Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment: Obergefell V Hodges Essay
In work 'Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment: Obergefell V Hodges Essay' we will talk about the fourteenth amendment and main topic of it, then we will research the case of Obergefell V Hodges of same-sex marriage. The constitution is the most important document in our nation, allowing us to have a living framework from which our country will always be rooted. The constitution has twenty-seven amendments, twenty-five of them still today constantly being debated and/or studied by judges, politicians, and students. The document is indestructible, granted that it continues to constantly change with the ebb and flow of time and our sensibilities here in the greatest country on Earth.
The fourteenth amendment is arguably the most studied and scrutinized amendment in the constitution. The fourteenth amendment is the way that congress was able to grant citizenship to freedmen in the United States during the reconstruction period after the civil war. It is the backbone for most civil rights court cases that have been presented. It is the cause and cure for many of our civil rights issues, showing greatly the power the judicial branch has and how it has interpreted legal proceedings in the past.
The amendment was passed in 1868 by a 33-11 vote in the Senate and was vetoed by Andrew Jackson. He had reservations on how it seemed to prefer African-Americans over whites. His decision was overturned, and it became law. Congressmen had written five sections to the amendment. The fifth gives them the power to enforce it. The fourth section is purely to say to other countries that the U.S. will not be covering debts accrued by the C.S. The third is to say that no one who leads the rebellion will be allowed to hold government office unless passed by vote in congress. The second is a little hard to follow but I think it is talking about the right to vote for African-American males that are at least 21 years old, it also shows that American Indians are still not included in this in this section. These are the lesser known parts of it, and arguably less important.
The first section of the fourteenth amendment is the most litigated and is used in some of the most famous cases of civil rights history. The first section talks about how if you are naturalized here or are born here you are a U.S. citizen, also known as the naturalization clause. It gives citizens of color the right of due process. It also is home to the privileges and immunities clause which was all but destroyed just a few years after it was ratified by the slaughterhouse cases, but has seen recent rebuilding from Justice Clarence Thomas who directly cited the clause in a 2010 2nd amendment case. Also, equal protection under the law, which has been the basis for famous cases such as roe v. wade and brown v. board of education. It also talks about how no man may be denied these rights as a U.S. citizen. The first section was written to be the foundation for almost all civil rights validity in the constitution.
On 08Jun1866 the fourteenth amendment passed through the Senate and on 13 Jun 1866 it passed the House. Shortly thereafter then President Andrew Johnson, with his own reservations loudly voiced, sent it to the states to be ratified, which took two years. The amendment was either loosely based or written to solidify the place of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was a defeating blow to the south who were in the process of turning the newly freedmen into indentured servants or serfs. Black codes were passed as laws all through the south, more commonly referred to as Jim Crow laws, and violence post-war towards African-Americans was normal before the amendment and its enforcement.
After the fourteenth amendment was ratified it was unable to, however, stop states from finding ways to separate themselves from African-Americans. Segregation became commonplace after a man who was 7/8ths white and 1/8 African was forced to ride in a different train car. The lawsuit fell into his favor; however, the result was an outline for segregation in Louisiana that would become commonplace for fifty years in many states in the U.S. The case more commonly known as Plessey v. Ferguson, which created the “separate but equal” doctrine that lasted for fifty-six years, was based on the fourteenth amendment.
Fortunately, another case based on the fourteenth amendment made segregation unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education leads to the desegregation of schools in America. The argument was that the amendment was unclear on its effects to public education and thus must not apply and that it does not guarantee African-American students equal protection under the law. It took almost a year and a half for the supreme court to decide the case, but, obviously, it ruled in favor of Oliver Brown. The supreme court ordered the states to “admit parties to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed.”
Continuing to a more recent case, the fourteenth amendment allowed my sister to have her marriage recognized nationally. That’s correct, the fourteenth amendment was the legal basis that Obergefell v. Hodges was passed allowing national same-sex marriage. James Obergefell is a homosexual man and was married to a man who, shortly after their nuptials, died of ALS. He became the named petitioner for the case and obviously the one who won. He used the due process and equal protection aspects of the fourteenth amendment to win his case.
This part is obviously opinionated because there is no way to have known if James Madison or George Washington would’ve approved of all the things the fourteenth amendment would do. They weren’t around to see it at all, so them approving or disproving of the fourteenth is all opinion now. However, I believe that some of them, and the ones that truly shaped this country: James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, would’ve approved of it. Furthermore, I think they would’ve, given the technology being available, do it themselves. Men with a true aspect of freedom who wanted to make America a different place, but with the limitations they had they could only do so much.
In conclusion, the ratification of the fourteenth amendment made it so that citizenship was given to African-Americans. It gave all Americans, except Indians until 1924, the privileges and immunities clause as well as the right to due process and the naturalization clause. The fourteenth amendment has been the biggest standing block for civil rights cases to lean on since its ratification.
Bibliography
- 14th Amendment to the Constitution; Library of Congress
- 14th Amendment; Cornell Law School
- Brown v. Board of Education; Cornell Law School
- Mv. CHICAGO ( No. 08-1521 ); Cornell Law School
- Obergefell v. Hodges; Cornell Law School
- Plessy v. Ferguson; Cornell Law School
- Slaughterhouse Cases; Cornell Law School
- University of California v. Bakke; Cornell Law School
