1868
THE 14TH AMENDMENT
The 14th Amendment’s reads: “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.”
The final section of the amendment grants Congress the power to enforce these rights “through appropriate legislation.” The amendment enacted a fundamental change—a revolution in our understanding of civic capacity—for Blacks and other minorities, because it speaks of “persons” without regard to race. It was also revolutionary in the distribution of power between state and national governments.
The Dred Scott decision was dead. The amendment further shielded Blacks from attempts by state governments to undercut their civic membership by declaring that states could not deny Blacks the “privileges or immunities: of national citizenship,” nor lawfully withhold the “due process of law and “equal protection of the laws” to which they were entitled.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, has been the subject of more litigation than any other part of the Constitution, Mark S. Weiner writes in “Black Trials: Citizenship from The Beginnings of Slavery to the End of Caste.”
Source
Mark S. Weiner, Black Trials: Citizenship from the Beginnings of Slavery to the end of Caste, 1st ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 189-190.