14 AMENDMENT

DEFINING THE 14 AMENDMENT

• National citizenship and forbidding states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other people

DATE ADDED

WHY WAS IT NEEDED

• The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War.

SIMPLIFIED VERSION

• National citizenship and forbidding states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other people

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AMENDMENT

• It was known as the "Reconstruction Amendment," it forbids any state to deny 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