U.S. Government and Civics / Unit 5: Civil Rights and Citizenship
5.1 The Civil War Amendments
Notes
Civil rights are protections against unequal treatment by government or, under some laws, by private groups. After the Civil War, three amendments changed the Constitution.
- ***Dred Scott v. Sandford* (1857)**: ruled that Black Americans were not citizens. The 14th Amendment later overturned this.
- 13th Amendment (1865): abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime.
- 14th Amendment (1868): everyone born or naturalized in the U.S. is a citizen; no state may deny due process or the equal protection of the laws.
- 15th Amendment (1870): the right to vote cannot be denied because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
- After Reconstruction, Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and violence to keep Black citizens from voting, and passed Jim Crow segregation laws.
Practice
Which amendment guarantees "equal protection of the laws"?
The equal protection clause is in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause directly overturned which decision?
It made all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. (and subject to its jurisdiction) citizens, reversing Dred Scott.
Literacy tests used in the South after Reconstruction were designed to get around which amendment?
The tests were used to deny Black citizens the vote without naming race.
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