The 14th Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, has five sections. Section 1 says that everyone born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen of the country and of the state where they live, and it forbids any state from abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens, depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying anyone the equal protection of the laws.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment The remaining sections cover how House seats are apportioned, who is barred from office for engaging in insurrection, the public debt of the United States, and Congress’s power to enforce the amendment through legislation. Together, these five sections have generated more Supreme Court litigation than any other part of the Constitution.
Why the Amendment Exists
Before the Civil War, the Bill of Rights restricted only the federal government, and states set their own rules about who had rights. The Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford pushed that structure to its extreme by holding that people of African descent could never be U.S. citizens. The 14th Amendment was written to destroy that holding and create a national floor of rights no state could sink below.
Congress passed the amendment on June 13, 1866. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 then required former Confederate states to ratify it as a condition of regaining representation in Congress.2U.S. Senate. The Civil War – The Reconstruction Act of 1867 Ratification was completed on July 9, 1868.3Congress.gov. Constitution Annotated – Introduction The result was a shift in constitutional gravity: rights that once bound only Washington began to bind every state government too.4National Archives. 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)
Section 1: Citizenship
Section 1’s first sentence guarantees birthright citizenship. Everyone born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen, regardless of the parents’ immigration status. People born elsewhere can become citizens through naturalization under rules set by Congress and administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.5U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Citizenship and Naturalization
The sentence also creates a dual structure. Every American is simultaneously a citizen of the United States and of the state where they live. Once citizenship attaches, it is permanent, and a state cannot treat a naturalized citizen differently from a native-born one.
Section 1: Privileges or Immunities
The next clause forbids any state from making or enforcing a law that abridges the privileges or immunities of U.S. citizens. On paper it looks sweeping. In practice, the Supreme Court narrowed it almost immediately.
In the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873, the Court held that the clause protected only a limited set of rights tied specifically to federal citizenship, leaving most civil rights to state control.6Congress.gov. Privileges or Immunities of Citizens and the Slaughter-House Cases Rights like interstate travel and access to federal courts stayed covered. Everyday rights like owning property, making contracts, and being free from state violence did not. The work the framers likely meant this clause to do has been carried instead by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.
Section 1: Due Process
Section 1 forbids any state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Courts read this in two ways.
Procedural Due Process
Procedural due process governs the steps the government must follow before it takes something from you. At a minimum, the government must give notice of what it intends to do and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before a neutral decision-maker.7Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment – Equal Protection and Other Rights That applies to criminal charges, property seizures, benefit terminations, and professional license revocations. How much process is “due” scales with what is at stake. A parking ticket does not require a full trial. A prison sentence does. When a state skips the required steps, a court can void the resulting punishment or seizure.
Substantive Due Process
Substantive due process asks a different question: whether the government had any business interfering at all. The doctrine protects certain fundamental rights that are not written into the Constitution’s text but are treated as rooted in American legal tradition, including the right to marry, the right to use contraceptives, the right to direct the upbringing of one’s children, and the right to engage in consensual intimate conduct.8Congress.gov. Overview of Substantive Due Process
When a state law restricts a fundamental right, the government must show a compelling reason and prove the law is narrowly tailored to achieve that goal using the least restrictive approach available. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is a recent example. The Supreme Court held that the right to marry is fundamental and that same-sex couples could not be excluded from it under either the Due Process Clause or the Equal Protection Clause.9Justia. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015)
Section 1: Equal Protection
The final clause of Section 1 forbids any state from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Due process asks what rights exist. Equal protection asks whether those rights are applied evenly across groups.
Not every classification violates the clause. Tax brackets treat income groups differently. Zoning treats residential and commercial land differently. Courts sort challenges into three tiers.
Rational Basis Review
Most laws face this lowest tier. The government wins if the classification is rationally related to a legitimate purpose, and the challenger carries the burden. Economic regulations, licensing rules, and general welfare laws almost always survive.10Congress.gov. Equal Protection and Rational Basis Review Generally
Intermediate Scrutiny
Classifications based on sex or legitimacy of birth face intermediate scrutiny. The government must show the classification furthers an important interest and is substantially related to achieving it. Outdated stereotypes and broad generalizations about men and women will not carry the argument.
Strict Scrutiny
Classifications based on race, national origin, religion, or alienage face the highest review. The government must prove the law is narrowly tailored to a compelling interest and is the least restrictive means available. Laws in this tier are presumed unconstitutional, and few survive.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) remains the clearest application. The Supreme Court held that segregating public school children by race violated the 14th Amendment even where the physical facilities were equal, because separation itself undermined educational opportunity.11National Archives. Brown v. Board of Education Equal protection also reaches enforcement conduct. A prosecutor or police agency that selectively targets people based on prohibited classifications can be challenged in federal court.
How the Bill of Rights Reached the States
The amendment’s largest practical effect is something it never states directly. Through incorporation, the Supreme Court has used the Due Process Clause to apply nearly all of the Bill of Rights against state and local governments. Before the 14th Amendment, free speech, protection from unreasonable searches, and the rest of the Bill of Rights bound only the federal government.12Congress.gov. Overview of Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
Incorporation happened case by case over more than a century. Free speech was incorporated in 1925 (Gitlow v. New York). The right to counsel followed in 1963 (Gideon v. Wainwright). Protection against self-incrimination came in 1966 (Miranda v. Arizona). The right to bear arms was incorporated in 2010 (McDonald v. Chicago). A handful of provisions remain unincorporated, including the Third Amendment’s quartering restriction, the Fifth Amendment’s grand jury requirement, and the Seventh Amendment’s civil jury right. Most state constitutions independently supply similar protections.
Section 2: Apportionment
Section 2 apportions seats in the House of Representatives based on the total population of each state, counting all persons regardless of citizenship status.13Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 2 It also carries a penalty: if a state denies the vote to eligible citizens, its representation is supposed to be reduced proportionally. That penalty has never been enforced.
Section 3: Disqualification for Insurrection
Section 3 bars anyone from holding federal or state office if they previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion, or gave aid or comfort to those who did.14Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 Congress can remove the disqualification by a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and did so broadly in 1872 and 1898 for most former Confederates.
The provision was largely dormant for over a century before returning to national attention. In Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a Colorado ruling that had disqualified a presidential candidate under Section 3. The Court held that responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress, not the states.15Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. Anderson, 601 U.S. 100 (2024) States retain room to enforce Section 3 for state offices.
Section 4: Public Debt
Section 4 declares that the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.16Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 4 It was written to guarantee that Union Civil War debts would be honored while Confederate debts were repudiated. The clause resurfaces in modern debt ceiling standoffs, though its outer limits have not been tested by any president.
Section 5: Congressional Enforcement
Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the entire amendment through appropriate legislation.17Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Section 5 This is the constitutional foundation for the major civil rights statutes of the 20th century and for the federal law that lets individuals sue state officials who violate their constitutional rights.
Enforcing Your 14th Amendment Rights
The amendment tells states what they cannot do. Section 1983 of Title 42 gives you the tool to hold them accountable when they do it anyway. The statute makes any person who, acting under color of state law, deprives someone of a constitutional right liable to the injured party in a lawsuit for damages or other relief.18Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights
A Section 1983 claim has two elements. First, the defendant must have acted under color of state law, meaning they used power granted by a government position. Police officers, prison officials, and public school administrators qualify. Purely private conduct does not. Second, that action must have caused the deprivation of a right secured by the Constitution or federal law. Section 1983 does not create rights; it provides the vehicle for enforcing rights that already exist, including those in the 14th Amendment.
The main obstacle in these cases is qualified immunity. Government officials avoid liability if their conduct did not violate a “clearly established” constitutional right, which usually means the plaintiff must point to a prior court decision with closely similar facts. Successful plaintiffs can recover compensatory damages, punitive damages where the conduct was especially egregious, and attorney’s fees, and courts can issue injunctions ordering officials to stop unconstitutional practices. Judicial officers acting in their official capacity are generally immune, and states themselves cannot be sued under the statute because the Supreme Court has held that states are not “persons” within its meaning.