Amendment XIV.

(Note: Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution was modified by

Section 2 of the 14th 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 the power to enforce, by appropriate

legislation, the provisions of this article.

*Changed by Section 1 of the 26th Amendment.

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Let me start by making a simple observation.  we do not live in a vacuum.  The authors of our Constitution wrote extensively to help us understand what their intentions were.  These writings are called the Federalist Papers, and are available in every public library in the country.  When we discuss Socialized Health Care, we have examples of countries who have tried it, and can witness the results for ourselves.  So, when we see that 57% of British Citizens have performed woodshed tooth extractions, we see the actual results of offering free dental care to every citizen in the country.  (A woodshed tooth extraction refers to pulling one’s own tooth, without the aid of a dentist.)  In our context, the Federalist papers make it clear that the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are considered negative rights.  That is, they are things which the government, any government, could not inflict upon the citizenry.  They are not a list of entitlements, which the citizens should expect to be handed.  Lee’s argument is that, the right to life, liberty, property, means that the citizens are entitled to receive any commodity from the government which would be deemed necessary by the courts to achieve such ends.  When the Constitution was written, the founders made it abundantly clear that each person was responsible for forging their own path.  The Fourteenth Amendment was put in her idiocy for a different reason.  The current argument concocted by the left, is that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments only applied to the Federal Government prior to the Fourteenth Amendment being passed.  The Fourteenth was passed solely as a post Civil War Reconstruction Amendment.  The entire purpose was to make it unconstitutional to deny citizenship to former slaves on the basis that they weren’t citizens before the Civil War.  It also contained provisions to deny paying debt issued to the confederacy by foreign nations, and to prevent officers serving in the confederate army from attaining rank in the Union Army.  I disagree with this interpretation that the Bill of Rights would not be enforced at the State level should the Fourteenth be repealed.  Currently, the Fourteenth is the source for the anchor baby loophole in our immigration laws.  This is the real reason the left wants it kept.  If the Fourteenth Amendment produced Republican voting anchor babies, you could bet your bottom dollar that Sheila Jackson Lee and he cohorts would be screaming from the rooftops to repeal the sucker.

Exit question:  Is Sheila Jackson Lee respected by her fellow Democrats, or do they find her idiotic as well?