Ratified
The United States ratifies the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” which includes former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. Known as the “Reconstruction Amendment,” it forbids any state to deny any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”