Setting the stage the Civil War Amendments

 Hot topic question- Was the Civil War about slavery?  Well, what else could it be about?  Money  Way of life  Power of the national government  It all comes back to SLAVERY.

 In the 1860 presidential election, the northern Republicans and Abraham Lincoln supported abolishing slavery.  Before Lincoln’s inauguration, seven southern states formed the Confederacy, and in December of 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede, or break away from, the USA  The Buchanan and Lincoln administrations claimed that secession was illegal and they refused to initiate war.  Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter.  Fighting continued until Robert E. Lee surrendered with his army in Virginia on April 9, 1865.

 When the war ended, the South had lost, and slavery had been eliminated  However, all was not well for African Americans in the South  Many southerners refused to treat African Americans as equals, and many even refused to see them as citizens  Some northern leaders, including President Lincoln, wanted to immediately welcome southern states back into the union, but others, Radical Republicans, wanted them to suffer the consequences of secession and earn their way back in.  Plans to “reconstruct” the governments of the rebellious states were instituted

 Three amendments were passed after the Civil War.  Amendment XIII outlawed slavery  Amendment XIV made African Americans citizens  Amendment XV guaranteed suffrage, or the right to vote, to African Americans  These amendments include many more important clauses  Here we go!

 Ratified on December 6 th, 1865  Outlawed slavery, but also banned forced labor  The only legal forced labor is through punishment for committing a crime  The Emancipation Proclamation only freed people being held as slaves in rebellion states. An amendment to the Constitution was needed in order to abolish slavery.  In order to rejoin the Union, President Johnson, a Radical Republican, required that states ratify this amendment. Before his death, Lincoln did not demand this. Rather, he was focused on welcoming back southern states to preserve the “union.”

 Many southern states refused to accept the change. They put a lot of effort into restricting the rights of newly freed African Americans.  Southern states passed laws known as black codes, which kept African Americans from holding certain jobs and gave them few property rights. Black codes made sure that African Americans were not protected by laws.  The Freedmen’s Bureau was created to help former slaves acclimate, or get used to, to their new lives and to protect them from efforts to keep them below whites on the social and economic totem pole. Remember that the Bill of Rights does not yet apply to the states. States do not have to guarantee the rights in the BoR.

 The 14 th Amendment was passed in 1868 to protect African Americans from southern states that refused to treat them as free people  This amendment has three important clauses:  The citizenship clause defined an American citizen as anyone “born or naturalized in the United States.”  This overrode the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford in which the Supreme Court stated that slaves are not citizens.  The equal protection clause said that every state must give all citizens “equal protection of the laws.”

 The due process clause said that states cannot take a person’s “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” (fair legal procedures)  Over time the Supreme Court has used the “due process” clause of the 14 th Amendment to redefine the reach of the Bill of Rights into the states  The 1925 case of Gitlow v. New York began this process. The Court ruled that the due process clause of the 14 th Amendment protected free speech and free press from STATE law. They said that the due process clause requires states to protect these 1 st Amendment rights.  Also said that no state can pass a law that abridges, or reduces, the “privileges or immunities” of citizens. What are thosssse?

 Declared that slave holders were not due compensation for losing ownership of their slaves  Stated that the federal Congress has the power to enforce the different parts of this amendment  We will look at the 14 th Amendment later this week, as it is the most dense of the three and influential to how the Bill of Rights was interpreted from that point forward

 Ratified in 1870, five years after the Civil War ended.  Extended the right to vote to citizens regardless of race or previous condition of servitude.  Still, many states found other ways to keep African Americans from voting. How?  Poll taxes  Literacy tests  Despite efforts from racist politicians and the growing Ku Klux Klan, many African American Congressmen were elected throughout the south.  Was only aimed at African American men. Women were not given this right for another 49 years.

 Everything in politics is political.  Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the union.  The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in Confederate-held lands during the Civil War.  For many, the goal of passing the 15 th Amendment was to gain more voters for the northern-led Republican Party.  Republicans believed that since they had pushed for the abolition of slavery, African Americans would support the Republicans in future elections.  People make decisions that benefit themselves.  What do you think?