Civil Rights

AuthorJeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps
Pages[139]
Slavery

Page 140

MISSOURI COMPROMISE

WILMOT PROVISO

COMPROMISE OF 1850

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT

DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD

"A HOUSE DIVIDED" SPEECH

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

Slavery was introduced to the American colonies in the 1620s. By 1700 the slave population, located primarily in the southern colonies, had grown dramatically. After independence, the United States debated whether slavery should be allowed to continue. Though the NORTHWEST ORDINANCE of 1787 banned slavery in the western territories, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution did not outlaw it. For the most part the Constitution ignored the issue, but the Three-fifths Compromise permitted southern states to count each slave as three-fifths of a white person for legislative APPORTIONMENT.

The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, which revolutionized cotton processing and vastly increased the profitability of cotton growing, and the LOUISIANA PURCHASE of 1803 forced the United States to consider whether slavery should be confined to the Southern states or extended to the new states carved out of the territory west of the Mississippi River. Legislative compromises succeeded in holding the Union together until mid-century. The Dred Scott case (DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD, 60 U.S. [19 How.] 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 [1857]), however, destroyed the legal basis for compromise by holding that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories.

Abolitionist opposition to slavery increased after Dred Scott. ABRAHAM LINCOLN's hostility to slavery, expressed in his "House Divided" speech, frightened the Southern states. His election as president in 1860 led to the secession of the Southern states and the U.S. CIVIL WAR. Though Lincoln saw the preservation of the Union as his main goal, he recognized that slavery had to be ended. The EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION of January 1, 1863, decreed the freedom of slaves in Southern territories, but it took the THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT, ratified in December 1865, to abolish slavery in the United States.

From Segregation to Civil Rights

Page 309

"THE CIVIL RIGHTS CASES"

PLESSY V. FERGUSON

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM CITY JAIL

"I HAVE A DREAM" SPEECH

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

After the U.S. CIVIL WAR the THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH, and FIFTEENTH AMENDMENTS to the U.S. Constitution, along with many pieces of CIVIL RIGHTS legislation, were enacted to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves. Nevertheless, African Americans were soon ensnared in a southern political and legal system that limited their political, economic, and social freedoms.

Initially after the war, during the RECON-STRUCTION era (1865–1876), the former Confederate states were placed under federal military control. During this time African Americans were able to register to vote and to be elected to state and local government posts. This period was also marked by white vigilantism, however, in the form of the KU KLUX KLAN (KKK). The KKK used terror to discourage African Americans from voting...

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