Celebrating the 14Th Amendment

It is hard for us to imagine today New York and Missouri going to war with one another. After all it is the United States of America - the word “united” should mean all are working together; however, this was not always the case. A big issue in early American history is the idea of should individual states have more power than the federal government or vice versa. Who gives the right for the people of Delaware to tell North Carolinians what to do? Let Delaware take of its own residents and North Carolina will take of theirs! The power for all the states to be legislated by one body, known as the federal government, is given by the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, the concept of the Federal government telling individual states what to do was a hard pill to digest for some states.

While the Declaration of Independence said all men were created equal, slaves who were comprised of blacks, were not given equality in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, slaves were considered 3/5 of a human being in the U.S. Constitution. In the 1830s, a growing movement to abolish slavery altogether was gaining momentum, but became a dividing issue among states. The Southern states wanted to retain slavery for its economic purposes, while the Northern states were advocating to get rid of it altogether.

Before Abraham Lincoln became president, seven states broke away from being part the United States. With both issues at hand of enforcing the power of federal government and abolishing slavery, the U.S went into a Civil War. Three million people fought in the war and 620,000 died. It is considered the bloodiest war in American history.

After the war, slavery was abolished as stated in the The 13Th Amendment in U.S. Constitution. In July 21 of 1868, everyone was granted equal rights under the 14Th Amendment as stated: 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.

The Fourteenth Amendment empowered the Federal government to tell the individual states that nobody can be denied his or her freedom and any law to the contrary would be considered unconstitutional. More than July 4th which celebrates the U.S independence from England, it is July 21 that should be commemorated since it gave that freedom to everyone in its borders.

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This chapter was taken out of the Immigration Bible by Zila Katz and Esq.Dotan Cohen, Adv. Get your copy today

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Tom Wright
Editor in Chief
GCUS PRESS