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?

1

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

2

Civil Liberties

        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  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

        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)