Race and American Society, 1865-1970s

Race and American Society, 1865-1970s

Chapter 3: Change from above: evidence concerning the role of state and federal authorities

OVERVIEW

• The system of ‘checks and balances’ was designed to prevent any one institution becoming too powerful.

CONGRESS, THE CONSTITUTION AND RECONSTRUCTION

• Enshrined in American Constitution were principles that civil rights activists fought for.
• Most relevant to race were amendments 13, 14 and 15.
• Their objective was to make sure these amendments were fully implemented in the whole of society.

Amendment 13

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United states, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

      2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Slavery cannot be enforced except as a punishment, for which the offender as been lawfully convicted.

 

• The abolition of slavery represented a social and economic revolution in southern states, enabling mass migration from plantations to cities, and then from South to North, setting up African-American businesses, black churches, schools and colleges.
• The southern former slave states resisted further concessions to equality by imposing the Black codes.
• They varied between states but effectively prevented most freed slaves from voting, sitting on juries, marrying whites, carrying guns and giving evidence against a white person.
• Also, many were obliged to agree to binding new contracts with plantation owners who had formerly owned them – the T&Cs were not far from slavery.
• In retaliation, northern republicans in congress, without support of President Johnson, passed a civil rights act in 1866 and demanded a 14^th amendment making Black codes illegal. Ratified in 1868.

Amendment 14

1. 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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States, Representatives in congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United states, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens of twenty-one years of age in such State.

3. No person shall be a senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an Officer of the United states, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or Rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorised by law,

including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United states, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

   

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

• The final ‘reconstruction’ amendment was the 15^th – in theory, this guarunteed voting rights of African Americans.
• In reality, intimidation and other strategies disenfranchised many for a long time afterwards.
• 15^th amendment ratified in 1870.

Amendment 15

1. The right of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or

      abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race,

      color, or previous condition of servitude.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate

      legislation.

                     

• 15^th amendment should have enfranchised 700,000 southern blacks, giving them the majority over the 600,000 white voters.
• Many African Americans were elected in lesser posts, none were elected as governors during the reconstruction era, whites continued to dominate senates.

Sanders gave several possible reasons for this:

• Blacks lacked education, organisation and experience
• Blacks were accustomed to white leadership and domination
• The black community was divided. Ex-slaves resented free-born blacks who saw themselves as superior
• Blacks were a minority in most states
• Sure of the black vote, the Republican Party usually put forward white candidates in the hope of attracting more white votes.
• White republicans usually considered blacks to be less able to govern than whites
• Southern black leaders were usually moderates who had no desire to exclude ex-confederates from office.