On July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the states, and over time has expanded the protection of civil rights to more people than ever before.

The 14th Amendment contains five sections and Section 1 is the most important. Section 1 grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States," which included former slaves that were set free at the time. Section 1 also states that "No State shall…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." (emphasis added). These two separate clauses have come to be known as the "due process" and "equal protection" clauses.

Over time, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment to apply not only to the federal government, but also to the states. Today, the due process and equal protection clauses play a vital role in federal and state laws, especially concerning civil rights such as within the criminal justice system, property law, employment practices, etc.

On this day July 28, 1868, the Secretary of State issued an official certificate stating that three-fourths of the states ratified the 14th Amendment. In particular, 28 of the current 37 state legislatures ratified the 14th Amendment thereby making it law.

INTERESTING NOTE: Some sources indicate that the 14th Amendment should not be valid law because it was never properly ratified. The main argument is that the 14th Amendment was not ratified by the required three-fourths of all the States. At that time, there were 37 states in the Union, which required 28 state legislatures to ratify the Amendment. However, by March 1867, 13 states had rejected the proposed Amendment – which included 10 recently re-admitted Southern states. Then, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act which required the 10 recently re-admitted Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment before they could be admitted to the Union. In other words, Congress passed an act which sidestepped the Constitution’s ratification process – but the U.S. Supreme Court never ruled on the constitutionality of Congress’s Reconstruction Act.