The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When the 14th Amendment, equal protection clause was enacted, the galleries in the Senate were segregated. Now we have integration.
As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race.
History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state.
The idea of equal rights was in the air.
The 'takings' clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.
Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.
I think we ought to leave the law exactly the way it is, the 14th amendment.
Segregation was a burden for many blacks, because the end of the civil war and the amendments added to the constitution elevated expectations beyond reality in some respects.
Ultimately, the reason we have a Constitution, the reason we have separation of powers, the reason we have the Fourteenth Amendment is to provide the courts with the opportunity to override the will of the people when the will of the people discriminates against a segment of our society.
The 14th Amendment was recognized right away to be problematic. The concept of person was both too narrow and too broad, and the courts went to work to overcome both of those flaws.