1. Civil War Amendments and the Civil Rights Movement

2. I. Civil War Amendments : In the spring of 1865, the Civil War came to an end leaving hundreds of thousands dead and a devastating path of destruction across the South. Congress intended to help emancipated blacks and set right the injustices of slavery with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, also known as the Civil War Amendments.

3. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, and formally incorporated the Emancipation Proclamation into the Constitution. The Supreme Court case of Scott v. Sandford (1857) made the Thirteenth Amendment a necessity. Just prior to the Civil War, Chief Justice Roger Taney had found that Dred Scott was legally still a slave and that African-Americans could not enjoy the right of citizenship.

4. During Civil War Reconstruction, new southern legislatures began passing oppressive Black Codes, which intended to preserve slavery as nearly as possible and guarantee a stable labor supply. While life under the Black Codes was an improvement over slavery, the codes identified African-Americans as a separate class with fewer liberties and more restrictions than white citizens.

5. The Codes varied from state to state, but some universal policies applied. African-Americans: 1. Could not serve on a jury 2.Not allowed to vote 3.They were barred from renting and leasing land 4.Could not carry firearms without a license. 5.They were required to enter into annual labor contracts and could be punished, required to forfeit back pay, or forced to work for free if they violated the contract. 6.Black vagrants, drunkards, and beggars were given stiff fines, and if they could not pay them, they were sentenced to work on a chain gang.

6. In an attempt to overcome the repressive Codes, Congress created the Civil Rights Bill of 1866. This bill granted American citizenship to blacks and denied the states the power to restrict their rights to hold property, testify in court, and make contracts for their labor. Congress justified the legislation as implementing freedom under the Thirteenth Amendment. Although President Johnson vetoed the bill, Congress overrode his veto, and the bill was passed.

7. Congress wanted to ensure the principles of the Civil Rights Bill by adding a new amendment to the Constitution. In June 1866, Congress sent the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. The first sentence of the amendment defines citizenship as anyone born in the United States. With the ratification of this amendment, millions of people were collectively naturalized. The second sentence directly addresses state governments. It forbids any state from diminishing the "privileges or immunities" of citizenship, which is the section that struck down the Black Codes.

8. It also prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law" and forbids states to deny any person "the equal protection of the laws." Through the privileges or immunities clause in the first section of the amendment states would be obliged to bestow the national liberties included in the Bill or Rights to all citizens. So the language of the amendment was interpreted by many to transfer legislative power over civil rights from the states to the federal government.

9. The Supreme Court, in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) refused to incorporate the Fourteenth Amendment into state law. The Court drew a distinction between United States citizenship and state citizenship, and it was held that the amendment did not intend to deprive the states of legal jurisdiction over the civil rights of its citizens and their property. The Court declared that the restraint placed by the state on the slaughterhouse operators did not deprive them of their property without due process. In this case, the states preserved their authority.

10. In the case of Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad v. Chicago (1897) the Court began to incorporate the Bill of Rights. In this case, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad sued the City of Chicago for forcing the company to sell its property to the city for a very low price. The railroad claimed that this violated the Fifth Amendment, which states that private property shall not "be taken for public use, without just compensation." The Court declared that the compensation originally offered to the railroad was sufficient. However, more importantly, it stated that the Fifth Amendment is applicable to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

11. As shown in the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad v. Chicago case, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment can wield significant power. Due process means that the government must be fair in all of its actions. This "fairness" can be substantive as opposed to procedural, enabling the Court to decide which liberty or property interests of the people are fundamental and therefore must be incorporated by the states.

12. In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Court explored the boundaries of the due process clause, by declaring that a restriction on an ordinary workers’ hours was a violation of Fourteenth Amendment by depriving workers of property without due process of law. Joseph Lochner, the owner of a small bakery, was fined 50 dollars for violating a New York statute that prohibited bakers from working more than 60 hours a week or 10 hours a day. Critics of this decision argued that the Court took an activist position and interpreted the Constitution too loosely.

13. Roe v. Wade (1973) demonstrated the Court's use of substantive due process in protecting liberties, including the right to privacy. In this extremely controversial case concerning abortion, the Court based its decision to allow abortions on the Fourteenth Amendment's due process right to privacy clause.

14. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids states from discriminating against its citizens. However, the Supreme Court ignored this clause in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Homer Plessy, a 30-year old shoemaker, purchased first-class passage on the East Louisiana Railway. Although Plessy was only one-eighth black, under Louisiana law he was considered black, and therefore required to sit in the "colored" car. Instead, Plessy sat in the "white" car, and when he refused to move, he was arrested. Plessy argued that Jim Crow laws, or segregation laws, were a "badge of inferiority" on black citizens.

15. The Court's majority opinion stated that separate railroad facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The Court ruled that making a legal distinction between races did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment. In addition, the Court did not feel that the separate but equal doctrine violated the Fourteenth Amendment, since it did not deny rights to black citizens. Laws requiring the separation of races, the Court declared, do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race.

16. The separate but equal doctrine was quickly extended to many public venues including restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools. Although the legality of segregation was based on the separate but equal doctrine, the actual facilities provided to blacks were rarely of the same quality as those provided for whites.

17. The separate but equal doctrine was overturned in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). Brown was a combination of four other school segregation cases from the South that involved more serious problems, including inferior segregated schools and a lack of school transportation for blacks. Kansas resident Linda Brown was attached to the case on the insistence of southern justices who felt it was necessary to divert the pressure of the case from the South. Topeka was viewed as a northern city, thus it was used as the title for the combination of cases.

18. In the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the Court decided unanimously to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. The Court declared that "separate educational facilities" were "inherently unequal" because the intangible inequalities of separation deprived black students of equal protection under the law. One year later, after further discussion among the justices, they ruled that the integration of schools must go forward "with all deliberate speed."

19. Congress wrote the Fifteenth Amendment to enfranchise the newly freed black citizens in the Southern Reconstruction Districts. The amendment, which was ratified in 1870, prohibited the states from denying anyone the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." One main reason the amendment was not as successful as Congress had hoped was because southern whites began to enforce measures aimed at disfranchising black voters. These actions included such regulations as poll taxes, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and violent intimidation tactics.

20. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last congressional Reconstruction measure. It prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection, transportation, restaurants, and "inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement." It did not guarantee equality in schools, churches, and cemeteries. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional; the Court asserted that Congress did not have the power to regulate the conduct and transactions of individuals. It would be nearly 90 years before another civil rights act was attempted.

21. The End!