Guest Essayist: J. Eric Wise, a partner in the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Amendment XIV:

1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 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.

2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

4: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

After the Civil War came the Reconstruction Amendments.  Thinking about the Civil War leads to thinking about the compromises in the Constitution over slavery, which in turn leads to thinking about the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration embodied the principles that were compromised, “the proposition that all men are created equal.”  The Reconstruction Amendments in a sense constitutionalize the promise of the Declaration and represent a “new birth of freedom,” eliminating the compromises in the Constitution over slavery.  While the 13th Amendment prohibits de jure slavery and the 15th Amendment secures voting rights, the 14th Amendment is as a guaranty against de facto slavery.

The Constitution of 1789 contained a few key limits on state action.  No state could enter into treaties, coin money, pass bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, impair contracts or confer nobility, impose tariffs, conduct foreign policy or make war.  Citizens of each state were entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states, but states had the power to determine who was a citizen.  Every state was guaranteed a Republican form of government.

States could make laws with respect to almost any other subject matter, and enforce them as they saw fit, subject only to the state constitution.  The states had broad latitude to shape their laws, to determine issues with respect to fairness and rights, and therewith shape the habits – the virtues and vices – of their peoples.  This latitude included, by intention, the power to impose and protect slavery (and by extension other social and political perversions, short of monarchical government).  The 14th Amendment fundamentally changed this.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads:

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

The citizenship clause extinguished the ante bellum issues created by Dred Scott v. Sanford (1854) on questions of citizenship.  The privileges and immunities clause placed alien and resident persons in a state on equal footing.  The due process clause guaranteed fair procedure in an actions under state law. The equal protection clause provided for federal oversight as to the equal application of laws to persons within each state.  Additionally section 2 of the 14th Amendment eliminated the three-fifths compromise provisions regarding apportionment of representatives.

As a federal guaranty of certain rights, the 14th Amendment subjects states to federal supervision with respect to fairness and basic rights, whether or not state constitutions already provide such guarantees.  That oversight has provides the federal government – in particular the federal judiciary – with great power to shape the institutions and character of people where once the states had almost exclusive authority.

Judicial construction of the 14th Amendment has changed over time and with it the direction of federal influence over state affairs.  Cases such as Lochner v. New York (1905) and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923) upheld “freedom of contract” as a protected right until the doctrine was reversed in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937).  Equal protection case Brown v. Board of Education (1954) profoundly changed – indeed rescued — the American social landscape, dismantling racial segregation. Equal protection case Hernandez v. Texas (1954) created protected classes of racial and ethnic groups.  Through 14th Amendment cases the First, Second, Fourth, portions of the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments have incorporated against the states under the doctrine of “substantive due process.”

Also through the 14th Amendment, the judiciary has incorporated rights against the states that are implied by “penumbras” and “emanations” of other express Constitutional provisions.  For example, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) established a right to privacy which limited the right of a state to prohibit the use of contraceptives.  And there is Roe v. Wade (1973), a 14th Amendment case, famously establishing a national rule over the regulation of abortion, where previously each state had set its own rules, including prohibiting abortion in many states.  These last two cases raise an important question.  Was the 14th Amendment intended to displace the state legislatures with the nine justices of the Supreme Court to the extent it has in practice?

J. Eric Wise is a partner in the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where he practices restructuring and finance

May 6, 2012

Essay #56

2 replies
  1. Jim Reid
    Jim Reid says:

    Dear Jeanine:

    Well, at this writing we’ve gotten ourselves into quite a problem with the National Debt, getting real close to the Debt Ceiling of 15 trillion…Congress has to figure out something QUICK!

    Or do they?

    See with all the wrangling that they’ve been doing over the problem, fighting amongst themselves, (with US as the audience,) over the question of RAISING TAXES, or CUTTING SPENDING in order to combat this monster…I’m willing to bet that NO ONE has ever picked up on looking at SECTION 4, in order to solve the problem…

    Boiled down, Section 4 plainly says…that the VALIDITY OF THE PUBLIC DEBT OF THE UNTED STATES SHALL NOT BE QUESTIONED.

    Now…if neither the GOVERNMENT, nor WE the people, per that Section, can question the validity, when GOVERNMENT, has to honor the terms of the Debt held by OTHERS, who DEMAND payment, by making GOVERNMENT “pay it down” to them….

    Then, conversely, no one can question the validity of the Public debt, if that OTHER BROUGHT that piece of INDEBTEDNESS…BACK TO GOV…and used it as ***DOWNPAYMENT*** ON A LOAN FROM GOVERNMENT, EITHER. RIGHT?!

    Comtemplating that question, right there, Jeanine, will have your National Debt problem, 90% SOLVED….

    It’s the other 10% that’s going to require the handwringing, the drama, and the all the political wrangling that amounts to pulling out the eye teeth…or, then again, maybe not…

    See…We BONDHOLDERS (who, as most of us are TAXPAYERS on the hook to help Government Honor those bonds and Certs) ARE THE OTHER that Government interacts with.

    Remember the addage “We only owe it to ourselves?”

    Well…what are we doing TAXING OURSELVES to STUPIDITY and BEYOND, just to pay ourselves TAX-FREE? the “Double-your-money, in X years, plus annual yields, ALL TAX FREE” guarantee?

    The only thing we’re guaranteeing, holding that Bond apart from Government, demanding Government pay us, is, our money getting weaker, and our taxes going up through the roof! That’s all we’re doing!

    Many on this board will try to wall this off any way they like, but…

    Isn’t kicking yourself in the behind, long-round-robin style, with the help of others doing the same thing, just so everyone can claim it was “the other guy’s foot” making the behind sore…STILL kicking yourself…AND a taste of SELF-DELUSION?

    And everyone STILL wants to gripe over Article 1, Section 8, Clause 2 thinking griping about THAT would bring the debt down….

    14th ammendment, section 4, is your KEY…
    (and I know it! Wrote up proposals to the white house, and everywhere ELSE I could, too!)

    And everyone thought Peter Stirling was nuttier than a squirrel’s turd in Central Park, when he told people that Francis the Mule could TALK. That is, until they finally got a earful from Francis…and boy oh boy, did they EVER!

    Wonder what that WANDERING MOOSE could say if HE could Talk…
    “Where are my residuals from the show?! Get me a new agent!”

    🙂

    Reply
  2. Frances Wallace
    Frances Wallace says:

    Instead of threatening social security and the military, threaten to limit the salaries of Congress and the President, and take away all the millions of dollars they have made while supposedly serving the people in their elected jobs. That might help balance the budget.

    Reply

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