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. This is what the first section (of five in total) of the 14th says:Īll 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. Things got more interesting with the 14th and 15th amendments. He made the point that unlike the film depiction, the President did not initiate the amendment. The 13th amendment abolished slavery-that's the one featured in the film Lincoln. (By the way, the 12th was ratified in 1804, so there had been quite a long time since the Constitution was amended.) Historical Studies conference, historian Eric Foner spoke to a very full auditorium at the National Archives last night on "Reconstruction and the Fragility of Democracy."įoner selected a few highlights to summarize more than a decade of history (roughly 1865 to 1877, with its promise extinguished by the end of the 19th century), but focused on something that has endured-the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
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