Amendments 13-27
Civil War Amendments
• 13, 14, 15th Amendment
– Passed at the end of the Civil War
– Intended to prevent discrimination in the South
– South circumvented by passing “Jim Crow Laws” –
laws meant to keep African American’s in an
inferior position
13th Amendment
• 13th - abolished slavery and involuntary
servitude.
– Plessy v. Ferguson
• Homer Adolph Plessy– seven-eighths Caucasian– took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train.
– refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was
arrested.
• Plessy’s lawyers said the law violated the 13th and 14th
Amendments
– law violated the 13th Amendment ban on slavery by
destroying the legal equality of the races and, in effect,
reintroducing slavery.
– Law violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection Clause
14th Amendment
• 14th Amendment
– Defined US citizen – anyone born in US
– States can’t deny any citizen the rights stated in the Bill of Rights
– Every citizen has 'right to due process and the equal protection of the
law'.
• Due Process Clause – every citizen has the right to due process (be
treated fairly) by both States and National governments
• Equal Protection Clause - no discrimination, all people must be
treated equally
• Incorporation Clause -makes the first ten amendments to the
Constitution—known as the Bill of Rights—binding on the states.
• Citizenship clause – any person born in the United States or
naturalized (foreign birth, that has met requirements for citizenship)
14th Amendment
• Plessy v. Ferguson
– Courts ruled “Separate but Equal” didn’t violate 14th
Amendment’s equal protection clause
• Brown v. BOE of Topeka
– Linda Brown, 3rd Grader was denied admission to an
all white school near her home
– NAACP chose Kansas - Not considered the South
– Ruling:
• Segregation in public schools solely on the basis of race
denies minority children equal protection under the law
14th Amendment
• Roe v. Wade
– Roe sought to terminate her pregnancy by abortion
– Texas law prohibited it unless woman’s life threatened
• Ruling:
– Abortion falls within the right to privacy inferred in
the Bill of Rights and made binding by the States in
the 14th Amendment
– Woman has total control over abortion decisions in
the 1st trimester
14th Amendment
• Bakke v. California
• Case: Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man,
had twice applied and was rejected for admission to
the University of California Medical School at Davis.
The school reserved sixteen places in each entering
class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part
of the university's affirmative action program
• Ruling
– Racial quota’s violate the equal protection clause
– Racial quotas were discriminatory towards white males
– Racial quotas sometimes turn away more qualified
students
Suffrage Amendments
• “Suffrage Amendments” = voting population or
electorate was expanded
– 15 – African American Men
– 19 – Women
– 23 – Washington D.C. (given 3 electoral votes for
President )
– 24 – ended Poll Taxes (Fees for voting)
• Literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses were all
devices used in Jim Crow laws of the south to Discourage AA
voters
– 26 – 18 yr olds (fought in Vietnam, but couldn’t vote)
Progressive Amendments
• Progressivism – term applied to the political,
economic and social problems created by the
Industrial Revolution
– Social reformers focused on
•
•
•
•
•
fighting political corruption
Crime
opposition to immigrants
growing gap between the rich and the poor
and other social ills ( alcoholism, prostitution, illiteracy)
• Response to calls for reform that grew out of the
Progressive Movement
– Amendments 16, 17, 18, were passed
Progressive Amendments
• 16th - Gave the federal government the power to
collect a graduated income tax (pay based on income)
– Meant to help alleviate growing gap between the rich and
the poor
• 17th – Direct Election of Senators by the people
– Eliminated corruption of political machines in State
Legislatures who previously appointed Senators
• 18th – Prohibition – illegal to sell, manufacture or
transport alcohol
– Came out of the temperance movement – blaming alcohol
for societies ills
21st Amendment
• 21st – Repeal of
prohibition
– Amended constitution
through state
legislature proposal;
National legislature
Ratified
• Demonstrates
which basic
principal of
government
–Federalism
Map showing dry (red), wet (blue),
and mixed (yellow) counties in the
United States.
Presidential Amendments
• Presidential Amendments – 20th,22nd ,
25th
•
– Amendments detailing issues pertaining to the
Presidency
20th - Gave details on the terms of office for Congress
and the President.
• History: concerned over delay from election in November
until new Pres and Congress were sworn in to office in
March
• Details:
– Congress Session starts at noon on Jan. 3 and President is
sworn in on Jan 20th
– VP will become President if President dies before Jan. 20th.
Presidential Amendments
• 22nd - Limits terms of Presidents to 2
• History: FDR was the first President to serve for more than two
years. He served for 4 terms. People realized it was bad for the
country
• 25th - defined the presidential succession if something should
happen to the president. The first in line is the Vice-President.
• History: was not defined in the Constitution
• Details: allows for the Vice President to become president in the
event of Death, Resignation, Impeachment, impairment
– If both VP and Pres die, the succession occurs as follows
• Speaker of House
• President Pro Tempore of Senate
• Secretary of State
27th Amendment
• 27th - prohibits any law that increases or
decreases the salary of members of the
Congress from taking effect until the start of
the next set of terms of office for
Representatives.
• History:
– Most Recent Amendment
– Took the longest to adopt
• Submitted in 1789 and was adopted, over 200 years
later, in 1992.