“It still makes its way through Congress, 1st through committee, then through the passing of Congress, then to the president & (my mistake, 14th wasn’t signed by the pres) if the pres vetoes, then 2/3 majority of both houses of Congress pass, it then goes to the people, 3/4 pass and then it becomes LAW!”
No. That is not how it works.
And Constitutional Amendments have power, not because they passed thru Congress (which the Equal Right Amendment did in ‘72), but because states approve them and they become part of the Constitution. Congress makes public and private law, which derives its authority from Congress. The Constitution derives its authority from the States.
When Scalia contrasted the Constitution with the Congress, the 14th Amendment fell under the Constitution, not Congress. The States approved it and conferred citizenship to those born in the USA, not Congress.
And someone who doesn’t understand that distinction shouldn’t post in front of his betters.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (14 Stat. 27)
Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois introduced the bill that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Trumbull told the Thirty-Ninth Congress that the proposed legislation was needed to reinforce the grant of freedom to blacks secured by ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment: “When it comes to be understood in all parts of the United States that any person who shall deprive another of any right or subject him to any punishment in consequence of his color or race will expose himself to fine and imprisonment, I think such acts will soon cease.” Trumbull declared his intention to destroy the discriminatory Black Codes. Other Republican congressmen focused on the rights of blacks “to make contracts for their own labor, the power to enforce payment of their wages, and the means of holding and enjoying the proceeds of their toil.” If states could deprive blacks of these fundamental rights, as one Congressman remarked, “I demand to know, of what practical value is the amendment abolishing slavery?”...
Although radical for its time, it is important to understand the limits of the bill. The bill plainly sought to overrule the Black Codes by affirming the full citizenship of newly emancipated blacks...
The effect of Johnson's veto was to strengthen Republican opposition to his presidential policy. Congress overrode the veto and enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It also proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove all doubt about its power to pass this sort of protective legislation. Unlike the 1866 act, however, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified two years later, employs general language to prohibit discrimination against citizens and to ensure equal protection under the laws. Incorporating these protections into the Constitution marked a critical moment in the development of federal power over the states when it came to protecting the rights of citizens. To emphasize this new commitment to federal power, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was reenacted as section 18 of the Civil Rights Act of 1870.