Unit 4: Post-Civil War Era

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.

Source: 14th Amendment, Section 1, United States Constitution

This amendment was adopted in 1868 primarily to

• protect the rights of formerly enslaved persons

• make it easier for immigrants to become citizens

• extend suffrage to settlers on the Great Plains

• require the federal government to pay the costs of Reconstruction

. . . The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored [African American] children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced. . . .

Source: United States Supreme Court ruling, 1896

Which Supreme Court case is this document most likely related to?

• Plessy v. Ferguson

• Korematsu v. United States

• United States v. Susan B. Anthony

• Worcester v. Georgia

. . . The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored [African American] children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced. . . .

Source: United States Supreme Court ruling, 1896

In this 1896 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of

• the Three-fifths Compromise

• Jim Crow laws

• affirmative action programs

• racial integration

Excerpt of an 1874 report by Freedman Samuel J. Lee. Lee was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in the elections of 1868. He became Speaker of the House in 1872.

"Permit me, now to refer to our increased educational advantages. It is very pleasing, gentlemen, to witness how rapidly the schools are springing up in every portion of our State, and how the number of competent, well trained teachers are increasing. . . .

Our State University has been renovated and made progressive. New Professors, men of unquestionable ability and erudition, now fill the chairs once filled by men who were too aristocratic to instruct colored youths. A system of scholarships has been established that will, as soon as it is practically in operation, bring into the University a very large number of students... The effects of education can also be perceived; the people are becoming daily more enlightened; their minds are expanding, and they have awakened, in a great degree, from the mental darkness that hitherto surrounded them..."

What was the “mental darkness” referred to by the author?

• segregation in public facilities enforced by Jim Crow policies

• illiteracy of enslaved people caused by slave codes that banned enslaved people from learning to read and study

• the violent oppression perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan

• the growth of anti-racism in the South following the end of the Civil War

Which statement best describes the illustrator’s perspective in this document?

• Americans should support statehood for Nevada and Montana

• African Americans should be allowed to vote

• Women should be allowed to vote

• The government should pass the Equal Rights Amendment

Information in the cartoon most clearly supports the conclusion that by 1914

• states along the East Coast had granted full voting rights to women

• women could vote only in state elections

• most states had approved at least some voting rights for women

• complete national suffrage for women had been achieved

This pair of photographs suggests that the major purpose of the Carlisle Indian School was to

• train future leaders in tribal traditions

• prepare children for life on the reservation

• teach skills needed for working in factories

• promote cultural assimilation

A historian would find this document most useful for

• Studying the impact of the Transcontinental Railroad on Native Americans of the Great Plains

• Studying the Trail of Tears

• Studying the impact of U.S. westward expansion on Native Americans

• Studying traditional Native American cultures

Document 1

ARTICLE VIII Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please…Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States….

Source: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848

Document 2

… [T]he [former] Mexican citizens, were not given full U.S. citizenship until the 1930s. Former Mexican citizens were almost universally considered foreigners by the U.S. settlers who moved into the new territories. In the first half century after ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, hundreds of state, territorial, and federal legal bodies produced a complex tapestry of conflicting opinions and decisions bearing on the meaning of the treaty. … In. U.S. courts, the property rights of former Mexican citizens in California, New Mexico, and Texas proved to be fragile. Within a generation the Mexican-Americans became a disenfranchised, poverty-stricken minority.

Source: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by Richard Griswold del Castillo, 2006

Which claim is best supported by the evidence presented in Documents 1 and 2?

• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted Mexican citizens dual citizenship.

• Immediately after the Mexican-American War, the U.S. government confiscated the territory won from Mexico.

• The United States did not respect the protections promised to Mexican-Americans under the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War.

• Mexicans chose to settle in the U.S. Southwest after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

That the master of any vessel who shall knowingly bring within the United States on such vessel, and land or permit to be landed, any Chinese laborer, from any foreign port or place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each and every such Chinese laborer so brought, and may be also imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year.

Source: Section 2, Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882

Passage of this legislation was mainly a response to

• economic and race-based opposition to immigrants in the western United States

• demands by businesses for additional workers

• efforts of the American Federation of Labor to recruit skilled workers

• pressure from railroads to limit competition in shipping