The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9th, 1868 (H 568) in a period of reconstruction after the denouement of the Civil War. While commonly believed that this amendment dealt only with equal rights, this amendment contains multiple clauses which promulgated citizenship, rights of the states, congressional representation, voting rights, and public debt among others (A14). Through these sections, the 14th amendment addressed the need for racial equality in post-Civil War America by awarding newly freed African-Americans equal rights before the law. These changes were made to address the intense violence and discrimination blacks faced in a destitute South, while also awarding the Northern Republicans congressional advantages. After the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December of 1965 (H568), Northern Republicans grew concerned over the augmentation of congressional representation in the Democratically dominated states of the …show more content…
The “Black Codes” enacted by ex-Confederates who usurped elected positions aimed solely to stymie the rights of African-Americans (H229). The framers of the 14th Amendment knew that only an amendment to the Constitution would be sufficient and effective in protecting the proposed rights of African Americans. Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republican and large proponent of Reconstruction, stated May 8th, 1866 in a congressional debate, “These are great advantages over their present codes. Now different degrees of punishment are inflicted, not on account of the magnitude of the crime, but according to the color of the skin. […] Unless the Constitution should restrain them those States will all… keep up this discrimination…” (H235). The framers of the 14th Amendment encapsulated the principles of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, therefore protecting it from being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme