Constitutional Amendments – Article XIV

 

We have been covering the US Constitution line by line.  When Republicans wave their paper props and parrot their vile machinations, we will be prepared to expose the lies.  We have finished the main body of the Constitution.  Now we continue with the Amendments.  You can find the last article on the main body of the Constitution here. It has links to all the others.  The text comes from The US Constitution.  Previous articles in the Amendment series:

Article I

Articles II and III

Article IV

Article V

Article VI

Article VII

Article VIII

Articles IX and X

Articles XI and XII

Article XIII

 

Article XIV

1:  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

2:  Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.  But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

3:  No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.  But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

4:  The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.  But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

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

The Fourteenth Amendment contains several points of controversy.

Section 1 declares that all people born in a state are citizens of both the US and that state.  It forbids states from passing and enforcing legislation that abridges the rights of citizens.  This is controversial, because Republicans want to strip the citizenship from so called “anchor babies”, the children of the undocumented born in the US.  They whine that these children consume resources that should only benefit American families and that the accident of their birth here does not make them Americans.  To them I say that the we are all citizens by the accident of our birth here.  Since red states consume public resources at a higher rate than they contribute, Republicans are no more deserving of citizenship than those they despise.  But stripping their citizenship is unconstitutional, as is stripping the citizenship of the children of the undocumented born here.

Section one continues to guarantee due process.  This is controversial on a nonpartisan basis, because the IRS regularly deprives people of property for income tax delinquency without due process, leaving it up to the victims of this practice to prove that they are not delinquent.  Even then, people only recover the auction price the IRS received for the property, not its fair market value.

Finally Section 1 guarantees equal protection of the law.  This is controversial, because Republicans support racial profiling in violation of this guarantee.  Also, Republicans have repeatedly used illegal means to disenfranchise poor and minority voters.

Section 2 removed the 3/5 person valuation of African Americans in the census, and counted all males, 21 and over for determining levels of representation.  It also reduces that number for disenfranchised individuals.  Racist disenfranchisement, Democratic before 1964 and Republican since, has been all but ignored.

Section 3 bars public service to any who had violated a previous oath to support the Constitution and then joined the Confederacy.  It is not controversial, because it no longer applies.  It could be in the future, should Republicans follow through on their threats of secession and/or Second Amendment solutions.

Section 4 validates Union debts and invalidates both Confederate debts and claims of loss through the emancipation of slaves.  It is no longer controversial.

Second 5 provides for enforcement.

I shall try to put up a new article in this series almost every day.  It will take some time to cover it all, but when we’re done, we shall be immune to the lies with which Republicans seek to undermine our freedoms.