The 14th Amendment: A Necessary Step toward a More Egalitarian Version of the American Dream
By Julie Silverbrook, Domestic Affairs Staff Writer

There was a time in United States history when civil rights were denied to a large portion of the population; during this antebellum period, only white men with property were endowed with the privileges and immunities guaranteed to them by the Bill of Rights. These fortunate men were among the few that were able to pursue a concept that would one day be revered as the American Dream. These white men had the freedom to pursue a life better than that of their parents; to pursue limitless opportunities made available to them through a legally binding government contract to protect their individual rights. The cords that held this great nation together were severed over whether or not the freedom to pursue the American Dream, by exercising full civil rights, should continue to be denied to Black men and all women. When the nation was mended back together following the Civil War, a new and more egalitarian vision of the American dream was made possible by the ratification of the 14th Amendment—an amendment that would eventually secure equal rights and privileges for all citizens regardless of race, gender, or religious affiliation.

Prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment, in-egalitarianism ran rampant throughout most of the United States, centralizing itself in the racist “Slavocratic” states in the South. Black men were denied their civil rights throughout this region—most were held as slaves, and even those who were deemed “free”, had no freedom in the legal sphere. In 1856, the Federal government legitimated these practices of denying civil liberties on the basis of race by handing down the infamous Dred Scott decision. Dred Scott proclaimed that a black man, even if born in a free state, could never claim rights of citizenship under the federal constitution. It was now known to every Black person within the United States that not only were they not able to pursue the American Dream, but they were, in fact, not even truly citizens—they were slaves, regardless of whether or not they were physically owned by another person.

The 14th Amendment was drafted in an attempt to address the in-egalitarianism that plagued this divided country. The first section of the amendment set out to protect the fundamental “privileges and immunities”—principally the freedoms of speech, press, petition, and assembly—against future state abridgement. In addition, the amendment also codified a truly national American identity. Prior to this the Constitution was silent on what defined a citizen of the United States. As Constitutional Scholar Akhil Amar notes:

“The amendment aimed to provide an unimpeachable legal foundation for the earlier statutes, making clear that everyone born under the American flag—black or white, rich or poor, make or female, Jew or Gentile, was a free and equal citizen”.

The 14th Amendment truly nationalized the concept of the American Dream, by ensuring that the states, and in particular powerful factions within the states, would be unable to deny the liberty to pursue this dream to any portion of the population.

The amendment plainly took aim at racial discrimination through its citizenship clause. The Black Codes, which subordinated people on the basis of their darker skin tone, defined the type of legislation that was now to be impermissible. However, many Constitutional scholars, through a high level of abstraction in the language of the amendment, find that the amendment repudiates more than just racial inequalities. Some scholars have interpreted the “equal-birth right” principle of the amendment to extend itself to any law that discriminated against citizens. These interpreters of the Constitution find their proof in the language of the amendment. Whereas the Founders chose to use the word “men” in describing the principle of birthright equality at the founding, the language of the Reconstructionists did not, and for good reason. The Reconstruction amendments do not focus merely on the issue of race but also the intersecting issue of gender. Under this interpretation, Black men and all women would be afforded the right to pursue a better life than their parents—an essential first step in the pursuit of this amorphous dream.

Despite the vast and moving power the 14th Amendment seemed to have in supplying freedom to those who were previously enslaved both figuratively and literally, it also had its limitations. The amendment only extended the civil rights found in the Bill of Rights; political rights were still largely denied to Black men and all women. Following the end of Reconstruction, many states denied Black men and women their political rights as a means of controlling their newly won freedom under the 14th amendment’s citizenship clause. These states engaged in practices such as literacy tests—that were written for the express purpose of denying the franchise—and Grandfather clauses to prevent these, now, full citizens from exercising their franchise. Legally these states were enabled to do this, because the 14th Amendment is silent on the issue of political rights, it only conferred equal civil rights on every citizen of the United States. Racist practices, despite this amendment, were able to creep back into State and Federal laws.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed its racist tendencies by handing down a “separate but equal” decision in Plessy v. Fergusson. Though the justices may have been claiming that Black people were equal, the separation doctrine spoke volumes about how the equality guaranteed by the 14th amendment was going to be interpreted by a country that was still largely racist. Once black students were in separate schools, institutionalized racism was able to run its course. Today, we still see the effects of this abominable decision—the amount of funding for traditionally “black schools” is significantly, if not sickeningly, lower than that of mainly white and suburban school districts. This Supreme Court decision has prevented, and still prevents, Black men and women from being able to realize their full potential and truly pursue the American Dream—a better life, filled with endless opportunity. Up until the Civil Rights movement and the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the civil rights of black men were still violated—despite the 14th amendment’s declaration of them as free citizens. The 14th Amendment was a necessary step toward true equality, but the harsh reality of hundreds of years of slavery still prevents this equality from being truly realized.

The 14th Amendment changed the American Dream by laying the legal foundation for every man and woman to be equally capable of attaining it. Women may still face the glass ceiling and Black people may still face the detriment of racism, but we can all take comfort in knowing that we legally have the right to petition our government for the redress of the grievance of still being denied our full equality. The American dream can still be attained almost every American citizen thanks to the broad language of the 14th amendment’s equal birthright principle. The 14th Amendment will one day be interpreted to its fullest extent and every person in this great nation will be able to chase the dream of a better life.