What is the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
About this video
The video explains the Citizenship Clause that opens Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. Before it, it was unclear whether free Black persons were U.S. citizens, which affected rights such as enjoying citizens' privileges in other states; Missouri tried to exclude free Black citizens, and Dred Scott v. Sandford held they were not citizens. The clause overturned Dred Scott and made all freed people citizens.
You'll be able to
- state what the Citizenship Clause says.
- explain why the question of Black citizenship mattered before the 14th Amendment.
- describe how the Citizenship Clause overturned Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Key words
- Citizenship Clause
- The first sentence of the 14th Amendment, declaring that people born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens.
- Naturalized
- Having become a citizen through a legal process after birth.
- Privileges and immunities
- The rights that citizens are entitled to, including when they travel to another state.
- Dred Scott v. Sandford
- An infamous pre-Civil War Supreme Court case that held Black persons of African descent were not U.S. citizens.
- Overturn
- To cancel or reverse an earlier legal decision.
Transcript
Section 1 begins with the Citizenship Clause. It declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. In other words, there was a question before the 14th Amendment as to whether free Black persons were citizens of the United States, an this has great implications for certain constitutional rights. For example, the Constitution guarantees the right of one citizen to travel to another state and enjoy in that other state the privileges and immunities of citizens, the rights of citizens in that state. Well, before the 14th Amendment was enacted, several states tried to prevent Free Black persons from coming into their states. For example, Massachusetts had a large Free Black population. They were considered citizens in Massachusetts, but Missouri in 1820, tried to exclude these Free Black citizens
of Northern states from coming into their states. Another example is Dred Scott against Sanford, but this infamous case before the Civil War. The question was whether Dred Scott could sue his so-called master, who lived in a different state in federal court. The Constitution has a provision that would have allowed Dred Scott to sue his master if Dred Scott was a citizen of the United States. Dred Scott, infamously held, or Chief Justice Tawney, in Dred Scott v. Sanford, infamously held that Free Black persons of African descent were not citizens of the United States within the meaning of the Constitution, entitled to the privileges and immunities of those citizens. The first sentence of the section of the 14th Amendment resolves this problem. It is a declaration of citizenship. It says all persons born or naturalized in
the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. It overturns Dred Scott and, in one fell swoop, declares all the freedmen and women in the South to be citizens of the United States entitled to the same privileges and immunities as other citizens.
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