It included provisions to protect men's right to vote while abridging the rights of former Confederates. In the wake of the war, the Congress submitted, and the States ratified, the Thirteenth.Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment vests Congress with the authority to adopt "appropriate" legislation to enforce the other parts of the Amendment. It is true that the chief interest of the people in giving permanence and security to citizen- ship in the Fourteenth Amendment was the desire to protect Ne-. The article was adopted as the Fourteenth Amendment on July 9, 1868, after three-quarters of the state legislatures ratified it. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is one of the nation's most important laws relating to citizenship and civil rights. The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials associated with the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. The 14th Amendment was soon passed. A New Constitution and Legislature.