Eleanor Finch
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people. This amendment was a response to the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court case, which declared that no black person, free or enslaved, could be a citizen of the US. The 14th Amendment also included provisions relating to voting and representation in Congress, amending the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution to state that population counts would be based on the whole number of persons in a state. However, it would take the 15th Amendment (1870) to ban voting restrictions based on race, and the fight for civil and political rights for Black Americans continued long after.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Are Black people citizens? | Yes, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including Black people. |
| Voting rights | The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, granted African American men the right to vote. The 19th Amendment in 1920 secured the right to vote for women. |
| Right to residence | The 14th Amendment also protected the right to residence, or the right to remain unmolested in the territory of the nation. |
| Limitations | The 14th Amendment did not apply to Native Americans, who were not legally declared U.S. citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. |
| Further challenges | Despite the 15th Amendment, social and economic segregation persisted, and the Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 legalized "separate but equal" facilities for the races, leading to the "Jim Crow" segregation system. |
| Recent developments | The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its subsequent extensions abolished all remaining deterrents to exercising the right to vote and authorized federal supervision of voter registration. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision involving federal oversight of voting rules in nine states. |
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What You'll Learn
The Dred Scott v. Sandford case
The case involved Dred Scott, an enslaved black man, and his wife, Harriet, who sued for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court in 1846. The Scotts claimed they were free due to their residence in a free territory where slavery was prohibited. At the trial in 1854, Judge Robert William Wells directed the jury to rely on Missouri law, which stated that Scott remained a slave. The jury found in favor of the defendant, John F. A. Sandford (the original misspelling of his surname by a Supreme Court clerk was never corrected).
Scott then appealed to the US Supreme Court, where the case grew in scope and significance as slavery became the most explosive issue in American politics. On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion, stating that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and thus could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. This decision also asserted that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from federal territories, de facto nationalizing slavery.
The Dred Scott decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, transformed national belonging by granting citizenship to African Americans and all those born on US soil. It established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed constitutional protection against removal. The 15th Amendment, enacted in 1870, further solidified this by granting African American men the right to vote.
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The 14th Amendment
However, it is important to note that the 14th Amendment did not immediately end discrimination against Black citizens. While it provided a legal framework for equality, the struggle to enforce and realise these rights continued for many years. Southern states resisted the implementation of the amendment, and Black citizens faced violence and retaliation when attempting to exercise their newfound freedoms. It would take further amendments, such as the 15th Amendment granting African American men the right to vote, and ongoing efforts by activists and lawmakers to secure and protect the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
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The 15th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1868, transformed national belonging, making African Americans and all those born on US soil citizens. However, the struggle for equality continued for African Americans, who faced resistance, violence, and retaliation from white citizens and discriminatory laws that denied them equal citizenship status.
> The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
The history of the 15th Amendment also highlights the fragile nature of rights and how easily they can be taken away. Despite the amendment, African Americans continued to face barriers to voting and were often reduced to second-class citizenship under the "Jim Crow" segregation system. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) used paramilitary violence to prevent blacks from voting, and discriminatory voting practices persisted in many Southern states.
It wasn't until 1965 that more direct action was taken to address African American disenfranchisement. Prompted by reports of continuing discrimination, President Lyndon B. Johnson urged Congress to pass legislation to uphold the 15th Amendment and ensure government "of and by all the people." The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its subsequent extensions abolished remaining deterrents to exercising the right to vote and authorized federal supervision of voter registration where necessary.
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The Jim Crow segregation system
The Jim Crow laws were enacted by white-dominated state legislatures, known as "Redeemers", who sought to undo the political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era. These laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the former Confederate states and some other states, starting in the 1870s. They required the separation of whites and "persons of color" in public transportation, schools, parks, cemeteries, theatres, and restaurants, with the purported goal of preventing any contact between Blacks and whites as equals.
The Jim Crow system was underpinned by beliefs in white superiority and the notion that treating Black people as equals would lead to interracial sexual unions, which were seen as a threat to the "purity" of the white race. The system was enforced through violence, including lynchings, which were often justified by false accusations of rape or claims that Black people were inherently criminal and violent. The criminal justice system was complicit in this violence, with all-white police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, played a crucial role in challenging the Jim Crow laws through sustained public protests and campaigns. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared state-sponsored segregation of public schools unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 further contributed to the undoing of the Jim Crow system, officially overturning most of the remaining laws.
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1868, established birthright citizenship, stating that anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen. This amendment also included provisions relating to voting and representation in Congress, amending the Constitution to state that population counts would be based on the "whole number of persons" in a state, meaning all people would be counted equally.
However, despite the 14th Amendment's promise of equal citizenship, Black Americans continued to face significant obstacles to voting, especially in the South. Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws that imposed various voting restrictions, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and property-ownership requirements. These discriminatory practices effectively disenfranchised many Black voters and limited their political power.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act closely followed the language of the 15th Amendment, applying a nationwide prohibition on the denial or abridgment of the right to vote based on race or color. Section 4 contains several provisions that guarantee the right to register and vote for those with limited English proficiency, including those who have completed the sixth grade in a non-English-dominant public school. Section 5 required covered jurisdictions to obtain "preclearance" from the District Court or the U.S. Attorney General for any new voting practices and procedures.
The Voting Rights Act had an immediate impact, with a quarter of a million new Black voters registered by the end of 1965, a third of whom were registered by federal examiners. The Act was readopted and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982, and Congress amended it five times to expand its protections. It is considered the most effective federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country and the most significant statutory change in the relationship between federal and state governments regarding voting rights since the Reconstruction period.
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Frequently asked questions
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, guarantees that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This was a direct response to the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Black people, whether enslaved or free, were not citizens.
In 1857, the Dred Scott v. Sandford case saw the US Supreme Court declare that Black people, whether enslaved or free, were "a separate class of persons" and not citizens. This decision protected slavery and allowed discriminatory laws that denied equal citizenship to free Black people.
The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was specifically designed to repeal the Dred Scott decision. It established the principle of birthright citizenship, ensuring that anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen, regardless of race.
The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, granted African American men the right to vote, stating that the right of citizens to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The 13th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, also abolished slavery, prohibiting it throughout the United States. The 1965 Voting Rights Act further abolished remaining deterrents to exercising the right to vote and authorized federal supervision of voter registration.
