Sixth Grade
Worksheets
The Fourteenth Amendment
The South had lost the Civil War. Because of this, people could no longer own slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment made slavery illegal in the entire country. The South still thought of blacks as second-class citizens. Southerners thought of other ways to keep blacks from gaining equal rights.
Southern states made rules that said where and when blacks could work and where they could live. These rules were called Black Codes. These new laws made it very hard for blacks to gain many rights. These rules made people in the North angry. They thought the South was trying to get around the fact that it had lost the war. The people in Congress knew that more new laws would have to be made to protect blacks in the country.
Congress came up with the Fourteenth Amendment. This would give citizenship to all black people born in the United States. It also made it illegal to treat people unfairly because of the color of their skin. It gave everyone equal protection under the law. It became known as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Its goal was to help former slaves get more rights in this country. It was presented to the states on June 13, 1866. There were thirty-seven states in the country. Twenty-eight of them would have to agree to make it a law. The first state to ratify it was Connecticut. It did so on June 30, 1866. A little over two years later, the twenty-eighth state ratified it. This state was South Carolina. Ratification was completed on July 9, 1868.
