The Bill of Rights (1791) sets out the freedoms that all American citizens should enjoy. This however did not mean every person living in the USA. There was a long history of slavery in America. Slavery was the foundation of the civil war between the South (slave states) and the North (free states) of America. President Lincoln, led the northern states, declared freedom for all slaves in his 1862 Emancipation Proclamation.
There were eleven States of America that were slave states, as they held slaves in a large ratio; they named themselves as “Confederates of America” while the other side was named as “The Union” (Valley of the shadow). The Union was comprised of all the Free States of America in which, there were no trend of keeping slaves and also there was no slave trade along with some slave states. According to the Union, the slave States that were fighting against the abolition of slavery were the Rebels, as they challenged the authority and equality of human beings. According to James B. Griffin, he was not ready to change his life style because of the subjugation of North. The officer informs through his correspondence with his wife through his letters that he has a number of slaves that are appointed do various chores related to plantation and household (McArthur and Burton 1996).
1896 Plessy VS Ferguson US Supreme Court Case HIST222 African American History after 1877 Instructor Dr. Donna J. Nicol June 13, 2010 Back in the twentieth century African Americans were newly freed slaves. These were very hard time for the African American race. Even though they were free the laws of the land did not allow African Americans to be treated as everyone else. “The end of the Civil War had promised racial equality, but by 1900 new laws and old customs created a segregated society that condemned Americans of color to second-class citizenship.”(Museum of American History) African Americans had to follow a different set of laws called the Jim Crow Law. Jim Crow Law was used to keep blacks separate from whites.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “I clam not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events controlled me” (Letter to Albert G. Hodges). In agreement with his quote, when President Lincoln distributed the exceptional Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Lincoln freed slaves in the Southern states, although he and his actions were being controlled by the civil war. On September22, 1862, in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln put forth a Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (Tackach 45). The document stated that after January 1, 1863, slaves belonging to all Southern states that were still in rebellion would be free (Tachach 45). Nevertheless, the Emancipation Proclamation had no instant until Thirteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1865, about three years after the Emancipation was ordained.
Lincoln supported the Union, which were the Northern States which held free blacks, and gave the Confederate States an ultimatum to join back with the Union or war will begin. Thus, the Civil War begun and it was during this time which Lincoln issued the Emancipation of Proclamation and freed the slaves in the United States. “In July of 1862 Congress passed a Confiscation Act, which enabled the freeing of slaves of those fighting in the Union.” (142) This is stating that any black that fought with the Union became a free man. The Union used this as a way of recruiting more blacks to fight in order to
It brings in the wake of capable of being but not yet in existence to undermine our most important rights and principles (KSS Companion, p77). These days most people seem to connect “living Constitution” with judicial decisions. With the completion of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, Congress made Missouri a slave state and Maine a free state. This did not allow slavery in any state acquired under the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Dred Scott was a slave that was taken into a free state by his owner and had to sue the Missouri Courts for his freedom which he won just to be later overturned.
The constitution claims all men are created equal and guarantees rights of “life, liberty, and happiness” (Mount). King claims blacks are denied rights that the government, upon its foundation, granted them. His evidence is the fact that blacks are not free; they cannot vote, they cannot eat in certain restaurants, and cannot attend certain schools. For instance, Abraham Lincoln set forth the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which was the first step towards slave freedom (Answers). The Proclamation freed slaves of Confederacy states and permitted African Americans to fight for the Union and fight for their own freedom from slavery (Answers).
This would mean an entirely different lifestyle for African Americans. There was still racism going on, but no African American was considered a slave. By ending slavery this forced the south to find a new way of supporting themselves and working their cash crops. In 1863 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation meaning that all people that were held as slaves within the United States shall be forever set free. But this did not end slavery in the nation.
The Emancipation Proclamation issued on 1863 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws enacted after the Reconstruction period in Southern United States, at state and local levels, and which continued in force until 1965, which mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. The South during the Reconstruction period introduced a new set of significant challenges. Jacksonian Democracy refers to the legal political philosophy of United States President Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed in the footsteps of
The South, for its part, had justified secession by claiming that slave states had to secede to save their and their way of life. The fact that the Border States where slavery was practice remained in the Union severely weakened this claim. Lincoln remained careful not to offend slave owners in the Border States. The example of his sensitivity to this issue is the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves free in only the secessionist states not the loyal Border States. Union’s eventual victory.