According to the discussion with fellow classmates about the topic of consistency in reference to the Constitution and Bill of Rights along with the comparison of the newly added Reconstruction Amendments 13th, 14th and 15th, did change American society drastically, but continues to have an ongoing impact in the 21st century most important modern day immigration. It was a catalyst for many other movements such as the Women's suffrage and rise of Feminists. A slow progressive change and thought within the South as Slaves we're considered equals, at least in theory; to the extent of becoming American citizens are allowed to have opinions and rights. Elected African Americans held office titles which aided communities in education for support of public school systems, service for lower class and corrective labor laws. Despite the change of outward appearance in rapid social change isn't always mirrored as the mentality of former slave owners and anti-abolitionist's refusal of intermingling with reformed ex slaves. A collective of White Americans strongly insisted segregation would work best. Although a positive change had allowed equality to flourish, the negative counteraction occurred such as terrorist groups. In the …show more content…
discussions the overall unanimous opinion we're that black slaves felt they had integrated into society and we're made to feel like human beings. This seems to be troublesome because of ongoing racial violence, lynchings, verbal and physical abuses of African Americans and Liberal White Americans who we're in favor of abolition. Poverty also played a stronghold for many freed African Americans. Eric Foner quotes , An elderly ex slave by the name of Mary Gaffney, she summed up the end of Reconstruction as, " We were not given a thing but freedom." In the discussion many fellow classmates had come to the conclusion that because an amendment was placed and Emancipation was established, it would be inaccurate to assume freed slaves we're living with the same equality and rights of White Americans . The existence of rights and laws is no guarantee in and of itself that it would be executed and applied with the same consideration of the social and ethical context that they we're created to protect. Which leads into the 2nd discussion of the Western expansion of The Great Plains and further out West. This mass migration in search for the American Dream in order to form the country as a union was used as an incentive. Yet the execution relied on the backs of poor labor, a massive genocide and Reservation relocation of Native Nations. The advancement of the country such as railroads, steel and oil lead to sole ownership franchises, Trust and Capitalism. Intimidation of smaller businesses, Monopolizing of many companies would never allow small industry to prosper unless a percentage is given in order to have a chance at success. Even though many of my fellow classmates agreed with Carnegie, Gould, Morgan and Rockefeller are "Captains of Industry" which did pave the way for business models and Entrepreneurs , lead to many advancements yet the competition to monopolize every industry with vicious intimidation tactics and buying out small businesses.
Employment was on the rise yet the corruption that allowed many people to work for low pay, lengthy work hours and atrocious working conditions. The constant theme in a growing young country is the rapid change of radical ideas, the endless trial and error of progressive ideologies with the misconduct and exploitation of certain ethnic groups of people in order for it to become a public
concern. Unions are formed to try and make a change, it had the right intention of involving people of all races to protest the exploitation of labor in the work force. The Haymarket Square Protest lead to a violent exchange in Chicago for the fight of more appropriate working conditions. The American Federation of Labor Union formed, its aim was to specific skilled workers who we'er white American. Often businesses willingly participated in reform and negotiations. The continued abuse of low wages with the high cost of living continues to affect the work force, such as the Trucking industry, fast food chains and super stores. Often times a certain demographic of people working at these companies are often overlooked. Ultimately the distraction of social media and entertainment can hinder a generation of the realities occurring in the country. Social injustices, racism, deportation, immigration laws, and civil rights continue to be an ongoing issue in the 21st century. The past is not a distant memory. Relatively two generations ago civil rights we're fought against segregation, interment camps for specific ethnicity and deportation raids. Acknowledging United States history can give a foreshadow of how it may be digressing or progressing as time passes. History has a tendency to repeat a constant transition of trial and error.
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In 1866, the KKK started a wave of violence and abuse against negroes in the south, destroying their properties, assaulting and killing them in different ways, just because angry white people do not want the blacks to stand up and join in political or any kind of issues or freedom. The Fourteenth Amendment did surely constitute the biggest development of government force following the approval of the Constitution.
In this essay I will be writing about the effectiveness of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America and considering whether they achieved the purpose of making life better for African Americans. I’m going to start this essay by talking about the Amendments and what they were designed to achieve.
We saw the Thirteenth Amendment occur to abolish slavery. We also saw the Civil Rights Acts which gave full citizenship, as well as the prohibiting the denial of due process, etc. Having the civil rights laws enabled African Americans to new freedoms which they did not used to have. There was positive change occurring in the lives of African Americans. However, there was still a fight to suppress African Americans and maintain the racial hierarchy by poll taxes and lengthy and expensive court proceedings. Sadly, this is when Jim Crow laws appeared. During this time African Americans were losing their stride, there was an increase in prison populations and convict labor, and the convicts were
Throughout time there have been many amendments to the United States Constitution. Some have had little to no effect on the population. One amendment that this writer will take a look at is the Fourteenth Amendment. The wording of the amendment has been debated here recently but bottom line it abolished slavery. This amendment also made an attempt to equalize everyone that is born here in America or naturalized. The ripple effect of this change to the constitution is still being felt today. It is hard to imagine living in a world where the African American community was not considered equal to the white man. A ground breaking distinction in the language written out in the document was that of it applying on the federal level as well as the state jurisdiction. This is especially important as we see the civil union marriages have conflict
Black and white abolitionists shared common assumptions about the evil of slavery, the "virtue of moral reform", and the certainty of human progress"(1). Schor, Garnet,1877, & Lanngston, 1989). This shared understanding provided "the basic for the interracial solidarity" and cooperation so vital in the crusade against slavery"(2). (Schor and Garnet, 1877). But blacks also brought a distinct perspective to the antislavery movement. Their abolitionism was shaped profoundly by their personal experience and racial oppression. Unlike most white abolitionists, they conceived of antidlavery as an all-encompassion struggle for racial equality, and they took a more pragramatic, less doctrinaire approach to antislavery tactics. The contrast between the two abolitionists -- black and white -- become increasingly apparent in the 1840s and 1850s as black expressed a growing militancy, asserted greater independence, and called for racially exclusive organization and initiatives.
Bruce Catton made the statement that when the two sides of the nation went to war they destroyed one America, inventing another, which is still forming in the present. The war changed the political aspect of the country expanding the federal government. While local state governments still exist in the present, its power had, is much more restricted than what it was in the pre-war years. Such examples like the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed during Reconstruction; they showed the power that the federal government had in post-war America. Though the amendments promised voting rights and anti-discrimination laws towards African Americans, the federal government forced the Southern States to accept these amendments amongst other regulations to become part of the Union, showing the true power that the government had over the nation and the states. Society and the economy of the nation were have affected the South though farming and sharecropping still existed, life like that of the Antebellum years was over, leading to industrialization to begin to take place in the South. Such social issues as racism still affect and affected the nation well into the mid-twentieth century with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, which saw its main emphases of events in the 1950s and
The immigrant’s journey to America, as depicted throughout history, transports culture, language, beliefs and unique lifestyles from one land to the other, but also requires one to undergo an adaptation process. The children of these immigrants, who are usually American-born, experience the complexity of a bicultural life, even without completely connecting to the two worlds to which they belong. Potentially resulting is the internal desire to claim a singular rather than dual identity, for simplicity, pride and a sense of acceptance. Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian-American author and writer of “My Two Lives” could never classify herself as.
Between 1860 and 1877, America experienced a number of constitutional and social changes, as a result of the Republican election and loss of southern power that lead to the Civil War, and the reconstruction efforts that would follow, inevitably proving unsuccessful. During this period, the south, and the freedmen left residing in southern states as well, had to adjust to a new society, driven by constitutional developments such as the Emancipation Proclamation, and later, the 13th amendment, which freed slaves and left them to assimilate into a white civilization. These freedmen gained the rights to vote, hold positions of power in congress, serve in the army, and own land- which although would not last for a very long period- would prove to
The laws undermined the thirteenth, fourteenth,and fifteenth amendments. The thirteenth amendment completely abolished slavery.The fourteenth amendment stated that all people born or naturalized in America were American citizens, even African Americans and former slaves. The fifteenth amendment stated that people could not be denied the right to vote no matter their race, color, or former condition of servitude. States, especially those in the south, started passing laws that pushed African Americans down into second class. Southern states soon made the Grandfather Clause, all voters must pay a poll tax, take a literacy and property test, and an understanding clause. They were able to do this by saying it was to disqualify the the poor and unintelligence people from voting.
African Americans have a history of struggles because of racism and prejudices. Ever since the end of the Civil War, they struggled to benefit from their full rights that the Constitution promised. The fourteenth Amendment, which defined national citizenship, was passed in 1866. Even though African Americans were promised citizenship, they were still treated as if they were unequal. The South had an extremely difficult time accepting African Americans as equals, and did anything they could to prevent the desegregation of all races. During the Reconstruction Era, there were plans to end segregation; however, past prejudices and personal beliefs elongated the process.
Lincoln led our nation through one of the most important times in our country’s history. The Civil War generated political and social changes that altered the course of the United States of America. While successful in gradually abolishing the institution of slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation failed to eliminate racial discrimination against the African Americans. Despite gaining their independence, the racial habits and policies of the southern states continued to impact the freed slaves’ quality of life. Through the use of intimidation and segregation, even after the abolition of slavery, white southerners stripped black citizens of many of the rights that were granted to them in the American Constitution as well as the Fourteenth
Tragically, however, very few of these goals were achieved. It seems as if every time the African Americans manage to move one step closer to reaching true equality among the Southern whites, whether it be in a social, political, or economic fashion, the whites always react by committing violent acts against them. Initially, the Southern whites (in fear of black supremacy in Southern politics) fought to preserve the white supremacy Southern politics had always functioned by. This “ushered most African Americans to the margins of the southern political world” (Brinkley, 369). Secondly, African Americans struggled to survive once they were set free; they had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Because of such reasons, most former slaves decided to remain living on their plantations as tenants, paying their tenancy by working the crop fields. Sadly, even this failed for the African Americans due to the birth of the crop-lien system. Lastly, the Southern whites counteracted the effects of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments by establishing the Jim Crow laws, which aided them with upholding, if not increasing, the steady level of segregation in the South. Ultimately, out of the very few accomplishments made by the African American population during and following the Era of Reconstruction, there existed one achievement significant enough to change the course of American history: the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. As a result of these amendments, “would one day serve as the basis for a “Second Reconstruction” that would renew the drive to bring freedom to all Americans” (Brinkley,
Every year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, legal and illegal, from around the world, come to the United States. These immigrants come because they want a chance at a better life; others are refugees, escaping persecution and civil wars in their home country. Many people believe the United States is the best place to go. There is more freedom, protection, and benefits, which seems like a good deal to immigrants. But the large number of immigration is affecting the current citizens of the United States. Taxpayers are forced to pay for the welfare and schooling for many of these immigrants, some who are illegal aliens. Some citizens believe that immigration can be hazardous to the environment. Others blame crime, poverty, and overpopulation on immigration. About sixty-eight million immigrants have been added to the United States since 1970, and it is estimated that 130 million people will be added over the next fifty years. The government has tried somewhat to restrict immigration but the laws are still too lenient. Nearly every other advanced country in the world is moving quickly towards stabilized population or has already achieved it. The United States is moving towards it very slowly. This country would have to reduce immigration down to 255,000 a year to do this (Beck 1). If nothing is done to stabilize the immigration to this country, what will become of population in the next decade? The population will continue to grow even faster - not due to births, but to massive immigration to this country. Immigration can become a serious problem to this country if the government does not produce stricter laws.
During this time, the idea of segregation was a very controversial topic among the c...