The fourteenth amendment, at first glance, is an important extension to the fifth amendment. But it’s really more or less redundant. The fifth amendment does not just apply to the federal government, but to the state governments and to the people as well.
If that were not the case, and the fourteenth amendment was truly needed to extend such protections, people could still deprive others of life, liberty, or property. After all, there is no amendment conferring the same demands to the people. So can’t an individual capture a slave? So long as the government does not do anything to specifically help, then no state or federal law would be depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property. Only the individual would be. However, as I have mentioned in my discussion on immigration, the fifth amendment prevents any person from being deprived of life, liberty, or property, and it does not say by whom. Since the constitution is an agreement between the states, who are themselves the agents of their citizens, a statement saying “x cannot be done” applies to all those bound by the contract or compact.
By failing to realize how the fifth amendment turns many of the other amendments into redundancies, it weakens the fifth. Many of the other amendments are anemic in comparison to the protections offered by the fifth. Aside from the fifth and tenth amendments, all the other amendments in the bill of rights protect a handful of specific rights. The fifth amendment protects an unlimited number of rights, and does so on all levels of government and for all people. It protects citizens, visitors, prisoners of war, and everyone else in which the constitution has jurisdiction. It protects against slavery. It prevents the restriction of freedom of movement.
It also protects against freedom of association and right to assemble in public spaces, making even more of the first amendment redundent. But unlike the first amendment, it also protects freedom of non-associtation. It protects from being forced into contracts against one’s will. It also protects against being forced to engage in commerce with another person against one’s will. That is one of the reasons why the CRA of 1964, as applied to non governmental entities, is unconstitutional.
The power of the fifth amendment also eliminates the need to extend the meaning of the fourteenth amendment through the unconstitutional incorporation doctrine. There is no need for the incorporation doctrine to exist in order to protect against slavery, violations of free speech, illegal search and seizure, etc. It is all covered by the fifth amendment.