14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment
Ratified July 9, 1868
Verbatim
Exact text as ratified.
Section 1. 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. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Plain English
A translation that drops archaic words but keeps the meaning, including the parts courts still argue about.
Section 1. Anyone born in the United States, or naturalized as a citizen here, is a citizen of the United States and of the state where they live. States cannot pass or enforce laws that take away the rights of U.S. citizens. States cannot take away anyone's life, freedom, or property without following fair legal procedures. And states cannot deny anyone — citizen or not — the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives in Congress are apportioned among the states based on the number of people in each state, except that "Indians not taxed" are not counted. If any state denies the right to vote to male citizens age 21 or older — except for participation in rebellion or other crime — that state's representation in Congress will be reduced in proportion.
Note: This section was effectively superseded by the Nineteenth Amendment (which gave women the right to vote), the Twenty-Fourth Amendment (which banned poll taxes), and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment (which lowered the voting age to 18). It remains in the Constitution as written.
Section 3. No person can serve as a Senator, Representative, presidential or vice presidential elector, or hold any federal or state office, civil or military, if they previously took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or gave aid or comfort to its enemies. Congress can remove this disqualification by a two-thirds vote of each house.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States cannot be questioned. The United States and the states cannot pay any debt incurred to support insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss of slaves who were freed.
Section 5. Congress has the power to enforce this amendment by passing appropriate laws.
What this means for you
The Fourteenth Amendment is the most-cited amendment in modern constitutional law. Most of the Bill of Rights only restricts state and local governments today because the Fourteenth Amendment extended those protections to the states through a process called incorporation. When you hear that "the First Amendment applies to your city government" or "the Fourth Amendment applies to your state police," you are hearing about the Fourteenth Amendment doing its work.
Birthright citizenship. If you were born in the United States, you are a U.S. citizen, regardless of your parents' citizenship status. This rule was settled by United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and has been the law for more than 125 years. It is the textual meaning of "All persons born... in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." Whether the rule should be changed is debated politically, but the constitutional rule itself has been clear and consistent.
Equal protection applies to everyone. The Equal Protection Clause says that states cannot deny any person — not "any citizen" — the equal protection of the laws. This is the legal basis for protections against state discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, and other characteristics, applied to citizens and non-citizens alike. Federal-level equal protection is enforced through the Fifth Amendment's due process clause under a separate doctrine.
Due process applies twice. The Fifth Amendment requires due process from the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment requires due process from state governments. Together they create a system in which no government in the United States can take your life, your freedom, or your property without following fair legal procedures.
Section 3 is currently contested. The disqualification clause prevents people who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection from holding federal or state office. In Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot enforce this section against federal candidates without congressional action. This means Section 3 is still in the Constitution, but the question of who can enforce it and how is now narrower than many had assumed.
About
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, three years after the Civil War ended. It was the second of the three Reconstruction Amendments, designed to secure the citizenship and civil rights of formerly enslaved people and to limit what state governments could do to their residents.
The amendment had a contested ratification. Several Southern states initially refused to ratify it and were required to do so as a condition of being readmitted to the Union. The legitimacy of this process has been debated by some scholars but has never been seriously challenged in court.
Section 1 contains four clauses, each of which has produced extensive case law. The Citizenship Clause settled birthright citizenship. The Privileges or Immunities Clause was narrowed sharply by the Slaughter-House Cases (1873) and has played a relatively small role since. The Due Process Clause has been the basis for incorporating most of the Bill of Rights against the states and for recognizing unenumerated rights. The Equal Protection Clause has been the basis for major civil rights rulings including Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Loving v. Virginia (1967), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).
Section 2 was a compromise about voting rights. It did not directly grant voting rights to Black men but penalized states that denied voting rights to "male inhabitants" by reducing their congressional representation. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified two years later, addressed Black voting rights more directly. The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) extended voting rights to women, and Section 2's "male" language was effectively superseded though never formally amended out.
"Indians not taxed" referred to Native Americans living on tribal lands outside state taxation systems. Most Native Americans were not granted U.S. citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
Section 3 was used after the Civil War to disqualify former Confederate officials from office. Congress lifted these disqualifications for most people in the Amnesty Act of 1872 and a similar act in 1898. The clause was largely dormant for over a century until Trump v. Anderson (2024) returned it to active legal discussion. The Supreme Court's ruling in that case held that states cannot enforce Section 3 against federal candidates without congressional action, narrowing the practical scope of the clause.
Section 4 was added to ensure that Civil War debts of the United States would be honored and that Confederate debts would not be — both an immediate financial necessity and a moral statement. The clause has occasionally been cited in modern debates about the federal debt ceiling, though courts have not heavily developed it.