The Due Process Clause provides that no states shall deprive any "person" of "life, liberty or property" without due process of law. It was written to pay Union debts and to treat Confederate debts not as Union debts.It was not meant to be a broad grant of power," Lew said. Petitioners argue that the Chicago and Oak Park laws violate the right to keep and bear arms for two reasons. 241, 252–62, the constitutional basis for them was deemed to be in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The public debt clause is found in the fourth section of the Fourteenth Amendment. The 14th Amendment, the Debt Ceiling and a Way Out, N.Y. Times, July 25, 2011, at A10. (quoting Professor Jack Balkin). Ing or eliminating the federal student debt of most borrowers.