About this video
Walter Isaacson and Jeffrey Rosen introduce the 14th Amendment, passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868. Rosen explains why it is often called the most important amendment, because it guarantees equality and due process, and how Lincoln believed an amendment was needed to overturn the Dred Scott decision.
You'll be able to
- state when the 14th Amendment was passed and ratified.
- explain why the 14th Amendment is considered so important.
- explain why Lincoln thought a constitutional amendment was needed to overturn Dred Scott.
Key words
- Due process of law
- The guarantee that the government must follow fair legal procedures before taking away someone's rights.
- Dred Scott decision
- An 1857 Supreme Court ruling that did not recognize African Americans as having legal rights.
- Privileges or Immunities Clause
- Part of the Constitution about the basic rights of citizens that states may not take away.
- Radical Republicans
- Republicans who pushed for strong action on slavery and equal rights.
Transcript
I'm Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute and we are here with the second of our lessons about the reconstruction amendments I'm with Jeffrey Rosen the CEO of the National Consitution Center in Philidelphia And Jeffrey now let's get on to the 14th amendment But first let's put it on our timeline When did Congress pass it and when did the 14th get ratified?
Congress passed the 14th amendment on June 13th 1866 And it was ratified on July 9th 1868 And it's viewed by some as the most important amendment of the constitution, why? Because it contains our basic guarantees of equality and due process of law. The entire Civil War was fought to constitutionalize equality it wasn't until the North won at Appomattox that that vision was embraced by Lincoln and finally it was embedded in the 14th amendment Well what was Lincoln's theory of constitutional equality?
You know, it was quite powerful. There were some radical reconstruction Republicans, Lincoln was not one of them who thought that slavery was illegal even in the original constitution and basically that the so called "Privileges [or] Immunities Clause" of the original constitution forbade states to deny African Americans basic civil rights.
But that wasn't the majority view. Lincoln's view was that it would require a constitutional amendment to overturn the Dred Scott decision which didn't recognize African Americans as having any legal rights, and to constitionalize equality and that's why the core of the 14th amendment is Section 1, which basically extends to African Americans the same civil rights that white people had taken for granted.
Well let's read some of that, especially the "Privileges and Immunities Clause" read it to us here, what's important there? So the second sentence of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment says "No state shall make or enforce any law
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