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Quote by: Original Intent Treatise Errant Position #8: The 14th Amendment prevents the states of the Union from infringing upon various rights held by all Americans.
Truth: This argument is flawed on a number of self-evident levels. As has been earlier noted, the 14th Amendment did not vest white citizens with any rights, and only vested the recently freed slaves (i.e. "citizens of the United States") with very limited rights. The only rights that can be protected by the federal government under the authority of the Amendment are those rights given by the Amendment.
As has been previously covered in this treatise, true American citizens have "inalienable rights", which come from God, not government. Is it then supposed that somehow, 78 years after our nation was founded, the 14th Amendment suddenly gave us our rights?
Some would say that the 14th Amendment simply prevented the states from infringing on the privileges and immunities clause [Article IV, Section 2], and the due process provision of the 5th Amendment. This silly theory is also easily debunked.
The federal Constitution is a contract between all the states of Union. In Article IV, Section 2 of the main body of the Constitution, we find the privileges and immunities clause:
The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
This was one of the pivotal sections of the Constitution under review in Dred. There was/is no question that no state was at liberty to infringe on this provision, and if a state did so, there was no question that such a violation would raise a "federal Constitutional question" which would be heard by a federal court. In other words, the revisionist history claim that the 14th Amendment was needed to protect white state citizens from state abridgment of the privileges and immunities clause, is baseless and without a shred of merit.
The issue was not that an amendment was needed to protect white state citizens of the day from state abridgement of the privileges and immunities clause; the issue was that the recently freed black slaves needed to be granted some form of citizenship so that they too could enjoy some level of protection from state action.
The due process argument is just as vapid and meritless. Every state of the Union had/has a due process clause in their constitutions. Under the federal privileges and immunities clause [main body, not 14th Amendment], the right of due process would be secured to every American citizen traveling throughout the country. That was indeed the purpose of the privileges and immunities clause.
Once again, the problem was not that white citizens were without "due process" as they traveled from state to state, or that the federal government was not Constitutionally authorized to rectify state abridgements of due process rights. It was that the recently freed black slaves were not considered citizens - and therefore the protections of the privileges and immunities clause and due process did not apply to them.
As you can clearly see, white citizens did not need the 14th Amendment. Their protections were quite secure. The 14th Amendment was a grant of a special form of citizenship to the recently freed slaves (and their posterity), and also contained the framework of rights and protections that would be a part of this new type of citizenship. |