On this day in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, granting full citizenship to African-Americans and due process to all citizens.
It's one of
the Reconstruction Amendments, along with the Thirteenth
and the Fifteenth, and Section I 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."
Of
course, states still found ways around the Fourteenth Amendment for
nearly a hundred
years, until the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Jim Crow laws, Southern black
codes, and the "separate but equal" ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson.
One of the early and unforeseen complications of the amendment, which
we are still grappling with today, is the extent to which corporations
may be
viewed as "persons" in the eyes of the law.
Source: The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor
Source: The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor
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