Opinion of the amendments (Amendment XIV)

[Meeker]

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.

1st Amendment: 93% Keep it, 7% Repeal it
2nd Amendment: 65% Keep it, 35% Repeal it
3rd Amendment: 94% Keep it, 6% Repeal it
4th Amendment: 96% Keep it, 4% Repeal it
5th Amendment: 94% Keep it, 6% Repeal it
6th Amendment: 92% Keep it, 8% Repeal it
7th Amendment: 71% Keep it, 21% Modify it, 8% Repeal it
8th Amendment: 81% Keep it, 13% Modify it, 6% Repeal it
9th Amendment: 74% Keep it, 26% Modify it, 0% Repeal it
10th Amendment: 59% Keep it, 18% Modify it, 23% Repeal it
11th Amendment: 80% Keep it, 20% Modify it, 0% Repeal it
12th Amendment: 67% Keep it, 17% Modify it, 17% Repeal it
13th Amendment: 89% Keep it, 8% Modify it, 4% Repeal it

[Bono]

Poorly written.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

One of the most important Amendments to the Constitution.

[Person Man]

Keep it and keep its current reading broad.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I think it should amended so that French, Greeks, Italians, British, Canadians, or Australians should be able to serve as President. So, my vote is to modify it. Gennifer Granholm should be able to run.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think it should amended so that French, Greeks, Italians, British, Canadians, or Australians should be able to serve as President. So, my vote is to modify it. Gennifer Granholm should be able to run.

The XIVth has nothing to do with that.  Besides, now that we have a Kenyan as President, isn't that provision effectively moot?

More seriously, the XIVth needs to be reworded so that it can't be interpreted in a manner that gives corporate persons any Constitutional rights beyond those concerning the obligation of contracts and freedom of assembly.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'd modify it a bit for reasons Ernest described but overall this is a crucial amendment that should be kept.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

That's what I was trying to get at, reform the amendment so that it doesn't allow terrorist the right to become head of state of our country. Punish the terrorists, not innocent people.

[Deldem]

Keep it. This is perhaps the basis of more of our laws than any other amendment.

[Mechaman]

I think it needs to be worded a little better and arguably even make it legal for someone born in another country to run for president. Just because somebody is born somewhere doesn't mean they have more loyalty towards their birth country than they do in the country that they call home. Hell, the millions of immigrants who have to resort to illegal measures just to get into this country because of Nativist douchebaggery more than likely love this country a hell of a lot better than their home country. Determining one's loyalty just because they were born in x place is full on Nativist douchebaggery. I was born in Texas, I could give a rat's ass if it seceded, fell into the ocean, or melted off the face of the planet. I'm sure that there are many people who were born in douchebag nations like North Korea or Saudi Arabia who have even worse opinions of their homeland who now reside in this nation. I would even go as far as arguing that they're more patriotic Americans than alot of the Nativist bastards who wish to keep them down.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Except as I already pointed out, this has nothing to do with the native born requirement for President.  If one were to do away with that, it really ought to be an Amendment of its own, not tacked on to this one.

[Scam of God]

Abolish the section regarding nationality requirements. The only reason it exists is to make national-socialists (small 'n', small 's'; the kind that believe in a communal personal identity) sleep easier at night. To Hell with the nativist nitwits.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Abolish the section regarding nationality requirements. The only reason it exists is to make national-socialists (small 'n', small 's'; the kind that believe in a communal personal identity) sleep easier at night. To Hell with the nativist nitwits.

Beside the fact that that requirement has nothing to do with the XIV Amendment, you're neglecting that the reason for the requirement when it was drawn up was to keep our President from becoming a European princeling.  And if you think that is far fetched, need I point out Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.

[Scam of God]

Abolish the section regarding nationality requirements. The only reason it exists is to make national-socialists (small 'n', small 's'; the kind that believe in a communal personal identity) sleep easier at night. To Hell with the nativist nitwits.

Beside the fact that that requirement has nothing to do with the XIV Amendment, you're neglecting that the reason for the requirement when it was drawn up was to keep our President from becoming a European princeling.  And if you think that is far fetched, need I point out Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.

I don't care about either A.) The purpose of the Constitution - I do not share in its State cult - or B.) The possibility of foreign royalty becoming President. Neither of these matter to me. But I understand that it's important for you to rush to the defense of your kindred spirits, so feel free to do so now.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't care about either A.) The purpose of the Constitution - I do not share in its State cult - or B.) The possibility of foreign royalty becoming President. Neither of these matter to me.

Would it be unreasonable to want you to care in a thread about Amendment XIV that the provision on Presidential requirements you are objecting to isn't in Amendment XIV at all, but in Article II Section 1 Clause 5?

[The Mikado]

Would someone who knows these things please explain section 4 to me?  I've always read it as even suggesting that the US might default on the national debt is unconstitutional, but, of course, that's absurd.

EDIT:

Look, I get the point of section 4 (recognizing that debts incurred during the Civil War will be paid off by the Government), but it could really use a reworking.  It could easily be construed to mean what I wrote above.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Would someone who knows these things please explain section 4 to me?  I've always read it as even suggesting that the US might default on the national debt is unconstitutional, but, of course, that's absurd.

EDIT:

Look, I get the point of section 4 (recognizing that debts incurred during the Civil War will be paid off by the Government), but it could really use a reworking.  It could easily be construed to mean what I wrote above.

It HAS been construed to mean what you wrote. In , 294 U.S. 330 (1935), the Supreme Court ruled.

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However Hughes, in the 5-4 decision that followed, weaseled out of this finding to allow the Congress to renege on the promise to pay a bond issued in 1918 in $10,000 of gold coin of the standard in use in 1918 with $10,000 in paper money.  The four dissenters did not so allow and would have found that holder of the $10,000 Liberty Loan Gold Bond should have been paid either in gold coin of the 1918 standard as agreed or $16,931.25 (the value of the gold after the dollar had been devalued relative to gold) instead of in $10,000 in devalued currency.