Reconstructing America

     The Reconstruction Era is known as the most significant time of the American civil rights. This period starts off with lots of questions, for it began with General Robert E Lee surrendering to General Ulysses S Grant. This ultimately meant the end of the civil war, and was supposed to mean the end of slavery, but this era proved quite differently. This era treated African Americans worse than they had ever imagined.

    The civil war ruined any possible chance of the states all coming together. The South states that the Union is trying to take away their rights, while the Union states that they simply want to abolish slavery. After the war, the Southern economy was ruined, for they had no slaves to make a profit off of.

    The initial idea behind the Reconstruction Era was to rebuild this new United States without slavery, and to figure out how to deal with the effects of the end of the civil war. Lincoln is president during this time, but not for long, for he is shot, by John Wilkes Booth, before he can really put his ideas into effect. After Lincoln is shot, Andrew Johnson succeeds him, and this is where things really go down hill.

    Johnson had quite different views from Lincoln and Congress. Now, before Johnson, there was the Freedman's Bureau, which gave newly freed men 40 acres of land to make profit off of. Johnson had been making pardons to confederates for land, so he told Oliver Howard to give that land back to the confederates that he had pardoned. This of course upset those who were already living on and working on that land, but there was nothing that they could do. 

    There were several other instances of black people being treated unfairly during the Reconstruction. For starters, black codes, which included a labor contract for black adults, existed to limit the freedom of black people. Those who refused to sign the contract were fined, and if they could not pay the fine, they would be auctioned off until the paid off the fine. Also, the KKK, which served the the same purpose as slave patrols, existed to monitor and enforce rules on black people. Riots in Memphis and New Orleans, which included lots of white people going around and killing innocent black people, led to lots of uproar in the United States.

    The Reconstruction Era teased black people with the promise of freedom and the hope of a better life. It really just lit a fire in the South's butt, and inspired them to figure out new ways to get blacks back under their control. Andrew Johnson also proved himself to be on the opposite side of freedom for black and for the unifying of the states.

Plessy Vs Ferguson

     Plessy versus Ferguson is one of the most discussed court cases in all of history. This is mainly because it established the "separate but equal" mantra that we all know too well. Today, I'm going to explain how Ferguson had the stronger argument, even though I do not agree with the ruling.

    First off, a big thing that helped their case was that Plessy was fully aware that he was breaking the law. This served for the purpose of allowing the prosecutors to say that allowing him to get away with this would let others think it is okay for them to do it too. Since most white people were scared of black people, they were completely fine with the law. To support the religious side of the court, Ferguson provided that God made them separate races for a reason. They believe that God separated blacks and whites from the beginning, and disobeying that would be a sin. 

    Plessy does state that the law gives black people a "badge of inferiority" that even their kids have to live with.  Ferguson says that the state had worked very hard to integrate black people into everyday society. The prosecution continued to state that the law does not show inferiority, but then continues to state that blacks have allowed themselves to be seen as inferior, which seems to contradict each other. 

    Since many whites agree with this Louisiana law, they believe that segregation does not equal to unlawful discrimination. Ferguson presumes that the law is a necessity for society to be balanced and to work correctly. Black people are given the same amenities as their white counterparts; therefore, the separation should be allowed. They state that black rights are not being taken away, for they can still vote and serve on a jury, so Plessy should just take the repercussions and move on with his life. 

Plessy versus Ferguson, one of the most influential court cases ever for America, was not morally correct, but Ferguson did have stronger evidence and more support for their side than Plessy. In the end, Plessy was forced to pay a $25 fine for a law that the broke. This law was eventually spread all throughout America and changed it forever.

Santa Clara Railroad Case

  Today, you know the Fourteenth Amendment as being the one that gives all citizens "equal protection of the laws," but have you ever thought about where corporations fall into this? A railroad company in California had its own run in with the specifics of one of these so called "freedom amendments."

The year is 1886. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company is upset about being taxed by the state of California, and about the difference in amount of exceeding mortgages. They used the fact that the state constitution says that they are only allowed to be taxed on "the franchise, roadway, roadbed, rails, and rolling stock." The company also claimed that the outstanding mortgages were not subtracted correctly from its property value. A decision could not be made on their own so Santa Clara County took it to the state court.

    The county's argument was that since it could tax the land with the fences, then it could tax the additional value of the land that was incorporated with the fences. The Railroad Company then took it to the federal district court, which sided in favor of the company. The county had it brought to the Supreme Court.

    A support for Southern Pacific's claim was, in fact, their own lawyer. Roscoe Conkling, who was actually there for the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment, states that he remembers the amendment being changed from "citizens" to "persons" so that it could include corporations, or natural persons, too. He even had a journal from his time with the drafting committee.

An illustration of Edward H. Harriman

    Unfortunately for the company, this was all a hoax. It turns out that corporations were never considered from the committee. 

    Morrison Waite, a Chief Justice on the Supreme Court, actually worked on this case. In his argument he states, when talking about whether corporations are included in the 14th Amendment, that "We are all under the opinion that it does." Its clear from the beginning that the court believed that the county wrongly taxed the company. The court decided that taxing the company differently than private property owners was completely biased and violates the 14th amendment.

In the end, the court sided with the railroad company and decided that corporations would also be "guaranteed the right to liberty, property, and due process of the law and for legal purposes may be regarded as persons." This was a major turning point in Supreme Court history, and so many have never heard of it.

An overall summary of the court case

Presidential Election of 1860

     As I heard my classmates go one by one in front of the class, one of the presentations stood out to me. It was the one on the presidential election of 1860, which had such a lasting impact on history. For those who do not know, this was when Abraham Lincoln was elected. The big controversy around his election was that he did not support slavery. Southerners were scared that he would outlaw slavery, so they swore that they would leave the union if he was elected.

Presidential Candidates & their stances

    In the 1860 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was up against William Seward, a senator for New York, and was selected after three sets of voting. The Southern and the Northern democrats were split up over the idea of slavery; the South wanted to continue slavery, while the North opposed it. There were several arguments over which candidate they would choose since slavery was such a big topic. The Northerners selected Stephen Douglas for his opposition of slavery, and the Southerners selected John Breckinridge, a pro-slavery candidate. The Constitutional Union Party, which was made of upset Democrats, Unionists, and past Whigs, selected John Bell as their candidate. His policy was on creating the Missouri Compromise to gain the support of Democratic voters who were upset about the division of slavery.

Illustration of how votes were distributed

On November 6th of 1860, people went to go cast their votes for their top choice. Lincoln completely dominated the Northern states and won with 180 votes from the electoral college. The split in the Democratic voters prevented both candidates from gaining enough votes to win. Douglas ended up with only 12 electoral votes.

    What is so amazing about Lincoln's victory is that he won without the help from southern states, and he ended up having less than 40 percent of the popular votes.

 After his election, the Unites States was torn to pieces, the southern states seceded, and thus the civil war begins. This election has been the most controversial one until the election of 2016.