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The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution delineates the national frame and constrains the powers of the federal government. The Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, in which the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress ; the executive, consisting of the president and subordinate officers ; and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. Article IV, Article V, and Article VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the shared process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure subsequently used by the 13 states to ratify it. The Constitution of the United States is the oldest and longest-standing written and codified national constitution in force in the world.
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Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877. Such legally enforced segregation in the south lasted into the 1960s.
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The Founding Fathers of the United States, commonly referred to simply as the Founding Fathers, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain, established the United States, and crafted a framework of government for the new nation.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the 43rd United States Congress and signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875. The act was designed to "protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights", providing for equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and prohibiting exclusion from jury service. It was originally drafted by Senator Charles Sumner in 1870, but was not passed until shortly after Sumner's death in 1875. The law was not effectively enforced, partly because President Grant had favored different measures to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the Southern United States.
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The "rights of Englishmen" are the traditional rights of English subjects and later English-speaking subjects of the British Crown.
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those in earlier documents, especially the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), as well as the Northwest Ordinance (1787), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and Magna Carta (1215).
Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1 (1906), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court limiting the power of Congress to make laws under the Thirteenth Amendment. Three white men had been convicted in the Eastern Arkansas District Court for conspiring against black sawmill workers.
Justice and Jurisprudence is a book that was first published in 1889 by the Brotherhood of Liberty. It was a critique of rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States on the Reconstruction Amendments. The book is "the first known comprehensive book on jurisprudence written by blacks" and serves as a valuable source of information on African Americans' legal opinions in the late 19th century.
During the Reconstruction era, Alabama was put under U.S. military rule. A constitutional convention was held. Enslavement of African Americans ended and the federal Reconstruction Acts enshrined their basic civil and political rights. African Americans were elected to state and local offices and others were appointed to public offices. Public school systems were established including schools and colleges for African Americans.
References
- ↑ "Alexander Tsesis | College of Law".
- ↑ "Faculty and Administration Profiles: Raymond & Mary Simon Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law: School of Law: Loyola University Chicago". luc.edu. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
- ↑ Rutherglen, George (2010). "Alexander Tsesis, We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. 384. $35.00 (ISBN 978-0300118377)". Law and History Review. 28 (3): 887–889. doi:10.1017/S073824801000057X. S2CID 145562597.
- ↑ Wolters, R. (2009). "We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law. By Alexander Tsesis. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. xii, 369 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-300-11837-7.)". Journal of American History. 95 (4): 1146–1147. doi:10.2307/27694594. JSTOR 27694594.
- ↑ Davis, Thomas J. (2009). "Alexander Tsesis . We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law . New Haven : Yale University Press . 2008 . Pp. x, 369. $35.00". The American Historical Review. 114 (4): 1064–1065. doi:10.1086/ahr.114.4.1064.
- ↑ "WE SHALL OVERCOME: A HISTORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE LAW" . Retrieved 1 January 2021.
- ↑ "Knowles on Tsesis, 'The Promises of Liberty: The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment' | H-Law | H-Net". Networks.h-net.org.
- ↑ Waldrep, C. (2011). "The Promises of Liberty: The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment". Journal of American History. 98 (3): 837–838. doi:10.1093/jahist/jar346.
- ↑ Baranowski, Brad (2016). "For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence. By Alexander Tsesis. Oxford University Press. 2014. 397pp. $24.95/£16.99.: Book Review". History. 101 (345): 325–326. doi:10.1111/1468-229X.12214.
- ↑ Lafferty, Konya (2012). "For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence, by Alexander Tsesis". Unbound - an Annual Review of Legal History and Rare Books. 5: 157.
- ↑ Flaherty, M. S. (2014). "For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence". Journal of American History. 101 (1): 246–247. doi:10.1093/jahist/jau229.