Here is are really great sites with the transcript of the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution and other primary documents.
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here is a page of the fourteenth amendment in the national archives
The 14th Amendment not only
provided citizenship for the recently freed slaves, but it gave them
protection against the Black Codes that had been adopted by many of the
southern states. The Black Codes effectively made the freed slaves
little more than slaves, restricting their activities and rights. The
amendment also gave Congress the power to enforce this legislature,
which helped to empower Congress.
The 14th Amendment has made it possible for all races, colors, and
creeds to be afforded the same rights of citizenship under the
protection of the United States Constitution.
This amendment met with severe opposition in the South, but support for
the amendment was enough to get the required two-thirds of the states to
ratify the amendment (28 of the then-37 states ratified it). Five more
of the states that originally rejected the amendment ratified the
amendment by 1870.
Here are the sections in the 14th amendment
Section 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.
Section 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.
Section 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.
Section 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.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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