There is nothing in the federal Constitution prohibiting state laws making distinction based upon sex other than with respect to voting. And, with regard to the Fourteenth Amendment it declares in crystal clear language:
”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
As we can see from the language of the 14th Amendment it:
- Makes ”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof … citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The amendment then goes on to declare:
- “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
This wording forbids State action from abridging a United States citizen’s “privileges or immunities” which a State has adopted under law. Note that the wording does not forbid a State to deny “privileges or immunities” to “persons” who may not be “citizens of the United States”! Nor does the wording declare what “privileges or immunities” a state may or may not adopt.
The amendment then continues with:
- “… nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
Again, the reference is to State action and applies to “any person” as opposed to “citizens of the United States” and it expressly forbids every State to deprive any “person [within its jurisdiction] of life, liberty, or property without due process of” a State’s laws. Due process of law refers to procedure and the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles.
Section one of the Amendment then concludes with:
- ”…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
This wording simply commands that whatever a State’s laws are, a person within that State’s jurisdiction may not be denied the equal protection of those specific laws. Keep in mind the wording does not forbid a state to make distinctions in law, e.g., based upon sex or age, but whatever laws are adopted by a State with regard to sex or age, the State may not deny to any person, blacks and whites alike, within its jurisdiction the equal protection of those specific laws. The laws must be enforced equally upon all, e.g., if a distinction in law is made with respect to civil rights, (not political) that the wife may not testify, sue or contract, it must be enforced equally upon all regardless of race, color or previous condition of slavery.
And, keep in mind, the Fourteenth Amendment’s objectives were eloquently summarized by one of its supporters as follows:
“Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights, but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall be for and upon all citizens alike without distinctions based on race or former condition of slavery…It permits the States to say that the wife may not testify, sue or contract. It makes no law as to this. Its whole effect is to require that whatever rights as to each of the enumerated civil (not political) matters the States may confer upon one race or color of the citizens shall be held by all races in equality…It does not prohibit you from discriminating between citizens of the same race, or of different races, as to what their rights to testify, to inherit &c. shall be. But if you do discriminate, it must not be on account of race, color or former conditions of slavery. That is all. If you permit a white man who is an infidel to testify, so you must a colored infidel. Self-evidently this is the whole effect of this first section. It secures-not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens- equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any race.” ___ SEE: Representative Shallabarger, a supporter of the amendment Congressional Globe, 1866, page 1293
JWK
The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it._____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASSOCIATION v. BLAISDELL, 290 U.S. 398 (1934)
