The Fourteenth Amendment 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. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 28, 1968. Though the amendment is clearly worded, it is questionable whether Congress intended it to benefit the freedom or to punish the South. Congress did use the fifth section during reconstruction, but with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, a deal between the South and the Republican Congress ended reconstruction and the military left the South. Even before the end of reconstruction, around 4 million new citizens were denied rights guaranteed by the amendment. Many things contributed to the enforcement of the amendment after World War II. One of the things was the appointment of Earl Warren and chief justice a restructured court. Earl Warren was promised a seat on the court by Dwight D. Eisenhower in return for Warren’s support in the 1952 United States presidential election. Warren would be solicitor general until a seat opened on the court. Before the position was made public Chief Justice, Fred M. Vinson, died and Eisenhower was bound by a campaign promise and the center chair went to Earl Warren. Warren was born in California to immigrant parents. His father was a railroad worker who lost his job for striking and was later murdered. A young Warren would have to work on the railroad himself the support to support his family and himself. The odds were against Warren from the start of but he overcame them by going to law school and impressing the right people to launch his political career. Though Warren escaped poverty, he would never turn his back on the less fortunate. The Warren Court officially started on March 1, 1954. By this time there were a number of public school segregation cases on the table. Warren and the other eight justices, all of whom were New Deal appointees of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, decided to Brown v.Board of Education first. By taking the Kansas case first, the court could set a president without hitting the South head on. The long standing ‘separate but equal’ doctrine that had been set by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) had been challenged before, but had always won out, in Brown v. Board of Education that would change. The case came before the high court in the spring of 1953 but, unable to decide, the postponed until the fall. Felix Frankfuter would then have asked that the case be reargued in order to stall again. Frankfuter wanted to end segregation forever and Warren had not yet been confirmed or felt out by the rest of the court. Before Vinson’s death, he had been the main obstacle in finding for Brown, but the new court had internal differences to settle itself . The court had an easy six to three decision, however Frankfuter was joined by Warren, Hugo Black, William Douglas, Harold Burton, Sherman Minton and John Marshall Harlan II in wanting a unanimous decision to keep any decent from being used as ammunition to overturn the ruling later. It now fell to Warren to use his political skills to win Stanley Reed, Robert Jackson and Tom Clark over . “There are many stories about how Chief Justice Warren brought justices Reed, Jackson and Clark aboard” but he did. On May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, stomped ‘separate but equal’ and showed a united court standing on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in support of civil rights. The backlash began immediately. “Massive resistance” took place across the South with Harry Byrd of Virginia as its leader. The decision was viewed as assault on ‘states rights’ and the South would not take it sitting down. Not all southerners were as rebellious as Byrd. The rest of the country viewed it differently. According to Horwitz “The Cincinnati Enquirer praised the decision by saying, ‘what the justices have done is simply to act as the conscience of the American Nation.’ Meanwhile, black Americas received the decision quietly and waited to see when and how it would lead to actual school desegregation.” Brown II was heard the following year. The decision was to the question of how to enforce the first case. The court decided to put this burden on the lower courts. The courts “should implement…” desegregation “…with all deliberate speed.” The passing of the enforcement angered some people as they say the move as backing away from the hard stand the court took in Brown I. The south loved the Brown II decision and Southern district courts, packed with pro-segregationists, could use “all deliberate speed…” as a “…formula for doing as little as possible”. There has been much speculation as to why the court seemed to back away in Brown II. One such school of thought is that they did not want to be blamed for an all-out “social revolution.” There was no doubt that violence would increase if the court pushed too fast in the South. If the Supreme Court, gently, pushed the local courts in the right direction violence may be able to have been minimized. Even if the Court was backing away from enforcing Brown v. Board of Education another group was not: The NAACP. The NAACP had represented Brown and the plaintiffs in the four cases connected with it: Briggs v. Elliot (South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Virginia), Gerbert v. Belton (Delaware) and Boiling v. Sharp (Washington D.C.). With the taste of victory in 1954, The NAACP and its chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall had full intention of rolling ahead at full speed. Two years after Brown II, Little Rock, Arkansas became a major factor in how desegregation would be handled. A high school in Little Rock was going against the state government and attempting to desegregate itself. The state governor intended to stop it and Eisenhower was given no choice but to intercede. The president “had never publically supported Brown and had privately condemned it”, but to keep the situation in hand he sent “federal troops to Central High School.” The resulting case was Cooper v. Aaron (1958). The Arkansas Constitution had been amended to oppose desegregation. The state also passed a law that said children did not have to attend mixed schools. After the 1957 events, school officials sued to end desegregation because of the risks involved, they asked for a thirty month postponement of desegregation. The district court granted the request, but the Eight Circuit overturned the decision. The Warren Court had denied the right for the defendant to have the case decided before the appeal had been argued. The Marshall came down hard, blaming Arkansas government for all the problems. Arkansas was guilty of violation of the Equal Protection Clause and of the Supremacy clause for attempting to nullify the Courts’ decisions. The court used Marbury v. Madison to review and find the Arkansas laws unconstitutional. “Though there were many other violent forms of resistance to court ordered desegregation after Little Rock, the South gradually accepted the authority of the federal courts.” For the first seven plus years that Warren was chief justice, only once did the executive branch aid the court in desegregation: The Little Rock incident. In 1961 John F. Kennedy took office and for the next eight years the court had plenty of back up from the chief executive. When Kennedy took office black American’s hoped to see change, the president did not let them down. Kennedy set to work and within two months “had created a presidential commission on equal employment opportunity.” Kennedy would use Federal Marshalls to force colleges, like the University of Alabama and Ole Miss, to enroll black students. He also set to work on civil rights legislation, though he would not live to see it implemented. All deliberate speed had not worked. In 1963 The Warren Court was hearing more desegregation cases. Goss v. Board of Education (1963) was a Tennessee case that had allowed students to change schools in order to stay in the majority of their own race. They ruled this unfit because it only appeared to be fair when, “in reality its intent was to maintain segregation.” In Virginia, county schools had shut down to avoid mixing races. In Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Board (1964) the court ruled state closing county schools denied equal protection. By this time appeals courts were making headway. The firth circuit ruled in Stell v. Savannah- Chatham County Board of Education (1964) that classifying children based on test scores violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Since schools were run by county boards, and Southern state governments did not intend to help in desegregation the process would be long and difficult. The Warren Court made great strides, but there would still be work for The Berger Court. Central Mississippi, for instance, would be left until the 1969 case, Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education. If one only looks at school desegregation cases, the Warren Court can be mistakenly taken to be a supporter of the growing civil rights movement. The truth is that the court had mixed feelings about the movement. As the movement grew sit in cases reached the court. “The court’s hard won liberal majority” was threatened when justices, mainly black, started getting cold feet. “The history of the civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s is thus paralleled by the history of the shifting allegiances of the Warren Court.” Southern States tried to block civil rights any way they could. White southerners hated the NAACP and set out to punish its members. Alabama wanted to know who the members were and those that held government jobs would be fired. The NAACP filed suit against the state. In The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama (1958) case the court ruled that digging into people private interests violated the constitution of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1956 Virginia tried to cripple the NAACP by passing five laws to control its actions. One was designed to keep the members from encouraging people to file legislate lawsuits that they may not have file on their own. The Warren court hears the case NAACP v. Botton (1963) after it had been ruled on by a state court. The court ruled six to three that the United States Supreme Court could review any courts finding and found all the Virginia laws in question unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Harlan, Clark and Potter Stewart dissented. When Frankfuter was replaced by Arthur Goldberg in 1962 the court seemed to have a liberal majority, but this was the same time that Black started backing off. Black did not approve of Dr. Martin Luther King’s marches and sit-ins and believed that private businesses had the right to serve or refuse service to anyone. The bitter differences between the brethren would show clearly in Bell v. Maryland. In 1960 at a restaurant in Baltimore, some black students held a sit-in. The management called the police and the protesters were taken to jail. They were found guilty of trespassing and fined. The Court of appeals upheld the lower and The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. The case was heard in 1964 when “a bitterly divided court reversed the criminal trespass convictions…” The case was heard after Maryland had already done away with its segregation laws. Bell v. Maryland was a big deal to the justices. Warren, Douglas and Goldberg believed that everyone had the right to patronize any public business. The other six held that privately owned business owners could keep out anyone they please unless or until laws were passed that stated differently. The court was arguing back and forth when The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Black was irate; he was all for prosecuting protesters. Black and William Brennan would have bad blood between them as long as they remained on the court. “Bell v. Maryland left personal scars within the liberal majority that never really healed.” Black would side with the conservatives for most of the rest of his years on the court. Four other cases were on the table with Bell v.Maryland: Griffin v. Maryland and, Barr v. City of Columbia, Robinson v. Florida and Bouie v. City of Columbia. These five were all of the same nature and none were found in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court was asked not to make any rulings that would interfere with the basis of the Civil Rights bill. Black again turned on his liberal brethren in Cox v. Louisiana (1965). The case involved students “picketing stores that had segregated lunch counters.” They were charged with “…disturbing the peace and obstructing the sidewalk.” This was followed the next day by more students and one Reverend Cox protesting at the courthouse. The Reverend was given permission to protest in a designated area, but the Reverend deliberately did just what he was told he could not do and was arrested on the same charges, this cases is called Cox II. All the justices agreed that disturbing the peace would be overturned but the other chargers were not agree on, and finally overturned five to four with Black giving a strong decent. Black finally got a sit-in conviction upheld in Adderley v. Florida (1966). Again turning on the liberals, Black and the four conservatives affirmed the conviction of college students who had picketed outside a jail. Douglas made a strong descent which was aimed at Black. The previous cases were based on the Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights (First and Fifteenth Amendments). The Court would, however, use other areas of the Constitution to end racial division in public accommodations. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, The Commerce Clause, was used in several cases. By using this clause the court did not have to argue ‘states right’ head on. Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) is a case where the commerce clause was used, along with section five of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. This case came as a challenge to The Civil Rights Act of 1964. The motel refused to abide by the act and filed suit. The case was heard only a few months later. The motel rented the majority of its rooms to people from out of state and was located in close proximity to interstates 75 and 85. The Court had no problem deciding the case and upheld Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with Tom Clark giving the opinion. Hid away from places of interest to visitors and serving people from the areas, Ollie’s Barbecue seemed safe from interstate commerce regulations. In Katzeboch v. McClung the court recognized these facts, but found the clause did have jurisdiction because a majority of the foodstuffs it served were not produced in Alabama. For years to come businesses in the South would discriminate on a racial basis. After December 1964 they did so in direct violation of federal law. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment ended the effects of the Three-fifths Compromise, provide for counting all citizens in order to provide for equal representation. Representation was not equal, however, because district lines were drawn largely for historic reason. Lines that were redrawn often were draw to repress equal representation instead of to promote it. Felix Franfuter showed no judicial restraint in handing down a decision against gerrymandering in Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960), another Alabama case. Frankfuter said Alabama redrew “the shape of Tuskegee from a square to an uncouth twenty-eight sided figure.” The court based the decision on the Fifteenth Amendment through the Fourteenth seemed to have it covered. Baker v. Carr (1962, and other cases that would follow, were not a “blatant” as Lightfoot but had the same effects. The Memphis area case enrolled lines that had not been redrawn, but should have been. Population changes density for many reason and lines must be altered to take population shifts into account. Tennessee had not done this, though their Constitution required it. In a 6-2 vote, the Court said they had to redraw and this time they did base their decision on the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court would use the lower courts to enforce these actions, as it did in Brown, but more cases still would come before the Court. The Court allowed some leeway, which is sensible, but also provided a loophole that could be exploited. “When asked after he had retired what his most important decision was, Earl Warren surprisingly answered: not Brown v. Board of Education, as one might have expected, but the Reapportionment cases.” This reasoning makes perfect sense when one realizes that it the country can decide whose vote counts more by drawing district lines, then controlling districts could elect anyone they wanted to make or change any law they wanted. The Reapportionment cases attempted to make sure that hard fought gain could not be undone by any majority of the population. Not only did legislation during the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations aid the court in insuring civil rights, they made appointments to the court that would keep a voice sympathetic to civil rights on the court for years to come. The most important of these nominations came from Johnson on June 13, 1967. The importance of the NAACP to the civil rights movement was astronomical. Most of the cases discussed would have never been heard if not for the NAACP defense fund. Chief Counsel for the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall, won his first United States Supreme Court case, Chambers v. Florida, in 1940, fourteen years before Earl Warren took the center seat. Marshall had argued many Supreme Court cases before Brown v. Board of Education. Marshall had a fundamental twenty-nine wins in thirty-two appearances before a not always sympathetic court. Johnson’s 1967 nomination could not have gone to a more deserving individual. “…the question of a ‘living Constitution’ was a recurring theme in Warren Court jurisprudence. At the very outset of the Warren era, Brown v. Board of Education itself raised the question of whether constitution at meaning changes over time.” “…the Warren Court took democracy seriously as a constitutional ideal. If decisions…show the court trying to make democracy a practical reality.” The Warren Courts decisions on civil rights may very well be the most visible decisions any America court has ever made. When one sits in a classroom, in a church, or in a doctor’s office and sees people of all colors, that person is seeing the effects of the Warren Court’s decisions. Rights that are too often taken for granted owe a tremendous dent to the Warren Court. Article III Section 2 and Article V indicate that the term “living Constitution” would not become a foreign idea to the framers. The framer gives the Court authority to decide legal issues under the Constitution, which with so little laid out, the job of court’s made broad by the nature of the document and as the framers must have realized that their ideals had changed from those of their European forefathers, so should they have accepted that undoubtedly their descendants would have ideal that differed from their own. The wording (“whenever”) of the later indicates they did perceive that future generations, would indeed, have different ideals and gave future Congresses the ability to alter the Constitution by taking from and adding to through the Amendment process. As for democracy, how can it even exist without all people having an equal say? Men and Women of all of all colors, creeds and religions should have the same freedoms under the United States Constitution. As the words of John Locke, ‘Life, Liberty, and Property’, are incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment, so should they be incorporated into the daily lives and natural laws of all Americans. If Americans are to live by those words then all Americans must be free to protect those freedoms for themselves and for their fellow Americans. If such is done then no America will ever infringe on any other American’s right to the same. The Warren Court’s civil rights cases finally brought some enforcement to the Civil War Amendments. They did not erase the scars of slavery or almost a century of depression. It is up to “We, the People” to erase the scars and make the country “our” own “posterity”.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 02:31:07 +0000
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