The Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was ratified July 28, 1868, and was designed to extend the rights of citizenship to African Americans and to enfranchise black men. Section 1 was the key to the amendment; it declared that
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 enforced Section 1 by stating that any denial or abridgement of voting rights to eligible men would lead to a reduction in the offending state’s national political representation.
Beyond the rights of citizenship and their bearing on suffrage, the other provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment barred any person from office who had previously held office and later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” It targeted those individuals who had violated their oaths of office; however, such persons could be pardoned by a two-thirds vote from each house of the Congress. Section 4 rejected the Confederate debt while acknowledging the “validity” of the U. S. debt from the CiviL War. It also invalidated claims for the “loss or emancipation of any slave.” Finally, Section 5 gave Congress power to enforce these provisions.
The first two sections of the Fourteenth Amendment were enormously important because they moved to guarantee equality before the law. The intent of Section 1 was to reinforce and give meaning to the Thirteenth Amendment by making states accountable for upholding all of the rights set forth in the Constitution. The Republican-dominated Congress was motivated by ideals of equality before the law and outrage at the Black Codes, legislation passed by Southern governments that deprived African Americans of their basic civil rights. Section 1 also superseded the notorious Dred Scott decision, where the Supreme Court declared that black people were not citizens of the United States. Suddenly, with the African-American population of the South no longer being counted as three-fifths of a person (as set forth in the Constitution’s three-fifths clause) in population apportionments for seats in the House of Representatives, the South’s population exploded, allowing them far greater representation in the House. Northern Republicans feared these additional Southern seats in the House and were wary that this resurgent power would come at the cost of denying the vote to African Americans in the South. Section 2 was designed to counter this perceived Southern advantage. Representation now would be based upon the number of actual voters and not just the potential number of voters. This was a roundabout way of encouraging Southern states to allow black suffrage, but it also implied that states could determine who qualified to vote, earning the anger of abolitionists campaigning for universal suffrage.
Abolitionists were not the only angry voices raised over the wording of the Fourteenth Amendment. Feminists were outraged because for the first time the word male was added to the Constitution. Since representation was to be based on “male inhabitants,” it indirectly sanctioned sexual discrimination at the ballot box. For many suffragists, the Fourteenth Amendment marked a critical moment in the history of feminism. It taught leaders, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, that women could not rely on men for the advocacy of their rights.
The far-reaching consequences of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, privileges and immunities clause, and due process clause were blunted by the Supreme Court’s early interpretations of the amendment. In the Slaughterhouse cases (1873), the Court ruled that basic civil rights and liberties fell under the authority of state governments, not the federal government.
The Court further limited the scope of the amendment in United States v. Cruikshank (1876) by ruling that the federal government could only prohibit state government violations of black rights, not the actions of individuals. In 1896 the Fourteenth Amendment was further weakened; in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court held that segregated railroad cars did not violate the equal protection clause. However, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court has reevaluated the Fourteenth Amendment. Though still controversial, it is considered one of the strongest Constitutional bulwarks in the defense of freedom and equality for all citizens.
See also abolition; women’s status and rights.
Further reading: James Edward Bond, No Easy Walk to Freedom: Reconstruction and the Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997); Joseph B. James, The Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984).
—Justin J. Behrend
Fredericksburg, Battle of (December 1 1-15, 1862) The Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862 was a tactical victory for the South. But rather than being a major cause for celebration, Fredericksburg only slowed rather than stopped the Union push toward Richmond, Virginia.
The battle had its origins in a change in leadership on the Union side of the war effort. Frustrated with Gen. George B. McClellan’s sluggishness in moving against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the weeks following the Northern victory at the Battle of Antie-TAM in September 1862, Lincoln decided to replace him as commander of the Army of the Potomac for the second and final time. His successor, Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, assumed command on November 7. Urged on by impatient superiors, Burnside converted the army’s cautious march southwest into a 40-mile quick march across the Virginia countryside to Fredericksburg in an attempt to secure a direct route to the Confederate capital at Richmond before Lee could re-form his army and respond. Burnside was quick to implement his plans, and by November 17 the lead units of his army arrived on Stafford Heights on the north bank of the Rappahannock River, opposite the town of Fredericksburg.
Burnside called for pontoon bridge equipment; however, due to a combination of bad weather and bureaucracy, the pontoons did not arrive until November 25. The delay gave Lee the time necessary to move Gen. James Longstreet’s corps to take up positions along the terraced slopes south of town. Lee did not know where the Union army would cross the river, so, when Gen. Thomas
J. (Stonewall) Jackson’s troops arrived a few days later, he sent them as far as 20 miles downriver to cover all potential crossings.
Reasoning that if he moved quickly he could concentrate his superior force on Longstreet’s corps alone, Burnside ordered two pontoon spans erected opposite the city and another a mile downstream. In the early morning hours of December 11, Union engineers began laying pontoons but soon gave up the effort in the face of withering musket fire from Mississippians on the southern bank. After nine unsuccessful attempts to complete the bridges throughout the day, a small force of volunteers finally managed to cross the river at dusk and drive the rebel sharpshooters from the town. Burnside’s army began crossing into Fredericksburg during the night.
Burnside issued no orders for an attack on the morning of December 12; instead, the Union troops spent the day looting the town. Meanwhile, having observed the enemy crossing, Lee sent for Jackson’s scattered corps. A quick march brought the corps to the field and in position on Longstreet’s right by dawn on December 13.
Burnside planned to attack Longstreet’s positions with part of his army while launching a strong flanking attack on Lee’s right with 55,000 men. At 8:30 A. M., Gen. George G. Meade’s brigade of Pennsylvanians moved against Jackson, only to be beaten back by both frontal and flanking artillery fire. Resuming their attack, Meade’s men stumbled into a section of woods that had been left unprotected by Jackson and briefly managed to pierce the rebel lines. Having anticipated the possibility of a break along his lines, Jackson counterattacked with his reserves, driving the Federals back to their original positions.
On the Union right, Burnside ordered a series of assaults over the plain south of town toward a sunken road and stone wall along the base of Marye’s Heights. Over the course of the afternoon, one Union brigade after another was hurled against the stone wall, only to be shattered and repulsed by the artillery on the crest of Marye’s Heights and the musketry of Longstreet’s infantry, standing four deep in the sunken road along its base. In one 600-yard section of the line, more than 30,000 Federals were sent against a position occupied by 7,000 Confederates, who shot them down en masse, leaving 9,000 dead and wounded in their front. It was at this point in the battle that Lee turned to Longstreet and uttered his famous
Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862. Lithograph by Currier & Ives (Library of Congress)
Comment, “It is well that war is so terrible! We should grow too fond of it!”
As the day came to a close, Burnside withdrew his battered brigades to the town while the cries of the wounded, “weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear,” rose in the bitter-cold winter night. Burnside’s determination to personally lead a resumption of the attacks the next day met with stubborn resistance from all of his subordinates, who saw no better prospects for success. Burnside reluctantly withdrew his army across the river over the next two days, pulling up his bridges behind him.
As the armies settled into winter camps, the tactical victory of the Battle of Fredericksburg belonged to Lee. However, the Confederates had lost more than 5,000 men whom they could not easily replace. While the Federals had lost more than twice that number, the steady stream of replacements from the North soon brought the Army of the Potomac back to its original strength. The real legacy of the battle was the devastating impact on the morale of the Northern populace and its army. Hearing of the terrible, tragic losses of men, Lincoln sadly remarked, “If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it.” Seven months would pass, two more commanders would succeed Burnside, and the Battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg would be fought before the Army of the Potomac would regain its esprit de corps.
Further reading: Gary Gallagher, ed., The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); William Marvel, Burnside (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
—Don Worth
World History
