A Technical Analysis of the 14th Amendment, Section 1
Amendment XIV, Section 1
The 14th Amendment was passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, a mere 16 months after the end of the Civil War (April 12, 1861 — April 9, 1865). At that time, it was an enhancement with the greatest number of Sections, five in total. In comparison, Amendments 1 through 12 contained one Section each. Amendment 13 had two Sections, but is claimed to have “had done nothing to address Slave Power” (Epps, 452).
To protect the Freedmen in the South from the infamous “Black Codes” (Lash, n.d., p. 70), the 14th Amendment reiterated the language within the 5th Amendment (Bill of Rights, December 1791) for federal level protection of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That language was diluted by the lack of clear federal language within the 10th Amendment — to protect civil liberties at the national level — and prohibited the very legislation that Congress was trying to pass (Lash, p. 72).
Countering Southern Ruthlessness
The overall effectiveness of the language within Section 1 manifested through Bingham’s strategic wording, to acknowledge that citizenship, whether by birth or naturalization, is first and foremost a federally protected status “of the United States”, then second “of the State wherein they reside”, that in combination reaffirmed the constitutional federalist form of government.
Despite that the Constitution called to “secure the public good and private rights [,] … and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government” (Federalist Paper #10, Par. 11) the tenets were largely ignored by “the Deep South’s paranoid obsession with protecting its peculiar institution [,] … countless acts of tyranny and intolerance [,] … the repression of free blacks… and then, increasingly, repression of whites themselves, both in the South and beyond”(Epps, p. 452).
Unfreedom of the South
Hate inculcated and reinforced through practice created a semblance of Southern “internal unity” (Epps, p. 452) that expanded its negative influence beyond Southern state lines through rewards to pro-slavery Unionist politicians and punishment for “those who did not protect the interests of slavery and the slave system” (Epps, p. 452).
Reclaiming the Voice of the 1st Amendment
The 1st Amendment forbids Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech”; however, in matters of slavery, “several Southern states made it a crime — in some places, a capital offense — for a free white person to advocate abolition or to condemn slavery into strong language” (Epps, p. 452).
Southern oppression censored, destroyed printing press equipment, suppressed written and oral speech, including mail to protect its economic system and way of life.
Conclusion
The 14th Amendment, specifically Section 1, ensured that the foundation of a free society — the governed — remains protected by a federal statute with powers to intervene, disrupt, and overrule State mandates that are not aligned with the concepts envisioned by the Framers.
Copyright Leonard Casiple 2023. All rights reserved.
About the author: Leo Casiple is a first-generation American who grew up in Southern Philippines under martial law. He spent much of his 21-year career in the US Army as a Green Beret.
Leo is currently a doctoral student at Northeastern University’s Doctor of Law and Policy program (2022–2025 Cohort). He earned his education from California Lutheran University (MPPA), ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management (MBA in Global Management), Excelsior University (BS in Liberal Arts, Ethnic and Area Studies), Academy of Competitive Intelligence (Master of Competitive Intelligence™), Defense Language Institute and Foreign Language Center (18-month Arabic Language Course), and the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (Special Forces Qualification Course and Psychological Operations Specialist Course).
For more information about the author, click here: Leo’s LinkedIn Profile
References
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil rights (1868). (2022, February 8). National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment
Epps, G. (2007, December). Interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment: Two Don’ts and Three Dos. William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository | William & Mary Law School Research. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=wmborj
Federalist papers №10 (1787). (n.d.). Bill of Rights Institute. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10
Lash, K. T. (n.d.). Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy | The nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship. https://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2019/02/Lash-FINAL.pdf
