The Civil War Amendments are three amendments added to the constitution after the civil war to protect African American rights, unite the union and to form equality of the nation. The amendment that had the greatest impact on individual rights was the "Fourteenth Amendment protected and guaranteed the rights of all Americans" (Smith, 127). To end the segregation and the slavery of African Americans the Fourteenth Amendment had to solve some of the major dilemmas that caused the civil war to occur. These dilemmas were citizenship, due process of law, and equal protection of laws; in order to solve these dilemmas, the Fourteenth Amendment had to give new meanings to these concepts.
             The first concept was citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment had to establish that African Americans, people who legally travel to or are born in the United States have the right to become citizens and have citizen's rights." All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the states they reside in (Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1).
             The second concept was the due process of law. In the early view of the court, deprivation of life, liberty, or property simply meant the punishment for crime. The requirements of due process would be met by fair procedure, including notice to the defendant and an open trial with the right to counsel. "Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." (Fifth Amendment) and that is the procedural due process. Later, the court concluded that due process was not limited to procedural considerations but had a substantive aspect as well. "The substantive due process requires that the substance or the purpose of the law be constitutional and that government cannot make laws that apply to situations in which the government has no business interfering" (Smith, 128). In early due process cases, the court did not place lim...