Constitutional Amendments - The Reconstruction Amendments (14th)

From time to time, the Supreme Court has extended civil rights protections groups that historically have been denied rights guaranteed to other Americans. Sometimes the Supreme Court has done this by interpreting and applying principles found in existing Constitutional amendments.

Which legal principle did the Supreme Court use to extend the Bill of Rights guarantees to state laws and to broaden civil rights protections for minorities?

• the "two-thirds clause" of the 13th Amendment

• the "incorporation clause" of the 14th Amendment

• the "due process clause" of the 14th Amendment

• Section 1 of the 15th Amendment

After the Civil War, which goal did the federal government hope to accomplish during Reconstruction?

• extending rights to southern women

• establishing freedoms for former slaves

• ensuring political power for Southern Democrats

• guaranteeing southern white control over the social and economic condition of African-Americans

Select all the ways the federal government attempted to accomplish their goals in the South during Reconstruction.

• abolishment of slavery

• establishment of Jim Crow Laws

• ratification of the 14th Amendment

• ratification of the 19th Amendment

• guaranteeing the rights of Dixiecrats

Which statement describes one of the conditions this Reconstruction era amendment was designed to correct?

• Freed African-American men in the South were still being denied the right to vote.

• Arguing that African-American men were not citizens, some southern states tried to re-establish slavery.

• African-American men in the former Confederacy were permanently denied rights under the Constitution.

• Freed African-American men continued to be denied their rights as American citizens in some states.

The Reconstruction Amendments were created in response to:

• the Great Migration

• abolition

• the 13th Amendment

• the Black Codes

This image is representative of the first of the Reconstruction amendments, which abolishes slavery and is the:

• 12th Amendment

• 13th Amendment

• 14th Amendment

• 15 Amendment

The excerpt below is from the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

 

Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities . . . may be equal, deprive children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

 

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely on the basis of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status and community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone. . . . Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

 

We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

 

The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education reflects a change in the application of which constitutional principle? 

• the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment

• the due process clause of the 15th amendment

• the necessary and proper clause of Article I

• the full faith and credit clause of Article IV

This image represents which amendment?

As a citizen of the United States, you are entitled to all of the following protections by the federal government EXCEPT:

• life

• gerrymandering

• liberty

• equal protection under the law