14th Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment Quotes

Reconstruction did not fail. It was overthrown.

The Constitution does not expressly provide for a right of association. Gradually, however, the 1st Amendment and the ‘liberty’ interest secured by the Fourteenth Amendment have been interpreted to protect a person's right to associate with others who share similar ideas, interests, and goals. Self-government is more than Self. In many ways, America is a nation of joiners. Americans band together to seek friendship, cooperation, and concerted action.

The right to speak freely concerning functions of the Federal Government is a privilege of immunity of every citizen of the United States which, even before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, a State was powerless to curtail.

The Constitution nowhere mentions a specific right of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life, but the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment covers more than those freedoms explicitly named in the Bill of Rights

One can conclude that certain essential, or fundamental, rights should exist in any just society. It does not follow that each of those essential rights is one that we as judges can enforce under the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system.

The Court is making the preposterous assumption that the People of the United States somehow silently redefined marriage in 1868 when they ratified the 14th Amendment.

This Constitutional amendment will forever withdraw the subject from politics, and will strike down that prejudice [racism] to which the Democratic party has appealed for years.

Defending birthright citizenship is about being on the right side of liberty. The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican Party.

Plessy v. Ferguson was a perversion of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Upon subjects of government, it has always appeared to me that metaphysical refinements are out of place. A Constitution of government is addressed to the common sense of the people; and never was designed for trials of logical skill or visionary speculation.

The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious.

No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.

The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

The Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s.

The 'anchor baby' thing needs to be fixed... Anchor babies are an unconstitutional declaration of citizenship to those born of non-Americans. It's wrong, and it's immoral.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the states in which they reside.

The whole public are tired out with these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South.

These liberals are the craziest things. The Constitution, they see things in it that aren't there and ignore things which are. The 14th Amendment, nothing to do with gay marriage.

Whatever rights as to each of these enumerated civil (not political) matters the State may confer upon one race ... shall be held by all races in equality … It secures … equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any races.

I believe that nothing enjoys a higher estate in our society than the right given by the First and Fourteenth Amendments freely to practice and proclaim one's religious convictions.

The word 'person', as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are American values. Perhaps I can explain. The motto of the United States of America is e pluribus unum. Out of many, one. That's diversity. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution—one of the most important amendments in our country—provides equal protection under the law. That's equity. In this country, we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. A flag that we just presented to the new President and Vice President. And in that pledge, we promise, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. A-L-L. That's inclusion. Not complicated. Diversity, equity and inclusion are American values. It's about economic opportunity. It's about merit for everyone, based on what you know, not who you know.

Republicans passed the Fourteenth Amendment, securing for blacks equal rights under the law, and the Fifteenth Amendment, giving blacks the right to vote, over the Democrats' opposition.

Select Committee of the House and Senate on the Insurrectionary States

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.