Trabalho de ingles jurídico

A Comparative Analysis of the 14th Amendment to the United States’ Constitution and the norms in Brazilian Law

By João Mendes de Oliveira

The 14th Amendment to the United States’ Constitution refers to citizenship and deals with post civil war issues. The Amendment is divided into five sections, each one responsible for dealing with a specific issue. Passed by Congress one year after the American Civil War, 1866, this amendment was later altered to suit values different to those from the Civil War.
Section 1 discusses citizenship. It establishes how and who are the citizens of the United States. “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”. Furthermore, the first section established premises of how the citizens should be treated and what are the federal and state government’s prerogatives towards citizens: “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”. This particular section resembles the English Magna Carta, when it established the ‘law of the land’.
The following section describes the rules to appoint the representatives that will form the government. It outlines the right to vote and also establishes its limits, to males over twenty-one years of age. This section was later modified by Section I of the 26th Amendment, which now ascribed voting rights to all and every citizen 18 years old and over. Section 3 deals with an issue much related to the Civil War. It prevents people who had sworn to the American Constitution and whom participated in insurrections or rebellions against the Union to win a seat in Congress. This, though, could be overturned, if Congress decided so, by a