The 14th Amendment definition is straightforward: it is the constitutional amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, that defines U.S. citizenship, forbids any state from taking a person’s life, liberty, or property without fair legal process, and requires every state to give all people equal protection of the laws.1National Archives. 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights It was the second of three Reconstruction Amendments passed after the Civil War, sitting between the 13th (which abolished slavery) and the 15th (which protected voting rights).2Congress.gov. Civil War Amendments (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments) Its practical effect was enormous. Before 1868, states largely set their own rules about who counted as a citizen and what rights the government owed people within their borders. The 14th Amendment pulled those questions up to the national level and made the U.S. Constitution the floor no state could drop below.
Who Counts as a Citizen
The amendment opens with what is called the Citizenship Clause: anyone born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, is a citizen of both the country and the state where they live.3Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment That single sentence created birthright citizenship as a constitutional rule. If you are born on U.S. soil, you are a citizen, regardless of your parents’ nationality or status. People who go through naturalization — meeting residency requirements and passing civics and English exams — receive the same standing.
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” carves out a narrow exception. Children born in the United States to accredited foreign diplomats who hold full diplomatic immunity do not automatically receive citizenship, because under international law those diplomats remain under their home country’s jurisdiction. The exception is limited to officials on the State Department’s Diplomatic List at the time of birth. Consular staff and other foreign workers without full immunity are still subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and their U.S.-born children are citizens. The Supreme Court has also recognized a historical exception for children born to enemy forces during a hostile occupation, though that scenario has little modern relevance.
The Citizenship Clause directly overruled the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which had held that Black Americans could never be citizens. By putting citizenship in the Constitution itself, the clause created one national standard no state legislature or court could override.
Due Process: Fair Rules Before the Government Acts
The Due Process Clause says no state can take a person’s life, liberty, or property without following fair legal procedures.3Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment It applies to every person within the country’s borders, citizens and non-citizens alike, and it has generated more Supreme Court cases than any other single sentence in the Constitution.
Procedural Due Process
The core idea is that the government has to follow the rules before it punishes you or takes something that belongs to you. Face criminal charges, and you are entitled to notice of the accusations and a hearing before an impartial judge. If the government wants to revoke your professional license, seize your property, or cut off benefits you are entitled to, it generally must give you a chance to be heard first.
“Property” here goes well beyond land and bank accounts. The Supreme Court has recognized that driver’s licenses, public employment, government benefits, and even a buyer’s interest in goods purchased under an installment plan are property interests that trigger due process protections.4Congress.gov. Property Deprivations and Due Process The Court rejected the older idea that government benefits are mere “privileges” the state can yank at will. Once you have a legitimate claim to something, the government owes you a fair process before taking it away.
Substantive Due Process
The Due Process Clause also protects certain fundamental rights from government interference even when the government follows every procedural rule perfectly. This doctrine, called substantive due process, asks not whether the process was fair but whether the government had any business restricting that right in the first place.
The Supreme Court has used substantive due process to recognize rights that appear nowhere in the Constitution’s text, including the right to marry, to use contraception, and to make private decisions about intimate relationships.5Congress.gov. Amdt14.S1.6.1 Overview of Substantive Due Process Some of the most consequential rulings in American history rest on this foundation:
- Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) struck down a state law banning contraceptives and established a constitutional right to privacy in marital decisions.6Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479
- Loving v. Virginia (1967) invalidated laws banning interracial marriage, calling marriage a fundamental freedom that states cannot restrict through racial classifications.
- Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) held that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.7Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644
The boundaries of substantive due process keep shifting. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the Court overruled Roe v. Wade and held that the 14th Amendment does not protect a right to abortion, reasoning that only rights “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition” qualify.8Congress.gov. Abortion, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Post-Dobbs Developments That signaled the Court’s willingness to narrow the doctrine, leaving its future scope an open question.
Equal Protection: The Same Laws for Everyone
The Equal Protection Clause requires every state to give all people within its borders the same protection of the laws.3Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment Governments classify people all the time. Tax brackets treat high earners differently from low earners; speed limits treat commercial trucks differently from passenger cars. Not every distinction is unconstitutional. The question is whether a given classification has adequate justification, and courts answer that using three different levels of scrutiny.
How Courts Judge Classifications
Rational basis review is the default. The government only needs to show that a classification is rationally related to a legitimate interest, and courts give legislators wide latitude. Economic and social regulations almost always survive this test.9Congress.gov. Equal Protection and Rational Basis Review Generally
Intermediate scrutiny applies to classifications based on gender and certain other categories. The government must show the law serves an important interest and is substantially related to achieving it. Laws that rely on outdated stereotypes about men and women routinely fail this standard.
Strict scrutiny is reserved for suspect classifications like race, national origin, religion, and alienage. The government must prove a compelling interest and show the law is narrowly tailored to achieve it. Very few laws survive strict scrutiny, which is why it is sometimes described as “strict in theory, fatal in fact.”10Legal Information Institute. Suspect Classification
Landmark Equal Protection Cases
The best-known equal protection ruling is Brown v. Board of Education (1954), where the Supreme Court unanimously held that racially segregated public schools violated the 14th Amendment even when the physical facilities were supposedly equal. The decision dismantled the “separate but equal” doctrine that had allowed legal segregation for nearly 60 years.11National Archives. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) The clause reaches beyond race. Courts have used it to challenge discriminatory policing, biased zoning, unequal school funding, and sex-based distinctions in everything from military benefits to drinking ages.
Why the Bill of Rights Now Applies to States
When the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, it restrained only the federal government. A state could theoretically restrict speech, conduct unreasonable searches, or deny a jury trial without violating the Constitution, and the Supreme Court confirmed this in Barron v. Baltimore (1833).12Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Barron v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 The 14th Amendment changed that. Through a process called selective incorporation, the Supreme Court has used the Due Process Clause to apply nearly all of the Bill of Rights to state governments, one right at a time.13Legal Information Institute. Incorporation Doctrine
Free speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable searches, the right to a jury trial in criminal cases, and protection against cruel and unusual punishment now bind every state.14Congress.gov. Application of the Bill of Rights to the States Through the Fourteenth Amendment The Second Amendment was not incorporated until McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).15Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 A few provisions remain unincorporated, including the Third Amendment’s ban on quartering soldiers, the Fifth Amendment’s grand jury requirement, and the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a civil jury trial. In practical terms, the incorporation doctrine is the reason your state cannot censor your newspaper, search your home without a warrant, or lock you up without a lawyer.
The Other Sections in Plain Terms
The amendment’s opening clause also includes a Privileges or Immunities Clause, which prohibits states from restricting the “privileges or immunities” of U.S. citizens. In practice this clause has done little work. The Supreme Court read it narrowly in the Slaughter-House Cases (1873), limiting it to a small set of federal-citizenship rights, and that interpretation still stands.16Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 Most 14th Amendment fights today run through due process and equal protection instead.
Section 2 governs how House seats are divided among the states, apportioning representatives based on each state’s total population and replacing the original Constitution’s three-fifths compromise.17Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 2
Section 3 bars anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution as a federal or state officer and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office again. Congress can lift that ban by a two-thirds vote in both chambers.18Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 – Disqualification from Holding Office The provision was dormant for over a century until it reentered public debate after January 6, 2021. In Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot enforce Section 3 on their own to disqualify candidates for federal office; that power belongs to Congress.19Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. Anderson, No. 23-719
Section 4 declares that the validity of the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned.”20Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 4 Written to ensure the federal government honored Civil War debts while repudiating Confederate ones, it has resurfaced during debt ceiling standoffs. Whether it gives the president independent authority to keep borrowing when Congress refuses to raise the ceiling remains unresolved.
Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the entire amendment “by appropriate legislation.”21Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 5 – Enforcement Major federal statutes, including the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, draw at least part of their authority from this section. The Supreme Court has held that enforcement legislation must be tied closely to the constitutional violations it aims to prevent; Congress enforces the amendment as courts interpret it, rather than rewriting it through legislation.22Justia. City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507