What was the purpose of the 14th Amendment?

The general purpose of the 14th Amendment was to guarantee civil rights to African Americans after the end of slavery.  People who supported black rights feared that Southern states would deny blacks their rights, putting them into a state of semi-slavery.

After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was ratified rather quickly. That amendment abolished slavery. This meant that African Americans could no longer be enslaved, but it did not stop governments from enacting laws that would have treated blacks very badly.  Some states imposed black codes soon after the war. These laws limited blacks’ rights. The laws did things like forcing them to work and denying them the right to move about freely.

Some whites, largely in the North, were concerned about these laws. They felt that the laws proved that Southern states would try to treat blacks as slaves in all but name. They passed a civil rights act giving blacks rights, but then they worried that a future Congress could repeal the law. Therefore, they proposed the 14th Amendment.  The main point of this amendment was to guarantee equal rights to the free African Americans. The amendment failed to do this for most of the first 100 years it was in existence, but that is what it was meant to do.