![]() ![]() The Fourteenth Amendment is one of the three “Civil War Amendments,” the other two being the Thirteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment. In other words, the Constitution, which was meant to restrict only the powers of the federal government, not state and local government, has become a mechanism for the federal government, through the judiciary, to restrict the powers of the states. Because whole books have been written about each of these clauses, this essay focuses chiefly on the Due Process Clause, which has been used to “incorporate” the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) to apply against the several states. The Due Process Clause, Equal Protection Clause, and Privileges or Immunities Clause of The Fourteenth Amendment restrict the power of the states and invest the federal government with broad license and authority. This jurisprudential clash is most profound and clarifying in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment. On the other side are those who would strictly limit the powers of the federal judiciary over the several states. On the one side are those who would empower federal judges allegedly to protect individual rights against the several states. The gridlock has to do with competing ideas about the proper role of the federal judiciary in protecting and preserving individual rights. ![]() ![]() Libertarians and conservatives have never achieved widespread consensus regarding issues of federalism in American jurisprudence. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.The federal judiciary is often the most dangerous branch precisely because it is considered to be the least dangerous one. ![]() But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. 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. 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. ![]()
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