Constitution
Civil War through Gilded Age
Background: Two Trends
 Nationalism
 State’s Rights &
sovereignty
John Marshall
 Federalist
 National
Government over
State Governments
 Contract Clause
 Established
Supreme Court as
co-equal branch of
government
State’s Rights
 Kentucky and
Virginia Resolutions
 Jacksonian
Democracy
 Decentralization
through expansion
 Compact Theory
Slavery Debate
 Constitution: Pro or Anti Slavery
Document?
 Personal Liberty: National or State
issue?
Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 2 - The House
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen
every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors
in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the
most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the
Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State
in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the
several States which may be included within this Union, according to
their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the
whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a
Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other
Persons.
Civil War
 "I do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will faithfully execute the
office of President of the United
States, and will to the best of my
ability, preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the
United States."
 Article II, Section 1
Lincoln’s Constitutional Dictatorship
 Insurrection, Rebellion, or War?
 Legitimacy of Confederate States of
America
 Union War Aims
Lincoln’s First Inaugural
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the
Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual.
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the
fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe
to assert that no government proper ever had a
provision in its organic law for its own termination.
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our
National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever,
it being impossible to destroy it except by some action
not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper,
but an association of States in the nature of contract
merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by
less than all the parties who made it? One party to a
contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does
it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html
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Civil Liberties
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Treason
Sedition Conspiracy Act, 1861
Confiscation Acts
Suspension of Writ of Habeas Corpus
Habeas Corpus Act
Martial Law & Military Tribunals
Dissent
Clement Valandingham
Ex Parte Merryman
 "The President certainly
does not faithfully
execute the laws, if he
takes upon himself
legislative power, by
suspending the writ of
habeas corpus, and the
judicial power also, by
arresting and
imprisoning a person
without due process of
law." --Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney,
Maryland Circuit Court
(1861)
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/timeline.html
Compulsory Military Service
 Militia Act, 1862
 Conscription Act, 1863
http://www.columbia.edu/~kj75/catholics/Details/RiotNY.jpg
Emancipation
 Confiscations Act,
1862
 Lincoln & Fremont
 Emancipation
Proclamation,
January 1, 1863
 13th Amendment
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/
Reconstruction
Ward, The First Vote
“The Union as it was and the
Constitution as it is.”
 Debate over status of former
confederates and former slaves
 Civil Liberties and Personal Freedom:
National or State Issues?
 Suffrage & Citizenship
Presidential Reconstruction
 Lincoln:
Proclamation of
Amnesty and
Reconstruction
 West Virginia
 Tennessee,
Arkansas, &
Louisiana
 “10% Plan”
 Johnson’s Plan
 The Founders
http://www.wvculture.org/history/stphot.html
Role of Congress
 Seating Southern
representatives
 Black Codes
 Joint Committee on
Reconstruction
 Civil Rights Act,
1866
http://hip.cgu.edu/mcconnell/1102(1).html
14th Amendment
 “masterly
inactivity”
 Election of 1866
 Military
Reconstruction Act,
1867
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Images/14th.jpg
Impeachment of Johnson
 Army Appropriation
Act
 Tenure of Office Act
 Secretary of War
Stanton
http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/ListOfCartoons/SamsonAgonistesAtWashington.htm
U. S. Grant
 Elected 1868
 Enforcement Acts
 Ku Klux Klan Act, 1871
15th Amendment
 Civil Rights
 Black suffrage
 state’s rights
http://www.historycentral.com/rec/15th.html
Election of 1876
 Tilden v. Hayes
 Compromise &
Electoral College
http://www.rbhayes.org/hayes/president/gallery.asp?gid=12
The Courts
 Reconstruction-related matters
 Federalism
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Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
Cummings v. Missouri (1867)
re Turner, 1867
Slaughterhouse Cases
Civil Rights Cases (1883)
 “badges and incidents” of slavery.
 Voting Rights Cases
 United States v. Reese (1876)
 In Ex parte Yarbrough (1884)
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
 “separate but equal”
Constitution and
Industrialization
 “The weakened spring of
government”
 Congress dominate branch during the
Gilded Age
 Budgetary power
Civil Service Reform
 Civil Service
Commission
 Grant
Administration
 National Civil
Service Reform
League (1881)
 Assassination of
President Garfield
(1881)
 Pendleton Civil
Service Act (1883)
http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/fimage/gildedage/image.php?id=3496
Economic Policy
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14th Amendment
 States’ Rights
 Vested Rights doctrine
 Did the due process clause of the 14th Amendment (see also 5th
Amendment) safeguard property and economic liberty?
Munn v. Illinois (1873)
Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois (1886)
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
Granger Cases
Courts and Labor
 In re Debs
National Markets
 Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company v. Pennsylvania
(1873)