The 14th Amendment

Welcome to Civics and Coffee. My name is Alycia and I am a self-professed history nerd. Each week, I am going to chat about a topic on U.S history and give you both the highlights and occasionally break down some of the complexities in history; and share stories you may not remember learning in high school. All in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. 

INTRO MUSIC

Hey everyone. Welcome back. 

In 1838, Black abolitionist and legal thinker William Yates wrote the first legal treatise about the rights of free Black Americans. Titled The Rights of Colored Men, Yates argued that the Constitution as written bestowed the rights of citizenship to free Black Americans. Stating what present readers may see as the obvious, Yates argued quote: “free persons of color are human beings, natives of the country - for such of we speak - and owe the same obligations to the state, and to its government as white citizens. They have an equal right to liberty - to the enjoyment and security of home and family - and of a good name and character as white men,” end quote. Twenty years before the Supreme Court ruled that Blacks were not, nor could ever be, citizens of the United States, Yates posed the simple question about the extension of rights, writing quote: “do they belong to free persons of color? If they were white it is conceded they would,” end quote. 

The fight for recognition as citizens was a long and arduous process. It wasn’t until after the Civil War in 1866 that the Congress was ready to finally address the question: were the freed and newly emancipated Black residents of the country citizens? Congress originally tried to answer the question with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, but some in the legislative body realized a federal law may prove insufficient. Thus, they lobbied for the inclusion of an amendment guaranteeing the protection of most citizens and securing once and for all equality before the law for Black residents. 

So this week, I am diving into the history of the 14th Amendment. How did it come to pass? What did it mean for Black Americans? And how did it impact women’s push for the vote? 

Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let’s do this. 

The fight for recognition of legal rights was not new for the members of the 39th Congress. Black Americans had been pushing to be recognized and treated as their fellow white neighbors for decades. They understood that without being recognized as citizens and granted access to the franchise, their livelihoods, and safety were subject to the whims of those in power. Again from Yates, quote: “in regard to citizenship, this is a subject of great importance - an exclusion from suffrage is a withholding of political rights only, but the question of citizenship strikes deeper; deny a man this, and his personal rights are not safe,” end quote. 

Yates saw the law as an instrument of change and that racism amounted to a legal disability. According to historian Martha S. Jones, Yates’ treatise quote “fueled understandings of the role that law might play in claims for free Black rights,” end quote. In her analysis of Black residents in Baltimore who pushed for legal rights, Jones argues that because lawmakers failed to address the question of citizenship for free Black Americans, the quote “equation linking rights and citizenship was never fixed,” end quote. As she argues, Yates was not alone in his belief that the law offered an avenue to obtain recognition of black rights. Hundreds of Black Americans sought to assert their rights in several ways, including engaging with the court system to file claims, 

Yet another way Black Americans pushed for their recognition was through military service. By donning the uniform in defense of their country, Black Americans pushed the boundaries of what many white Americans believed were their innate shortcomings. These actions, in combination with abolitionist newspapers and speeches by former enslaved individuals all helped Black Americans force the issue of citizenship. Something the federal government seemed unable or unwilling to address until quote-unquote radical representatives took up the cause during Reconstruction.    

As I mentioned during my episode on Radical Reconstruction a few weeks back, the idea for the amendment came to the fore after the Congressional battle with President Johnson over the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Johnson was a staunch adherent to states' rights and clung to the belief that the United States should remain a white man’s government. He vehemently disagreed with the need for the bill and argued in his veto message that the bill put Black Americans’ rights ahead of whites, writing quote: “In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish for the security of the colored race safeguards that go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race,” end quote. The Civil Rights Act simply sought to put Black Americans on equal footing with their white neighbors, but for Johnson equality felt like oppression. 

His veto message, according to legal scholar Annette Gordon Reed, quote: “made it clear the president would never support any legislation that aided the freedmen,” end quote. Some in Congress had believed, perhaps a bit naively, that Johnson might support the passage of the Civil Rights Act, if for no other reason than the reports of massive, widespread violence being inflicted upon Black Americans throughout the former Confederacy. In her analysis, Reed concludes quote, “the deep irony of their faith is that this bill had become necessary in large part because Johnson’s early pro-white southern stance had emboldened the white south to pass the black codes that sought to reinvent slavery in the south in all but name,” end quote. 

After overriding Johnson’s veto, members of Congress refocused their energy on securing an amendment that codified the Civil Rights Act of 1866. If you compare the text of the bill and the amendment, you will notice the language is very similar. Ohio Representative John Bingham introduced the original text of the amendment in February 1866, but the vote was delayed over disagreements about the language. After the Civil Rights Act was successfully passed in April 1866, Bingham went to work in gaining support for a revised amendment. The goal in crafting the amendment was to both help support the civil rights bill and to ensure Congress was vested with the authority to enforce the law. 

Yet another goal of the amendment was to ensure that the Bill of Rights applied not just to federal law, but to state law as well. In 1833 the Supreme Court ruled in Barron v. Baltimore that all amendments to the constitution were limited to federal law. This means that while Congress could make no law establishing a national religion, for example, a statehouse had no such guardrail. In a speech outlining his support for the 14th Amendment and the inclusion of language that would force states into compliance with the amendment, Thaddeus Stevens argued on May 8th quote: “the constitution limits only the action of Congress, and it is not a limitation of the states. This amendment supplies that defect and allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the states, so far that the law which operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all,” end quote. 

However, not everyone agreed on establishing this new interpretation of federal power. New York representative Giles Hotchkiss said quote: “the object of a constitution is not only to confer power upon the majority, but to restrict the power of the majority and to protect the rights of the minority,” end quote. In his opinion, extending the power of Congress to enact laws that states had to abide by was a dangerous and slippery slope. What if, he asked, the next Congress passed a series of laws that mandated something his state disagreed with? Putting a finer point on, Hotchkiss argued quote: “Should the power of this Government, as the gentleman from Ohio fears, pass into the hands of the rebels, I do not want rebel laws to govern and be uniform throughout this Union,” end quote. 

Despite some members' reservations, Congress moved forward with building an amendment that recognized Black Americans as citizens of the United States and provided equality before the law. The Amendment is divided into five sections; section one finally defines citizenship writing quote “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,” end quote. 

In declaring that all individuals born in the United States were citizens, Congress overturned the 1857 Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Sandford. This was the infamous case that limited citizenship to white people born in the United States and those who migrated here and were subsequently naturalized. Section one also rectified another part of the Sandford decision that found that while states could bestow statewide citizenship, it could not make them U.S. citizens. Section one also guaranteed equal protection before the law - both federal and state. This inclusion allowed for courts to extend the parameters of the Bill of Rights which had previously been viewed as applicable to the federal government only. 

The second section spoke to representation in Congress and suppressing access to the franchise for Black residents. When the Constitution was written, the ⅗ clause gave many southern states increased representation in the House. Remember, when written, enslaved Black men, women, and children were not seen as human beings, but as property. What the ⅗ clause did, in essence, was allow southern states to count three out of every five enslaved individuals when determining the state’s total population for representation in Congress. Now that the 13th amendment prohibited slavery, there was concern that the former confederacy would reap the benefits of counting all formerly enslaved individuals in their population for representation, but would not take the step of extending suffrage to them. Therefore, the second section of the 14th Amendment dictated that representation could be reduced by the number of men over 21 denied the right to vote. Included in the text is the provision that quote “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,” end quote. 

Section three disqualified anyone from holding elected office who had engaged in a rebellion or insurrection. Quote: “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 enemies thereof,” end quote. 

Section four both validated the public debt owed to individuals who aided the country in suppressing the rebellion, such as Civil War veterans, but also exempted itself from the payment of any debt incurred by states who aided in insurrection or rebellion or any loss associated with the emancipation of formerly enslaved individuals. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the act ensured that Congress would have enforcement power with section five. Quote: “the congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article” end quote. 

Unfortunately, despite its progressive movement to include Black men in the electoral process, the 14th Amendment failed to account for women. This oversight caused an irrevocable split between nineteenth-century women’s rights activists and abolitionists. What was once a joint effort to secure electoral recognition for black Americans and women, the refusal to recognize women as politically minded individuals who also deserved access to the ballot box created a fissure between the movements and led women to believe they could no longer trust men to recognize their status as equal citizens deserving of electoral equality. As historian Eric Foner observed quote, “women’s leaders now embarked on a course that severed their historic alliance with abolitionism and created a truly independent feminist movement,” end quote. 

True to form, Andrew Johnson was against the amendment and lobbied hard for its defeat, including pledging to invest his own money to the amount of $20,000 to defeat it. Johnson falsely claimed that the bill would promote quote negro rule at the ballot box, even though the amendment did not guarantee access to the voting booth - it only provided punishment for those who actively suppressed the vote. To ensure its passage, Congress made ratification of the 14th Amendment a condition for any former Confederate state wishing to rejoin the union. In a demonstration of just how far his support for white supremacy went, President Johnson lobbied white southerners to reject the amendment - even though it meant preventing them from rejoining the United States. 

Despite President Johnson’s efforts, the amendment passed the Senate on June 8th by a vote of 33 to 11, followed by a vote to approve in the House on June 13, 120 for to 32 opposed. It then went out to the states for ratification, which it received on July 28, 1868, a little over two years after it was introduced. 

Considered by some historians of the era as the most important amendment ever added to the Constitution, the 14th Amendment sought to codify protections for formerly enslaved individuals. In so doing, according to historian Eric Foner, Congress quote “carried forward the nation-building process born of the Civil War,” end quote. Reacting to the very real realities of Black Americans who had the temerity to assert their rights - to demand to be recognized as citizens of the United States - Congress finally acted.

The 14th Amendment fell short of extending recognition and inclusion of women and Indigenous Americans, but it nevertheless provided significant protection for the millions of newly emancipated Americans who wanted only to live out the goals outlined in the Declaration of Independence: that all men are created equal and that they are guaranteed certain unalienable rights, chief among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. An amendment that has been used to secure freedom in court cases including Loving v. Virginia which found laws barring interracial marriage unconstitutional, the 14th Amendment has proved to be a pivotal protection for individual freedoms for people throughout the country. Although there was some debate as to whether the amendment was truly needed, history has shown us that the 39th Congress of the United States was wiser than their contemporaries believed and their dedication to action ensured that while Reconstruction may not have achieved everything it set out to do, progress was still possible. 

Thanks, peeps. I’ll see you next week. 

Thanks for tuning and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Civics & Coffee. If you want to hear more small snippets from american history, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and I look forward to our next cup of coffee together. 

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