What is the impact of the Fourteenth Amendment on the rights of citizens?
The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is a critical amendment that has had an enduring impact on the rights of citizens. It was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and was intended to grant all citizens, including newly-freed slaves, equal protection of the law. This amendment addresses the rights of citizens directly by ensuring that the same rights given to citizens of one state shall also be provided to citizens in all other states. The amendment has also impacted citizens’ rights in more indirect ways. Most notably, it gave the Supreme Court the power to review the constitutionality of state laws. This has enabled the Supreme Court to protect the due process and other individual rights of citizens in areas such as discrimination, abortion, privacy and freedom of speech, among others. In addition, the amendment has also been used as the basis for determining citizenship status, which has been essential in the protection of civil rights. It has been used to overturn laws that deny individuals their basic civil rights and liberties. This includes laws that were previously used to deny equal protection of the law to certain groups such as African-Americans. The Fourteenth Amendment’s impact on the rights of citizens is immense and continues to be relevant more than 150 years after its ratification. It is clear that without this amendment, the rights of citizens in New Hampshire and beyond would be drastically different and potentially far more limited.
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