The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment

On this day in eighteen sixty-eight, Secretary of State William Seward certified that the Fourteenth Amendment was a part of the US Constitution. The required number of states had ratified the Amendment a few weeks earlier. One of the so-called “Reconstruction Amendments,” the fourteenth amendment forbids any state to deny to any person “life, liberty or property without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It’s frequently the basis for civil rights claims.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the case that overturned Roe, says the Fourteenth Amendment has been wrongly interpreted and applied in many cases, including the one that legalized same-sex marriage. He calls for a reconsideration of this case and some others, noting the framers of this amendment never intended it to be used to find new rights in the constitution.

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