The 14th Amendment

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.6 • 16.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It's shaped all of our lives, whether we realize it or not: Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Bush v. Gore, plus other Supreme Court cases that legalized same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, access to birth control — they've all been built on the back of the 14th.

The amendment was ratified after the Civil War, and it's packed full of lofty phrases like due process, equal protection, and liberty. But what do those words really guarantee us?

Today on the show: how the 14th Amendment has remade America – and how America has remade the 14th.

Clarification: A previous version of this episode did not make clear that the 14th amendment guarantees equal protection and due process to all people in the United States, regardless of citizenship.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine a house where every room follows a different architect's plan.
0:04.0	Doorways don't connect.
0:05.5	Staircases lead nowhere.
0:07.5	Lost Patients is a new podcast examining our complicated system for treating psychosis,
0:12.0	one that loses patients to an endless loop between the streets,
0:15.4	jail, and hospitals.
0:16.4	We'll ask how it got so bad and how it can get better.
0:19.5	Listen to lost patients from KAW and the Seattle Times, part of the NPR Network.
0:23.4	Okay, so section one of the 14th Amendment reads,
0:33.8	all persons born or naturalized in the United States
0:38.7	and subject to the jurisdiction thereof
0:41.7	are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
0:47.0	No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.
0:55.5	Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
1:02.2	Nor denied to any person within its jurisdiction
1:05.3	the equal protection of the laws. Okay, so I'm out in Times Square.
1:15.0	I got the naked cowboy right here, we got tons of billboards,
1:22.0	tons of flashing lights, and tons of people.
1:24.4	We're going to see if people know what any of these phrases in the 14th Amendment
1:29.0	mean.
1:31.0	Of all the amendments, the 14th is the Mega Titan Amendment. It's huge. It's shaped all of our lives whether we realize it or not.
1:45.0	This amendment was ratified after the Civil War when America as a country was rethinking who was an American, and what kind of rights all Americans should have.
	...

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