Fourteenth Amendment Essay

Following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the succession of Andrew Johnson as president in 1965, there was disquiet and fear of regression. Notably, this fear and disquiet were brought about by the perceived leniency of President Johnson towards the Confederates. The 14th Amendment was precluded by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which had to overcome President Johnson veto to be enacted. Following this enactment, it became prudent to have constitutional protections to those civil rights anticipated in the 1866 legislation and that is when the 14th Amendment was conceived. The Rationale for Enacting the 14th Amendment The motivation in the enactment of the 14th Amendment was motivated by a raft of prevailing circumstances. Markedly, through the reasoning adduced from the case, citizenship was accrued through political jurisdiction and not through tribal allegiance.

Conversely, this ruling remained controversial until the enactment of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which conclusively resolved the Citizenship problem of the Native Indians. Moreover, through this precedence, it was settled that children born to diplomats did not qualify for citizenship. Equally, 14th Amendment has been at the center of children born in the United States to parents who are immigrants and whether their immigration status affected their citizenship. The landmark decision of United States v. The landmark challenge came in the form of Slaughter-House Cases (1873) when a group of butchers claimed that a Louisiana statute conferred a commercial monopoly to private company thus subjecting them to servitude contrary to the 14th Amendment (Foner 442). Remarkably, the bench differed with the plaintiffs’ citing that their claim did not correspond to the initial objective of the drafters.

However, this position has been vacated by subsequent Amendments. Impact of 14th Amendment The object of this legal instrument was to confer and protect civil liberties. However, there have been mixed results based on how much the African Americans have benefited. Consequently, the provision had a substituting effect as it gave other races the right to vote while at the same time disenfranchised the women civil rights (Greenberg and Page 337). The female suffragists had to fight for these rights for subsequent decades. Conclusion Having been enacted in the Reconstruction Era, the 14th Amendment was to secure civil liberties of former slaves by eliminating the foundation of slavery which was racial prejudice. The mode of guaranteeing these rights were based on four foundations; citizenship, privileges and immunities and equal protection.