The Fourteenth Amendment: Securing Equal Rights and Citizenship for All

Name: Instructor: Course: Date: The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 is a document that was passed the Congress on the 13th day of June 1866. The states later ratified the document on the 9th day of July 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Upon its ratification, the document aimed at guaranteeing all citizens within the United States equal protection of Law and citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in America. The document came in response to issues related to slavery which had fostered the American civil war. Though bitterly contested by states of the defeated confederacy, the same states were forced to ratify the Reconstruction Amendments to regain representation in the Congress. African Americans and slaves served as the target of the Reconstruction Amendments as their civil and legal rights were ignored. For