The wording of the 14th Amendment is organized into five sections. Section 1 defines citizenship and forbids states from denying due process, equal protection, or the privileges or immunities of citizens. Section 2 sets the formula for apportioning House seats. Section 3 disqualifies certain oath-breakers from public office. Section 4 protects the public debt and voids Confederate debt. Section 5 gives Congress power to enforce the whole amendment by legislation. Ratified on July 9, 1868, it is the most litigated part of the Constitution, and almost every phrase in it has been fought over in court.1United States Senate. Landmark Legislation: The Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1: Citizenship and Limits on State Power
Section 1 is the longest and most important part of the text. It opens by declaring that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and of the state where they reside.2Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment It then imposes three prohibitions on the states: no state may make or enforce any law that abridges the privileges or immunities of U.S. citizens; no state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and no state may deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The Citizenship Clause
The Citizenship Clause was written to overrule the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which had held that a free person of African descent whose ancestors were brought to the country and sold as slaves was not a “citizen” under the Constitution.3Justia. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856) Before this clause, the Constitution never defined who counted as a citizen. The wording ties citizenship to the fact of birth on U.S. soil, with a narrow carve-out captured in the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court read that phrase to exclude only the children of foreign diplomats and similar officials, confirming that birthright citizenship otherwise applies broadly.
Due Process of Law
The Due Process Clause uses language that mirrors the Fifth Amendment,4Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifth Amendment but with a critical difference: it applies to the states rather than the federal government. If a state wants to fine you, imprison you, or take your property, it has to follow fair procedures first. Courts have also read the wording to protect certain rights substantively, holding that some freedoms are so deeply rooted in American tradition that no government can infringe them regardless of the process used. Under this doctrine, courts have recognized the right to marry, the right to use contraception, and the right to make certain intimate personal decisions.5Congress.gov. Amdt14.S1.6.1 Overview of Substantive Due Process
Equal Protection of the Laws
The Equal Protection Clause forbids a state from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The wording says “any person,” not “any citizen,” so the protection reaches everyone physically present in a state, including noncitizens. Courts do not treat all classifications as equally suspect. Laws that classify by race or national origin face the toughest review; laws that classify by sex face a middle tier; ordinary economic and regulatory classifications face the lowest bar. Which tier applies often decides the case.
Privileges or Immunities
Between the Citizenship Clause and the Due Process Clause sits the prohibition on state laws that abridge “the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” On paper this looks powerful. In practice, the Supreme Court’s 1873 decision in the Slaughter-House Cases read the clause to cover only a narrow set of rights tied specifically to national citizenship, such as the right to travel to the seat of government or access federal courts, leaving broader civil rights under state control.6Congress.gov. Privileges or Immunities of Citizens and the Slaughter-House Cases The clause has done little work since. The Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses have carried the load instead.
How Section 1 Reaches State and Local Governments
The Bill of Rights was originally written to restrict only the federal government. The 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause changed that through a judicial process called incorporation. Starting in the early 20th century, the Supreme Court ruled that specific protections in the Bill of Rights were so fundamental to due process that states had to honor them too. Today, nearly all of the Bill of Rights applies to state and local governments, including free speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, protection against unreasonable searches, the right against self-incrimination, the right to a speedy and public trial, the right to counsel, and the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.7Congress.gov. Application of the Bill of Rights to the States Through the Fourteenth Amendment
A few provisions have never been incorporated. The right to a grand jury indictment, the right to a civil jury trial, and the Third Amendment’s ban on quartering soldiers still apply only to the federal government.7Congress.gov. Application of the Bill of Rights to the States Through the Fourteenth Amendment
Section 2: Apportionment of Representatives
Section 2 rewrote how House seats are distributed. The original Constitution counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for that purpose.8Congress.gov. Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 Section 2 replaced that formula by counting “the whole number of persons in each State,” with an exception for “Indians not taxed.”9Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution Fourteenth Amendment Section 2 That exception became obsolete after the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 extended citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States.
Section 2 also created a penalty for voter suppression: if a state denies the vote to male citizens aged 21 or older, its representation in Congress is supposed to be reduced proportionally. Two things about the wording have been overtaken by later amendments. The reference to “male inhabitants” was the first explicitly gendered voting language in the Constitution; the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, later prohibited denying the vote on account of sex.10Congress.gov. Nineteenth Amendment The age of 21 was lowered to 18 by the 26th Amendment in 1971.11Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Sixth Amendment The representation penalty itself has never been enforced against any state.
Section 3: Disqualification from Public Office
Section 3 bars anyone from holding federal or state office if that person previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against it, or gave aid or comfort to its enemies.12Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 The covered offices include senators, representatives, presidential electors, and any civil or military office under either the federal government or a state. The provision was aimed at former Confederate officials. Its wording includes an escape valve: Congress can remove the disqualification for a specific individual by a two-thirds vote of each chamber, a power used repeatedly in post-Civil War amnesty acts.
A separate federal criminal statute punishes rebellion or insurrection with up to ten years in prison and disqualification from any federal office.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2383 – Rebellion or Insurrection In 2024, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. Anderson, unanimously reversing a Colorado ruling that had disqualified a presidential candidate under Section 3. The Court held that states have no power to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders or candidates; only Congress, acting under Section 5, can do that.14Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. Anderson, No. 23-719 (2024)
Section 4: The Public Debt Clause
Section 4 declares that the validity of the public debt of the United States, including obligations for pensions and payments for suppressing rebellion, “shall not be questioned.”15Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Amendment 14 It then does the opposite for Confederate debt: neither the federal government nor any state can assume or pay any obligation incurred to support the rebellion, and no one can claim compensation for the loss or emancipation of an enslaved person. All such debts and claims are void.
The “shall not be questioned” language has been raised in modern debates over the federal debt ceiling, with some scholars arguing that a congressional refusal to raise the limit, if it forced missed payments, would violate Section 4. The Supreme Court has never directly decided the question.
Section 5: Congressional Enforcement Power
Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the amendment “by appropriate legislation.”16Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 5 This is the constitutional basis for major federal civil rights statutes. The power has an outer limit. In City of Boerne v. Flores (1997), the Supreme Court held that Section 5 legislation must show “congruence and proportionality” between the constitutional violation Congress is addressing and the means chosen to address it.17Justia. City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) Congress can build on rights the courts have recognized under the amendment, but it cannot use Section 5 to define new substantive rights of its own.