What it is: The US constitution was created to establish the principles that the citizens of the US wanted to be established in the government It lays out the structure of the government along with stating the power for political sections. When: The constitution was created in 1787 by our founding fathers Who: People who founded the constitution are called the Founding Fathers, this group consists of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin Significance: The founding fathers’ beliefs influenced the constitution. The constitution united Americans under one set of laws, and is supposed to protect the citizens from harmful situations

 Restrictions for Government Branches  Checks and Balances -Constitution lays out all the power the government has, there are 3 branches in government (Legislative, Executive, Judicial)  Federalism -Idea that the state and federal government shared powers so that the national government doesn’t have complete control  Popular Sovereignty -States that government is to base their decisions on what the people want and if this power is abused they can be removed from office 4)

The most important words used in the constitution include States/State because the founding fathers wanted to make sure to include the US citizens. The reason State is so prominent the constitution is because before the centralized power under the constitution, the states were very powerful,, and with the constitution, they still wanted states to have their rightful power. Using words like United, Representatives and President make it seem as though the citizens are under one rule and should unite. Words like office, section, and senate demonstrate to the citizens that their government will make sure to have separate powers. Also the continuous uses of time and year/years shows that the constitution will be used for years. Treason, power, and law are also used continuous and this shows the firm hand that and beliefs that these founding fathers had.

Plessy v. Ferguson Brown v. Board of EducationDred Scott Case On June 7, 1892, a colored man Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in the “white” section of a train car. In the court case Homer Adolph Plessy B The State of Louisiana, Plessy argued that the Separate Car Act was a violation against the constitution’s 13 th and 14 th amendments. The judge, John Howard Ferguson found Plessy guilty based on the fact that the state could choose to regulate railroad companies that only operated within the state. Plessy appealed the verdict continuously but in 1896 the Supreme Court of the US found him guilty again. Because of this case, the “Separate but equal” law was extended to cover all public life, Though racial segregation in public schools was normal in America in the 1950s. With the help of the NAACP Brown and other black parents filed an ban of segregation in Topeka’s public schools. Though the judge agreed with the Browns he ruled against it because of the ideas brought up in Plessey V. Ferguson. On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court agreed that the “separate but equal” doctrine was unfit when dealing with public education. The Supreme Court ruled on the desegregation of schools across America. This court case dealt with issues with the 14 th amendment. That amendment states that all natural born people in the US are citizens. Since they were natural born citizens African Americans expected to have the same rights as whites and this included equal educational opportunities. On April 6 th, 1846 Dred Scott filed a lawsuit against Mrs..Emerson had abused him. In the lawsuit Dred also claimed that he was free because the Supreme Court of Missouri had freed slaves who traveled with their masters. In 1850 when facing the Missouri Supreme Court who did not want to anger their citizens by freeing a slave. Northerners realized that they had to put an end to slavery before the south got out of hand and because of this both sides realized that with opposing ideas they could not coexist. All these actions and beliefs fueled the Civil War. This case created a controversy with the 5 th amendment which prevents the government from abusing its authority in a legal course of action. The decision of the case stated that no slaves or their descendents were thought of in any of the provisions to the Constitution. The court had no jurisdiction to uphold these decisions even though they did and nothing happened.

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