It is apparent that some of you have quit! Now is not the time to give up!

2. It is apparent that some of you have quit! Now is not the time to give up! This is what perseverance means! Study Session has 6 nights of work Essential Question has 4 sets of questions Research and Review Group has 3 questions Research Group has 3 questions There are two more presentations, today and next Wednesday. You finish your homework on time, you can opt out of the exam. The ability to persevere is a reflection of your personal maturity!

3. Freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly, and petition government. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. No soldier shall stay in anyone's house without the owner's consent. No searches of a person's belongings without a warrant or probable cause. Not required to answer to a court. Nobody can be brought to trial twice for the same crime (no double jeopardy) and no self-incrimination (can’t be a witness against yourself). Right to a speedy and fair trial. If there is a lawsuit of more than $20 brought against you, you have the right to a trial. No excessive bail, or cruel punishments shall be held against you. The Constitution doesn't deny pre-existing rights. Everything not in the Constitution will be up to the states to decide. Eleventh Amendment (1795) to the Constitution of the United States establishes the principle of state sovereign immunity. The Twelfth Amendment (1804) to the United States Constitution provides the procedure by which the President and Vice President are elected.

4. Reconstruction 1865 - 1877 It was during this time period that three prominent ideas regarding Reconstruction become prevalent. The first vision of Reconstruction was promoted by President’s Lincoln and Johnson. They both took moderate positions designed to quickly bring the South back into the Union as soon as possible. Next, would be the radical extreme approach to Reconstruction as promoted by the Radical Republican group. This group sought to improve the rights of the African Americans while limiting the rights of the former Confederate leadership as demonstrated in the Wade Davis Bill. Finally, there was the emancipationist vision which fought for full freedoms, citizenship and constitutional equality for all African Americans while not necessarily seeking revenge from the previous Southern leadership. This view was promoted by a Republican coalition in the South who set out to transform the Southern society by protect the legal rights of all Freedmen. Needless to say, this period of Reconstruction in the United States was a significant chapter in the history of the development of Civil Rights.

5. The Civil War Amendments were passed as a direct response to the outcome of the Civil War. All three of these amendments dealt directly with the final destruction of slavery. As you might recall, that even though the South lost the Civil War, they continually tried to pass laws that would restrict the Freedmen rights and freedoms. Congress at that time, which was controlled by the Northern Republicans responded by passing legislation in the form of Constitutional Amendments which would overrule any local laws passed by the South. (Cause and Effect) And the South was required to abide by these new amendments. 13th Amendment – Outlawed slavery in the United States (South passes Black Codes) 14th Amendment – All former slaves now citizens of the US with full privileges. (Yet, couldn’t vote) 15th Amendment – Gave all former slaves the right to vote

6. The 13th Amendment was approved in Congress in January 1865 The purpose of the 13th Amendment was to fulfill Lincoln’s pledge to free the slaves that was initially set forth in his Emancipation Proclamation (which in fact did not free any slaves) WHY? The 13th Amendment therefore enacted law that banned slavery throughout the entire nation. Politically, the 13th Amendment overturned previous state laws and Supreme Court decisions that previously upheld slavery. As well, all Southern states were required to ratify the 13th Amendment in order to gain readmittance to the union. The 13th Amendment also gave Congress the power to intervene and pass additional legislation protecting civil rights. Amendment XIII Section 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. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

7. The history behind the 13th Amendment’s adoption is an interesting story. Prior to the Civil War, in February 1861, Congress had passed a 13th Amendment for an entirely different purpose--to guarantee the legality of slavery in the slave states, rather than to end it. This amendment guaranteeing slavery was a result of the complicated sectional politics of the previous period, and a futile effort to prevent a Civil War. Although the 13th Amendment that guaranteed slavery was narrowly passed by both houses, the Civil War started before it could be sent to the states for ratification.

8. But the final version of the Thirteenth Amendment--the one ending slavery--has an interesting story of its own. Passed during the Civil War years, when southern congressional representatives were not present for debate, one would think today that it must have easily passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Not true. As a matter of fact, although passed in April 1864 by the Senate, with a vote of 38 to 6, the required two-thirds majority was defeated in the House of Representatives by a vote of 93 to 65. Abolishing slavery was almost exclusively a Republican party effort--only four Democrats voted for it.

9. It was then that President Abraham Lincoln took an active role in pushing the 13th Amendment through Congress. He insisted that the passage of the 13th Amendment be added to the Republican party platform for the upcoming presidential elections. His efforts finally met with success, when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119-56. Finally, Lincoln insisted that Southern state legislatures ratify the 13th Amendment before they would be allowed to return to Congress with full rights. The fact that Lincoln had difficulty in gaining passage of the 13th Amendment towards the closing months of the war and after his Emancipation Proclamation had been in effect 12 full months, establishes the fact that there was still a large of the northern people, that were either indifferent towards, or directly opposed to, freeing the slaves.

10. Following the War and as Southern states were being readmitted into the Union, Republicans feared that the Supreme Court might use its power of Judicial Review to declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. Remember that in 1866 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which not only repealed the Dred Scott decision, it also supported the citizenship rights given to the African Americans and voided the Black Codes. As well, in the Dred Scott decision of 1857 the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were not citizens. To avoid a similar ruling, Republicans proposed the 14th Amendment which defined citizens as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”. The 14th Amendment therefore guarantees its citizens equal protection of the law and forbid the states to deprive any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law”.

11. The Equal Protection Clause is the key to understanding the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws". The 14th Amendment was enacted to apply all of the rights included within the Bill of Rights and other amendments to the states and was done under the premise that everyone deserved equal protections under the laws regardless of where they lived or what color of skin they had. Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896) is the U.S. Supreme Court case that legitimized the 'separate but equal' doctrine. Which basically establishes legal segregation (Jim Crow Laws) This 'separate but equal' standard was law until it was challenged in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), which held that even if separate schools are equal, the negative impact of the separation on the races in the minds of the people was not repairable.

12. In July of 1868, the 14th Amendment passed, granting African Americans citizenship with full rights. (ie voting) Former confederate states were required to ratify the 14th Amendment as part of the plan to be readmitted. In the election of 1868, the Southern states were required to allow the African American population to vote for President and nearly all of them supported the northern general Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant who easily won the election of 1868. In 1869, Congress proposed the 15th Amendment which would forbid any state to deny its citizens the right to vote because of race, color or previous condition of service. Republicans had moral and political reasons for supporting the 15th Amendment, this being the sacrifices that African American soldiers made in the Civil War.

13. They also believe it was not right that African Americans could vote in the North but not the South. Politically speaking, the Republicans also knew that if they could guarantee the African Americans could vote in the South, they would vote Republican and help them win elections. By 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified and all African American men over the age of 21 had the right to vote. The 15th Amendment was difficult to enforce though as the South found ways to make it difficult for African Americans to vote, primarily through intimidation. It wasn’t until the mid 1900’s that new legislation finally protected voting rights and the full impact of the 15th Amendment was felt.

14. In summary these Civil War Amendments were intended to restructure the United States from a country that was, in Abraham Lincoln's words "half slave and half free" to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to the entire population, including the former slaves and their families. Unfortunately, the promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions over the course of the 19th century. The full benefits of these Civil War Amendments were not realized until the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.