The Fourteenth Amendment and Civil Liberties

EQUAL PROTECTION OVER OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES

                                (Fourteenth Amendment)

                                        By: Venecia Hart

                        EQUAL PROTECTION OVER OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES

        The Fourteenth amendment is one of the three amendments that was created to protect all persons who were born or naturalized in the United States of America equal protection and due process. It has provided the United States with major changes that has changed America as an whole, The fourteenth amendment has given US Citizens the right to civil liberties. In this paper I will be pointing out four ways on how the fourteenth amendment has affect our civil liberties.

        I will start with an explanation of what civil liberties are and what they mean. In the Book “We the people” the definition of civil liberties is very straight forward and to the point. It states that civil liberties are the areas in which ones personal freedom is constitutionally protected from government interference.(Ginsberg, Lowi, Weir, Tolbert page 116) What this means is that the government can not have full control over certain right that are guaranteed to us as citizens of the Untied states of America . The purpose of the fourteenth amendment is to protect those rights.

        One way our civil liberties are protected by the fourteenth amendment is because of the equal protection law. In section one of the fourteenth amendment it states all persons born or naturalized in the united states are indeed citizen of the united states.

        ‘No state shall enforce any law on which will abide by the privileges or immunities of that citizen. nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty , or property without due process. nor deny any person of their equal protection of laws’.(Staff)

        This Section of the fourteenth amendment explains that no American citizen can be force by the state government into doing something they do not want to. This is protected by both the Bill of Right and the fourteenth amendment. The Fourteenth amendment protects this law through due process. Due process is the a persons right to fair state government procedures.

        A second way our civil liberties are protected by the fourteenth amendment is because of the Bill of Rights. If we look back on the definition of civil liberties its states, the key word ‘personal freedom’. The Bill of Rights plays a big role in civil liberties and heres why. The Bill of Rights protects all American citizens of freedom of speech, freedom press, and freedom of religion. The Bill of Rights focused more on the federal government and not state to state government. The fourteenth amendment is to protect us from any state  government interference who does not agree with what we practice in our lives.