.
There is a poignant scene in the movie “The Departed”,in which the Italian mafia Don played by Joe Pesci asks the The CIA Officer, a Wasp in the best tradition played by Matt Damon:” We Italians have our families and our food, the Jews have their tradition, the blacks have their music; what do you whites have?
We have the United States of America responds the Wasp. The rest of you are just visiting.”
Under Trump, and as naturalized immigrant, I feel increasingly like I am just visiting.
1
Sadly, it is difficult to celebrate the Civil War Amendments(13th, 14th, and 15th) because the latter two were not enforced after Reconstruction ended in 1877. Plessy v. Ferguson(1896), with it's "separate but equal" myth laid the 14th to rest. It took another 60 years after Plessy for the 14th and 15th to begin to be enforced with states and counties fighting bitterly against the court orders into the 1970's and beyond. Let's not sugar-coat it. If it takes 100 years for an amendment to be enforced, who is celebrating?
2
While I doubt that it was the intention of the authors, the Court has, over the past few decades, used the 14th as a knife to eviscerate the 10th. The legislatures of the separate states now have whatever powers the Feds grant them, as opposed to the clear language of "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
2
That's the whole point of the 14th Amendment. The states were using the powers granted them by the "clear language" of the 10th Amendment to enslave people, and deny them their birthrights.
The purpose of the 14th Amendment was indeed to eviscerate the 10th. Because the 10th needed to be eviscerated.
2
Compare this to what the Republicans have been trying to do--and effectively--for years now: preventing these same people, black Americans, from voting.
It's the same mindset, just updated to the 21st century.
4
Only problem with giving citizenship to those born in the states at present by the latin definition of 'ius soli' or being born in US territories is that this right is bring abused by transient foreigners. The term "anchor babies" is commonly used as a description. There are tours of Russian women that travel in advanced states of pregnancy just to give birth in the USA, and many illegal transients from south of the border also abuse this privilege, having babies when they get to the US. Even Australia got rid of citizenship by birthright in 2007. Canada and the USA are the only remaining developed countries that still allow citizenship by birth.
In the new immigration law this should be revised to allow 'ius sanguini' or citizenship according to the parents nationality.
8
The 14th Amendment and it’s expansive interpretation by the SCOTUS have had bitter enemies from the start. Viewing the course of the last 150 years of our history, if I were in the position to do it, I would split the country-the old Confederacy, minus Virginia but plus Oklahoma, would be the Confederacy of White Supremacists, and the right place for anti-abortion, gun obsessed bigots to live. All whites wanting to avoid “the other” could move there, or be forcibly deported if they tried to stay and maintained their views. All people living in the New Confederacy would be free to emigrate to the new USA, whatever their color, gender or age. Both countries would, it seems to me, e far happier. Of course, to me, one would be as loathsome as a South Africa under apartheid, but the other would be the country with the values and principles I was taught we had, and a far better place.
Too bad we did not do that at the end of the Civil War, even if one of its goals was ptrserving the Union. It’s only goal should have been to free the slaves and enable them to escape the clutches of their masters that Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and the KKK assured would continue in a different form.
The so-called Americans who support this POTUS in his bigotry, crudeness, and prevarication repulse me. As we are stuck with them, we real Americans must defeat them at the ballot box and keep them out of power. If not, very ugly times lie ahead. For all of us.
3
What does Equal Protection of the 14th Amendment, which marks its 150th anniversary this week, mean in the context of one-person, one-vote (factors into the cases challenging gerrymandering for partisan advantage), or Citizens United, where money determines how much free speech a person is entitled to? What does Equal Protection mean in context of a woman’s right to choose in New York versus Texas (Roe V Wade should have been decided on equal protection, rather than privacy which is attached to property rights), or access to public education (a judge does ruled that the Constitution does not guarantee a public education, despite Brown v Board of Education).
Trump's appointees to Supreme Court will likely dismiss the equal protections of the 14th amendment and not just in denying citizenship to babies born in the US, even to non-documented parents, and denying rights to non-citizens. Because they can. Because they see the Constitution as a means to a political end. Settled law? Nonsense.
4
There should be a corresponding, similarly worded amendment pertaining to the federal government. The Supreme Court has on occasion opined that the Fifth Amendment serves this purpose, but it is not as comprehensive.
The Fourteenth Amendment is to be praised, but, as with any law, its effectiveness depends on the good will of the people and government actors.
1
I get that we are supposed to revere the Constitution. I don’t get why. It was at best a codification of white male property owning power that cripples us to this day. It “legalized” the flipping of the elite of the colonized into the elite of the colonizers who have been ravaging the planet ever since.
As many commenters are pointing out, none of the Amendments, including, or maybe especially the 14th have actually fixed a damn thing. Just as it took a brutal and bloody war to get the 14th in the first place, following decades of post 14th oppression and exclusion, it then took still more martyrs during the 1960’s Civil Rights movement so that many blacks could vote. (And sit at lunch counters etc.) Then, ever since that, more efforts, many of them successful, to take the voting “right” away. Again.
Well, some will say, you can’t legislate morality, or words can’t really control human behavior, or other versions of the same point. OK, so be it. Back then to, why the extreme reverence for the salad of words that we call the Constitution?
By the way, as a point of reference, Britain abolished slavery before the United States. As many as a million people didn’t have to die to make it happen. England does not now nor has it ever had a constitution at all.
2
Of course I celebrate the 14th Amendment giving rights to African Americans. I do not support its use in giving rights to children of illegal immigrants.
3
How is this going to improve the sad state of public schools in black communities across the country? The academic elite never cease to amaze me how out of touch they are with the average Black American - who by the way - don't read the NYTimes. This is not even close to the concerns and conversations black folk are having.
2
Yes, let's celebrate the 14th Amendment.
And it's purpose
To give citizenship to African American born into slavery in the USA, born to descendants of Africans brought here against their will -- usually in chains -- for more than 200 years.
And let's also draw the clear contrast between that purpose with the rampant abuse of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment perpetrated by willing gatecrashers today dropping anchor babies here -- an abuse gleefully championed by the open-borders crowd.
3
Institutional Racism is the norm: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/us/lancaster-police-taser-black-man.h...
Celebrating the 14th Amendment would be grand if American police were not tazing, strangling, and shooting unarmed Black men sometimes in the back without any consequences. We have an avowed racist in the WH, and an AG who just violated international law, and our own Child Protective law: “The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)”by kidnapping 3000 Brown children and held them hostage to leverage Asylum seekers to accept deportation.
Citizenship that includes murder, assault and imprisonment is a parody. Do not celebrate a perversion.
2
It is misleading, even though true, to say that the fourteenth amendment "extended citizenship" to Afro-Americans. In fact, the fourteenth amendment, for the first time in American history, defined national citizenship for everyone. Elements of the neo-Nazi right sometimes cast doubt on Afro-Americans' equal standing by dismissing them as "fourteenth amendment citizens." In fact, every American is a fourteenth-amendment citizen, including descendants of relatively recent immigrants (Donald Trump, for instance) who refuse to accept the equal citizenship of others.
2
We are a century LATE in getting back to the 14th to resolve issues cocerning immigration. When California hospitals have seen thousands of illegal immigrant births every year, it is obvious that we cannot continue this pattern.
We were generous with the illegals but they are rbbing these states blind.
Those who insist on equating illegal babies with the black slaves who went through terrible times are liars counting on voter ignorance.
2
When police can kill black people at will and they can be imprisoned at length for so little, maybe not much has changed. Watch "7 Seconds" on Netflix and you'll understand.
1
"D'acc."--short for d'accord," Dr. Bellows, but u should have added that the 14th Amendment not only granted equal protection under the law to African Americans but to all Americans, whether, in the words of the old Oscar Brand song, "black brown or tan,"or white for that matter. While the Democratic Party backed secession, and later Jim Crow, segregation, "Plessy v. Ferguson, and included in its ranks vicious racists like Timmerman, Bilbo, Vardaman, Talmadges, "pere et fils, "and WW,,the Republican Party was the party of enlightenment, which sponsored not only the 14th, but the 13th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution,Alexander Harrison knew the south of "faded R.C. Cola signs and rusty gas pumps,"conducted interviews with hard core segregationists, attended White Citizens Council meetings as free lance reporter for Rammer Jammer,while at U. of A., and I can assure you that life was rough if u were black. Recall also that radicals like "Dynamite Bob Chambliss,"who authored the bombing of the Birmingham church in '64 was a Dem. Precinct Captain, as were Bull Connor, Jim Clark. Resistance to Supreme Ct. decision of 1954 was led in Miss., just 1 example, by James Oliver Eastland, senator.Give credit where credit is due, and when u think of the 14 Amendment, think GOP! Hats off for the good writing nonetheless!
No Amendment to the Constitution has ever made the physically identifiable heirs of enslaved black African property and separate and unequal black Africans in America divinely naturally invisibly equal with certain unalienable rights to any white European American. Even if they manage to become President of the United States with a half -white by biological nature and all white by cultural nurture heritage.
"We ain't where we oughta be. We ain't where we gonna be. But thank God we ain't where we was ". a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr attributed to an unnamed black country preacher.
2
The 14th Amendment mirroring 1964 Civil Rights Act regarding unintended consequences not benefiting African-Americans: rewarding Anchor Babies, white women.
2
I’m sure the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment had presidential vote recounts in mind when they added the “equal protection” part. [*sarcasm*]
Sorry, I still can’t get over the 2000 election.
The birthright clause, as there are rights accorded to those "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", made an exception to the demographic that had no choice in being in this country. The indigenous people, and American blacks.
LEGAL immigrants, through due process, their children were accorded the rights of citizens by birth.
Temporary immigrants, or those never put through due process because they hadn't the permission or knowledge of this country as to their presence, demanded to be swept into the same net of accommodation and benefit.
Which has been more of a detriment than anyone seems to want to admit.
After the experiences of 9/11, and other innocent people killed or damaged in many other ways because of the dereliction in enforcement of our immigration policies, too liberal office holders seem to be hell bent on broadcasting to the world that this country has no enforcement, and can't control it's own borders and sovereignty.
The world has grown too small. Here and elsewhere, the chaos of displaced millions should be teaching us all, that it can't be tolerated.
It's not bigotry, it's the limits of our government and it's ability to assimilate new immigrants efficiently and effectively and assuring the security of our nation.
2
Yes, African Americans can vote - if they have the proper ID card in certain states, and the way the Trumpers are stripping civil rights, it won't matter if any can vote
1
Celebrate . . . . Do you know how insane that sounds right now. Let’s ask Nero to play a cheerful number too while he’s still in tune.
2
There is no reason to celebrate that a amendment was required for people to be treated equally. It is shameful that it was necessary.
2
The advent of the Trump administration shows we haven't made much progress since the Civil War. Racism is rampant we discover, and Trump gives permission to be out front with it by his response from the Charlottesville march by white supremacists. Urban and rural police racist tactics are being exposed, finally. Statistics indicate there is virtually no voter fraud (unless you include Russia and this administration) yet, voting access laws are being passed in states; the effect to handicap the poor and racial minorities access to voting. For Shame!
1
Not to denigrate the fourteenth amendment, but the birthright clause allowing any person born within the borders of the United States to become a citizen has probably done more than anything else to wreak havoc on our immigration system. A clause originally intended to insure that every slave or formal slave was automatically granted citizenship, it has long since outlived that purpose.
3
The problem with the14th Amendment is IUS SOLIS. The Wong Kim Ark decision was wrong decides and we need to revisit it. If we would end ius solis we would solve a lot of our immigration problem.
I have read some articles by distinguished jurist who believe we could end birthright citizenship by passing a law to end it as opposed to amending the constitution. But either way we must end Birthright citizenship as part of a program to get illegal immigration under control and end the anchor baby curse.
So I see some parts of the 14th Amendment as poorly interpreted in later years. Its whole purpose was citizenship for slaves - not citizenship for offspring of illegal aliens.
4
No other action was so essential in redeeming the essential meaning of our nation!!!
Just a question:
153 years after the End of Slavery
how many children of Slaves are still alive
and who is the oldest and who is the youngest ?
1
The 14th Amendment must be modified. People born in the United States, to illegal aliens, should not get citizenship.
Citizenship should be granted to the children of citizens- not to anyone who has parents who sneak into the country or who happen to give birth while within our borders.
3
Agree 100%.
4
Dr. Bellows is in error, the actual amendment that is referred to is about black Africans. They were not Americans. the 14th Amendment changed that. Enslaved black Africans were property. That is why the constant and redundant use of the label African American is a misnomer.
1
Most Blacks in this country call themselves African -Americans because they don't know exactly where in Africa their ancestors came from. Other groups can trace their ancestry back to a specific country so they can call themselves Irish American, Mexican American and so on.
And most of the black slaves living in this country in the 19th century were born here. So they definitely weren't Africans. The country just didn't want to recognize they were Americans.
1
You missed the point. To refer to black enslaved Africans as Americans is and insult to their heritage, just as it is to refer to black Americans who toiled, bled and died to become Americans as as Africans. The usage of the term As was vividly pointed out is a misnomer. And contrary to your insistence, most black American do not call themselves Africans.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 does did not declare “that anyone born in the United States was a citizen.” It declared “that all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” This could be interpreted to mean children who become citizens of a foreign country at birth (by virtue of their parents’ citizenship) are excluded. The language of the Civil Rights Act differs from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which states “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.”
Legal precedence treats children of foreign nationals born in the United States as citizens, but there is considerable debate among scholars whether this was the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the Citizenship Clause. The Supreme Court has never directly addressed the issue or defined the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction.” As a result, the United States is one of the few developed countries that grants birthright citizens to children of foreign nationals, even if their parents were tourists or illegal immigrants. This make U.S. immigration laws difficult to enforce because so many have U.S.-born children.
Absent a Supreme Court ruling, we should amend the 14th Amendment to grant birthright citizenship only to children born to U.S. parents
1
The Civil War Amendments helped make this country great. Which is why the Courts and leftist pols that bastardize the 14th Amendment are odious and shameful.
There is no constitutional right to an abortion and gay marriage in the 14th Amendment. Those are state issues.
1
No one has ever argued that the 14th grants a right to an abortion.
The 14th very clearly guarantees everyone within the jurisdiction of the United States the equal protection of the law. Period. There is no "unless you're gay" clause in the 14th.
1
'“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”'
--Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass", 1872.
146 years later, not much has changed, has it?
2
I think it's hilarious that a justice who was strict constitutionalist (I.e., Scalia) would have to side with an "anchor baby" (a child born in the US to illegal immigrants) because of this amendment!
1
150 cheers for the Fourteenth Amendment indeed, but just as many for the lawyers and the Court who eventually paired it with the Commerce Clause to give it real effect. For the first 80 years of its existence, the Fourteenth Amendment was deliberately denied its powers by the racist political institutions of this country. We may be headed that way again.
1
I'm grateful the 14th Amendment was approved in 1868. It wouldn't be today.
2
The 14th Amendment in this Op-Ed is rightly honored and praised as it is indeed monumental and its ratification along with the other Reconstruction amendments redefined what it means to be a nation-state with a national citizenship - strengthening the powers federal government over states. But we should also acknowledge its major negative aspect: the amendment also expanded the power of corporations as they are, under its auspices, regarded as U.S. citizens with rights and immunities often surpassing those of actual persons.
2
The United States Constitution seems to be more an aspiration than a commitment by the founders to create a republic where all people are created equal. Unless all people have common rights then you are dealing with a document that creates privilege. Some people have the privilege of the right skin color, race, ethnic background, sexuality, gender etc.. I trust that there are enough good people that the aspirations of the American Constitution can be realized for all.
3
First of all I’m grateful for this article. I got a lot out of it and it’s a good reminder of things we should all know. It leads me to these thoughts:
Slavery is America’s original sin and we continue to this day to be punished for it. Some of the consequences, like citizenship if you’re born here, are derivative but unrelated to the original need being addressed. But many consequences, like economic inequality, follow a clear path right back to slavery.
The constitution is an archaic document which often needs to be twisted by pretzel logic to meet current situations. Is money REALLY speech? Are corporations REALLY people? The Electoral College made sense when there was no other way to tally the votes because there was no form of mass communication. (Isn’t it supposed to serve the purpose of protecting smaller states from being overwhelmed by a few larger ones?) but as we’ve seen, the effect has been to override majority rule by clever electioneering. An interesting sidelight to this is the wing of interpretation, headed until recently by Anton Scalia, that holds we should narrowly interpret the words to their original meaning and intent.
In the end, it’s nobody’s fault but ours. “We” elected Trump. “We” elected Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, et al. “We” have allowed the descent into oligarchy and kleptocracy. “We allow alternative facts. “We” can vote in the government we want. We have the government we deserve.
4
The overarching issue with the 14th, as well as the other amendments dealing with civil rights, is that we possess only those rights interpreted by the Supreme Court.
That is the urgency of the moment, to reflect on the loss of civil rights implicit in Trump's appointments to the Court. Then, having reflect, take action to deny him the opportunity to make further inroads by electing a Democratic majority in the Senate in the 2018 elections.
1
Wasn't the 14th amendment the first time our Federal Constitution made a male/female distinction? Previously I thought gender distinctions were intentionally left to states.
Section 4 of the 14th is about the US debt... hard to understand how any attempted US default could withstand a lawsuit based on that section. Funny how we don't hear about that section very often.
1
Why isn't the 14th Amendment being used to reduce representation in Congress and legislatures proportional to those whose votes are being suppressed by states, as required by Section II of the amendment? (Based on later amendments the requirement also applies to women and those 18 to 20 whose votes are suppressed.)
Section II text: "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."
3
It is important to note that the Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves. It only applied to the states in rebellion and, at that time, the US government had no control of those states. It did not apply to the border states because Lincoln did not want to push those states to join the Confederacy. But the Emancipation Proclamation clarified the moral goals of the war. It was not just a war to end a rebellion. It was a war to end slavery.
3
Actually throughout the war northern troops occupied and controlled vast areas of territory claimed by the CSA, and slaves in these areas were liberated.
This is an important essay. Here is what the famed first paragraph of the 14th Amendment says:
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.
By establishing the sine qua non of non-exclusive, national citizenship, the 14th Amendment made universal and immanently viable both rights and participation in the polity. The principle of national citizenship and unequivocal rights, irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender/sex, nationality, religion, or any other distinction, was—21st century presidential candidates notwithstanding (Trump once opined that the 14th Amendment was “unconstitutional”)—is embedded in America’s constitutional DNA. But, the labor to maintain it goes on.
3
This is the silver lining to Donald Trump's presidency. He is and will continue to appoint strict constructionists who will uphold the rights protected by the constitution, unlike the "living constitution" progressives who consider the Bill of Rights, the 13th, 14th, and 19th Amendment embarrassing, racist, and misogynist anachronisms, written by monsters of an evil race and gender. Do we want a strict constructionist who would say that slavery is illegal period or a progressive who would argue that corporations can have slaves because the constitution only applies to individuals? Do we want a progressive to rule that women cannot vote because suffragists could not have conceived of fully semi-automatic vote tabulators? Do we want a progressive to decide whether a black man can vote in a crowded theater?
1
My great-great grandfather enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 and fought through until 1865 - almost 4 years of bitter violence. U.S. Grant understood what was happening when his army marched South into Mississippi, and thousands of former black slaves surrounded his troops asking for protection. His presidency was much about finishing the war effort.
Apparently we are not done.
Are we a nation of racists and White Supremacists? Or do we believe "all Men are created equal"? What is it going to be? Will the Government serve the interests of Justice, or is action needed out side the halls of Congress?
"Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by fear... the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent..." M. Gandhi
6
America still lives as separate and unequal in many areas - and increasingly so
Reagan’s broad appeal to white America included mass incarceration of people of color - the legal approach to crack vs powdered cocaine is an example
Bill Clinton continued with the 1994 crime bill which disproportionally sent blacks to prison.
Today we have intense gerrymandering and attempts to reduce minority voting. Part of this is the high correlation of minority vote to the Democrats but the effect in the end is apartheid.
There are towns across the US that fine their minority citizens more frequently then their white ones - with evidence of racism being involved
We have a Supreme Court that under Kennedy’s guidance sees first amendment rights as being able to infringe on others like the Masterpiece cake decision - make no mistake on where that is going with this court particularly with any nuance Kennedy tried to maintain is now gone.
Minorities including LGBTQ are going to see the activist conservative court find ways to diminish their rights by not protecting their rights.
Citizenship is a huge issue. Including for those born here. We have a two tier system - white Judeo-Christian, and everyone else.
And one look at the power centers of government tells you where that is going.
The 14th and 15th amendments are critical, and sadly not as powerful as many think.
3
The article and all of the comments posted so far leave out the most historically important thing about the fourteenth amendment. It was ratified by coercion rather than consent of the governed. The Southern states having lost their bid to secede had ratified the thirteenth amendment ending slavery and regained their equal position in the US government. Congress then stripped them of representation and re-imposed military occupation requiring that they “ratify” the fourteenth amendment as a condition of withdrawal of military rule. That was of course not legitimate “consent of the governed” and several Northern states that had ratified then rescinded ratification. Congress choose to ignore the rescinsions and declared it ratified. With such a history the amendeds status as a rightful part of the constitution was debatable and fragile at best and the government in no position to base broad powers on it until that history was forgotten. The spate of article on the amendment that fail to even mention this history are essentially propaganda.
2
The former Confederate states seceded. They left. They weren't entitled to statehood again, and--per the Constitution that they had betrayed--the Congress could impose any restrictions that it liked on those who wanted to become states again.
You wanted to be states again, but statehood had strings. You consented to Congress' terms. I don't know how to make it any more simple than that.
Despite a war purportedly fought for the equality of blacks, the language iof the 14th Amendment is too ambiguous and proved ineffective in the short run. To settle for an agreement that all had equal rights was not enough. What was needed was a guarantee that all racist laws and any impediment to black equality were void.
1
Let’s not forget, however, that Republicans in Congress recently tried to use the 14th Amendment to justify a federal law against abortion....
1
The 14th Amendment didn't grant citizenship to American Indians. American Indians were not declared citizens until 1924, by a simple act of Congress.
This amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States AND subject to the jurisdiction of the US. The children of illegal aliens should not qualify for citizenship simply by being born here. A simple law could clarify this without changing the status of those already citizens.
4
I hardly believe that whoever the new appointee turns out to be, the Supreme Court will try to undermine the 14th Amendment; this is just a straw man held up by the NYT to frighten and agitate the Democrats.
However, as a resident of the North Carolina mountains, where locals occasionally drive around town flying Confederate flags, I do acknowledge that the nasty spirit of the Old South is still alive in a few. The good news is that such overt displays of inner convictions are fewer every year--so far in 2018 I haven't seen a single vehicle with a Confederate flag or bumper sticker.
2
The 14th Amendment should never have been interpreted to provide due process rights to illegal aliens. Illegal aliens should only receive judicial process that has been negotiated with their country of citizenship. Mexicans for example, should receive the summary justice in the United States, that Americans receive in Mexico. An example is that Mexicans would be held for months at a time without charges, and thereafter have their cases adjudicated in secret without the defendant's participation or representation. The United States' justice standard for nationals from Mexico, or Central America will be no more comprehensive than what Americans are subjected to in those countries.
An amendment passed to protect African-Americans now protects illegal alien criminals; criminals who should be either immediately deported or imprisoned.
The 14th Amendment has left the country susceptible to an existential threat of immense proportions from over our southern border.
3
Equal protection under the law is still just an aspiration for Black people in this nation. I would think there is a case to be made that mortgage discrimination is unconstitutional because Black creditors are targeted by zip code for predatory loans. Dtates do not protect all consumers equally.
2
The 14th amendment shouldn't be interpreted such that any pregnant tourist or woman hopping over the border can with manipulative malice aforethought give birth to an American citizen. Birthright citizenship should be terminated once and for all.
8
The 14th Amendment was vital annecessary when passed to guarantee citizenship to former slaves. Unfortunately, today it as been corrupted by the concept of “anchor babies”.
I am not against immigration. My grandparents were immigrants from Europe, and my father was born in Scotland. All came through Ellis Island. Now, we have Chinese excursions flying pregnant women to the US to gain citizenship. Is there any other country on earth that allows anchor babies. I want immigrants to assimilate as Americans, not form foreign enclaves.
5
Yes, let's celebrate the 14th amendment! With a new justice about to be selected, however, isn't there a greater prospect of returning to the Lochner-era type decisions that use the amendment to extend rights to corporate entities, while the rights of people of color continue to be denied.
1
Equal protection ought to include same-sex couples being served by businesses who serve the public no matter the religious beliefs of the owner.
3
World Citizenship. Now that is something to celebrate. The USA and the 14th Amendment was way behind The World. African Americans already had citizenship. Citizenship to The World. Why can't The USA respect that? In the Future, all national level countries will have to. As the Supreme Court becomes weaker with Trump and Pence's pick, I think The World Court and the World Corporation will become more powerful. After all, we don't want to end-up living in Today's Trump Hotel: Child Cages.
The author’s lack of interest in encouraging Civil War studies war is breathtaking. If she is not interested in studying the Civil War, what does she do?
Laws to address Holocaust victims or victims of Japanese internment camps were restricted to them. Only when it comes to laws specific to African Americans, specifically descendants of United States slaves, does it become a free ride for every other group.
1
The fourteenth amendment was a great event but it became a major force when it was successful in the Supreme Court, using the due process clause to overturn the conviction of twelve African-American men condemned to death after the Elaine Race Riot of October 1919, Moore v. Dempsey (1923). Scipio Africanus Jones an ex- slave and respected African American lawyer in Arkansas. Once he took the case, he asked and got help from George W. Murphy, an ex-Confederate Colonel who was noted for representing people in criminal trials. They used due process and in winning, it signified the courts would provide major protection for all individuals wrongly convicted. It was a great court, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis Brandeis, and ex-President Taft described by Holmes as a terrible president but great judge. The story is told in the book, On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation. It’s one thing to hear about this case is one thing but knowing haw it came about is absolutely fascinating.
It’s definitely outlived it’s usefulness when you have a burgeoning birth tourism industry.
8
It was never intended to give American citizenship to a US born child of just arrived immigrants on H1b visas.
6
It’s actually an overstatement to say the 14th A conferred citizenship on black people within the US.
Black people not enslaved could and did hold citizenship.
This mistake by the author is the mistake of Dred Scott, considered the worst decision in SCOTUS history, which led to the SCOTUS being disregarded and violence rather than the legal system being used to resolve conflict.
Instead, the 14th A blocked states or the feds from denying citizenship to former slaves.
2
Now this may come as a shock to many reading this article, but the civil war has been over now for quite some time. So the section of the Fourteenth Amendment providing for citizenship via birth on American soil, etc. is really not needed anymore - uh, actually, we are the only country left on earth that provides for citizenship based upon birth on soil [to the best of my knowledge] so it really makes us look kinda stupid. Look: Even Canada has repealed their similar provision...it's high time we do the same.
Citizenship based on other factors such as by the blood or by merit is a much smarter way to dole out membership in America. It's time to stop handing it out based on being dropped on to the proper location.
Oh, and 150 years ago, the slaves got theirs - so don't worry.
5
due process in the USA is the right of all "persons within its juridsiction," not just its citizens, and well it should be...what should also be, the other end of the see-saw, if you will, is strong borders that do not allow passage to the USA without verifiable immigration or refugee status.
1
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Before we celebrate the 14th Amendment we must own up to the terrible crimes committed by the government of the US and its citizens against its African American captives since the inception of the country and for more than 150 years after the amendment's passage. Only then can we properly atone and move forward.
This is the SAME amendment that first declared corporations to be people........
1
can't expect much from the present supreme court. if alito, thomas, gorsuch, and whatever Trump sycophant is chosen, they would eradicate the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments
2
It should be noted that after the 14th amendment was passed, of the first 80 cases going to the Supreme Court, more than 30 dealt with the defense of private property. Also, a Supreme Court ruling on the 14th amendment declared -- for the first time-- that corporations are people. So, now that we have a "corporate Supreme Court", we should be more concerned about whether it is really appropriate for members of this court to have life-time appointments than celebrating the 14th amendment for the wrong reasons.
4
The 14th Amendment is not ambiguous.
Some people did not want what it does, and simply did their best to fail to understand its clear language.
It was written to deal with the problems of freed slaves, and too many people then and later did not really want to allow solution to that. They liked the abuses of former slaves. They'd liked slavery itself in its time.
The 14th Amendment written to solve the problem of freed slaves also necessarily solved problems for many other groups. Basically, it protected those the state governments would abuse if they could. That has turned out over time to be lots of people.
5
The ambiguity of the 14th amendment allowed "separate but equal" to become the law of the land for 100 years.
1
Sadly, the Constitution is corrupt in its details while innocent in its structure, which is why Lincoln preferred the Declaration of Independence as the defining document of the nation as he defined it. At Gettysburg he quoted the Declaration rather than the Constitution so as to remind the gathered that All men are created equal and that thanks to the Emancipation black males were equal to the white males that had enslaved them and their ancestors for two and a half centuries. Four days before his death Lincoln told a small crowd on the mansion lawn that he looked forward to voting beside a black man voting. Since Booth was in the audience Lincoln’s casual remark sealed his fate. The Emancipation was not popular even among many abolitionists who feared millions of uneducated unskilled former slaves roaming northern cities in search of work and places to live. Lincoln countered by inviting the freed to join the Union army since, as he said, who better to fight slavery than the enslaved. We now face legislators Republican in name only who slave to undo voting rights across the country, making use of the seminal corruption imbedded in the Constitution, the Electoral College, without which two of the last three men elected president would have lost. Add to this rulings by the Supremes across the past two decades and we arrive at plutocracy and its infantile leadership on behalf of late stage capitalism. This was baked into the DNA of this country since Jamestown. In requiem pace
1
I confess, except for the first and second amendments, I am not well versed in the other amendments. So, an article like this is welcome and informative.
But my takeaway from this article is disgust at the realization that some people have in the past and continue to this day to use every possible opportunity to abuse people who are different from them. Whites treating blacks as less than human, Christians treating gays as sinners, Americans treating refugees as political fodder.
What they all have in common is the Republican Party. It is so sad that so many people unite in hatred. It is so sad that what we hold "to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness;" it is so sad that these truths which are self-evident, must be explicitly defended in tortured legal writing and even then Republicans make every effort to misinterpret the writing and the intent to continue to deny equality to others.
5
With the likes of Gorsuch and Alito and the likely originalist leanings of the next appointee it wouldn’t be too great a stretch for SCOTUS to chip away at the 14th Amendment. After all, originally slaves weren’t citizens so they can argue that the framers did not intend for claves (and by extendion) people of color) to have citizenship. It would be interesting to see Thomas wriggle out of that. SCOTUS has morphed into a tool of the far right and no minority can feel secure.
1
Do you believe that originalism means ignoring all the amendments? If so, you're very, super, incredibly wrong.
The best way to celebrate the 14th Amendment would be to impeach or vote out the vehement and outspoken racist currently residing in the White House. And every other politician who doesn't support it's full implementation.
The fact that we are still discussing an issue that should have been put to rest centuries ago shows how little progress this country has made in regards to it's essential promise - the inalienable equality of all people under the law.
The idea of a "more perfect union" is antithetical until this aspect of our society is permanently put to rest.
"I have a dream!", and so do I.
To that day!
4
The 14 th Amendment of the Bill of Rights is under attack at the moment from the 1st Amendment. Did the SCOTUS consider the equal protection clause on the gay couple vs, the bakery decision?
That decision was a violation of the 14th Amendment, allowing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, by claiming the bakery was exercising its 1st Amendment right to free speech.
The 14th amendment is not part of the Bill of Rights.
2
You don't have to ask whether the court considered equal protection. It's right in the text of the decision. (It's also clear from this case that Colorado's civil rights commission was partially driven by hostility to Christians.)
https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/the-scotus-decision-the-text-ma...
Yes and just like everything else fought by and for African Americans it has been usurped by many groups who turn around and discriminate against the same African Americans it was intended to benefit.
This is why i am not losing sleep over the loss of Affirmative Action, voting rights, labor rights and public benefits. African Americans and Native Americans are using to being denied and turned away. The shock will be to all those groups who have no idea how much they have benefited from the struggles of African Americans. Just like they were shocked by the election of Trump while some of us could see it coming.
This is why true reparations for slavery in the United States should be limited only to the direct descendants of slaves in the United States. Not to various groups, not even to recent black immigrants from Africa or other countries. They should petition their own countries. It should be limited just as other reparations to specific groups were limited.
Enough with every group having African and Native Americans doing the heavy lifting and suffering so they can later benefit. It's almost a continuation of slavery.
1
More slice and dice. Still waiting to celebrate the equal rights amendment. We have a lot worse problems than not sufficiently celebrating the 14th amendment.
2
I find it extremely sad that so much legislation and constitutional amendment, originally intended to right wrongs perpetrated specifically against african americans held in slavery......have mostly been used to overstep the descendants of slaves. The 13th,14th, 15th amendments have mostly been used to advance corporate rights or to help various political parties extend their power over the citizenry.........and almost never been used as originally intended. The 13th Amendment has often been twisted into a justification for granting citizenship to anybody who touches american soil......not specifically, as intended, to people born into slavery and now declared to be free. Many Civil Rights Laws are now routinely used to extend priveledges to groups who already enjoyed such priveledges while ignoring the plight of african americans.....the one unique group that understandably needs special attention.(well, actually there's two.....lest we forget about the plight of so-called Native Americans.)
1
Please go back and actually read the Constitution. The 13th amendment does no more nor less than abolish slavery. It makes absolutely no mention of immigration or citizenship. It reads: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
1
Why is that President Grant was not mentioned.
He was the president during reconstruction. If it were not for him,there would have been no 13th,14th or 15th amendment. Lately, he has been rehabilitated as a great leader and there have been many books about him.
Things only fell apart after his presidency.
5
Not so quick.
In 1868 the 14th Amendment came to be, citizenship for all...
But it wasn’t until 1965 when Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Act that voting rights for all were supposedly gained. That was the year Martin Luther King, Jr. marched with 27,000 people from Selma to Montgomery, the year of beatings on the Edmond Pettus Bridge.
So what happened in those nearly 100 years? Maybe that is what we should examine and take heed. People might want to get a clue by visiting the Lynching Memorial in Montgomery.
This is just one example of how tenuous the 14th Amendment is upheld, and not upheld.
4
Mima,
Are you sure it was 27,000 people on
that march when the beating occurred or
another, later march ?
For all the good the 14th Amendment has done, we cannot forget that it has also had the unfortunate, and probably unintended, result of legalizing millions of children of illegal aliens, who in any other civilized country (including most of Europe) would most definitely not be citizens. Having served its purpose, I would fully support the repeal of birthright citizenship as a tragic policy undermining the country and the rule of law.
10
The fact that people born within the US are citizens was the norm prior to the 14th amendment. The amendment just made it clear that blacks born in this country were citizens. The assertion that "millions" of children have been "legalized" is gross hyperbole.
1
What's so terrible about that? You're born here, grow up here, go to school here. How much more American can you be?
The sins of the father cannot be visited on the son. The baby born here deserves protection under the law, not persecution. That's better for the individual and for greater society.
Your comparison to Europe could not be more inapt. European countries are defined by who they threw out, by armies and hoards repelled. Those who remained became Dutch or German or French or English. The United States is the opposite: defined by those who came. Every American family has a story of who arrived, from where. You can become American by coming here. Being born here is just one way.
OK, but let us also celebrate the 34th or 35th Amendment, yet to come, that will include three critical words either omitted or overlooked by Founding Fathers in the 2nd, "EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS" the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. The best deterrent to violent crime.
Best vehicle, too. Violent crime is more common where guns are more common. You could look it up.
We regulate cars and barbers. We regulate machine guns and outlawed sawed-off shotguns. Why can't we regulate guns, too, sensibly, and so protect ourselves, as other civilized nations do?
1
There is no evidence that gun ownership is a deterrent to violent crime except in the minds of gun worshippers.
2
Yes, the Supreme Court interpreted the 14th Amendment narrowly in the late Nineteenth Century, then more and more broadly in the Twentieth. Now there is a swelling backlash and an administration eager to appoint at least one justice who will joyfully make the aims of that backlash "the supreme Law of the Land." Let's celebrate the 14th, and let's hope we can keep it from being effectively repealed by a reactionary majority of the court.
6
Amen!
Or let’s celebrate the Amendment which the New York Times believes guarantees birth right citizenship to children of people who came to the U.S. illegally. It’s probably not likely that birth right citizenship will be eliminated because it would be difficult and chaotic and Americans and legal residents would object to providing proof of their own citizenship when registering their children. But most other countries have gone to citizenship by parentage rather than birth right citizenship. Birth right citizenship is also a draw for illegal immigrants and social services provided to them and their kids is a cost to the taxpayers. And, no, it doesn’t mean parents should automatically get to stay if they have American kids. In many cases they should take their kids with them and the American kids can choose to return as adults.
5
"... the Amendment which the New York Times ..."
Bellows does not represent the Times.
"... believes guarantees birth right citizenship to children of people who came to the U.S. illegally."
Bellows mentions "birthright" in one sentence, and it says nothing about what she "believes":
"The Republican-led Congress consequently urged the passage and ratification of an amendment to the Constitution that would make unassailable the definition of American citizenship by birthright."
Ultimately, the promise of black freedom was not realized during the Civil War era. The compromise that ended Reconstruction settled for Norhern domination of the nation apart from the fair treatment of blacks. If the true purpose of the war was freedom for blacks, the war was a failure. The fact that the North settled for domination suggests that that was a core non-negotiable achievement of victory and a fundamental purpose of the war.
3
Your analysis is in absolute accord with the declared motives of Abraham Lincoln for prosecuting the war: the keep the South from forming an independent nation. He declared that the question of enslavement or emancipation turned solely on how it served that aim. His political heirs took the same approach in the next generation regarding segregation. Arguments of “the good” in politics alway serve the supreme argument of power.
1
But Lincoln's attitude shifted and became more radically anti-slavery as most prominently reflected in his Second Inaugural Address.
Yes. If you doubt Lincoln's objective — singular — read his inaugural addresses. He wasn't shy about preserving the union by any means necessary, including going to war, slavery or no.
If you want to call that northern domination, ok. The rest of us call it being part of a country. Being part of a country means you don't get to leave, full stop.
Were the rights guaranteed by the 14th not fulfilled after Reconstruction? No, they were not. Why? Democracy. The very domination you allege fell to democratic forces. Congress, democratically elected, dismantled Reconstruction because the southern states didn't like it.
It will be interesting to see how the U.S. constitution fares as our democracy completes it's transition into a plutocracy run by corporations and oligarchs. This, and Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act 2012, on the night of December 31, 2011 rescinding Habeas Corpus rights for American citizens means we are entering into a potentially in very dangerous period in our country's history.
And the 14th Amendment has long been in the cross-hairs of American presidents, American Congressmen, American governors and American citizens precisely because they wished to perpetuate a slave society.
The Donald Trump administration, under its attorney general Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions III; Housing Secretary Ben Carson; Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; have all been complicit in the president's attacks upon legal protections from discrimination. The 14th Amendment should never be taken for granted.
T[homas] Woodrow Wilson, as president, rescinded the ability of African-Americans to work in the federal government.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt sided with the Dixiecrats and looked the other way in protection from housing discrimination during the 1930's and 1940's.
When Harry Truman, 70 years ago, desegregated the Armed Forces, Strom Thurmond led a walk-out from the party's national convention in protest.
Richard Nixon declared, in a secret memo in 1969, that black American citizens would be ignored by his administration's policies of "benign neglect."
Ronald Reagan's rabid anti-affirmative action stance, turning discrimination against blacks into discrimination against whites, finds wide Republican resonance today.
So, while we can (and should) "celebrate the 14th Amendment," we should never forget that America, from its presidents to its meanest citizens, have, in effect, stood in the schoolhouse doorway to say "never!"
No. 14 is precious. Not to Trump.
11
'Richard Nixon declared, in a secret memo in 1969, that black American citizens would be ignored by his administration's policies of "benign neglect."'
Moynihan wrote that memo, not Nixon:
Benign Neglect
By Francis Wilkinson
June 11, 2008
https://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/benign-neglect/
Well done on your chronology, my fellow Bostonian!
A difficult question for Ms. Bellows: Can freedom ever be granted rather than earned?
The last 170 years of African American history, tumult and triumph all, have largely been a result of that question. "Good white liberals" believe, in some form, that they are responsible for ending black enslavement.
The paternalistic idea that freedom was noble gift, has allowed whites to profess an ethos of equality while acting quite differently.
Its why BLM pieties professed in rich white liberal cities feel hollow and why conservatives react so harshly to the "elites"; progressives claim to want equality but they come from a privileged position and assume African Americans will always be grateful to them. It is the ultimate hypocrisy and there sadly may not be much to be done about it.
3
"A difficult question for Ms. Bellows: Can freedom ever be granted rather than earned?"
Bellows is an historian, not a philosopher.
"The paternalistic idea that freedom was noble gift, ..."
Where did you get that "idea"? Cite reliable sources.
1
What exactly did you do to earn your freedom? Don't tell me going to school and getting a job and playing by the rules. Those didn't earn your freedom. They were products of a freedom you inherited.
I want people to be able to vote, to go to college whether rich or poor, to see a doctor or fill a prescription without concern for cost. I don't expect anyone to be grateful to me. Grateful to live here, sure. I'm happy to share that.
If you ask liberals what they think, you may find its not what you think. And, by the way, it's a lot less work than guessing.
Until 1924, Native Americans were not citizens of the United States. Many Native Americans had, and still have, separate nations within the U.S. on designated reservation land. But on June 2, 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S.
8
Glad to be able to express this opinion so easily, a moment ago this avenue of voicing my opinion was said to be closed. If an opinion were a vote, I just had, lost, and regained the franchise in the course of a few minutes. I am puzzled by an old idea that comes to mind whenever voting rights are discussed, specifically those rights and the relation to subsequent governing. As I recall, there was a Supreme court nominee, who in the role of academic pundit, proposed that there could be, and should be, a way to somehow enfranchise the voters who lost, that winner take all is not a way to run an election. Why don't we bring this candidate's name up once more as supreme court nominee?
Yes the 14th amendment is a great milestone on the path of liberty and equality. Yet with one decision of a Trump packed Supreme Court - poof, gone like fairy dust, never existed. People say that the Constitution is hard to amend; and in some cases that is true, e.g. we need to abolish the electoral college. But where the Founders were less specific, it just take 5 ultra conservative Justices, like we have seen the Roberts Court do over and over again not notably in Citizens Unites which confused deep pockets with free speech. Where in the Constitution does it say corporations are people? Now we have a corporate owned government which is the essence of fascism according to FDR. We need to do something about the Supreme Court.
The Court needs to be fixed and a Democratic controlled Congress and a Democrat in the WH can force an amendment as to the terms of Justices. They can appoint 9 new Justices all liberal. You'll see how fast the Constitution will be amended to fix the court and make it more responsive to the needs of the people.
6
"... the WH can force an amendment ..."
The executive branch has no say in amending the US Constitution. See Article V:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-artic...
This article, and reader conversations, reminds me that we live in an imperfect Union, and that money is the root of all evil. Then and now. Our progress is measured in generations, not decades, years or months. The Trump era will end, and the our self inflicted wounds will heal. But only if decent people of good will band together.
5
Let's celebrate the 14 Amendment as the beginning of America's second revolution.
The revolution of 1776 and the Bill of Rights established enshrined personal liberty as a cornerstone of American democracy.
But it was a flawed democracy as any new experiment might be. The franchise was limited to property holders and barred women. This insured that the elites who orchestrated the revolt against Britain would control the early years of the republic.
By 1868 popular democracy was emerging and the pillar of equality was erected to stand side by side with liberty.
Together these two constitutional values would emerge to become central to our identity as a people and that process continues to this day.
Of particular note is the fact that nowhere in the legislative history of the 14th Amendment is there any discussion of corporate personhood. The phrase "all persons born or naturalized" was clear in its meaning, then and now.
Ironically, it is conservative jurists who otherwise insist on originalism as a means of interpreting the constitution but who get amnesia when the origin of corporate personhood and the 14th Amendment is raised.
Jim Crow laws were not created to segregate blacks. Its purpose was to establish an elaborate system of total subordination so that black labor and black personhood would serve white interests just as slavery had.
Segregation was the means, not the ends. Legal segregations may be gone but this is why we still struggle for equality today.
9
Of course, the 13th, 14th and 15 amendments didn’t give women the vote.
It strikes me that a SCOTUS capable of deciding that the Voting Rights Act is essentially no longer necessary will have no problem deciding against enforcement 14th. The legacy of this increasingly conservative court will haunt our grandchildren.
15
In some cases it's good that amendments are so hard to repeal. Today's red states would likely try to repeal the 14th. And maybe even the 13th.
14
The 14th Amendment supports Civil Rights as long as you’re not a woman.
I frequently read comments to the NYT made by men claiming women don’t need a separate Equal Rights Amendment to be equal under the law. They insist women are included in the 14th. Really? Do you think we can’t read? Do you think we’re unawareness of the contents of the 14th amendment?
What are men afraid of?
Are men afraid women would be recognized as equal under the law and granted the same right to self-determination enjoyed by men?
Are men afraid they would be denied the right to discriminate against women?
Are men afraid of competing directly with women on a level playing field in the workplace?
Are men afraid they could no longer use the law to impose their religious views on women?
Are men afraid they could no longer dictate women’s reproductive rights?
Are men afraid they could no longer pass draconian laws limiting a woman’s right to choose?
Are men afraid of ceding the preferential treatment you have enjoyed for centuries?
What are men afraid of?
51
This man was very afraid when the ERA was ultimately not ratified due to the slick opportunism of Phyllis Schlafly and her horde of anti-feminists. We are your allies, sister. Together we form an unbeatable majority.
Keep that majority robust.
1
Thank you, Victor, for recognizing which men I was addressing. It’s very disappointing that the ERA hasn’t been ratified. It’s nearly 100 years since it was proposed. When I was a teen in 70s I thought it was a slam dunk for ratification.
And yes, Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk are just as much to blame. Unfortunately, too many have taken her place, men and women alike.
Thank you for fighting along side us!
It’s telling that you would choose this forum to launch a tirade against men. Try to work that out.
1
Professor Bellows rightly celebrates the expansive reading of the 14th amendment by the SC in recent decades. Unfortunately, no legal principle of interpretation prevents a more conservative court from reversing direction and adopting a more restrictive view of the guarantees embodied in the amendment. Would a Trump-packed court endorse reader David Ricardo's claim that the Constitution does not extend citizenship to American-born children of illegal immigrants? Perhaps not, but one should not underestimate the verbal ingenuity of a judiciary which can transmute money spent on political campaigns into protected free speech.
Whatever the future of the 14th amendment, Bellows omits one of the signal failings of the political generation which wrote it. No paper guarantees of citizenship and equality before the law could transform the status of black southerners in the absence of measures that ensured their economic independence. Without land ownership, coupled with technical and financial assistance, the former slaves would never escape economic subordination to the white elite, a fate which would undermine the rights protected by the Civil War amendments.
The threat to property rights inherent in the permanent seizure of white-owned land probably would have required another amendment to legitimate it, and it is difficult to imagine white northerners embracing such a revolutionary reform. This grim reality, though, helps explain the reasons for the amendment's failure.
6
Your last paragraph perhaps inadvertently admits US leftists' real agenda, and reveals where their sympathies truly lie - with extreme "leftists" in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Wouldn't "reparations" laws be an Americanized version of the uncompensated seizure of white Zimbabweans' South Africans' assets?
1
Excellent and timely article. Emphasizes, if emphasis were needed, the critical role the Supreme Court has played and will play in the coming years.
4
"Now, every American born or naturalized in the United States was promised due process and equal protection of the laws."
- - Not exactly, you don't have to be born or naturalized in the US to have the right to due process, you just have to be a "person": the 14th Amendment reads "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Any person. Not limited to citizens.
Any. Person.
53
"without due process of law".
If you're here without the knowledge or permission of the country, then you have circumvented due process.
If you've autonomously changed up your status contraindicated as a temporary worker, a visitor, or student...then you haven't committed to due process to change that status.
Due process is a right, but you have to submit yourself to it to be accorded it.
There is no reason to continue to accommodate "any person" who can't or won't submit themselves to the due process required.
This country has every right to make them leave, and there are no laws that say their children can't leave with them.
Status as a legal immigrant, or citizen is highly coveted, but there are responsibilities that go with that status as well.
The public is seeing different standards for illegal immigrants, than a citizen would be accountable for.
And this is part of the backlash, and rightly so, that motivates getting more conservative people in office.
@Charles: To pedantically respond to your pedantry, the part of the article you quote isn’t incorrect. It’s not saying only citizens must receive equal protection, just that all citizens must receive equal protection. Of course, you are also correct that the clause is not limited to citizens.
Working for a man who has at least 3 doctoral-level degrees I admire him most for eschewing the pomposity of "doctor" as a form of address. In my office we are all educated at least to a JD or PhD level in any case. And how many of us are people of color including this man who has no time to militate on behalf of what occurred over 150 years ago? Nonetheless we never tire of discussing the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments all pased in consequence to the Civil War. And disparage a president who we know has not the slightest knowledge of the Constitution nor of any other legal code...
14
I didn't expect to agree ever with Scalia on a political perspective, but he is accurate in noting women's exclusion from the fourteenth amendment. It is important to compare the supposedly universal language of section one of the amendment to the exclusive language of section two relating to voting. The first uses the phrase "all persons" which presumably included women, although orators and jurists routinely used persons when they only mean men. But section two three times uses the phrase "male citizens" in its discussion of exclusion, along with "untaxed Indians" to distinguish who counted as regards voting. Even given the denial of voting to black citizens largely in the South in the years of Reconstruction, it was still the case that freed female slaves were categorized first as women and did not receive the vote along with other women until 1920. The confusion of unspecified, but seemingly universal terms such as persons, were included in constitutional documents and led to arguments over whether women were to be included in the fifteenth amendment and the use of "women's suffrage" rather than simply an extension of the democratic suffrage to women on the same grounds as men. The language in documents and debates continually integrated broad inclusive with specifically exclusive language which made it essential to link gender specific terms to a democratic movement involving women.
16
"... orators and jurists routinely used persons when they only mean men."
Cite a reliable source.
'... section two three times uses the phrase "male citizens" in its discussion of exclusion, along with "untaxed Indians" to distinguish who counted as regards voting.'
You need to look at how subsequent amendments affect Section 2. See, in particular, the 19th:
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
The 14th Amendment was a blueprint for equal rights. But it took a century for its promise to be fulfilled. You can celebrate the blueprints. But until the civil rights movement and the desegregation of the South, the 14th Amendment was an empty promise.
5
It seems that as people have become so mobile in the modern era, citizenship based on birth location no longer makes as much sense as it did in the nineteenth century, and our fourteenth amendment regarding birthright citizenship needs to be altered to reflect this new reality. It would also make US law similar to most European countries none of which any longer have
birthright citizenship.
15
Was the 14th Amendment ratified in the manner
approved of by the Constitution.
11 out of the 36 States did not ratify it and
3 more States rescinded their ratification -
New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon.
The Southern States, save Tennessee, were informed
by Congress that their Representation to Congress
would not be seated until the States ratified the
14th Amendment. Having a Military Rule imposed upon
a State until it voted the way Congress demanded hardly
seems Constituional.
Considering the North adamant claim that the Southern
States could not secede, then those States, at least
in Northern Eyes, never left the Union, and thus Congress
had no power, at least via the Constitution, to deny them
their right to have their Represenatives and Senators
seated in Congress.
Perhaps we should have a new 14th Amendment that makes it clear who and who is not a Citizen, what is
excessive bail, what is cruel and unusual punishment and what rights do Immigrants - Documented or Un-Documented have in the United States - and what does it
mean to have the right to vote and how Congressinal Districts are to be decided.
7
At first I was fighting this but yes clarification is needed. And while we're at it the second amendment needs some work. Let's define the " well regulated militia".
7
I would add that those Southern States has already had their representatives seated and had full representation in the Union when Congress rdeprived then if that representation and reimposed military occupation until the 14th amendment was approved. That is how the “consent of the governed” was obtained. Is it law?
3
Ratification of the 14th amendment was bitterly contested by Southern 'Confederate' states.
State legislatures in every Confederate state, with the exception of Tennessee, refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.
This refusal led to the passage of the Reconstruction Acts, four statutes passed during the Reconstruction Era by Congress addressing requirements for Southern States to be readmitted to the Union.
The actual title of the initial legislation was "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States" and it was passed on March 2, 1867 and forced Confederate states
to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment before "said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress."
When I was visiting Gettysburg National Military Park on July 4th ( a few days ago) where there are separate state monuments to solders from both sides of the war, there were 'Americans' standing proudly holding the Confederate flag at one of the Confederate state monuments.
To me....and many others....the Confederate flag is a flag of slavery, sedition and human cruelty.....it is little different than holding a Nazi flag.
What's remarkable in this country in 2018 is that a sizable number of so-called Americans still rationalize and pretend that the comprehensive moral, intellectual and patriotic bankruptcy of the Confederacy and its disgusting flag is somehow still acceptable.
This country still has a fair number of racist lunatics celebrating the memory of slavery.
154
Agree entirely, well stated. On the other hand having noted subsequent history I think their secession should be allowed to stand and that way they can keep their flag and Trump can be their first president.
17
Socrates, the South never accepted its defeat and the North only wanted a resurrection of the Union even if in name only. That 28 years after the 14th Amendment's enactment, the Supreme Court in 1896 allowed "separate but equal" in Plessey v. Ferguson, which stood for another 58 years until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, a total of 86 years, is a testament to an enduring racism in America cultivated in both the North and the South. While the phrase "The South shall rise again" may be mocked, its having been passed from one generation to the next now for 150 years as a cultural oath, well explains those who celebrate the Confederacy. It is those people and their fellow Northern white supremacists who support Trump and who would happily repeal the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments if given the opportunity. To me it is not remarkable; it is simply deplorable.
21
@Socrates,
Great post.
The "Americans" you refer to, though, are no less American than yourself. Misguided? Probably. Evil? Maybe, maybe not.
If we are to find our way out of this darkness, it will not be by getting so mad that we forget our own human-ness and civility. Shouting will not turn things around or accomplish anything. Talking to each other, I think, just might. It can't hurt to try.
1
Hope Trump court does not overturn. With the pervasive attack on civil liberties this could be under siege.
5
Hilarious. After Obama’ said the Constitution must always be changing. And people mocked conservatives alarmed at such an interpretation.
7
There is a difference between Obama's and Trump's views on the Constitution.
One POTUS through study and profession sees the document as alive due to the places throughout it with terms such as elasticity and phrases such as "may have other rights..." and from the included amendment and adding states mechanisms. The result is a view that sees rights expanding and to a further defining of powers and limits of society as natural and respectful of the founders and Americans 242 years ago.
The other POTUS does not know the Constitution - and cares to not learn. His wealthy backers and groups such as some of the "Christian Right" and the Federalist Society, are resistant and inflexible about progress and the health of the Grand and Noble American Experiment called Democracy. Rights and the power of the masses is feared and fought.
9
Shamrock,
Nope. He said no such thing.
The 14th Amendment represents the pinnacle of Union achievement accomplished by means of the Civil War, which is unfortunate. It took a century for the words of the Amendment to be transformed into action. Words can say blacks are equals but slaves could not be transformed into freemen overnight. No document, however noble, can effect changes that the people are not ready to make.
3
Transforming slaves into freemen was simpler and easier than transforming slaveowners and slavery approvers into black freeman accepters.
35
Government doesn’t teach right from wrong. My government has no authority over my conscience unless it’s 1984.
@Socrates: I absolutely agree with you, but for the sake of argument, consider the fact that slavery was a deep-rooted African tradition way before Americans engaged in the slave trade. As far as I know, Africans weren't kidnapped by evil white men in the night: they were bought openly and officially from Arab slave merchants, or from the African tribe chiefs themselves. I know Liberals get squirmish whenever blame must be placed on minorities, so isn't criticizing slavery, at the time of the transatlantic slave trade an African semi-exclusivity, culturally insensitive?
The Civil War Amendments only came after a hugely destructive 4 year war. The author seems to diminish that and the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers including my German American relatives who were born in Hanover Germany. She didn’t mention them or their fellow Union soldiers. I visit their graves every Memorial Day.
4
Although, as a lawyer and law professor, I am fully aware of the history recounted here, I feel that I should emphasize that I seldom if ever associate the 14th solely with black citizens except historically. It has always meant for me that it gives all of us equal and full citizenship. One of its major features, as is well known, was that it extended civil rights (to everyone) with respect to the states as well as to the federal government. A truly radical step.
Or to put it another way, until the Amendment was ratified, Americans, black or white, had no rights at all under the Bill of Rights when it came to state action. The extension of the prohibitions associated with the Bill of Rights to the states is revolutionary in many ways, including quite importantly, a much greater sovereignty for both the Constitution and the Federal government without which we probably could not make any claim to modernity.
So, yes, let's hear it for the 14th. It's about time.
37
A few years ago, Antonin Scalia was asked about the 14th and told a surprised audience that the amendment does not offer civil rights to women. His position was that since it had been fashioned to help slaves, there was no reason or precedent to extend its benefits to females.
9
What people intended when the Constitution is amended counts for EVERYthing. Future changes deserving consideration can stand on their own merits.
1
States rights allow for medical marijuana.
Good historical reminders. I so wish Citizens United were mentioned as a poor choice.
3
And it did much more for corporations. Everyone should read Adam Winkler’s We the Corporations. It’s a fascinating story of how corporations have twisted the Fourteenth to win many rights for themselves.
17
Corporations have been able to reap the benefits of "due process" and "equal protection" under the 14th Amendment because Legislatures (the federal Congress and theLegislatures of the various states) carelessly and foolishly created them as artificial "persons".
However, the resulting gross abuses that we have witnessed could be readily fixed by the Legislatures red-defining their artificial creations.
5
Did it require so much twisting? Lincoln was a railroad lawyer whose election depended heavily on the full support of the railroads, who had the federal government treat corporations as persons, and who left the country and the Republican Party firmly in the control of massive wartime enriched corporations. It was that corporate controlled party that used the army to force “ratification” of the 14th amendment. Worth thinking about.
1
KBronson, it absolutely did, considering that none of the committee members referenced rights of corporations even one time in deliberations at its formation. Extending the Fourteenth Amendment to corporations was also the work of an errant court reporter who completely misconstrued its applications to corporations. SC justices later cited this erroneous court reporter syllabus as precedential to further the ends of their corporate cronies. I would say that qualifies as much twisting.
"Let’s Celebrate the 14th Amendment" - Verily!
Because it hasn't been under such constant and intense attack since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Everyone of us knows that if Trump and the modern GOP had their way they would have it abolished in a second.
21
Interesting article. So it seems that recently the 14th Amendment has been pivotal in assisting immigrants,women and gays much less pivotal recently in assisting with the ongoing plight of Black Americans. There is irony in that fact. I do hope the 14th amendment can be useful in containing the roll back of voting rights that is active all across America.The primary targets of that effort American born Black people. Ruminating on this part of our illustrious and troubled history always makes me think of Schwerner,Chaney and Goodman and the sacrifice they made to secure the right to vote for ALL Americans. Almost 100 years after the passage of this important amendment they were lynched. We have a duty to live up to the values promulgated by our Constitution and to demonstrate our gratitude for the courage and sacrifice of these patriotic young Americans.
66
Agreed. Unfortunately, it has been misused to allow a child, of whatever heritage, to become a citizen upon birth in the US. I doubt this is what Congress intended when the Amendment was passed into law. It should never be revoked or changes, this should be taken care of with tighter immigration laws. We cannot afford to support every poor person in the world
24
The Amendment has a qualifier after the initial language, however. All persons born or naturalized AND subject to the jurisdiction. An illegal immigrant is not necessarily subject to our jurisdiction, the same way a foreign diplomat is not subject to our jurisdiction.
7
I agree that it has been misused, and we need immigration reform. Unfortunately, most Republicans have been both blocking comprehensive immigration reform, while encouraging U.S. intervention in Central American countries, which by nature associates our country with the problem of migrants seeking asylum from the conflicts we helped to fund. Many Democrats are doing the same. When will our democracy, through our Congress, finally stand up to serve the interests of average citizens of the U.S. and put an end to both endless war and endless waves of migrants seeking refuge from those wars?
12
Doris: Thank you for opening the door to this very important conversation, we cannot continue on the track we find ourselves without driving even deeper divides, having long ago passed the point where we could care for “ those seeking a better life” without sacrificing the good of our own citizens, there is no appetite to pay for this magnanimity on the part of the rich, indeed the flow of cheap labor along with offshoring of the rest of labor assures the rich become even richer.
5
The debate in Congress around the adoption of the 14th Amendment is strong evidence of the poverty of the so-called doctrine of "originalism", the pet theory of the right wing. During the debate, a member pointed out that, if read literally, the amendment could be understood to mean that married women could not be denied the right to own property. Most states had laws that disallowed that. One of the framers scoffed, saying that everyone knew that the amendment did not mean that.
Originalism is nothing but a cover for those who want to adopt the passions and prejudices of the past with which they agree, while jettisoning those that have become too embarrassing to endorse. Unfortunately, the latter category has been shrinking in an alarming way recently. The great legal scholar Burke Marshall, a Yale Law professor (and former head of the Civil Rights Div. at DOJ), testified against his colleague Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme
Court, calling originalism "a result in pursuit of a rationale."
The framers of the amendment left it vague b/c they understood that they could not anticipate every factual situation to which it might apply. Just as the 8th Amendment proscribes cruel and unusual punishment, rather than compiling a list of disallowed penalties. The authors had to trust future generations to understand the principle and apply it to their times. We are not living up to that trust at this moment of our history, and I greatly fear where that will lead us.
133
The framers of the fourteenth amendment, unable to achieve ratification by the consent of the governed, obtained it by military force. There is nothing about that process or it’s product that people who believe in self government by constitutional consent or in the rule of law should honor or celebrate.
7
By that reasoning, one could say that the Constitution itself should not be honored or celebrated because it did not include the female half of society. After all, they were not even asked to consent to its very existence.
2
In response to KBronson:
Self-government and consent of the governed by whom? Which people are you referring to? White only?
According to your thesis, the same lack of honor can be found of Southern slave-owners who used brute force, backed by the domestic terroristic laws and awesome might of each slave state's militia to enforce involuntary human servitude upon an entire race of people whose recent forbearers had been forcibly kidnapped from their ancestral homelands and brought over via slave-ships to American shores.
The same can be said of American patriots who used military force to achieve their independence. Was their cause dishonorable?
So, are you stipulating that the fruits of any use of military force are unworthy of honor or celebration? Or only those which you hold a grudge against?
If American patriots were fighting for their liberty during the Revolutionary War, why should African-Americans have been denied their fight for their own existential liberty during the Civil War? And with a recalcitrant South -- fomenting domestic terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan -- the 14th Amendment was necessary to ensure that the newly freed bondsmen and women would be granted freedom, citizenship, suffrage, and all other rights enjoyed by white American citizens during that time. Unfortunately, it would take another 100 years for those constitutional rights to be recognized and put into practice.
We're still struggling to fully implement the 14th Amendment as social reality. The death-deep scarring of the civil war persists in our society--borne along by a human nature that is tribal, only superficially peaceful, and still ready to oppress "The Other," no matter what the separating distinctions. Statutory change is one thing, and absolutely necessary--but what we really need to make America great (for the first time, in this respect) is a change in the hearts of men and women, and a full and generous regard for the equal standing of all citizens.
35
In the era of a radical right activist Supreme Court, we all need to be concerned, when that same court has ruled that corporations are people, and that money equals free speech.
Now that court is poised to become even more radical and who knows what other things they will change as activists disregarding long held precedents ?
I personally don't think the 14th is going to be touched, but it would seem every other Amendment is going to be shaped into a cudgel against human rights. (essentially religious liberty ''trumping'' all else)
The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, but justice is going to take a serious detour for the next couple of generations if this President gets another radical right nominee onto the court. ( or even another after that )
Aye, let's celebrate while we still can.
51
@FunkyIrishman: "In the era of a radical right activist Supreme Court, we all need to be concerned, when that same court has ruled that corporations are people, and that money equals free speech. "
I would read less "resistance" propaganda, and pay more attention. Whose supreme court decided Citizens United v. FEC? Nope, not Trump's. I also believe that it was a lousy and unfair decision, but by mixing everything up and blaming everything on people with no holding on the decision, you just weaken your argument.
1
But a radical left activist Supreme Court gave us Hansberry, Sweatt, Brown, Montgomery Bus Company etc.
The moral arc of the universe in America bends mostly against "just us" aka black folks in America making any rapid and radical progress. The aging, shrinking and dying white majority makes it so.
1
As history shows, the 14th Amendment and the Constitution as a whole can be interpreted any way the Supreme Court, closely tied to current social values. Liberal intellectuals have a legal fetish, wanting to believe the Constitution and legal system guarantee our rights. History shows—from Dred Scott defending slavery, through Plessy justifying segregation, to the recent Janus undermining unions, due process is whatever the current political elite wants it to be. Why the huge discrepancy in incarceration of the white middle class vs. the poor and minorities in drug cases when drug use is approximately the same? The 14th Amendment guarantees due process to persons, not just citizens, yet undocumented immigrants and refugees are being housed in concentration camps, children torn from their parents, and toddlers denied legal representation. The one good thing about a right-wing SCOTUS and monolithic Executive, Legislative, Judicial, State Government Republican oligarchy is that many people will turn to political activism and grassroots democracy as the only solution.
92
Bruce Shigeura,
Liberals have always turned to “political activism and grassroots democracy”. It’s liberals who fight for civil rights and against wars. It’s liberals who continue the fight for civil liberties and human rights.
Too long conservatives have undermined civil rights and any legislation that promotes equality. Conservatives want to control and dictate every nuance of life while claiming to be for small government. Conservatives want small government when it suits them for instance the deregulation of Wall Street, tax breaks favoring corporations, and allowing our natural resources to be plundered for profit.
Conservatives also advocate for big government when restricting the rights of some citizens, particularly women, minorities, LGBTQ, and deciding who is entitled to healthcare or an education.
There is nothing good about a right-wing SCOTUS. It will allow the continued exploitation of individuals in favor of corporations, it will blur the lines between church and state, and it will set us back decades while making liberals fight for our rights all over again.
1
Best post of the month. Says it all.
Right on!
German Americans and Italian Americans were not sent to internment camps duing World War II.
And German and Italian POW's could patronize facilities that were closed to African Americans.
Both partisan political parties take turns marginalizing and disrespecting the people who work for their money while advancing the interests and values of people whose money works for them. America's prisons were built and filled up by both sides. Drug addiction and guns were both fostered and furthered by drug and gun manufacturers. Both political parties are pawns of the military-industrial complex, Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Both parties love the fossil fuel and tech industry barbarian pirates.
By the way we do not and have never lived in a democracy. America was and still is a divided limited power constitutional republic of united states.
1
Celebrating the 14th Amendment seems a little bit odd to me, as does the discussion of its importance today - a law required to grant citizenship to citizens. Its necessity is troubling. Along with slavery, the 14th Amendment is an indicator that America is not the America it professes to be. "Evolving?" America is not evolving. It is listing. It just elected Donald Trump and he still has a 40% approval rating.
Had America been America from the start, there would have not been an Emancipation Proclamation, a Thirteenth Amendment, a Fourteenth Amendment, an abolitionist Frederick Douglas, or even a civil rights activist Dr. King. The reality of the actual America requires many to remember the importance of the 14th Amendment, but it is not worth celebrating. It is a reminder of a distortion in the American image.
48
What you're saying only makes sense if you're purposely oblivious to the fact that mores change, and have changed throughout time. Judging the activities of cavemen through the viewpoint of current moral standards makes no sense. Likewise, pretending that we contemporary Americans are equipped to understand and judge 19th century folks is preposterous. We can regret certain actions of the past, but we shouldn't go rewriting history because it doesn't conform to the popular ideological strain of the day.
In my previous comment I left out voter suppression and re polls 45% believe he is racist.
Right on!
See whitneyplantation.com
See "This is America" Childish Gambino
1
"Some scholars see the 14th Amendment’s ambiguity as a weakness." Well, one thing that the 14th Amendment was never intended to include was allowing children born in the U.S. to become citizens even if their parents were in the country unlawfully or as visitors. The U.S. and Canada are the only developed nations that allow this,, where someone gets U.S. citizenship as an accident of birth. As a result, thousands of foreigners travel to the U.S. annually to have children, and many do not pay for the medical expenses incurred. Not only are these children automatically U.S. citizens, they cannot renounce this status until at least age 18, and their parents cannot "choose" to have their children decline this American birthright. Does anyone actually believe that the authors of the 14th Amendment intended for children born to foreigners in the country unlawfully to have all the rights of Americans?
35
@David Ricardo: regardless of what the framers of the Amendment intended, any clear textualist reading of the Amendment would demonstrate there is no doubt that anyone born in the US is a citizen. The language is unambiguous.
53
@Joe: I agree it is unambiguous, but neither is that the point, nor does that mean it's not wrong.
The entire legal profession is dedicated to the proposition that there is no such thing as unambiguous language.
A few years ago, we thought we had achieved a post-racial society in which all were equal and judged on their merit rather than the color of their skin or their religion.
With Mr. Trump's election, we have learned that we were premature. He has called white supremacists "fine people" and has encouraged the rise of neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism based on his own bigotry.
A surge in black men killed by white police, usually on the most flimsy of excuses (running away!) shows that we have not achieved that post-racial society.
But even here in the South, there is hope. I see educated black men and women returning to the South that they fled in the 50s and 60s. They are contributing to their communities in ways large and small.
I see more neighborhood integration in middle class areas. The only negative remarks I have heard have come from transplanted northerners, not southerners.
We are all equal under the law. Now we must work on equality in everyday life for all of us.
21
The Democrat Party doesn’t want a color blind society. It’s not a secret.
4
Your third paragraph is a lie. There has been no "surge" in black men killed by police. The only "surge" has been in police murdered by cop killers, murders encouraged by the left and groups like BLM. The police have a right to protect themselves, and blue lives matter a lot, because they put themselves on the line to protect the rest of us, even though most of us are total strangers. Do you do that?