The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to prevent states from limiting the rights of former slaves after the Civil War.

But it ended up doing so much more. It guarantees that everyone is equal under the law and that government will obey the law and apply it fairly.

It grants citizenship rights to people born or naturalized in this country. It ensures that the Bill of Rights supersedes states' laws. It's the backbone for most civil rights legislation.

At the time, the 14th Amendment was the glue holding together two other revolutionary new laws, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and the 15th Amendment ensuring voting rights.

So why is Ohio still on record as opposing the 14th Amendment?

That's right. Ohio is the last holdout, rejecting on paper what it must enforce in reality.

`Free' institutions

An official state resolution passed in 1868 describes the 14th Amendment as "contrary to the best interests of the white race," a danger to "our free institutions."

Few people believe that today, and no government entity would act on it. But there are lawyers and fringe elements out there, experts say, claiming Ohio's stance challenges the validity of the 14th Amendment.

It's high time we plug this embarrassing loophole in Ohio law.

State Sen. Mark Mallory and Speaker Pro Tempore Gary Cates announced Monday in Cincinnati that they're sponsoring bills to ratify the 14th Amendment in Ohio.

Many thanks go to a University of Cincinnati law professor, Jack Chin, and to seven UC law students, who worked for months to bring this to lawmakers' attention.

There are six co-sponsors to the bills, but there should be many more.

How could Ohio have fallen so far behind the rest of the country in eliminating its arcane opposition to this amendment?

Most states that balked at the 14th Amendment when it was proposed during the 1860s still ratified it. After it obtained the required three-fourths vote and became law, even long-time holdouts like Kentucky made amends.

In 1976 Kentucky endorsed all three amendments, acknowledging it was "long overdue in ratifying ... amendments so vital to our democracy."

But similar efforts in Ohio went nowhere, Professor Chin says.

It could be a case of official neglect of state laws, he says. Or it could be a profound unwillingness by some to look back into Ohio's dark past.

A dark past

Ohio was not a slave state, but it might as well have been. The state was a prime conduit for the Underground Railroad, but it passed a series of slavery-friendly laws that made staying here deadly for fleeing slaves.

Ohio granted slave hunters from other states police powers. Slaves caught here could be sent home or killed; those who helped slaves or hindered the hunters could be killed, imprisoned or financially ruined.

After the Civil War, so-called Radical Republicans controlled Ohio's General Assembly and pushed through all three amendments. But the voters rebelled. Newspapers like the Enquirer argued in 1868 that the amendments were "disastrous ... designed to secure Radical and negro supremacy upon this continent for all time to come."

Ohio voters elected pliant Democrats into the General Assembly to "correct Ohio's mistake," Chin says.

But by then, the amendment was the law of the land.

It's time Ohio signed on. State legislators should move now to wipe racism's smear off our books.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395