The Supreme Court And Civil Rights

Paper Summary:

The writer argues that one of the major reasons why African-Americans failed to achieve equality in the United States, following the Civil War, is due to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. The writer proposes that this makes it necessary to examine the records of this branch of the American government in order to determine how these decisions impacted African-Americans after the Civil War. The paper analyzes five important Supreme Court cases adjudicated following the war, which made equality in the United States impossible for African-Americans. The paper concludes that these decisions of the Supreme Court undermined the ability of African-Americans to obtain equality under the law and had a very detrimental effect on this brave and often dangerous quest to gain equality in America during the days of the post-Reconstruction Era.

From the Paper:

"One of the first major Supreme Court cases considered after the Civil War was the Slaughterhouse cases, brought before the Court by the butchers of New Orleans in response to a law passed in 1869 by the legislature of the State of Louisiana which allowed the incorporation of the Live Stock and Slaughterhouse Company in New Orleans and granted them exclusive rights to slaughter livestock within the city, effectively granting them a monopoly. Thus, the butchers had no choice but to seek redress through the courts via a lawsuit which argued that the new law violated their fourteenth Amendment right to due process."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Foy, Laurence. "The Agony of Lynching." Online Image. 1920. The History of Jim Crow.11 March, 2006. Http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=segregation.
• McPherson, James, M. "Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875." Journal of American History. 52.3 (Dec. 1965): 493-510.
• "Negro Expulsion from Railway Car, Philadelphia" Online Image. 1896. The History of Jim Crow. 11 March, 2006. Http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/ scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?=collection =segregation.
• Painter, Nell. Creating Black Americans. New York: Oxford Press, 2006.
• Pheffer, Leo. This Honorable Court: A History of the United States Supreme Court. Boston: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1965.

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