Amendment 14 and the History of 2nd class citizenship

[Pragmatic]

From the Black Codes of the South pg. 35:

Throughout the South the free Negro had almost no civil rights. Though the situation was virtually identical in all the southern states, perhaps no other state put the matter as bluntly as did Georgia:

The free person of color is entitled to no right of citizenship, except such as are specially given by law. His status differs from that of the slave in this: No master having dominion over him he is entitled to the free use of liberty, labor and property, except so far as he is restrained by law.
All laws enacted in reference to slaves, and in their nature applicalbe to free persons of color, shall be construed in include them, unless specially excepted.

That these. . . laws, were construed in the Georgia courts in the same spirit in which they were enacted is suggested by the statement of Judge Joseph H. Lumpkin, who ruled:

..."The status of the African in Georgia, whether bond or free, such that he has no civil, social or political rights or capacity, whatever, except such as are bestowed on him by statue;. . . the act manumission confers no other right but. . . freedom from the dominion of the master, and the limited liberty of locomotion. . .

In the absence of any specific provision such as Georgia had made, Judge Frederick Nash of North Carolina expressed a very similar view:

..."Free persons of color cannot be considered as citizens, in the largest sense of the term, or , if they are, they occupy such a position in society, as justifies the legislature in adopting a course of policy in its acts peculiar to them..."

Judge Nathan Green of Tennessee probably expressed the general attitude of the South when he stated:

..."Free negroes have always been a degraded race in the United States. . . with whom public opinion has never permitted the white population to associate on terms of equality, and in relation to whom, the laws have never allowed. . . the immunities of the free white citizens." pg. 36

Amd 14 says," No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or . . . immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

But it doesn't say shall abridge the privileges or immunities of previous condition of servitude (*prisoners of war/slaves)...as in Amd 15.

1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Black people don't have the privileges or immunities of citizenship of due process, life, liberty's, or equal protection of laws granted to other citizens. Because our prior conditions of servitude were not mentioned in Amd. 14.

African people were not the citizens mentioned in Amd. 14.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitu tion

While many states modeled their constitutions and laws after the United States Constitution and federal laws, those state constitutions did not necessarily include provisions comparable to the Bill of Rights.

According to some commentators, the framers and early supporters of the Fourteenth Amendment believed that it would ensure that the states would be required to recognize the individual rights the federal government was already required to respect in the Bill of Rights and in other constitutional provisions; all of these rights were likely understood to fall within the "privileges or immunities" safeguarded by the Amendment 14.

However, the Supreme Court limited the reach of the Amendment by holding in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was limited to "privileges or immunities" granted to citizens by the federal government in virtue of national citizenship.

The Court further held in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) that the Amendment was limited to "state action" and thus did not authorize the Congress to outlaw racial discrimination on the part of private individuals or organizations. Neither of these decisions has been overturned and in fact have been specifically reaffirmed several times.

cont...

pg. 26 of The Black Codes of the South

Public opinion in regard to the subjugation of the Negro race crystallized early and was enacted into law in Virginia in 1748:

..."If any negro or mulatto, bond or free, shall at any time lift his or her hand in opposition to any person not being a negro or mulatto, he or she, so offending, shall, for every such offence, proved by the oath of the party before a Justice of the Peace of the County or Corporation, where such offence shall be committed, receive such punishment as the Justice shall think proper...

Mississippi and Florida incorporated abusive and provoking language. Lousiana provided that a Negro who should "insult or assault" any white person might " be punished at the discretion of the court".




cont...

pg. 27 The provision in most of these laws that the Negro might escape punishment if he opposed a white man in self defense was practically meaningless since he could not testisfy against a whiteman and white solidarity virtually assured acceptance of the whitemans' oath.


Not all the slaveholding states had specific laws regarding the insult or assault of a white person by a Negro, but, in any event, unwritten law took care of the matter. This well illustrated by the statement of Judge John B. O'Neall of the Court of Appeals of South Carolina in summing up State vs. Harden in . . . 1832.

..."Free negroes belong to degraded caste of society; they are in on respect on an equality with a white man. According to their condition they ought by . . . law to be compelled to demean themselves as inferiors, from whom submission and respect to the whites, in all their intercourse in society, is demanded; I have always thought and while on the circuit ruled that words of impertinence and insolence addressed by a free negro to a white man, would justify an assault and battery.

Evidence that the attitude of Judge O'Neall was not unusual may be seen in the statement of Judge Richmond M. Pearson of the North Carolina Supreme Court in State vs. Jowers, in December, 1850:

..." It is unfortunate that this third class exists in our society. . . . A free negro has no master to correct him. . . . and unless a white man, to whom insolence is given, has a right to put a stop to it, in an extra judicial wasy, there is no remedy for it. This would be insufferable. Hence we infer from the principles of the common law, that this extra judicial remedy is excusable, provided the words or acts of a free negro be in law insolent".

Two orders of the municipia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M unicipium

The citizens of municipia of the first order held full Roman citizenship and their rights (civitas optimo iure) included the right to vote, which was the ultimate right in Rome, and a sure sign of full rights.

The second order of municipia comprised important tribal centres which had come under Roman control. Residents of these did not become full Roman citizens (although their magistrates could become so after retirement). They were given the duties of full citizens in terms of liability to taxes and military service, but not all of the rights: most significantly, they had no right to vote.


Quick note...

Juneteenth is a celebration in honor of the day the last slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, June 19, 1865.


The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil WarReconstruction Amendments, first intended to secure the rights of former slaves. It was proposed on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868.

that's 2 years

February 8
*On this date in 1898, the “Grandfather Clause” was enacted for voting purposes
Grandfather clauses, which were originally intended to prevent black people from voting, were named for provisions adopted by the constitutions of some states.

Such amendments sought to interfere with an individual's right to vote by setting forth difficult requirements.

For example, common requirements were ownership of a large amount of land or the ability to read and write portions of the state and federal constitutions.

The name grandfather clause arose from the exceptions that were made for veterans of the Civil War. If the veterans were qualified to vote prior to 1866, their descendants were also qualified. Thus, in effect, if a person's grandfather could vote, he could vote without further restrictions.

The original grandfather clauses were contained in new state constitutions and Jim Crow laws passed from 1890 to 1910 in many of the Southern United States to prevent blacks, Mexican Americans (in Texas), and certain whites from voting.

Prohibitions on freedmen’s voting in place prior to 1870 were nullified by theFifteenth Amendment.

These statutes accomplished precisely what was intended, since nearly all slaves and their descendants were disqualified from voting because they could not satisfy the statutory requirements.

As decades passed, Southern states tended to expand the franchise for poor whites, but most blacks could not vote until after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Ratification in 1964 of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the use of poll taxes in federal elections, but some states continued to use them in state elections.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act had provisions to protect voter registration and access to elections, with federal enforcement and supervision where necessary. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that poll taxes could not be used in any elections

that's 95 years

Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;

National Citizen...

coincedence...

Peace be upon you