U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment

Michael Scally MD

Doctor of Medicine
10+ Year Member
U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment
14th Amendment | LII / Legal Information Institute

Fourteenth Amendment - Rights Guaranteed Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection

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

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

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

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

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

As much as I am a state's rights guy, I am so because of the constitution. And per the constitution this is under the purview of the federal powers. If a state does not like it, then attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution unless the state can find some enumerated power the federal government is either violating or abdicating. The only thing I can see in reading the document is the federal powers duty to protect the states from invasion. Invasion is not defined as physical and can be a velvet invasion due to this lack of an actual definition and the lack of any historical context in the Federalist and anti-Federalist papers. However, it is very shaky ground.

I would say this is a stunt to bring to the attention of the American people the need to change the 14th amendment. It is not a serious effort at state's rights. That's my take on it. As most people from both sides of aisle have absolutely no idea about what the constitution actually means this could also be a power play and publicity stunt.
 
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