Racism in the United States and the Fourteenth Amendment

Racism in the United States and the Fourteenth Amendment

Introduction

Since their onset, racial inequality and race have significantly shaped the history of America. The founding of the United States is often thought to come from the fight for freedom, religious liberty, economic, and political liberty. However, initially, America was founded on harsh forms of domination, oppression, and inequality, which limited the freedom for slaves. During the civil war, slavery and the slave trade were critical to the economy and development of capitalism in America. The wealth of the state was mainly based on uncompensated labor form the slaves. When civil war came to an end, slavery slowly reduced as black people were now viewed as equal U.S. citizens with rights (Spring, 2016). The Fourteenth Amendment enhanced the freedom of slaves because bestowed citizenship and equal protection of laws to individuals who were born in the U.S. (including the prior slaves). The following paper seeks to describe the history of legalized racial discrimination since the end of the civil war, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. and what it aimed to achieve, and how the Supreme Court orders limited the protection of rights the late 19th century.

The abolishment of slavery has left behind some impacts which affect the American culture up to date. Immediately after the American Revolution, slavery has posed cultural issues whose effect is continually evident. Fredrickson (2015) raises some questions which give more elaboration on why inequality initially existed. That is: How could some people live as property to others? How can a nation founded on principles like the pursuit of happiness, life and liberty uphold slavery? The answers to the incompatible reality are regarded to the dehumanization of the black people as intellectually weak, and persons with low stature. Besides, degradation and racial ideologies denied black people the opportunity of being treated as worthy persons.

The mental prospect that black people did not have intellectual capabilities to perform rational activities resulted in amenable persons making decisions on behalf. Nevertheless, the acknowledgment of black people as morally inferior facilitated the appearance of black persons as dangerous, aggressive, and controlled by their passion, and can, therefore, not practice liberty.

These beliefs (morally inferior and lacking intellectual ability) formed the core of culture under slavery in the U.S. even though the opinions are terminated towards the end of the 20th century are not seen as decent anymore, they currently continue to impact on race relations. Second-class citizenship is one of the oppression where particular citizens have exceeded rights through legal or official refusal to accept some rights. Besides, this can involve a group of people of some citizens receiving stiffer judicial actions or harsh law enforcement compared to others (Browne-Marshall, 2013). Decades after the Civil War, second-class citizenship has emerged as the primary form of racial oppression in the U.S., particularly in the South. For instance, the liberation of slaves in the South resulted in a big challenge for the plantation owners who entirely relied on labor from the slaves to get their income. In the pursuit to fulfill the dreams of the previous slaves to becoming small farmers, there was increased dispossession of lands from large Southern landowners. The Federal government did this to prove that it respected the rights of private property owners.

Moreover, legal citizenship and race are a form of racial discrimination in the U.S. The United States is a nation of immigrants; In addition to the native Americans, there exist some persons who have come down from the North and other continents in the recent few centuries. Form the mid-19th century, some of the immigrants were objected the legal access to the U.S. citizenship status. For example, the Chinese Exclusion Acted was initiated to stop the increased immigration of Chinese to the U.S. and permanently regard the Chinese already in the nation as aliens. This was after importation of poor Chinese persons to work as cheap labor in American projects resulted in unceasing strikes from the native-born white workers due to reduced wages. Further restrictions have been enacted in the U.S. on immigration, limiting it to only whites (Omi & Winant, 2014).

After the end of the Civil War and the enacting of the Thirteenth Amendment’s which disapproved of slavery, African Americans still received some oppression from the South. Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment was approved to minimize the power of the state through imposing constitutional responsibilities on the state government to offer protection of immunities and privileges of all the citizens equally. The first clause in section one of the Fourteenth Amendment is the clarity of U.S. citizenship. The statement elaborated that all citizens who are naturalized or born in the U.S. and are under jurisdiction have United States citizenship; this protected black Americans against the strict law from the Supreme Court on citizenship. In the sections that followed: The Fourteenth Amendment aimed at authorizing the Federal government to discipline any state that violated or obstructed their citizens the right to vote; Exempting the current Federal and state government from paying the national debt liable to the previous confederate states; Granting the Congress the power to enforce laws. By achieving this, the balance of power between the state and the Federal was government changed (Finkelman, 2014).

According to Forner (2012), in the late 19th century, the Supreme Court limited the government from offering protection to workers and consumers by utilizing the Due process clause. In the ‘Lochner Era’, the court declared that the word liberty in the clause offered protection to freedom of contract from infringement by the Federal government and the state. Many other laws were also regarded as unconstitutional in terms of economic essential economic due process. Besides, in 1954 the Supreme Court’s decision on Brown v. Board of Education overthrew the “separate but equal” education by governing that separating public schools was indeed violating the Fourteenth Amendment clause on equal rights. The Supreme Court instead ruled that all American schools should be composed of all races.