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14th Amendment

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The written purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to guarantee repayment of the national war debt and it prohibited repayment of the Confederate debt. The amendment gave Congress the right to reduce the representation of any state that does not have impartial male suffrage. The effect of this was known as the "swindle" and it allowed northern states to retain white suffrage because they had few African Americans in their populations and they would not be penalized. The amendments most important provision denied an American citizen as anyone born in the United States or naturalized and this automatically made African Americans citizens. This provision also prohibits states from abridging “the privileges or immunities” of citizens, depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” or denying “any person equal protection of laws”. The framers of the amendment intended to prohibit laws that applied to one race only, such as the black codes, or that made certain act felonies when committed by black but not white lawbreakers. The framers did not intend to prevent segregation in schools and public places.
Congress passed a bill extending the life of the Freedman’s Bureau which was created in March 1865. The purpose of the Freedman's Bureau was to provide emergency food, clothing, and medical care to war refugees and took charge of settling freedpeople on abandoned lands. The new bill gave the bureau the added responsibilities of supervising special courts to resolve disputes involving freedpeople and establishing schools for black southerners. This bill passes with unanimous Republican support however, Johnson vetoed it. Johnson vetoed a civil rights bill to overturn the provisions of the black codes. The law made African Americans citizens of the United States and granted them the right to own property, make contracts, and have access to

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