The Importance Of The 14th Amendment To The United States Constitution

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution assured that people born in The United States are American citizens and individual states cannot deprive them of their constitutional rights. It also assured that all citizens in all states enjoyed not only rights on the federal level, but on the state level, too. In 1866, when the 14th Amendment was ratified, the U.S. was in the midst of Reconstruction, particularly in the south. Because all African-American people freed from slavery, they needed land, housing, jobs, etc, and the Republicans wanted equality to be protected by the Constitution itself, which is where the 14th Amendment came into play. People were unhappy with the fact that President Johnson vetoed the proposal of the 14th Amendment at first. His argument was that federal protection of civil rights would lead to “centralization” of the government. He was also against giving African-Americans full citizenship. The 14th

Through research of this Amendment, one of the lessons of this history is that decisions that seem so simple and easy to make now, took long to make hundreds of years ago. This Amendment made and makes ancestors and future relatives down the line a citizen of the country they live in (U.S.A). In today's current events, people are torn about immigration, and illegal immigration, and whether those people should be citizens of the U.S.A or not. Another side to this conflict is whether America should deport them back to the country they originally came from. Just like how the decision of the 14th Amendment was an evolving conflict in the 1800’s, immigration is an evolving conflict today. Overall, being an American now means that nobody is segregated or singled out by anyone, that everyone should be granted and have the right of being a citizen, and that anybody can have access to equal