Changes to Fourteenth Amendment Would Institutionalize Inequality

Many people believe that the American Revolution, especially the famous Declaration of Independence, established the principle that everyone is born equal. The historical facts, however, reveal a different truth: notable people, from founding father President George Washington down to the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, had many black slaves who were not born equal. At the beginning of August, the Washington Post published an article about the over 120 descendants of President Washington’s slaves holding a commemoration at the original Washington manor in Virginia, and who were appalled at the terrible living and working conditions of their ancestors during their time.

The first article of the Constitution of the United States legislated that every slave (“the others”) were accorded three-fifths of the status of a “free man” when counting the seats in the Congress and calculating taxes. These slaves were not American citizens, nor did they enjoy the rights that a citizen has. In other words, since the nation’s founding, the household system that the U.S. implemented was one that went according to the hereditary inequality of different races.

What really established the “everyone is equal” principle legally was the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which was passed after the Civil War ended. It legislated that all people — they need not be citizens — could enjoy equal protection under American law. The amendment also stipulated that those who were born on American soil, regardless of race and color, would automatically become American citizens, except for the children of diplomats and the Indians who were ‘autonomous’ at that time.

The Fourteenth Amendment is the most important foundation of social equality in America today. Though the black Americans suffered racial discrimination for nearly a century after the establishment of the amendment, the “equal protection” article has been the legal basis for civil rights legislation and measures. To this day, when the American Supreme Court is presiding over cases concerning racial and social equality, it will often invoke the “equal protection” article. Even the dispute between George Bush and Al Gore during the presidential election in 2000 involved the “equal protection” article of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The American right wing is attempting to change the spirit of “equal protection.”

　

The Fourteenth Amendment, for all its importance, has recently become a target for conservatives and the American right wing.

Specifically, from the grassroots members of the Tea Party to the Republican leaders in the Congress, an increasing number of American conservatives are requesting an amendment to the Constitution to remove the automatic awarding of citizenship to those born on American soil stipulated in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Such an effort to amend the Constitution is part of the American right wing’s opposition to the wave of illegal immigrants, and is similar to the bill recently passed in Louisiana to clamp down on illegal immigrants. The main basis of contention is that the children of these illegal immigrants would automatically become American citizens and enjoy all the rights and welfare as citizens, which would also benefit the illegal immigrant parents. This is rewarding “illegal’ actions, creating the vicious cycle of the number of illegal immigrants going out of control.

In the U.S., amending the Constitution is a major event. Besides requiring the support of two-thirds of both the House and the Senate, approval has to be sought from more than three-quarters (38) of the state councils. With the Democrats firmly controlling two dozen “blue states” as well as a steady increase in the immigrant population, amending or removing the Fourteenth Amendment is an extremely remote dream. In the past, it had only been the marginal members of the right wing calling for such an action.

With the emergence of the Tea Party Movement, however, the campaign to remove the stipulation regarding the citizenship of people born in the U.S. in the Fourteenth Amendment has started to enter the Republican mainstream. It has even received the common support of Republican Senate leader Glenn McConnell, House leader John Boehner, as well as many other key party members.

Due to the legal significance of the Fourteenth Amendment mentioned earlier, even George W. Bush’s speechwriter Michael Gerson admitted that the Republicans’ attempt to partially remove this article is really a step backwards in history, and has an obvious element of racism. Gerson incisively quoted the reason a politician from 1867 used in opposing the Fourteenth Amendment: “This violates the best interest of the whites.”

Suppose the American right is successful in their effort. Then, as the Atlantic Monthly pointed out in one of its commentaries, there will emerge a new kind of household with hereditary inequality decided by the identities of parents: the children of U.S. citizens and legal residents as well as the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the U.S. The latter is not a small population. The number of the American children of “paperless immigrants” is no fewer than four million.

This figure, however, revealed the true intention of Republicans in their attack of the Fourteenth Amendment: the population of Latin Americans, who make up the bulk of the “paperless immigrants,” is growing rapidly, and most of them vote Democrat.

Amidst the worst American recession since World War II, President Obama is facing increasing political difficulties, especially as the support of the middle- and lower-class whites for him is declining. A recent analysis in the Washington Post pointed out, however, that no matter how the political attitudes of the white voters change, as long as the Latin American voters maintain their support for the Democrats, Obama can win another term in 2012. In this way, the Republicans’ campaign for the opposition of the Fourteenth Amendment would in the end only serve to fuel Obama’s winning of a second term.