Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
13th Amendment (1865)
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.
14th Amendment (1868)
Section 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.
- Citizenship Clause: The first sentence of Section 1 in the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution. This clause represented
Congress's reversal of that portion of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that
declared that African Americans were not and could not become citizens of the
United States or enjoy any of the privileges and immunities of citizenship.
- Privileges and Immunities Clause: This clause protects fundamental rights of
individual citizens and restrains state efforts to discriminate against out-of-state
citizens. However, the Privileges and Immunities Clause extends not to all
commercial activity, but only to fundamental rights.
- Due Process Clause: This clause brought the Fifth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution to the state level. Before the 14th Amendment, the Constitution
provided limitations only at the federal level.
- Equal Protection Clause: The final clause of the 14th Amendment provided all
persons living within the United States “equal protection” under the law, forcing
states to adopt federal protections at the local level.
Section 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.. the basis of representation therein shall
be... the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
15th Amendment (1870)
Section 1. 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.
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Discussion
15th Amendment
14th Amendment
13th Amendment
#
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Literacy Tests
In U.S. practice from the 1890s to the 1960s, refers to the government practice of testing
the literacy of potential citizens at the federal level, and potential voters at the state
level. At first, whites were exempted from the literacy test if they could meet alternate
requirements (the grandfather clause) that, in practice, excluded blacks. Literacy tests
continued to be used to disenfranchise blacks. The tests were usually administered orally
by white local officials, who had complete discretion over who passed and who failed.
Alabama Voter Literacy Tests (c.1965)
In Part "A" you are given a section of the Alabama Constitution to read aloud. The
sections are taken from a big loose-leaf binder. For example, a white applicant might be
given:
SECTION 20: That no person shall be imprisoned for debt.
While a Black applicant might be given:
SECTION 260: The income arising from the sixteenth section trust fund, the surplus revenue
fund, until it is called for by the United States government, and the funds enumerated in
sections 257 and 258 of this Constitution, together with a special annual tax of thirty
cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property in this state, which the legislature
shall levy, shall be applied to the support and maintenance of the public schools, and it
shall be the duty of the legislature to increase the public school fund from time to time as
the necessity therefor and the condition of the treasury and the resources of the state
may justify; provided, that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to
authorize the legislature to levy in any one year a greater rate of state taxation for all
purposes, including schools, than sixty-five cents on each one hundred dollars' worth of
taxable property; and provided further, that nothing herein contained shall prevent the
legislature from first providing for the payment of the bonded indebtedness of the state
and interest thereon out of all the revenue of the state.
The Registrar marked each word that in his opinion you mispronounced. In some
counties, you had to orally interpret the section to the registrar's satisfaction. You then
had to either copy out by hand a section of the Constitution, or write it down from
dictation as the registrar spoke (mumbled) it. White applicants usually were allowed to
copy, Black applicants usually had to take dictation. The Registrar then judged whether
you were "literate" or "illiterate." His judgement was final and could not be appealed.
National Archives
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The State of Louisiana
Literacy Test (This test is to be given to anyone who cannot prove a fifth grade education.)
Do what you are told to do in each statement, nothing more, nothing less. Be careful as one wrong answer denotes
failure of the test. You have 10 minutes to complete the test.
l. Draw a line around the number or letter of this sentence.
2. Draw a line under the last word in this line.
3. Cross out the longest word in this line.
4. Draw a line around the shortest word in this line.
5. Circle the first, first letter of the alphabet in this line.
6. In the space below draw three circles, one inside (engulfed by) the other.
7. Above the letter X make a small cross.
8. Draw a line through the letter below that comes earliest in the alphabet.
ZVSBDMKITPHC
9. Draw a line through the two letters below that come last in the alphabet.
ZVBDMKTPHSYC
10. In the first circle below write the last letter of the first word beginning with "L".
1
2
3
4
5
11. Cross out the number necessary, when making the number below one million.
10000000000
12. Draw a line from circle 2 to circle 5 that will pass below circle 2 and above circle 4.
1
2
3
4
5
13. In the line below cross out each number that is more than 20 but less than 30.
31 16 48 29 53 47 22 37 98 26 20 25
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1960s Louisiana Literacy Test - Originally Transcribed by Jeff Schwartz - Retrieved From:http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28
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14. Draw a line under the first letter after "h" and draw a line through the second letter after “j".
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q
15. In the space below, write the word “noise" backwards and place a dot over what would be its second letter
should it have been written forward.
16. Draw a triangle with a blackened circle that overlaps only its left comer.
17. Look at the line of numbers below, and place on the blank, the number that should come next.
2 4 8 16 ____
18. Look at the line of numbers below, and place on the blank, the number that should come next.
3 6 9 ___ 15
19. Draw in the space below, a square with a. triangle in it, and within that same triangle draw a circle with a black
dot in it.
20. Spell backwards, forwards.
21. Print the word vote upside down. but in the correct order.
22. Place a cross over the tenth letter in this line, a line under the first space in this sentence, and circle around the
last the in the second line of this sentence.
23. Draw a figure that is square in shape. Divide it in half by drawing a straight line from its northeast comer to its
southwest corner, and then divide it once more by drawing a broken line from the middle of its western side to
the middle of its eastern side.
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1960s Louisiana Literacy Test - Originally Transcribed by Jeff Schwartz - Retrieved From:http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28
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24. Print a word that looks the same whether it is printed frontwards or backwards.
25. Write down on the line provided, what you read in the triangle below:
Paris
in the
the spring
26. In the third square below, write the second letter of the fourth word.
27. Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here.
28. Divide a vertical line in two equal parts by bisecting it with a curved horizontal line that is only straight as its
spot bisection of the vertical.
29. Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line, (original type smaller and first
line ended with a comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write.
30. Draw five circles that [have] one common inter-locking part.
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1960s Louisiana Literacy Test - Originally Transcribed by Jeff Schwartz - Retrieved From:http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Black Codes
Laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws
had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom, and of
compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.
Black Codes restricted black people's right to own property, conduct business,
buy and lease land, and move freely through public spaces. A central element
of the Black Codes were vagrancy laws, in which states classified not working as
criminal behavior. Failure to pay a certain tax, or to comply with other laws, could
also be construed as vagrancy. Nine states updated their vagrancy laws in 1865–
1866. Of these, eight allowed convicting leasing (a system in which state prison
hired out convicts for labor) and five allowed prisoner labor for public works
projects.
Another important part of the Codes were the annual labor contracts, which
Black people had to present in order to avoid vagrancy charges. Strict
punishments against theft also served to ensnare many people in the legal
system. Previously, Blacks had been part of the domestic economy on a
plantation, and were more or less able to use supplies that were available. After
emancipation, the same act performed by someone working the same land
might be labeled as theft, leading to arrest and involuntary labor.
Excerpt from Mississippian Law
That all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of
eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter,
without lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling
themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons so
assembling themselves with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, or usually
associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of
equality...shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in
a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro, or mulatto, fifty
dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned, at the discretion
of the court, the free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not
exceeding six months.
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
42 U.S. CODE § 1994 - PEONAGE ABOLISHED (National Legislation)
The holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as
peonage is abolished and forever prohibited in any Territory or State of the
United States; and all acts, laws, resolutions, orders, regulations, or usages of any
Territory or State, which have heretofore established, maintained, or enforced,
or by virtue of which any attempt shall hereafter be made to establish, maintain,
or enforce, directly or indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of
any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise, are
declared null and void.
R.S. § 1990 derived from act Mar. 2, 1867, ch. 187, § 1,14 Stat. 546.
Section was formerly classified to section 56 of Title 8, Aliens and Nationality.
The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873) (US Supreme Court Case)
Undoubtedly while negro slavery alone was in the mind of the Congress which
proposed the thirteenth article, it forbids any other kind of slavery, now or
hereafter. If Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie labor system shall develop
slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may
safely be trusted to make it void. And so if other rights are assailed by the States
which properly and necessarily fall within the protection of these articles, that
protection will apply, though the party interested may not be of African descent.
But what we do say, and what we wish to be understood is, that in any fair and
just construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is necessary to
look to the purpose which we have said was the pervading spirit of them all, the
evil which they were designed to remedy, and the process of continued addition
to the Constitution, until that purpose was supposed to be accomplished, as far
as constitutional law can accomplish it.
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Poll Taxes
A tax of a fixed amount per person levied as a condition of voting. Poll taxes
generally were not intended to raise revenue so much as to restrict the size of the
electorate by making voting more costly.
After the ability to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the
Fifteenth Amendment, many Southern states enacted poll tax laws as a means of
restricting eligible voters. Although largely associated with states of the former
Confederacy, poll taxes were also in place in other states. For instance, California
had a poll tax until 1914 when it was abolished through a popular referendum.
Poll taxes added a direct out-of-pocket transaction cost to voting by
charging money to vote. Texas adopted a poll tax in 1902. It required that
otherwise eligible voters pay between $1.50 and $1.75 to register to vote - a lot of
money at the time, and a big barrier to the working classes and poor. Poll taxes
disproportionately affected African Americans and Mexican Americans in Texas.
Between 1923 and 1944, Texas's Democratic Party used a succession of
statutory provisions to bar African-Americans from its primaries. Because Texas
was a one-party state, and the primaries decided who held office, this practice
prevented African-Americans from participating in the political process. These
statutory provisions were always contested, but the Texas Supreme Court ruled
that the Texas Democratic Party was a "voluntary association" and therefore
exempt from state jurisdiction.
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Grandfather Clause
The original grandfather clauses were contained in new state constitutions and
Jim Crow laws passed from 1890 to 1910 in many of the Southern United States to
prevent blacks, Mexican Americans (in Texas), and certain whites from voting.
Prohibitions on freedmen's voting in place before 1870 were nullified by the Fifteenth
Amendment.
An exemption to such requirements was made for all persons allowed to vote
before the American Civil War, and any of their descendants. The term grandfather
clause arose from the fact that the laws tied the then-current generation's voting
rights to those of their grandfathers.
Excerpt from Louisiana Elections Code
Sec. 5. No male person who was on January 1st, 1867, or at any date prior thereto,
entitled to vote under the Constitution or statutes of any State of the United States,
wherein he then resided, and no son or grandson of any such person not less than twenty
—one years of age at the date of the adoption of this Constitution, and no male person
of foreign birth, who was naturalized prior to the first day of January, 1898, shall be
denied the right to register and vote in this State by reason of his failure to possess the
educational or property qualifications prescribed by this Constitution; provided, he shall
have resided in this State for five years next preceding the date at which he shall apply
for registration, and shall have registered in accordance with the terms of this article prior
to September 1, 1898, and no person shall be entitled to register under this section after
said date. . . .
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5352/
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Birmingham Racial Segregation Ordinances 1950-51
S.E.C. 597 Negroes and White Persons Not To Play Together
It shall be unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together or in company
with each other in any game of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, baseball, softball,
football, basketball or similar games...
SECTION 359. SEPARATION OF RACES.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person in charge or control of any room, hall, theatre,
picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ballpark, public park, or other indoor or
outdoor place, to which both white persons and negroes are admitted, to cause,
permit or allow therein or thereon any theatrical performance, picture exhibition,
speech, or educational or entertainment program of any kind whatsoever, unless
such room, hall, theatre, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ball park, or other
place, has entrances, exits and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned
to the use of white persons, and other entrances, exits and seating or standing
sections set aside for and assigned to the use of negroes,unless the entrances, exits
and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned to the use of white persons
are distinctly separated from those set aside for and assigned to the use of negroes,
by well defined physical barriers, and unless the members of each race are effectively
restricted and confined to the sections set aside for and assigned to the use of such
race.
(b) It shall be unlawful for any member of one race to use or occupy any entrance,
exit or seating or standing section set aside for and assigned to the use of members of
the other race.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Public/civilrights/ordinances.html
An African-American man goes into the "colored" entrance of a movie theater in Belzoni, Mississippi, 1939
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts
to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district
boundaries to create partisan advantaged districts. The resulting district is known as a
gerrymander; however, that word can also refer to the process.
In addition to its use achieving desired electoral results for a particular party,
gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder a particular demographic, such as a political,
ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, or class group, such as in U.S. federal voting district
boundaries that produce a majority of constituents representative of African-American or
other racial minorities, known as "majority-minority districts".
The tables below demonstrate how Gerrymandering works. The first grid represents a fictional
area where no political boundaries are drawn. The other three maps demonstrate how a
political party can gain power just by by drawing district boundaries (represented by
different colors) by where different voting blocks are located.
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
D
D
R
R
D
D
R
R
D
D
R
R
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
Map Without
Districts
Democrats Get
Majority
Republicans Get
Majority
Even Split
The maps to the right demonstrate how the
redrawing of congressional districts can lead
to favoring one political party over the
other. For an example, the changes to Travis
County (Red) shifted power from the
Democrat party to the Republican party.
The Orange district in 2004, District 25,
favored the Democrat party. District 25 was
ordered to be redrawn due to a 2006 U.S.
Supreme Court decision.
Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was
drawn in reaction to the state senate electoral
districts drawn by the Massachusetts legislature to
favor the Democratic-Republican Party
candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the
Federalists. The caricature satirizes the bizarre
shape of a district in Essex County, Massachusetts
as a dragon-like "monster." Federalist newspapers
editors and others at the time likened the district
shape to a salamander, and the word
gerrymander was a blend of that word and
Governor Gerry's last name.
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and
1965 in the United States at the state and local level. They mandated de jure (by
law) 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 separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans
that tended to be inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a
number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. De jure
segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States. While Northern
segregation was generally de facto (by tradition or custom), there were patterns
of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and
job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.
W.E.B. Du Bois - Black Reconstruction (1935)
Slavery was not abolished even after the Thirteenth Amendment. There were
four million freedmen and most of them on the same plantation, doing the
same work that they did before emancipation, except as their work had
been interrupted and changed by the upheaval of war. Moreover, they were
getting about the same wages and apparently were going to be subject to
slave codes modified only in name. There were among them thousands of
fugitives in the camps of the soldiers or on the streets of the cities, homeless,
sick, and impoverished. They had been freed practically with no land nor
money, and, save in exceptional cases, without legal status, and without
protection.
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Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
What: The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for
blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy--who was seven-eighths
Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move
to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.
Decision: The state law is within constitutional boundaries. The majority upheld stateimposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-butequal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth
Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not
part of the opinion.) In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful
discrimination.
PLESSY v. FERGUSON. The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. 23 February 2014. <http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1895/1895_210>.
2/25/2014
2/25/2014
A Century of Racial Segregation 1849–1950 - Brown v. Board at Fifty: "With an Even Hand" | Exhibitions - Library of Congress
Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. African American School House near Summerville, South Carolina,
1938. Gelatin silver print. FSA-OWI Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress (26) [digital ID# br0026a]
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000030930/PP/
Broken school bus in Louisa County, Virginia. Visual Materials from the NAACP Records, Prints and
Photographs Division, Library of Congress (20.3) [Digital ID # ppmsca-05512] Courtesy of the NAACP
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004670190/
Broken school bus in Louisa County,
Virginia.
2/25/2014
A Century of Racial Segregation 1849–1950 - Brown v. Board at Fifty: "With an Even Hand" | Exhibitions - Library of Congress
African American School House near
Summerville, South Carolina
A Century of Racial Segregation 1849–1950 - Brown v. Board at Fifty: "With an Even Hand" | Exhibitions - Library of Congress
2/25/2014
A Century of Racial Segregation 1849–1950 - Brown v. Board at Fifty: "With an Even Hand" | Exhibitions - Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-segregation.html
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-segregation.html
1/1
1/1
School building in Louisa County, Virginia. Visual Materials from the NAACP Records, Prints and
Photographs Division, Library of Congress (20.4) [Digital ID# ppmsca-#05513] Courtesy of the NAACP
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004670189/
School building in Camden, Massachusetts. Visual Materials from the NAACP Records, Prints and
Photographs Division, Library of Congress (20.1) [Digital ID # ppmsca-05511] Courtesy of the NAACP
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004670188/
School building in Camden,
Massachusetts.
African American School House near
Summerville, South Carolina
National Archives
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http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-segregation.html
1/1
Reaction to the Reconstruction Amendments
Birmingham Racial Segregation Ordinances 1950-51
SECTION 1002. SEPARATION OF RACES.
Every common carrier engaged in operation streetcars in the city for the carriage of
passengers shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and
colored races by providing separate cars or by clearly indicating or designating by
physical visible marks the area to be occupied by each race in any streetcar in
which the two races are permitted to be carried together and by confining each
race to occupancy of the area of such streetcar so set apart for it.
Every common carrier engaged in operating streetcars in the city for the carrying of
passengers shall provide for each car used for white and colored passengers,
separate entrances and exits to and from such cars in such manner as to prevent
intermingling of the white and colored passengers when entering or leaving such
car, but this provision for separate entrances and exits shall not apply to the cars
operated on the following lines: The South Highlands, Idlewild and Rugby Highland
lines or routes.
It shall be unlawful for any such common carrier to operate or cause or allow to be
operated, or for any servant, employee or agent of any such common carrier to aid
in operating for the carriage of white or colored passengers, any streetcar not
equipped as provided in this section. And it shall be unlawful for any person, contrary
to the provisions of this section providing for equal and separate accommodations
for the white and colored races on streetcars, to ride or attempt to ride in a car or a
division of a car designated for the race to which such person does not belong.
Failure to comply with this section shall be deemed a misdemeanor.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Public/civilrights/ordinances.html
"White" and "Jim Crow" railcars; racial segregation in the United States as cartooned
by John McCutcheon (1904)
National Archives
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