OK, fine.
The 14th Amendment is arguably the most significant turning point in our history. If this stuff really interests you, definitely read up on it. It's fascinating stuff and don't let a couple Latin phrases intimidate you. Most legal decisions are in plain English.
Here's where the 14th Amendment started out:
In Davidson v. New Orleans (1878) Justice Samuel commented “It is not a little remarkable, that while this provision has been in the Constitution of the United States, as a restraint upon the authority of the Federal government, for nearly a century, … this special limitation upon its powers has rarely been invoked ... but while it has been a part of the Constitution, as a restraint upon the power of the States, only a very few years, the docket of this court is crowded with cases... There is here abundant evidence that there exists some strange misconception of the scope of this provision as found in the fourteenth amendment.” This decision held, “That whenever by the laws of a State...and those laws provide for a mode of confirming or contesting the charge thus imposed, in the ordinary courts of justice, with such notice to the person, or such proceeding ... as is appropriate to the nature of the case, the judgment in such proceedings cannot be said to deprive ... without due process of law, however obnoxious it may be to other objections.“ Yet he went on to say, “There is wisdom, we think, in the ascertaining of the intent and application of such an important phrase in the Federal Constitution, by the gradual process of judicial inclusion and exclusion, as the cases presented for decision shall require, with the reasoning on which such decisions may be founded.”