The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 as one of the longest amendments to the Constitution with five parts in total. The most significant part is section one. In the very first sentence of section one, “ All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, as citizens of the United States and of the state where in they reside” citizenship was universalized. The Amendment was designed to prohibit state governments from curtailing the rights of former slaves after the Civil War, however it has been used to grant all of the personal liberties and rights conveyed in the Bill of Rights. The Amendment gives definition to citizenship, requires due process and equal protection under the law ands reduces representation in Congress for states that deny voting rights to its citizens.In the Dred Scott case, Chief Justice Taney ruled that United States citizenship belonged only to two classes of people; White people born in the United States as descendents of “persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States and [who] became also citizens of this new political body, and those who were “born outside the dominions of the united states: but had migrated there and had become naturalized citizens.Prior to the Constitution, each state regulated citizenship. With the adaptation of the document, Congress had the authority to establish a uniform rule for naturalization, but not citizenship – that was still left up to the state. In order to become a citizen of the United States, one had to first become a citizen of one of the States.Any Negro was ineligible to attain citizenship, either by naturalization or birth. Even as a free man, any one of African descent could still not become a citizen. The purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make citizenship of black individual permanent and secure. The amendment did not...
