In 1857, after eleven years of judicial consideration, the supreme court decided in –

Chapter 2: Minority rights in the Taney years, 1836–64

Two Centuries of Judicial Review on Trial

Category: Monograph Chapter Published: 28 Jul 2017

• Abstract

Covers the years of the antebellum Taney Court (1836–60), comparing Supreme Court policy toward blacks and Native Americans with Presidential and Congressional policy toward them. On the Court, Justice Story exercised intellectual leadership until his departure at the end of 1845. Under Story’s leadership, the Court both freed more slaves from the Amistad ship than the executive branch desired and undermined the enforceability of the Congressional Fugitive Slave Act (1793) in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842).The Court from 1846 until 1860, under Taney’s leadership was utterly unsupportive of the rights of blacks and of Indians. The elected federal branches in these years were nearly as bad. Congress passed the Kansas Nebraska Act, abandoning the limits of the Missouri Compromise; President Buchanan wanted Congress to accept the illegitimate Lecompton Constitution. No branch of the federal government supported racial minority rights 1846–60. This extremism begat the election of Lincoln. KEY WORDS: U.S. v. Rogers (1846) Groves v. Slaughter (1841) Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) Fugitive Slave Act Ableman v. Booth (1854–61) Dred Scott Indian Removal

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Prologue

1640–1896

1640Negro indentured servant John Punch ran away and received a life sentence in Virginia; his white counterparts only received three-year sentences1641Massachusetts authorized slavery with legislation1660Virginia specifically punished indentured servants who ran away with Negroes slaves1662Virginia determined birthright of Negroes based on the status of the mother rather than the father, as had been the British custom for centuries1680Virginia enacted the first major slave codes1705Virginia relegated slaves, Indians, and mulattos to the status of property1776Declaration of Independence signed1781Quock Walker v. Jennison (Massachusetts) relied on the Declaration of Rights, which ultimately led to the abolition of slavery in 1783 there1785New York passed legislation for the gradual emancipation of slaves1788U.S. Constitution is ratified by eleven states1789George Washington, a slave owner, inaugurated as the first president of the United States 1791“Bill of Rights” added to U.S. Constitution; Virginia ratified on December 15, 17911820Missouri Compromise created rules for the expansion of slavery into western territories and prohibited slavery north of the 36° 30´ latitude except in Missouri1841Former President John Quincy Adams defended Africans aboard the Spanish ship Amistad1850Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required citizens to assist in the return of escaped slaves to their owners 1850 Roberts v. City of Boston (Massachusetts) found no constitutional impediment to segregated schools1854Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery in the northern territories1857Dred Scott v. Sanford (Missouri) declared that all blacks—slaves as well as free—were not and could never become citizens of the United States1862Federal emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia1863Emancipation Proclamation took effect1864Fugitive Slave Act repealed1865Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery1865Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees1866Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteed equal rights under law for all people who lived within the jurisdiction of the United States 1868Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States and prohibited states from denying any person the equal protection of the laws or depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law1870Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote1870–1871Three Enforcement Acts gave the federal government substantial authority to prosecute those who violated the civil and political rights of African Americans, especially members of the Ku Klux Klan 1873Slaughterhouse Cases limited the Constitutional significance of the 14th Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause by interpreting the clause as only protecting rights of national citizenship from actions of state government1873Bradwell v. Illinois rejected a woman’s claim that the Fourteenth Amendment required the state to allow her to practice law in the first sex discrimination case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court1875Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited their exclusion from jury service 1875Minor v. Happersett (Missouri) held that a state could constitutionally forbid a woman from voting1883Civil Rights Cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court declared parts of the 1875 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, including the prohibition of racial discrimination in inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement1896Plessy v. Ferguson (Louisiana) upheld the constitutionality of a Louisiana statute that required railroads to provide “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races”

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The Segregation Era

1903–1939

1903Giles v. Harris (Alabama) refused to order the board of registrars to register an African American to vote in part because the court concluded that unless it could actually supervise elections, it was unable to force white Alabamans to allow African Americans to vote1906Hodges v. United States (Arkansas) reversed a conviction against whites who had ejected “citizens of the United States of African descent” from their jobs; the decision narrowed the congressional civil rights authority under the Thirteenth Amendment1910Franklin v. State of South Carolina affirmed the judgment of the South Carolina Supreme Court to execute African American Pink Franklin for the killing of a white constable, H. E. Valentine. Franklin shot Valentine when he came to arrest Franklin for violating a peonage-based contract for work1911Bailey v. State of Alabama invalidated, based on the Thirteenth Amendment, a law that facilitated “debt peonage,” a form of involuntary servitude1913Guinn v. United States (Oklahoma) deemed that state constitutional provisions permitting “grandfather clauses” for passing literacy tests as a voting requirement were unconstitutional1917Buchanan v. Warley (Kentucky) held residential racial segregation unconstitutional1920Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote 1927Nixon v. Herndon (Texas) struck down a 1923 Texas law that prohibited blacks from voting in the Democratic Party primary1932Nixon v. Condon (Texas) declared that the prohibition of African Americans from the Democratic primaries by the executive committee was unconstitutional1935Grovey v. Townsend (Texas) ruled that the members of the Democratic Party of Texas who assembled at a convention and made resolutions about those qualified to vote in the Democratic primary were a private group and that barring all but white citizens was not an act of the state and therefore not in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments1935Pearson v. Murray (Maryland), Daniel Gaines Murray, an African American, was admitted to the University of Maryland Law School when the Maryland Court of Appeals concluded that the state had failed to provide Murray with a separate but equal education1938Missouri ex. rel. Gaines v. Canada (Missouri), the Supreme Court held that states providing a law school for white students were constitutionally required to provide in-state education for African American students as well, either by integrating the state law school or creating a separate school for African Americans1939Creation of the Civil Liberties Unit, later renamed the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice, the first federal entity tasked with the protection of civil rights since Reconstruction

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World War II & Post War Years

1941–1945

1941Executive Order 8802 prohibited racial discrimination in the national defense industry in response to the intended first March on Washington (Roosevelt)1942Executive Order 9066 designated much of the West Coast a “military area” and ordered more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to relocate and live in internment camps (Roosevelt)1944Smith v. Allwright (Texas) overturned the Democratic Party’s use of all-white primaries in Texas and other states1944Korematsu v. United States (California) upheld the right to exclude Japanese Americans even though in a separate case, it found the relocation camps to be unconstitutional1944Pollock v. Williams (Florida) reversed a decision that upheld Florida’s 1919 law facilitating debt peonage1946Morgan v. Virginia found a Virginia law that required the races be separated in all intrastate and interstate travel unconstitutional1948Shelley v. Kraemer (Missouri) held that courts could not enforce racially restrictive covenants on real estate that prevented “people of Negro or Mongolian race” from buying or living in certain neighborhoods1948Perez v. Sharp (California) was the first case in which a court invalidated a ban on interracial marriage when the California Supreme Court concluded that the ban violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution1948Executive Order 9980 prohibited discrimination in civilian agencies and instituted fair employment practices (Truman)1948Executive Order 9981 abolished racial discrimination in the armed forces (Truman)

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Civil Rights Era

1951–1963

1951Executive Order 10308 created Committee on Government Compliance to enforce the prohibition against employment discrimination by firms contracting or subcontracting government orders (Truman)1953Executive Order 10479 created the Government Contract Committee to replace the Committee on Government Compliance (Eisenhower)1954Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, held that public education and segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors were equal, deprived equal educational opportunities to children of the minority group1955Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas II stated that Southern schools should comply with Brown I “with all deliberate speed,” which white Southerners understood as allowing them to resist and only symbolically comply with school desegregation1957The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established the Civil Rights Commission (CRC) to protect an individual’s rights to equal protection and protected some civil and voting rights, but it lacked substantial enforcement mechanisms1960The Civil Rights Act of 1960 guaranteed qualified voters the right to register to vote in any state and the right to sue a state official or acting state official who prevented them from voting1961Executive Order 10925 created the Committee on Equal Opportunity to combat discrimination in government employment and in private employment stemming from government contracts (Kennedy)1961Monroe v. Pape revitalized Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, by allowing individuals to sue government actors for violations of civil rights1962Executive Order 11063 banned racial discrimination in federally funded housing (Kennedy)1963Equal Pay Act required employers to pay all employees equally for equal work, regardless of whether the employees are male or female1963Executive Order 11114 extended guarantees against employment discrimination to federally assisted contracts in the construction industry (Kennedy)

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Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Beyond

1964–2014

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What was the Wilmot Proviso and how did it impact the national debate?

What is the significance of the Wilmot Proviso and how does it show the conflict over slavery between the North and the South quizlet?

What worried Southerners about the Republican Party victories in the election of 1856?

How did policy makers compromise over the question of slavery in the West quizlet?