Fourteenth Amendment

[ fawr-teenth uh-mend-muhnt ]

noun

1. an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons.

Fourteenth Amendment

1. An amendment to the United States Constitution , adopted in 1868. It was primarily concerned with details of reintegrating the southern states after the Civil War and defining some of the rights of recently freed slaves. The first section of the amendment, however, was to revolutionize federalism . It stated that no state could “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 .” Gradually, the Supreme Court interpreted the amendment to mean that the guarantees of the Bill of Rights apply to the states as well as to the national government.

Example Sentences

While the judges agreed unanimously on the matter, the court's liberals dissented to an additional proposition that anyone seeking to enforce the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment against insurrectionist candidates running for office would need to first obtain congressional approval.

From Salon

After Roe deemed abortion access a “liberty” protected by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Alito and his Catholic colleagues ruled that “classification precedent” and ancient common law history were more important.

From Salon

They had argued that Trump was ineligible for office under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.

From Seattle Times

The equal protection clause, enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

From Seattle Times

The lawsuit argues the restrictions, which were among a number of education changes that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law last year, violate free speech protections under the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

From Seattle Times