Fourteenth Amendment

[fawr-teenth uh-mend-muhnt]

noun

1. an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons.

Fourteenth Amendment

1. An amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1868. It was primarily concerned with details of reintegrating the southern states after the Civil War and defining some of the rights of recently freed slaves. The first section of the amendment, however, was to revolutionize federalism. It stated that no state could “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.” Gradually, the Supreme Court interpreted the amendment to mean that the guarantees of the Bill of Rights apply to the states as well as to the national government.

Example Sentences

If We, the People, today think the Fourteenth Amendment is a mistake, we are free to do what Lincoln’s generation did and amend the Constitution.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“There is a Constitutional Crisis in Los Angeles, with First, Fourth & Fourteenth Amendment Violations Happening Now,” one of the organizers, civil rights attorney Jaime Gutierrez, said in a statement.

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They had argued that Trump was ineligible for office under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.

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The equal protection clause, enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

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The relevant provision is Section 5, which enables Congress, subject of course to judicial review, to pass “appropriate legislation” to “enforce” the Fourteenth Amendment.

Read more on New York Times