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With a lot of land and not enough labor to work it, early settlers began to look beyond indentured servitude to fill their labor needs. In the early 1600s, a Dutch ship filled with captured African slaves proved to be the solution to agricultural labor shortages, but cruel treatment of slaves and the inhumanity of trade in it's entirety effects today's society, centuries later.

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Aiming to create jobs and end unemployment for millions of Americans, the WPA would build dams, bridges, highways, public buildings and more. Later, the Social Security Act would create a pension for these workers when they retired, and both helped build Americans' wealth during a struggling economy.

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During the 1950s and 1960s, Black men and women took a stand against segregation, fighting to end the idea of being "separate but equal", and request that society treat all people equally regardless of their ethnicity.

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Not only were women running homesteads during the civil war, but women were also in battle as soldiers, nurses, aids, and more. This change in the dynamics of a woman's role helped promote further push for women's right to vote, and further aided in women's fight for equality.

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Historian DeAnne Blanton discusses the crucial role that women played both on and off the field during the Civil War. This video is part of the American Battlefield Trust's In4 video series, which presents short videos on basic Civil War topics.

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Hero of the Mexican-American War, Davis served as the president of the Confederate states during the Civil War and spent two years in jail after the war came to a close. Davis did not have a political career after the war and lived a quiet life until he passed in 1889.

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Following the civil war, robber barons were men who amassed great wealth due to economic growth and industrialization that occurred during the Gilded Age. Robber barons were known to hold a great amount of the nations wealth while also mistreating and underpaying their workforce, which is a situation not unlikely to occur in today's society.

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Political parties emerged during the election of 1796. Two main differing views of the Constitution resulted in the creation of the Federalists (more conservative and in favor of a central government) and the Democratic-Republicans (in favor of state's rights that were more encompassing of "ordinary" people).

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During the 1860s, Thomas Nast - a cartoonist for the magazine Harper's Weekly - developed the idea of using the donkey and the elephant to represent the Democrats and Republicans, respectively. The above cartoon - titled "Stranger Things Have Happened" - dates from 1879.

From the beginning, American political parties have had a tarnished reputation. In his 1796 Farewell Address to the nation, George Washington warned against "the baneful effects of the spirit of party" as inciting American citizens "with ill-founded jealousies."

Today many Americans take pride in their status as "independent voters," partly because they see parties as lacking vision for the country. Since many Americans have become disenchanted by partisan politics, they avoid identification as a "loyal Democrat" or a "staunch Republican." These negative attitudes toward parties are rooted in the roles that they play in American politics.

Roles of Political Parties

Running candidates for political office. Parties select candidates for many elected positions in American politics. With so many officials to choose, most voters would be overwhelmed by the decisions they would have to make if candidates did not wear party "labels." Parties present policy alternatives for voters. Some voters even choose a straight ticket, or candidates from the same party for all positions in that election.

Thomas Jefferson opposed the views of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams regarding centralized government and states' rights; and in doing so helped to build the foundation of the modern Democratic Party.

Checking the other party. A party that does not hold the majority in Congress often keeps the party in power from taking complete control. Party leaders can publicly criticize actions of a President who was elected by the opposite party. The criticism of "partisanship" comes from this party role because many Americans think that the "checking" becomes petty and self-serving.

Informing the public.Parties take stands on issues and criticize the points of view of the other parties. Their well-publicized discussions help to inform citizens about important issues and present alternative ways of solving societal problems.

Organizing the government.Congress and the state legislatures are organized according to party affiliations. Legislative representatives usually support their party's position when considering potential laws and policies, and most votes fall roughly along party lines. Virtually all candidates run for public office with party labels that define their behavior after they win.

Why a Two-Party System?

The Green Party encourages its members to work in grassroots efforts on issues of ecology and social equality. In both 1996 and 2000, consumer advocate Ralph Nader was the Green Party nominee for President.

Most other democratic nations have multi-party systems. Even though third parties have popped up regularly throughout American history, they have either died, or their ideas have been absorbed by a major party. Three good reasons for the American two-party system include the following:

Even though political parties are often regarded as "necessary evils," they still play an important role in American government and politics today. The two broad-based major political parties offer alternatives to voters and help connect citizens to their government.

Gerrymandering
This page from FairVote (formerly Center for Voting and Democracy) focuses on one of the biggest problems subverting democracy: Gerrymandering

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All This Talk About Anarchy
Political parties? Who needs 'em!? This is the belief of an anarchist - a person who advocates a system where power is centralized in the hands of no one. This intelligent overview of present anarchist activities that - as this author puts it - "flow like an underground river," comes to you from Adbusters Magazine.

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During the 1860s, Thomas Nast - a cartoonist for the magazine Harper's Weekly - developed the idea of using the donkey and the elephant to represent the Democrats and Republicans, respectively. The above cartoon - titled "Stranger Things Have Happened" - dates from 1879. From the beginning, American political parties have had a tarnished reputation.

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The steam locomotive increased the speed in which goods (and people) could be transported across the US.  Increased speed meant- increased amounts of goods, increased jobs, decreased transportation costs, decreased reliance on waterways, and increased market expansion.

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The second World War put Americans in motion.  Increased need for military personnel and supplies had resulted in increased employment and streamlining of mass production.  When the war ended, returning veterans and the end of rationing drove sales up rapidly (especially for homes and cars).

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In the summer of 1945, as World War II drew to a close, the U.S. economy was poised on the edge of an uncertain future. Would it be able to transition from a full-bore war economy to a fulsome and stable peacetime one? Many experts at the time had serious doubts.

As it turned out, after a half-decade of rationing and war privation, Americans were more than ready to splurge. And postwar U.S. industries pivoted more nimbly than expected, shifting from producing bomber jets and tanks to cars, TVs and home appliances. Here's how America made the shift.

War Mobilization Had Overtaken the Homefront

Since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's call in late 1940 for the United States to serve as the " arsenal of democracy," American industry had stepped up to meet the challenge. U.S. factories built to mass-produce automobiles had retooled to churn out airplanes, engines, guns and other supplies at unprecedented rates. At the peak of its war effort, in late 1943 and early 1944, the United States was manufacturing almost as many munitions as all of its allies and enemies combined.

On the home front, the massive mobilization effort during World War II had put Americans back to work. Unemployment, which had reached 25 percent during the Great Depression and hovered at 14.6 percent in 1939, had dropped to 1.2 percent by 1944 -still a record low in the nation's history.

Even before the war ended, U.S. business, military and government officials began debating the question of the country's reconversion from military to civilian production. In 1944, Donald Nelson of the War Production Board (WFB) proposed a plan that would reconvert idle factories to civilian production. Powerful military and business leaders pushed back, and plans for widespread reconversion were postponed.

But with the war wrapping up, and millions of men and women in uniform scheduled to return home, the nation's military-focused economy wasn't necessarily prepared to welcome them back. As Arthur Herman wrote in his book Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, U.S. businesses at the time were still "geared around producing tanks and planes, not clapboard houses and refrigerators."

Some economists even predicted a new crisis of mass unemployment and inflation, arguing that private businesses couldn't possibly generate the massive amounts of capital necessary to run the pumped-up wartime factories during peacetime. A report released in mid-1945 by Senator James Mead of New York took this opinion, arguing that if the war in the Pacific ended quickly, "the United States would find itself largely unprepared to overcome unemployment on a large scale."

After All That War Rationing, Americans Were Ready to Spend

But history proved the pessimists wrong. Most returning veterans had no trouble finding jobs, according to Herman. U.S. factories that had proven so essential to the war effort quickly mobilized for peacetime, rising to meet the needs of consumers who had been encouraged to save up their money in preparation for just such a post-war boom.

By the summer of 1945, Americans had been living under wartime rationing policies for more than three years, including limits on such common goods as rubber, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meat, butter, milk and soap. Meanwhile, the U.S. government's Office of Price Administration (OPA) had encouraged the public to save up their money (ideally by buying war bonds) for a brighter future. In her book A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizabeth Cohen reported that by 1945, Americans were saving an average of 21 percent of their personal disposable income, compared to just 3 percent in the 1920s.

With the war finally over, American consumers were eager to spend their money, on everything from big-ticket items like homes, cars and furniture to appliances, clothing, shoes and everything else in between. U.S. factories answered their call, beginning with the automobile industry. New car sales quadrupled between 1945 and 1955, and by the end of the 1950s, some 75 percent of American households owned at least one car. In 1965, the nation's automobile industry reached its peak, producing 11.1 million new cars, trucks and buses and accounting for one out of every six American jobs.

People Bought Homes-And Filled Them With Appliances

Residential construction companies also mobilized to capitalize on a similar surge in housing demand, as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans and the GI Bill gave many ( but not all) returning veterans the ability to buy a home. Companies like Levitt & Son, based in New York, found success applying the mass-production techniques of the auto industry to home building. Between 1946 and the early 1960s, Levitt & Son built three residential communities (including more than 17,000 homes), finishing as many as 30 houses a day.

New home buyers needed appliances to fill those homes, and companies like Frigidaire (a division of General Motors) responded to that need. During the war, Frigidaire's assembly lines had transitioned to building machine guns and B-29 propeller assemblies. After the war, the brand expanded its home appliance business, introducing revolutionary products like clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers and garbage disposals.

Driven by growing consumer demand, as well as the continuing expansion of the military-industrial complex as the Cold War ramped up, the United States reached new heights of prosperity in the years after World War II. Gross national product (GNP), which measured all goods and services produced, skyrocketed to $300 billion by 1950, compared to just $200 billion in 1940. By 1960, it had topped $500 billion, firmly establishing the United States as the richest and most powerful nation in the world.

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The Post World War II Boom: How America Got Into Gear | HISTORY

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After years of wartime rationing, American consumers were ready to spend money-and factories made the switch from war to peace-time production.

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King George III adamantly pushed for increased British control over the "disloyal" Americans.  The instability of Parliament and his refusals to communicate or negotiate contributed to the occurrence of the American Revolution.

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The Egyptian empire lasted for thousands of years and notably propelled the development of written language (with the development of an early alphabet and papyrus) as well as mathematical measurements of time and space.

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In the late 1800s, increased opportunities due to industrialization and urbanization results in a second immigration boom, with the majority of immigrants coming from Europe.  The influx of newcomers diversifies American culture.

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Enraged by the Vietnam war, college students began anti-war marches and protests. This snowballed into a widespread movement that led to an increased disapproval of the war as well as decreased confidence in the US government.

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Antiwar Movement Begins

In August 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, and President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. By the time U.S. planes began regular bombings of North Vietnam in February 1965, some critics had begun to question the government's assertion that it was fighting a democratic war to liberate the South Vietnamese people from Communist aggression.

The antiwar movement began mostly on college campuses, as members of the leftist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) began organizing "teach-ins" to express their opposition to the way in which it was being conducted.

Though the vast majority of the American population still supported U.S. government policy in the Vietnam War, a small but outspoken minority was making its voice heard by the end of 1965, especially after Johnson began an increasingly aggressive air and ground war in Vietnam.

This vocal minority included many students as well as prominent artists, intellectuals and members of the "hippie" movement, i.e., the growing number of mostly young people who rejected authority and embraced the counterculture.

Did you know? Boxer Muhammad Ali was one prominent American who resisted being drafted into service during the Vietnam War. Ali, then heavyweight champion of the world, declared himself a "conscientious objector," earning a prison sentence (later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court) and a three-year ban from boxing.

Widespread Disillusionment

By November 1967, American troop strength in Vietnam was approaching 500,000 and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. The Vietnam War was costing the United States some $25 billion per year, and disillusionment was beginning to reach greater sections of the taxpaying public.

More casualties were reported in Vietnam every day, even as U.S. commanders demanded more troops. Under the draft system of conscription, as many as 40,000 young men were called into service every month, adding fuel to the fire of the antiwar movement.

On October 21, 1967, one of the most prominent antiwar demonstrations took place as some 100,000 protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial-around 30,000 of them continued in a march on the Pentagon later that night.

After a brutal confrontation with the soldiers and U.S. Marshals protecting the building, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested. One of them was the author Norman Mailer, who chronicled the events in his book "The Armies of the Night," published the following year to widespread acclaim.

Also in 1967, the antiwar movement got a big boost when the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. went public with his opposition to the war on moral grounds, condemning the war's diversion of federal funds from domestic programs as well as the disproportionate number of Black casualties in relation to the total number of soldiers killed in the war.

At a march of over 5,000 protestors in Chicago, Illinois, on March 25, 1967, King called the Vietnam War "a blasphemy against all that America stands for."

Vietnam War Protest Songs

The Vietnam War protest inspired many popular songs that became an anthem for that generation. Phil Ochs wrote "What Are You Fighting For?" in 1963 and "I Ain't Marching Anymore" in 1965. Other songs whose very titles were a protest themselves included Pete Seeger's "Bring 'Em Home" (1966) and Joan Baez 's "Saigon Bride" (1967).

Nina Simone's "Backlash Blues" (1967) took a civil rights poem by Langston Hughes and adapted it into a protest of Vietnam: "Raise my taxes/Freeze my wages/Send my son to Vietnam." Marvin Gaye 's "What's Going On?" from 1971 went on to be one of the most popular songs of all time.

John Lennon's first song after leaving the Beatles, "Give Peace a Chance," hit airwaves in 1966. " Imagine," from 1971, has transcended the Vietnam era to be a timeless song of peace and unity.

Political Consequences of Vietnam War Protests

The launch of the Tet Offensive by North Vietnamese communist troops in January 1968, and its success against U.S. and South Vietnamese troops, sent waves of shock and discontent across the home front and sparked a most intense period of antiwar protests. By February 1968, a Gallup poll showed only 35 percent of the population approved of Johnson's handling of the war and a full 50 percent disapproved.

Joining the antiwar demonstrations by this time were members of the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War, many of whom were in wheelchairs and on crutches. The sight of these men on television throwing away the medals they had won during the war did much to win people over to the antiwar cause.

After many 1968 New Hampshire primary voters rallied behind the antiwar Democrat Eugene McCarthy, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection.

Later that year, Hubert Humphrey accepted the Democratic nomination for president at the 1968 Democratic Convention, held at Chicago's International Amphitheatre. Meanwhile, outside the convention hall, 10,000 antiwar demonstrators showed up, clashing violently with security forces assembled by Mayor Richard Daley.

Humphrey lost the 1968 presidential election to Richard M. Nixon, who promised in his campaign to restore "law and order"-a reference to conflict over antiwar protests as well as the rioting that followed King's assassination in 1968-more effectively than Johnson had.

Silent Majority

The following year, Nixon claimed in a famous speech that antiwar protesters constituted a small-albeit vocal-minority that should not be allowed to drown out the "silent majority" of Americans. Nixon's war policies divided the nation still further, however: In December 1969, the government instituted the first U.S. draft lottery since World War II, inciting a vast amount of controversy and causing many young men to flee to Canada to avoid conscription.

Tensions ran higher than ever, spurred on by mass demonstrations and incidents of violence by officials such those at Kent State in May 1970, when National Guard troops shot into a group of protesters demonstrating against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, killing four students.

At the Mayday Protest in 1971, thousands of antiwar protestors tried to shut down Washington, D.C., completely, all but crippling the U.S. government. Traffic was stopped for a few hours, and CIA director Richard Helms later remarked that Mayday was "one of the things that was putting increasing pressure on the [Nixon] administration to try and find some way to get out of the war."

Vietnam War Ends

As antiwar fervor grew, in mid-1971, Daniel Ellsberg brought about the publication of the Pentagon Papers -which revealed previously confidential details about the war's conduct-and misconduct by government and military officials. Ellsberg called the Pentagon Papers "evidence of a quarter-century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies and murder."

These and other revelations caused more and more Americans to doubt the accountability of the U.S. government and the integrity of the U.S. military establishment.

Finally, in response to an almost overwhelming antiwar mandate, Nixon announced the effective end to U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in January 1973. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, effectively ending the Vietnam War.

Sources

Vietnam War. Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium: University of Washington.
Anti-War Protests of the 1960s-70s. The White House Historical Association.
Anti-War Movement. PBS.

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Vietnam War Protests: Antiwar & Protest Songs - HISTORY

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Vietnam War protests began among antiwar activists and students, then gained prominence in 1965 when the U.S. military began bombing North Vietnam heavily.

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The 15th amendment prohibits government at federal and state level from denying a person access to the right to vote based on their race. Ratified on February 3rd of 1870, this gave free African American men their right to vote.

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Most Americans probably believe the "right to vote" is one of their most fundamental constitutional rights. It will come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that neither the original Constitution nor the Bill of Rights nor any other provision of the Constitution expressly guarantees the right to vote. Only in the 1960s, when the Supreme Court began to conclude that the Fourteenth Amendment implicitly protected the right to vote, did American constitutional doctrine begin to treat the right to vote as a fundamental constitutional right. Once the Court recognized the right to vote, decisions of the Supreme Court helped revolutionize the way voting was treated under American constitutional law. Most of the law concerning "the right to vote" developed under the Fourteenth Amendment, though important Court decisions also have relied at times on the Fifteenth Amendment.

The reason the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not expressly protect the right to vote is that doing so would have been too controversial and divisive at the time. Different states had different rules for who could vote (many states had property-holding requirements and differed on the amount; some states permitted women and free black men to vote, others did not). To create a uniform standard across the country would have required resolving these major differences. The only place where voting is directly recognized in the original Constitution is for choosing members of the House of Representatives; Article I, Section 2 provides that the people eligible to vote for members of the U.S. House will be determined by whom the States let vote for their own house of representatives. Since the Civil War, many constitutional amendments address voting issues, but these amendments are written to prohibit certain bases for denying the vote to some people once the vote is extended to others: the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits racial discrimination in the vote; the Nineteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination based on sex; the Twenty-Fourth Amendment prohibits the use of poll taxes in national elections; and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment prohibits denying the vote to those over 18 years of age.

But in terms of constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court, the two most important provisions with respect to the vote have been the Fourteenth and, to a lesser extent, the Fifteenth Amendments. Although the Fourteenth Amendment was not designed to protect the right to vote and does not expressly mention it, two lines of Supreme Court decisions have provided important protections since the 1960s. In the first line of cases, the Supreme Court created the "one-vote, one-person" doctrine, which requires that there must be fairly equal numbers of people in election districts when electing representatives to a political body-for example, all the congressional districts in a state must have the same number of people. Before the decisions in Baker v. Carr (1962), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), and similar cases, some districts in a state might have had 900,000 people, others only 100,000 people, but voters in each district would elect one representative to Congress. The Court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment reflected principles of political equality that required each district have, to the extent possible, an equal number of residents, which is what one-vote, one-person means.

The second area of important decisions involves the right to get to the ballot box and cast a vote. Again under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court first began to recognize this right in the 1960s, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), Dunn v. Blumstein (1972) and many other cases, the Court decided that restrictions on who could vote would be subject to strict scrutiny, the most demanding judicial standard. Once this standard was announced, the Court quickly held unconstitutional virtually all restrictions on voting other than (1) citizenship; (2) residency in the jurisdiction; and (3) age under 18. To evaluate other regulations on the voting process, the Court in later cases, such as Burdick v. Takushi (1992) has created a two-part test that first requires courts to decide if a burden on the right to vote is "severe" or not. If it is, the regulation can survive only under strict scrutiny, which most regulations fail. But if the burden is not severe, the regulation is much more likely to be upheld. Most current constitutional controversies about regulations of the voting process take place under this Burdick framework and require courts to decide, first, whether a regulation imposes a severe burden on the right to vote.

Added to the Constitution in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was the final of the three constitutional amendments enacted during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War. While the Thirteenth Amendment prohibited slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment barred states from denying "equal protection of the laws," the Fifteenth Amendment established that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of race. Though its express terms prohibit all racial discrimination in voting qualifications, the Amendment was aimed at ensuring the enfranchisement of African-Americans. Section 2 of this short but momentous Amendment also gave Congress the power to enact legislation to enforce the right against race-based denials of the vote. The constitutional meaning of the Civil War was reflected in these three amendments; when the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, it represented the principle that African-American citizens-many of them former slaves-were now entitled to political equality.

Yet the most significant fact about the Fifteenth Amendment in American history is that it was essentially ignored and circumvented for nearly a century. This history illustrates that constitutional rights can be little more than words on paper unless institutions exist with the power to make sure those rights are actually enforced. For the first twenty to thirty years after the Amendment was adopted, black adult men (women were generally not permitted to vote at this time) were indeed permitted to vote-and did so in large numbers. Nearly 2,000 African-Americans were elected to public offices during this period. But starting in 1890, Southern states adopted an array of laws that made it extremely difficult for African-Americans (and many poor whites) to vote. This was the start of what is known as the era of disenfranchisement, and it lasted all the way up until 1965. These laws required people to demonstrate literacy, or prove their good character, or pay certain voting taxes, or overcome other hurdles, before they were permitted to vote. As a result of these laws, African-American voting in the South was kept at extremely low levels from 1890 to 1965, despite the Fifteenth Amendment.

Early on in this process of disenfranchisement, the Supreme Court was asked to hold these laws unconstitutional. But in a 1903 case called Giles v. Harris (1903), the Supreme Court refused to do so; the Court stated that it did not have the power to force Southern states to comply with the Fifteenth Amendment. Later that year, in James v. Bowman (1903), the Court held that the Amendment did not authorize Congress to punish private individuals who interfered to prevent African-Americans from voting.

The Supreme Court did eventually invoke the Amendment to hold unconstitutional a few of the specific laws that sought to block African-Americans from effective political participation. In 1944, for example, the Court held unconstitutional rules that in some Southern states prohibited black citizens from voting in political primary elections. Smith v. Allwright (1944). In a well-known case, Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960), the Supreme Court held that that City of Tuskegee, Alabama, had violated the Fifteenth Amendment when it re-drew the city's boundaries from a square to an "uncouth twenty-eight sided figure" that put the residences of nearly all black people outside the city's boundaries. Yet as of 1965, it was still the case that in Mississippi, for example, only 6.3% of African Americans were able to register to vote.

The situation only began to change dramatically in 1965, when Congress used its power to enforce the Fifteenth (and Fourteenth) Amendment by enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the VRA). The VRA provided a variety of means for the federal government and the federal courts to ensure that the right to vote was not denied on the basis of race.

In modern constitutional law, the Fifteenth Amendment plays a minor role. The reason is that other, broader sources of law have emerged to protect the right to vote. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to vote as a general matter, while the Fifteenth Amendment is more limited to protecting against only race-based denials of the right to vote. In addition, federal statutes, such as the VRA and others, now exist to protect the right to vote as well. When cases involving issues of race and the vote are brought today, they will typically be brought simultaneously under the Fifteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the VRA.

If a law explicitly imposes different rules by race for access to the ballot, there is little doubt the courts today would hold such a law to violate the Fifteenth Amendment. The one case like this in recent decades came from Hawaii, where a law permitted only Native Hawaiians, not all Hawaiians, to vote for certain officials. The Supreme Court concluded that a law limiting who could vote based on their ancestry was equivalent to a law that limited the vote based on race and that Hawaii's law therefore violated the Fifteenth Amendment. Rice v. Cayetano(2000). But if a voting law does not impose different rules by race, and is challenged as nonetheless racially discriminatory, the Court has concluded that the challenger must show that the law is based on a racially-discriminatory purpose before the Fifteenth Amendment is violated. Mobile v. Bolden (1980).

Although the Fifteenth Amendment does not play a major, independent role in cases today, its most important role might be the power it gives Congress to enact national legislation that protects against race-based denials or abridgements of the right to vote.

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Most Americans probably believe the "right to vote" is one of their most fundamental constitutional rights. It will come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that neither the original Constitution nor the Bill of Rights nor any other provision of the Constitution expressly guarantees the right to vote.

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Signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt, this act looked to provide economic security for the increasing number of elderly Americans. This act resulted in the creation of social security cards and medicare.

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Social Security Act of 1935

TITLE I- GRANTS TO STATES FOR OLD-AGE ASSISTANCE

TITLE II- FEDERAL OLD-AGE BENEFITS

TITLE III- GRANTS TO STATES FOR UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION ADMINISTRATION

TITLE IV- GRANTS TO STATES FOR AID TO DEPENDENT CHILDREN

TITLE V- GRANTS TO STATES FOR MATERNAL AND CHILD WELFARE

TITLE VI- PUBLIC HEALTH WORK

TITLE VII- SOCIAL SECURITY BOARD

TITLE VIII- TAXES WITH RESPECT TO EMPLOYMENT

TITLE IX- TAX ON EMPLOYERS OF EIGHT OR MORE

TITLE X- GRANTS TO STATES FOR AID TO THE BLIND

TITLE XI- GENERAL PROVISIONS

The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260]

An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

TITLE I- GRANTS TO STATES FOR OLD-AGE ASSISTANCE

APPROPRIATION

SECTION 1. For the purpose of enabling each State to furnish financial assistance, as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, to aged needy individuals, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1936, the sum of $49,750,000, and there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year thereafter a sum sufficient to carry out the purposes of this title. The sums made available under this section shall be used for making payments to States which have submitted, and had approved by the Social Security Board established by Title VII (hereinafter referred to as the Board ), State plans for old-age assistance.

STATE OLD-AGE ASSISTANCE PLANS

(b) The Board shall approve any plan which fulfills the conditions specified in subsection (a), except that it shall not approve any plan which imposes, as a condition of eligibility for old-age assistance under the plan-
(1) An age requirement of more than sixty-five years, except that the plan may impose, effective until January 1, 1940, an age requirement of as much as seventy years; or
(2) Any residence requirement which excludes any resident of the State who has resided therein five years during the nine years immediately preceding the application for old-age assistance and has resided therein continuously for one year immediately preceding the application; or (3) Any citizenship requirement which excludes any citizen of the United States.

PAYMENT TO STATES

SEC. 3. (a) From the sums appropriated therefor, the Secretary of the Treasury shall pay to each State which has an approved plan for old-age assistance, for each quarter, beginning with the quarter commencing July 1, 1935,
(1) an amount, which shall be used exclusively as old-age assistance, equal to one-half of the total of the sums expended during such quarter as old-age assistance under the State plan with respect to each individual who at the time of such expenditure is sixty-five years of age or older and is not an inmate of a public institution, not counting so much of such expenditure with respect to any individual for any month as exceeds $30, and
(2) 5 per centum of such amount, which shall be used for paying the costs of administering the State plan or for old-age assistance, or both, and for no other purpose: Provided, That the State plan, in order to be approved by the Board, need not provide for financial participation before July 1, 1937, by the State, in the case of any State which the Board, upon application by the State and after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State, finds is prevented by its constitution from providing such financial participation.

(b) The method of computing and paying such amounts shall be as follows:
(1) The Board shall, prior to the beginning of each quarter, estimate the amount to be paid to the State for such quarter under the provisions of clause (1) of subsection (a), such estimate to be based on
(A) a report filed by the State containing its estimate of the total sum to be expended in such quarter in accordance with the provisions of such clause, and stating the amount appropriated or made available by the State and its political subdivisions for such expenditures in such quarter, and if such amount is less than one-half of the total sum of such estimated expenditures, the source or sources from which the difference is expected to be derived,
(B) records showing the number of aged individuals in the State, and
(C) such other investigation as the Board may find necessary.

(2) The Board shall then certify to the Secretary of the Treasury the amount so estimated by the Board, reduced or increased, as the case may be, by any sum by which it finds that its estimate for any prior quarter was greater or less than the amount which should have been paid to the State under clause (1) of subsection (a) for such quarter, except to the extent that such sum has been applied to make the amount certified for any prior quarter greater or less than the amount estimated by the Board for such prior quarter.

(3) The Secretary of the Treasury shall thereupon, through the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, pay to the State, at the time or times fixed by the Board, the amount so certified, increased by 5 per centum.

OPERATION OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 4. In the case of any State plan for old-age assistance which has been approved by the Board, if the Board, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency administering or supervising the administration of such plan, finds-
(1) that the plan has been so changed as to impose any age, residence, or citizenship requirement prohibited by section 2 (b), or that in the administration of the plan any such prohibited requirement is imposed, with the knowledge of such State agency, in a substantial number of cases; or
(2) that in the administration of the plan there is a failure to comply substantially with any provision required by section 2 (a) to be included in the plan; the Board shall notify such State agency that further payments will not be made to the State until the Board is satisfied that such prohibited requirement is no longer so imposed, and that there is no longer any such failure to comply. Until it is so satisfied it shall make no further certification to the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to such State.

ADMINISTRATION

SEC. 5. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $250,000, for all necessary expenses of the Board in administering the provisions of this title.

DEFINITION

SEC. 6. When used in this title the term old age assistance means money payments to aged individuals.

OLD-AGE BENEFIT PAYMENTS

SEC. 202. (a) Every qualified individual (as defined in section 210) shall be entitled to receive, with respect to the period beginning on the date he attains the age of sixty-five, or on January 1, 1942, whichever is the later, and ending on the date of his death, an old-age benefit (payable as nearly as practicable in equal monthly installments) as follows:
(1) If the total wages (as defined in section 210) determined by the Board to have been paid to him, with respect to employment (as defined in section 210) after December 31, 1936, and before he attained the age of sixty- five, were not more than $3,000, the old-age benefit shall be at a monthly rate of one-half of 1 per centum of such total wages;
(2) If such total wages were more than $3,000, the old-age benefit shall be at a monthly rate equal to the sum of the following:
(A) One-half of 1 per centum of $3,000; plus
(B) One-twelfth of 1 per centum of the amount by which such total wages exceeded $3,000 and did not exceed $45,000; plus
(C) One-twenty-fourth of 1 per centum of the amount by which such total wages exceeded $45,000.
(b) In no case shall the monthly rate computed under subsection (a) exceed $85.
(c) If the Board finds at any time that more or less than the correct amount has theretofore been paid to any individual under this section, then, under regulations made by the Board, proper adjustments shall be made in connection with subsequent payments under this section to the same individual.
(d) Whenever the Board finds that any qualified individual has received wages with respect to regular employment after he attained the age of sixty-five, the old-age benefit payable to such individual shall be reduced, for each calendar month in any part of which such regular employment occurred, by an amount equal to one month s benefit. Such reduction shall be made, under regulations prescribed by the Board, by deductions from one or more payments of old-age benefit to such individual.

PAYMENTS UPON DEATH

SEC. 203. (a) If any individual dies before attaining the age of sixty-five, there shall be paid to his estate an amount equal to 3 " per centum of the total wages determined by the Board to have been paid to him, with respect to employment after December 31, 1936.
(b) If the Board finds that the correct amount of the old-age benefit payable to a qualified individual during his life under section 202 was less than 3 " per centum of the total wages by which such old-age benefit was measurable, then there shall be paid to his estate a sum equal to the amount, if any, by which such 3 " per centum exceeds the amount (whether more or less than the correct amount) paid to him during his life as old-age benefit.
(c) If the Board finds that the total amount paid to a qualified individual under an old-age benefit during his life was less than the correct amount to which he was entitled under section 202, and that the correct amount of such old-age benefit was 3 " per centum or more of the total wages by which such old-age benefit was measurable, then there shall be paid to his estate a sum equal to the amount, if any, by which the correct amount of the old- age benefit exceeds the amount which was so paid to him during his life.

PAYMENTS TO AGED INDIVIDUALS NOT QUALIFIED FOR BENEFITS

SEC. 204. (a) There shall be paid in a lump sum to any individual who, upon attaining the age of sixty-five, is not a qualified individual, an amount equal to 3 " per centum of the total wages determined by the Board to have been paid to him, with respect to employment after December 31, 1936, and before he attained the age of sixty-five.
(b) After any individual becomes entitled to any payment under subsection (a), no other payment shall be made under this title in any manner measured by wages paid to him, except that any part of any payment under subsection (a) which is not paid to him before his death shall be paid to his estate.

AMOUNTS OF $500 OR LESS PAYABLE TO ESTATES

SEC. 205. If any amount payable to an estate under section 203 or 204 is $500 or less, such amount may, under regulations prescribed by the Board, be paid to the persons found by the Board to be entitled thereto under the law of the State in which the deceased was domiciled, without the necessity of compliance with the requirements of law with respect to the administration of such estate.

OVERPAYMENTS DURING LIFE

SEC. 206. If the Board finds that the total amount paid to a qualified individual under an old-age benefit during his life was more than the correct amount to which he was entitled under section 202, and was 3 " per centum or more of the total wages by which such old-age benefit was measurable, then upon his death there shall be repaid to the United States by his estate the amount, if any, by which such total amount paid to him during his life exceeds whichever of the following is the greater:
(1) Such 3 " per centum, or
(2) the correct amount to which he was entitled under section 202.

METHOD OF MAKING PAYMENTS

SEC. 207. The Board shall from time to time certify to the Secretary of the Treasury the name and address of each person entitled to receive a payment under this title, the amount of such payment, and the time at which it should be made, and the Secretary of the Treasury through the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department, and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, shall make payment in accordance with the certification by the Board.

ASSIGNMENT

SEC. 208. The right of any person to any future payment under this title shall not be transferable or assignable, at law or in equity, and none of the moneys paid or payable or rights existing under this title shall be subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process, or to the operation of any bankruptcy or insolvency law.

PENALTIES

SEC. 209. Whoever in any application for any payment under this title makes any false statement as to any material fact, knowing such statement to be false, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

DEFINITIONS

SEC. 210. When used in this title-- (a) The term wages means all remuneration for employment, including the cash value of all remuneration paid in any medium other than cash; except that such term shall not include that part of the remuneration which, after remuneration equal to $3,000 has been paid to an individual by an employer with respect to employment during any calendar year, is paid to such employer with respect to employment during such calendar year.
(b) The term employment means any service, of whatever nature, performed within the United States by an employee for his employer, except-
(1) Agricultural labor;
(2) Domestic service in a private home;
(3) Casual labor not in the course of the employer s trade or business;
(4) Service performed as an officer or member of the crew of a vessel documented under the laws of the United States or of any foreign country;
(5) Service performed in the employ of the United States Government or of an instrumentality of the United States;
(6) Service performed in the employ of a State, a political subdivision thereof, or an instrumentality of one or more States or political subdivisions;
(7) Service performed in the employ of a corporation, community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.

(c) The term qualified individual means any individual with respect to whom it appears to the satisfaction of the Board that-
(1) He is at least sixty-five years of age; and
(2) The total amount of wages paid to him, with respect to employment after December 31, 1936, and before he attained the age of sixty-five, was not less than $2,000; and
(3) Wages were paid to him, with respect to employment on some five days after December 31, 1936, and before he attained the age of sixty-five, each day being in a different calendar year.

TITLE III-GRANTS TO STATES FOR UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION ADMINISTRATION APPROPRIATION

SECTION 301. For the purpose of assisting the States in the administration of their unemployment compensation laws, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $4,000,000, and for each fiscal year thereafter the sum of $49,000,000, to be used as hereinafter provided.

PAYMENTS TO STATES

PROVISIONS OF STATE LAWS

SEC. 303. (a) The Board shall make no certification for payment to any State unless it finds that the law of such State, approved by the Board under Title IX, includes provisions for-
(1) Such methods of administration (other than those relating to selection, tenure of office, and compensation of personnel) as are found by the Board to be reasonably calculated to insure full payment of unemployment compensation when due; and
(2) Payment of unemployment compensation solely through public employment offices in the State or such other agencies as the Board may approve; and
(3) Opportunity for a fair hearing, before an impartial tribunal, for all individuals whose claims for unemployment compensation are denied; and
(4) The payment of all money received in the unemployment fund of such State, immediately upon such receipt, to the Secretary of the Treasury to the credit of the Unemployment Trust Fund established by section 904; and
(5) Expenditure of all money requisitioned by the State agency from the Unemployment Trust Fund, in the payment of unemployment compensation, exclusive of expenses of admin- istration; and
(6) The making of such reports, in such form and containing such information, as the Board may from time to time require, and compliance with such provisions as the Board may from time to time find necessary to assure the correctness and verification of such reports; and
(7) Making available upon request to any agency of the United States charged with the administration of public works or assistance through public employment, the name, address, ordinary occupation, and employment status of each recipient of unemployment compensation, and a statement of such recipient s rights to further compensation under such law.
(b) Whenever the Board, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency charged with the administration of the State law finds that in the administration of the law there is--
(1) a denial, in a substantial number of cases, of unemployment compensation to individuals entitled thereto under such law; or
(2) a failure to comply substantially with any provision specified in subsection (a); the Board shall notify such State agency that further payments will not be made to the State until the Board is satisfied that there is no longer any such denial or failure to comply. Until it is so satisfied it shall make no further certification to the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to such State.

TITLE IV-GRANTS TO STATES FOR AID TO DEPENDENT CHILDREN APPROPRIATION

SECTION 401. For the purpose of enabling each State to furnish financial assistance, as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, to needy dependent children, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $24,750,000, and there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year thereafter a sum sufficient to carry out the purposes of this title. The sums made available under this section shall be used for making payments to States which have submitted, and had approved by the Board, State plans for aid to dependent children.

STATE PLANS FOR AID TO DEPENDENT CHILDREN

PAYMENT TO STATES

SEC. 403. (a) From the sums appropriated therefor, the Secretary of the Treasury shall pay to each State which has an approved plan for aid to dependent children, for each quarter, beginning with the quarter commencing July 1, 1935, an amount, which shall be used exclusively for carrying out the State plan, equal to one-third of the total of the sums expended during such quarter under such plan, not counting so much of such expenditure with respect to any dependent child for any month as exceeds $18, or if there is more than one dependent child in the same home, as exceeds $18 for any month with respect to one such dependent child and $12 for such month with respect to each of the other dependent children.
(b) The method of computing and paying such amounts shall be as follows:
(1) The Board shall, prior to the beginning of each quarter, estimate the amount to be paid to the State for such quarter under the provisions of subsection
(a), such estimate to be based on
(A) a report filed by the State containing its estimate of the total sum to be expended in such quarter in accordance with the provisions of such subsection and stating the amount appropriated or made available by the State and its political subdivisions for such expenditures in such quarter, and if such amount is less than two-thirds of the total sum of such estimated expenditures, the source or sources from which the difference is expected to be derived,
(B) records showing the number of dependent children in the State, and
(C) such other investigation as the Board may find necessary.
(2) The Board shall then certify to the Secretary of the Treasury the amount so estimated by the Board, reduced or increased, as the case may be, by any sum by which it finds that its estimate for any prior quarter was greater or less than the amount which should have been paid to the State for such quarter, except to the extent that such sum has been applied to make the amount certified for any prior quarter greater or less than the amount estimated by the Board for such prior quarter.
(3) The Secretary of the Treasury shall thereupon, through the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, pay to the State, at the time or times fixed by the Board, the amount so certified.

OPERATION OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 404. In the case of any State plan for aid to dependent children which has been approved by the Board, if the Board, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency administering or supervising the administration of such plan, finds-
(1) that the plan has been so changed as to impose any residence requirement prohibited by section 402 (b), or that in the administration of the plan any such prohibited requirement is imposed, with the knowledge of such State agency, in a substantial number of cases; or
(2) that in the administration of the plan there is a failure to comply substantially with any provision required by section 402 (a) to be included in the plan; the Board shall notify such State agency that further payments will not be made to the State until the Board is satisfied that such prohibited requirement is no longer so imposed, and that there is no longer any such failure to comply. Until it is so satisfied it shall make no further certification to the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to such State.

ADMINISTRATION

SEC. 405. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $250,000 for all necessary expenses of the Board in administering the provisions of this title.

DEFINITIONS

SEC. 406. When used in this title-
(a) The term dependent child means a child under the age of sixteen who has been deprived of parental support or care by reason of the death, continued absence from the home, or physical or mental incapacity of a parent, and who is living with his father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, stepfather, stepmother, stepbrother, stepsister, uncle, or aunt, in a place of residence maintained by one or more of such relatives as his or their own home;
(b) The term aid to dependent children means money payments with respect to a dependent child or dependent children.

PART 1-MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH SERVICES

APPROPRIATION

SECTION 501. For the purpose of enabling each State to extend and improve, as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, services for promoting the health of mothers and children, especially in rural areas and in areas suffering from severe economic distress, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year, beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $3,800,000. The sums made available under this section shall be used for making payments to States which have submitted, and had approved by the Chief of the Children s Bureau, State plans for such services.

ALLOTMENTS TO STATES

SEC. 502. (a) Out of the sums appropriated pursuant to section 501 for each fiscal year the Secretary of Labor shall allot to each State $20,000, and such part of $1,800,000 as he finds that the number of live births in such State bore to the total number of live births in the United States, in the latest calendar year for which the Bureau of the Census has available statistics.
(b) Out of the sums appropriated pursuant to section 501 for each fiscal year the Secretary of Labor shall allot to the States $980,000 (in addition to the allotments made under subsection (a)), according to the financial need of each State for assistance in carrying out its State plan, as determined by him after taking into consideration the number of live births in such State.
(c) The amount of any allotment to a State under subsection (a) for any fiscal year remaining unpaid to such State at the end of such fiscal year shall be available for payment to such State under section 504 until the end of the second succeeding fiscal year. No payment to a State under section 504 shall be made out of its allotment for any fiscal year until its allotment for the preceding fiscal year has been exhausted or has ceased to be available.

APPROVAL OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 503. (a) A State plan for maternal and child-health services must (1) provide for financial participation by the State;
(2) provide for the administration of the plan by the State health agency or the supervision of the administration of the plan by the State health agency;
(3) provide such methods of administration (other than those relating to selection, tenure of office, and compensation of personnel) as are necessary for the efficient operation of the plan;
(4) provide that the State health agency will make such reports, in such form and containing such information, as the Secretary of Labor may from time to time require, and comply with such provisions as he may from time to time find necessary to assure the correctness and verification of such reports;
(5) provide for the extension and improvement of local maternal and child-health services administered by local child health units;
(6) provide for cooperation with medical, nursing, and welfare groups and organizations; and
(7) provide for the development of demonstration services in needy areas and among groups in special need.
(b) The Chief of the Children s Bureau shall approve any plan which fulfills the conditions specified in subsection (a) and shall thereupon notify the Secretary of Labor and the State health agency of his approval.

PAYMENT TO STATES

OPERATION OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 505. In the case of any State plan for maternal and child-health services which has been approved by the Chief of the Children s Bureau, if the Secretary of Labor, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency administering or supervising the administration of such plan, finds that in the administration of the plan there is a failure to comply substantially with any provision required by section 503 to be included in the plan, he shall notify such State agency that further payments will not be made to the State until he is satisfied that there is no longer any such failure to comply. Until he is so satisfied he shall make no further certification to the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to such State.

PART 2-SERVICES FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN

APPROPRIATION

SEC. 511. For the purpose of enabling each State to extend and improve (especially in rural areas and in areas suffering from severe economic distress), as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, services for locating crippled children and for providing medical, surgical, corrective, and other services and care, and facilities for diagnosis, hospitalization, and aftercare, for children who are crippled or who are suffering from conditions which lead to crippling, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $2,850,000. The sums made available under this section shall be used for making payments to States which have submitted, and had approved by the Chief of the Children s Bureau, State plans for such services.

ALLOTMENTS TO STATES

SEC. 512. (a) Out of the sums appropriated pursuant to section 511 for each fiscal year the Secretary of Labor shall allot to each State $20,000, and the remainder to the States according to the need of each State as determined by him after taking into consideration the number of crippled children in such State in need of the services referred to section 511 and the cost of furnishing such service to them
(b) The amount of any allotment to a State under subsection (a) for any fiscal year remaining unpaid to such State at the end of such fiscal year shall be available for payment to such State under section 514 until the end of the second succeeding fiscal year. No payment to a State under section 514 shall be made out of its allotment for any fiscal year until its allotment for the preceding fiscal year has been exhausted or has ceased to be available.

APPROVAL OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 513. (a) A State plan for services for crippled children must
(1) provide for financial participation by the State;
(2) provide for the administration of the plan by a State agency or the supervision of the administration of the plan by a State agency;
(3) provide such methods of administration (other than those relating to selection, tenure of office, and compensation of personnel) as are necessary for the efficient operation of the plan;
(4) provide that the State agency will make such reports, in such form and containing such information, as the Secretary of Labor may from time to time require, and comply with such provisions as he may from time to time find necessary to assure the correctness and verification of such reports;
(5) provide for carrying out the purposes specified in section 511; and
(6) provide for cooperation with medical, health, nursing, and welfare groups and organizations and with any agency in such State charged with administering State laws providing for vocational rehabilitation of physically handicapped children.

(b) The Chief of the Children s Bureau shall approve any plan which fulfills the conditions specified in subsection (a) and shall thereupon notify the Secretary of Labor and the State agency of his approval.

PAYMENT TO STATES

SEC. 514. (a) From the sums appropriated therefor and the allotments available under section 512, the Secretary of the Treasury shall pay to each State which has an approved plan for services for crippled children, for each quarter, beginning the quarter commencing July 1, 1935, an amount which shall be used exclusively for carrying out the State plan, equal to one-half of the total sum expended during such quarter for carrying out such plan.
(b) The method of computing and paying such amounts shall be as follows:
(1) The Secretary of Labor shall, prior the beginning of each quarter, estimate the amount to be paid to the State for such quarter under the provisions of subsection (a), such estimate to be based on
(A) a report filed by the State containing its estimate of the total sum to be expended in such quarter in accordance with the provisions of such subsection and stating the amount appropriated or made available by the State and its political subdivisions for such expenditures in such quarter and if such amount is less than one-half of the total sum of such estimated expenditures the source or sources from which the difference is expected to be derived, and
(B) such investigation as he may find necessary.
(2) The Secretary of Labor shall then certify the amount so estimated by him to the Secretary of the Treasury, reduced or increased as the case may be, by any sum by which the Secretary of Labor finds that his estimate for any prior quarter was greater or less than the amount which should have been paid to the State for such quarter, except to the extent that such sum has been applied to make the amount certified for any prior quarter greater or less than the amount estimated by the Secretary of Labor for such prior quarter.
(3) The Secretary of the Treasury shall thereupon, through the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, pay to the State, at the time or times fixed by the Secretary of Labor, the amount so certified.

OPERATION OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 515. In the case of any State plan for services for crippled children which has been approved by the Chief of the Children s Bureau, if the Secretary of Labor, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency administering or supervising the administration of such plan finds that in the administration of the plan there a failure to comply substantially with any provision required by section 513 to be included in the plan, he shall notify such State agency that further payments will not be made to the State until he is satisfied that there is no longer any such failure to comply. Until he is so satisfied he shall make no further certification to the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to such State.

PART 3- CHILD WELFARE SERVICES

SEC. 521. (a) For the purpose of enabling the United States, through the Children s Bureau, to cooperate with State public-welfare agencies establishing, extending, and strengthening, especially in predominantly rural areas, public-welfare services (hereinafter in this section referred to as child-welfare services ) for the protection and care of homeless, dependent, and neglected children, and children in danger of becoming delinquent, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year, beginning with the year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $1,500,000. Such amount shall be allotted by the Secretary of Labor for use by cooperating State public- welfare agencies on the basis of plans developed jointly by the State agency and the Children s Bureau, to each State, $10,000, and the remainder to each State on the basis of such plans, not to exceed such part of the remainder as the rural population of such State bears to the total rural population of the United States. The amount so allotted shall be expended for payment of part of the cost of district, county or other local child- welfare services in areas predominantly rural, and for developing State services for the encouragement and assist- ance of adequate methods of community child-welfare organization in areas predominantly rural and other areas of special need. The amount of any allotment to a State under this section for any fiscal year remaining unpaid to such State at the end of such fiscal year shall be available for payment to such State under this section until the end of the second succeeding fiscal year. No payment to a State under this section shall be made out of its allotment for any fiscal year until its allotment for the preceding fiscal year has been exhausted or has ceased to be available.
(b) From the sums appropriated therefor and the allotments available under subsection (a) the Secretary of Labor shall from time to time certify to the Secretary of the Treasury the amounts to be paid to the States, and the Secretary of the Treasury shall, through the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, make payments of such amounts from such allotments at the time or times specified by the Secretary of Labor.

PART 4- VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION

SEC. 531. (a) In order to enable the United States to cooperate with the States and Hawaii in extending and strengthening their programs of vocational rehabilitation of the physically disabled, and to continue to carry out the provisions and purposes of the Act entitled An Act to provide for the promotion of vocational rehabilitation of persons disabled in industry or otherwise and their return to civil employment , approved June 2, 1920, as amended (U.S.C., title 29, ch. 4; U.S.C., Supp. VII title 29, secs. 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, and 40), there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal years ending June 30, 1936, and June 30, 1937, the sum of $841,000 for each such fiscal year in addition to the amount of the existing authorization, and for each fiscal year thereafter the sum of $1,938,000. Of the sums appropriated pursuant to such authorization for each fiscal year, $5,000 shall be apportioned to the Territory of Hawaii and the remainder shall be apportioned among the several States in the manner provided in such Act of June 2, 1920, as amended.
(b) For the administration of such Act of June 2, 1920, as amended, by the Federal agency authorized to administer it, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal years ending June 30, 1936, and June 30, 1937, the sum of $22,000 for each such fiscal year in addition to the amount of the existing authorization, and for each fiscal year thereafter the sum of $102,000.

PART 5- ADMINISTRATION

SEC. 541. (a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $425,000, for all necessary expenses of the Children s Bureau in administering the provisions of this title, except section 531.
(b) The Children s Bureau shall make such studies and investigations as will promote the efficient administration of this title, except section 531.
(c) The Secretary of Labor shall include in his annual report to Congress a full account of the administration of this title, except section 531.

SECTION 601. For the purpose of assisting States, counties, health districts, and other political subdivisions of the States in establishing and maintaining adequate public-health services, including the training of personnel for State and local health work, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year, beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30,1936, the sum of $8,000,000 to be used as hereinafter provided.

STATE AND LOCAL PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES

SEC. 602. (a) The Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall, at the beginning of each fiscal year, allot to the States the total of (1) the amount appropriated for such year pursuant to section 601; and (2) the amounts of the allotments under this section for the preceding fiscal year remaining unpaid to the States at the end of such fiscal year. The amounts of such allotments shall be determined on the basis of (1) the population; (2) the special health problems; and (3) the financial needs; of the respective States. Upon making such allotments the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service shall certify the amounts thereof to the Secretary of the Treasury.
(b) The amount of an allotment to any State under subsection (a) for any fiscal year, remaining unpaid at the end of such fiscal year, shall be available for allotment to States under subsection (a) for the succeeding fiscal year, in addition to the amount appropriated for such year.
(c) Prior to the beginning of each quarter of the fiscal year, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service shall, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, determine in accordance with rules and regulations previously prescribed by such Surgeon General after consultation with a conference of the State and Territorial health authorities, the amount to be paid to each State for such quarter from the allotment to such State, and shall certify the amount so determined to the Secretary of the Treasury. Upon receipt of such certification, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, through the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, pay in accordance with such certification.
(d) The moneys so paid to any State shall be expended solely in carrying out the purposes specified in section 601, and in accordance with plans presented by the health authority of such State and approved by the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service.

INVESTIGATIONS

SEC. 603. (a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year, beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $2,000,000 for expenditure by the Public Health Service for investigation of disease and problems of sanitation (including the printing and binding of the findings of such investigations), and f or the pay and allowances and traveling expenses of personnel of the Public Health Service, including commissioned officers, engaged in such investigations or detailed to cooperate with the health authorities of any State in carrying out the purposes specified in section 601: Provided, That no personnel of the Public Health Service shall be detailed to cooperate with the health authorities of any State except at the request of the proper authorities of such State.
(b) The personnel of the Public Health Service paid from any appropriation not made pursuant to subsection (a) may be detailed to assist in carrying out the purposes of this title. The appropriation from which they are paid shall be reimbursed from the appropriation made pursuant to subsection (a) to the extent of their salaries and allowances for services performed while so detailed.
(c) The Secretary of the Treasury shall include in his annual report to Congress a full account of the administration of this title.

SECTION 701. There is hereby established a Social Security Board (in this Act referred to as the Board ) to be composed of three members to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. During his term of membership on the Board , no member shall engage in any other business, vocation, or employment. Not more than two of the members of the Board shall be members of the same political party. Each member shall receive a salary at the rate of $10,000 a year and shall hold office for a term of six years, except that
(1) any member appointed to fill a vacancy occurring prior to the expiration of the term for which his predecessor was appointed, shall be appointed for the remainder of such term; and
(2) the terms of office of the members first taking office after the date of the enactment of this Act shall expire, as designated by the President at the time of appointment, one at the end of two years, one at the end of four years, and one at the end of six years, after the date of the enactment of this Act. The President shall designate one of the members as the chairman of the Board.

DUTIES OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY BOARD

SEC. 702. The Board shall perform the duties imposed upon it by this Act and shall also have the duty of studying and making recommendations as to the most effective methods of providing economic security through social insurance, and as to legislation and matters of administrative policy concerning old-age pensions, unemployment compensation, accident compensation, and related subjects.

EXPENSES OF THE BOARD

SEC. 703. The Board is authorized to appoint and fix the compensation of such officers and employees, and to make such expenditures, as may be necessary for carrying out its functions under this Act. Appointments of attorneys and experts may be made without regard to the civil-service laws.

REPORTS

SEC. 704. The Board shall make a full report to Congress, at the beginning of each regular session, of the administration of the functions with which it is charged.

INCOME TAX ON EMPLOYEES

DEDUCTION OF TAX FROM WAGES

SEC. 802. (a) The tax imposed by section 801 shall be collected by the employer of the taxpayer by deducting the amount of the tax from the wages as and when paid. Every employer required so to deduct the tax is hereby made liable for the payment of such tax, and is hereby indemnified against the claims and demands of any person for the amount of any such payment made by such employer.
(b) If more or less than the correct amount of tax imposed by section 801 is paid with respect to any wage payment, then, under regulations made under this title, proper adjustments, with respect both to the tax and the amount to be deducted, shall be made, without interest, in connection with subsequent wage payments to the same individual by the same employer.

DEDUCTIBILITY FROM INCOME TAX

SEC. 803. For the purposes of the income tax imposed by Title I of the Revenue Act of 1934 or by any Act of Congress in substitution therefor, the tax imposed by section 801 shall not be allowed as a deduction to the taxpayer in computing his net income for the year in which such tax is deducted from his wages.

EXCISE TAX ON EMPLOYERS

ADJUSTMENT OF EMPLOYERS TAX

SEC. 805. If more or less than the correct amount of tax imposed by section 804 is paid with respect to any wage payment, then, under regulations made under this title, proper adjustments with respect the tax shall be made, without interest, in connection with subsequent wage payments to the same individual by the same employer.

REFUNDS AND DEFICIENCIES

SEC. 806. If more or less than the correct amount of tax imposed by section 801 or 804 is paid or deducted with respect to any wage payment and the overpayment or underpayment of tax cannot be adjusted under section 802 (b) or 805 the amount of the overpayment shall be refunded and the amount of the underpayment shall be collected in such manner and at such times (subject to the statutes of limitations properly applicable thereto) as may be prescribed by regulations made under this title.

COLLECTION AND PAYMENT OF TAXES

SEC. 807. (a) The taxes imposed by this title shall be collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury and shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States as internal- revenue collections. If the tax is not paid when due, there shall be added as part of the tax interest (except in the case of adjustments made in accordance with the provisions of sections 802 (b) and 805) at the rate of one-half of 1 per centum per month from the date the tax became due until paid.
(b) Such taxes shall be collected and paid in such manner, at such times, and under such conditions, not inconsistent with this title (either by making and filing returns, or by stamps, coupons, tickets, books, or other reasonable devices or methods necessary or helpful in securing a complete and proper collection and payment of the tax or in securing proper identification of the taxpayer), as may be prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.
(c) All provisions of law, including penalties, applicable with respect to any tax imposed by section 600 or section 800 of the Revenue Act of 1926 and the provisions of section 607 of the Revenue Act of 1934, shall, insofar as applicable and not inconsistent with the provisions of this title, be applicable with respect to the taxes imposed by this title.
(d) In the payment of any tax under this title a fractional part of a cent shall be disregarded unless it amounts to one-half cent or more, in which case it shall be increased to 1 cent.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

SEC. 808. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall make and publish rules and regulations for the enforcement of this title.

SALE OF STAMPS BY POSTMASTERS

SEC. 809. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall furnish to the Postmaster General without prepayment a suitable quantity of stamps, coupons, tickets, books, or other devices prescribed by the Commissioner under section 807 for the collection or payment of any tax imposed by this title, to be distributed to, and kept on sale by, all post offices of the first and second classes, and such post offices of the third and fourth classes as
(1) are located in county seats, or
(2) are certified by the Secretary of the Treasury to the Postmaster General as necessary to the proper administration of this title. The Postmaster General may require each such postmaster to furnish bond in such increased amount as he may from time to time determine, and each such postmaster shall deposit the receipts from the sale of such stamps, coupons, tickets, books, or other devices, to the credit of, and render accounts to, the Postmaster General at such times and in such form as the Postmaster General may by regulations prescribe. The Postmaster General shall at least once a month transfer to the Treasury, as internal- revenue collections all receipts so deposited together with a statement of the additional expenditures in the District of Columbia and elsewhere incurred by the Post Office Department in performing the duties imposed upon said Department by this Act, and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to advance from time to time to the credit of the Post Office Department from appropriations made for the collection of the taxes imposed by this title, such sums as may be required for such additional expenditures incurred by the Post Office Department.

PENALTIES

SEC. 810. (a) Whoever buys, sells, offers for sale, uses, transfers, takes or gives in exchange, or pledges or gives in pledge, except as authorized in this title or in regulations made pursuant thereto, any stamp, coupon, ticket, book, or other device, prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue under section 807 for the collection or payment of any tax imposed by this title, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both.
(b) Whoever, with intent to defraud, alters, forges, makes, or counterfeits any stamp, coupon, ticket, book, or other device prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue under section 807 for the collection or payment of any tax imposed by this title, or uses, sells, lends, or has in his possession any such altered, forged, or counterfeited stamp, coupon, ticket, book, or other device, or makes, uses, sells, or has in his possession any ma- terial in imitation of the material used in the manufacture of such stamp, coupon, ticket, book, or other device, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

DEFINITIONS

IMPOSITION OF TAX

SECTION 901. On and after January 1, 1936, every employer (as defined in section 907) shall pay for each calendar year an excise tax, with respect to having individuals in his employ, equal to the following percentages of the total wages (as defined in section 907) payable by him (regardless of the time of payment) with respect to employment (as defined in section 907) during such calendar year:
(1) With respect to employment during the calendar year 1936 the rate shall be 1 per centum;
(2) With respect to employment during the calendar year 1937 the rate shall be 2 per centum;
(3) With respect to employment after December 31, 1937, the rate shall be 3 per centum.

CREDIT AGAINST TAX

SEC. 902. The taxpayer may credit against the tax imposed by section 901 the amount of contributions, with respect to employment during the taxable year, paid by him (before the date of filing of his return for the taxable year) into an unemployment fund under a State law. The total credit allowed to a taxpayer under this section for all contributions paid into unemployment funds with respect to employment during such taxable year shall not exceed 90 per centum of the tax against which it is credited, and credit shall be allowed only for contributions made under the laws of States certified for the taxable year as provided in section 903.

CERTIFICATION OF STATE LAWS

SEC. 903 (a) The Social Security Board shall approve any State law submitted to it, within thirty days of such submission, which it finds provides that-
(1) All compensation is to be paid through public employment offices in the State or such other agencies as the Board may approve;
(2) No compensation shall be payable with respect to any day of unemployment occurring within two years after the first day of the first period with respect to which contributions are required;
(3) All money received in the unemployment fund shall immediately upon such receipt be paid over to the Secretary of the Treasury to the credit of the Unemployment Trust Fund established by section 904;
(4) All money withdrawn from the Unemployment Trust Fund by the State agency shall be used solely in the payment of compensation, exclusive of expenses of administration;
(5) Compensation shall not be denied in such State to any otherwise eligible individual for refusing to accept new work under any of the following conditions:
(A) If the position offered is vacant due directly to a strike, lockout, or other labor dispute;
(B) if the wages, hours, or other conditions of the work offered are substantially less favorable to the individual than those prevailing for similar work in the locality;
(C) if as a condition of being employed the individual would be required to join a company union or to resign from or refrain from joining any bona-fide labor organization;
(6) All the rights, privileges, or immunities conferred by such law or by acts done pursuant thereto shall exist subject to the power of the legislature to amend or repeal such law at any time. The Board shall, upon approving such law, notify the Governor of the State of its approval.
(b) On December 31 in each taxable year the Board shall certify to the Secretary of the Treasury each State whose law it has previously approved, except that it shall not certify any State which, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency, the Board finds has changed its law so that it no longer contains the provisions specified in subsection (a) or has with respect to such taxable year failed to comply substantially with any such provision.
(c) If, at any time during the taxable year, the Board has reason to believe that a State whose law it has previously approved, may not be certified under subsection (b), it shall promptly so notify the Governor of such State.

UNEMPLOYMENT TRUST FUND

ADMINISTRATION, REFUNDS, AND PENALTIES

INTERSTATE COMMERCE

SEC. 906. No person required under a State law to make payments to an unemployment fund shall be relieved from compliance therewith on the ground that he is engaged in interstate commerce, or that the State law does not distinguish between employees engaged in interstate commerce and those engaged in intrastate commerce.

DEFINITIONS

SEC. 907. When used in this title -- (a) The term employer does not include any person unless on each of some twenty days during the taxable year, each day being in a different calendar week, the total number of individuals who were in his employ for some portion of the day (whether or not at the same moment of time) was eight or more.
(b) The term wages means all remuneration for employment, including the cash value of all remuneration paid in any medium other than cash.
(c) The term employment means any service, of whatever nature, performed within the United States by an employee for his employer, except-
(1) Agricultural labor;
(2) Domestic service in a private home;
(3) Service performed as an officer or member of a crew of a vessel on the navigable waters of the United States;
(4) Service performed by an individual in the employ of his son, daughter, or spouse, and service performed by a child under the age of twenty-one in the employ of his father or mother;
(5) Service performed in the employ of the United States Government or of an instrumentality of the United States;
(6) Service performed in the employ of a State, a political subdivision thereof, or an instrumentality of one or more States or political subdivisions;
(7) Service performed in the employ of a corporation, community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.
(d) The term State agency means any State officer, board, or other authority, designated under a State law to administer the unemployment fund in such State.
(e) The term unemployment fund means a special fund, established under a State law and administered by a State agency, for the payment of compensation.
(f) The term contributions means payments required by a State law to be made by an employer into an unemployment fund, to the extent that such payments are made by him without any part thereof being deducted or deductible from the wages of individuals in his employ.
(g) The term compensation means cash benefits payable to individuals with respect to their unemployment.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

SEC. 908. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall make and publish rules and regulations for the enforcement of this title, except sections 903, 904, and 910.

ALLOWANCE OF ADDITIONAL CREDIT

SEC. 909. (a) In addition to the credit allowed under section 902, a taxpayer may, subject to the conditions imposed by section 910, credit against the tax imposed by section 901 for any taxable year after the taxable year 1937, an amount, with respect to each State law, equal to the amount, if any, by which the contributions, with respect to employment in such taxable year, actually paid by the taxpayer under such law before the date of filing his return for such taxable year, is exceeded by whichever of the following is the lesser- (1) The amount of contributions which he would have been required to pay under such law for such taxable year if he had been subject to the highest rate applicable from time to time throughout such year to any employer under such law; or (2) Two and seven-tenths per centum of the wages payable by him with respect to employment with respect to which contributions for such year were required under such law.
(b) If the amount of the contributions actually so paid by the taxpayer is less than the amount which he should have paid under the State law, the additional credit under subsection (a) shall be reduced proportionately.
(c) The total credits allowed to a taxpayer under this title shall not exceed 90 per centum of the tax against which such credits are taken.

CONDITIONS OF ADDITIONAL CREDIT ALLOWANCE

SEC. 910. (a) A taxpayer shall be allowed the additional credit under section 909, with respect to his contribution rate under a State law being lower, for any taxable year, than that of another employer subject to such law, only if the Board finds that under such law--
(1) Such lower rate, with respect to contributions to a pooled fund, is permitted on the basis of not less than three years of compensation experience;
(2) Such lower rate, with respect to contributions to a guaranteed employment account, is permitted only when his guaranty of employment was fulfilled in the preceding calendar year, and such guaranteed employment account amounts to not less than 7 " per centum of the total wages payable by him, in accordance with such guaranty, with respect to employment in such State in the preceding calendar year;
(3) Such lower rate, with respect to contributions to a separate reserve account, is permitted only when
(A) compensation has been payable from such account throughout the preceding calendar year, and
(B) such account amounts to not less than five times the largest amount of compensation paid from such account within any one of the three preceding calendar years, and
(C) such account amounts to not less than 7 " per centum of the total wages payable by him (plus the total wages payable by any other employers who may be contributing to such account) with respect to employment in such State in the preceding calendar year.
(b) Such additional credit shall be reduced, if any contributions under such law are made by such taxpayer at a lower rate under conditions not fulfilling the requirements of subsection (a), by the amount bearing the same ratio to such additional credit as the amount of contributions made at such lower rate bears to the total of his contributions paid for such year under such law.
(c) As used in this section-
(1) The term reserve account means a separate account in an unemployment fund, with respect to an employer or group of employers, from which compensation is payable only with respect to the unemployment of individuals who were in the employ of such employer, or of one of the employers comprising the group.
(2) The term pooled fund means an unemployment fund or any part thereof in which all contributions are mingled and undivided, and from which compensation is payable to all eligible individuals, except that to individuals last employed by employers with respect to whom reserve accounts are maintained by the State agency, it is payable only when such accounts are exhausted.
(3) The term guaranteed employment account means a separate account, in an unemployment fund, of contributions paid by an employer (or group of employers) who
(A) guarantees in advance thirty hours of wages for each of forty calendar weeks (or more, with one weekly hour deducted for each added week guaranteed) in twelve months, to all the individuals in his employ in one or more distinct establishments, except that any such individual s guaranty may commence after a probationary period (included within twelve or less consecutive calendar weeks), and
(B) gives security or assurance, satisfactory to the State agency, for the fulfillment of such guaranties, from which account compensation shall be payable with respect to the unemployment of any such individual whose guaranty is not fulfilled or renewed and who is otherwise eligible for compensation under the State law.
(4) The term year of compensation experience , as applied to an employer, means any calendar year throughout which compensation was payable with respect to any individual in his employ who became unemployed and was eligible for compensation.

SECTION 1001. For the purpose of enabling each State to furnish financial assistance, as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, to needy individuals who are blind, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $3,000,000, and there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year thereafter a sum sufficient to carry out the purposes of this title. The sums made available under this section shall be used for making payments to States which have submitted, and had approved by the Social Security Board, State plans for aid to the blind.

STATE PLANS FOR AID TO THE BLIND

SEC. 1002. (a) A State plan for aid to the blind must
(1) provide that it shall be in effect in all political subdivisions of the State, and, if administered by them, be mandatory upon them;
(2) provide for financial participation by the State;
(3) either provide for the establishment or designation of a single State agency to administer the plan, or provide for the establishment or designation of a single State agency to supervise the administration of the plan;
(4) provide for granting to any individual, whose claim for aid is denied, an oppor- tunity for a fair hearing before such State agency;
(5) provide such methods of administration (other than those relating to selection, tenure of office, and compensation of personnel) as are found by the Board to be necessary for the efficient operation of the plan;
(6) provide that the State agency will make such reports, in such form and containing such information, as the Board may from time to time require, and comply with such provisions as the Board may from time to time find necessary to assure the correctness and verification of such reports; and
(7) provide that no aid will be furnished any individual under the plan with respect to any period with respect to which he is receiving old-age assistance under the State plan approved under section 2 of this Act.
(b) The Board shall approve any plan which fulfills the conditions specified in subsection (a), except that it shall not approve any plan which imposes, as a condition of eligibility for aid to the blind under the plan-
(1) Any residence requirement which excludes any resident of the State who has resided therein five years during the nine years immediately preceding the application for aid and has resided therein continuously for one year immediately preceding the application or
(2) Any citizenship requirement which excludes any citizen of the United States.

PAYMENT TO STATES

OPERATION OF STATE PLANS

SEC. 1004. In the case of any State plan for aid to the blind which has been approved by the Board, if the Board, after reasonable notice and opportunity for hearing to the State agency administering or supervising the administration of such a plan, finds--
(1) that the plan has been so changed as to impose any residence or citizenship requirement prohibited by section 1002 (b), or that in the administration of the plan any such prohibited requirement is imposed, with the knowledge of such State agency, in a substantial number of cases; or
(2) that in the administration of the plan there is a failure to comply substantially with any provision required by section 1002 (a) be included in the plan; the Board shall notify such State agency that further payments will not be made to the State until the Board is satisfied that such prohibited requirement is no longer so imposed, and that there is no longer any such failure to comply. Until it is satisfied it shall make no further certification to the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to such State.

ADMINISTRATION

SEC. 1005. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936 the sum of $30,000, for all necessary expenses of the Board in administering the provisions of this title.

DEFINITION

SEC. 1006. When used in this title the term aid to the blind means money payments to blind individuals.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

SEC. 1102. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Social Security Board respectively, shall make and publish such rules and regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, as may be necessary to the efficient administration of the functions with which each is charged under this Act.

SEPARABILITY

SEC. 1103. If any provision of this Act, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

RESERVATION OF POWER

SEC. 1104. The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act is hereby reserved to the Congress.

SHORT TITLE

SEC. 1105. This Act may be cited as the Social Security Act.

Approved, August 14, 1935.

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Section 201. (a) There is hereby created an account in the Treasury of the United States to be known as the Old-Age Reserve Account hereinafter in this title called the Account. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated to the Account for each fiscal year,…

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Widely known for his heavily abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, Garrison was an influential figure in the fight against slavery and publishing the newspaper until the 13th amendment was established.

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Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections Online: The Liberator (first issue)

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Passed in 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. The amendment expanded upon the Emancipation Proclamation by ending slavery in all US territories- present and future.

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The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

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SECTION. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

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On March 28, 1830 the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. Under this act, threatened and weary Native American tribes were promised new land under the protection of the US government if they gave up the majority of their homelands.  Relocation of the tribes "freed" millions of acres of southern farmland for white settlers (aka voters).

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Author of Uncle Toms Cabin, Stowe brought to light many of the atrocities that enslaved African people were suffering, thus her writings helped many people to realize that slaves are human and should not be property.

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The True Story Behind 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' The Book that Rocked Pre-Civil War America

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After the Civil War, big business began to thrive, which meant that small scale farm work would transition to work in factories, railroads, mining. Industrialization would also couple with economic growth and change, as many people were being pulled from rural settings to more urbanized areas.

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The Industrial Economy: Crash Course US History #23

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As the Gilded Age unfolded subsequent to the Civil War, the US economy evolved away from agriculture and became a significant center of manufacturing activity. This explosion of manufacturing required significant human capital, resulting in Urbanization, as large numbers of people relocated from farms and rural areas to the manufacturing hubs of the larger cities.

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Post WWI Isolationism was a foreign policy whereby the US attempted to remain neutral with respect to foreign conflict in order to avoid being drawn into war. This policy persisted until Japan attacked US soil in December 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, permanently shifting public and political sentiment towards the other end of the spectrum.

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Beginning with George Washington's presidency, the United States sought a policy of isolationism and neutrality with regards to the internal affairs of other nations. Early American political leaders argued that with the exception of free trade, self-defense and humanitarian emergencies, the U.S. would do best to avoid permanent alliances that do not serve American interests but instead deflect attention from domestic issues. When World War I broke out in July 1914, the United States actively maintained a stance of neutrality, and President Woodrow Wilson encouraged the U.S. as a whole to avoid becoming emotionally or ideologically involved in the conflict. Americans were more than happy to stay out of the war, and Wilson won a second Presidential term in 1916 by running on a platform of non-interference; the phrase, "he kept us out of war" became a popular slogan used by Wilson's supporters.

Upon re-election, Woodrow Wilson was resolute in staying out of a war, even as a significant movement within the American government advocated for preparedness in the face of events that signified growing German international aggression-such as the sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania by a German submarine, which claimed the lives of many Americans. After several years observing these and similar acts of aggression by the Germans, Wilson-a political scientist by profession-began to change his viewpoint as he saw that the devastating war in Europe was threatening to spill across the Atlantic Ocean. With massive loss of life came a moral imperative that could no longer be ignored, requiring the United States to take a leadership role in maintaining and promoting freedom, sovereignty and self-determination for all nations. Wilson began making public statements that framed the war as a means to right the wrongs in the world rather than simple military posturing. Thus, the United States' intervention in the First World War or, the "Great War," helped shape the nation's status as a self-proclaimed defender of freedom and democracy worldwide and radically altered U.S. foreign policy.

Seeds of Isolationism

On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress for permission to enter the war and make the world "safe for democracy" by April 6th, the resolution was approved and the U.S. officially declared war on Germany. While the United States did not join the Allies in an official capacity, it fought alongside the British and French against Germany and the other Central Powers, such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. As the war continued and news of wanton devastation made headlines, U.S. public support for the war began to wane. While Europe suffered more casualties than the United States, (tens of millions of Europeans lost their lives, compared to over 400,000 Americans),

Americans reeled from the emotional and financial costs of war and began to feel as though joining the war effort was a mistake. In 1918, Wilson articulated fourteen points to help end the war and establish a basis for cooperation, which included freedom of the seas, open economic trade, the evacuation of occupied territories, the liberation of non-Turkish peoples in the Ottoman Empire, and a general collection of nation states to offer members territorial integrity and political independence-setting the stage for what would later become the League of Nations.

What ensued was a radical shift in U.S. foreign policy, which promoted a stance of isolationism that would last until World War II. Warren Harding won the 1920 presidential election on the promise of staying out of global affairs, and by arguing that the United States needed normalcy and a focus on internal problems. Thus, U.S. foreign policy during the 1920s was characterized by the enactment of isolationist policies; for instance, the U.S. opted not to join the burgeoning League of Nations, even though it had been the nation to first propose such international cooperation. Instead, the United States focused on building the domestic economy by supporting business growth, encouraging industrial expansion, imposing tariffs on imported products and limiting immigration.

The League of Nations

In 1916, Wilson first articulated his vision for the League of Nations as an international organization designed to facilitate cooperation, and it was backed by many Americans eager to see the end to the devastating war. The League of Nations was intended to help ensure a global "permanent peace" in which nations, small and large, would be protected and could take any actions necessary to safeguard said peace. The League of Nations would also provide mechanisms for promoting negotiation and mediating disputes. While the idea of the League of Nations was popular at the time, and the consequences of war showcased the necessity for such an organization, some members of Congress-such as Henry Cabot Lodge-opposed it and thought it would be an expensive distraction from the United States' own interests.

As more Americans lamented the consequences of war and voiced their desire to avoid future intervention in foreign affairs at all costs, public opposition to the League of Nations grew. It was perhaps isolationist Warren Harding's election to the office of President that offered the greatest repudiation of the League of Nations and Wilson's interventionism. While Wilson had participated in the creation of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Harding never allowed the United States to become a member. Many historians and political theorists attribute the relative inability of the League of Nations to prevent World War II to U.S. isolationism and the country's lack of participation and leadership in the organization.

Tariffs

Following President Harding's victory in 1920, he and his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, decided to focus more on domestic problems facing the United States. In contrast to Wilson's progressive agenda-which allowed the government to regulate big business-the new administration sought to empower businesses, decrease regulation and cut taxes to enable them to grow and contribute more to domestic production. This was not surprising given Harding's campaign promise: "less government in business and more business in government." Business became a symbol of American prosperity, and the 1920s saw the United States come out of a post-war recession with high economic growth. During that time, industry flourished, the stock market rose, technology rapidly evolved, and the commercialization and expansion of aviation and the automobile radically altered the American lifestyle.

The economic boom was facilitated by tariffs that were enacted to restrict the influx of imported goods, thereby increasing domestic production. American farmers had experienced dramatic growth during World War I, following a significant increase in demand stemming from their European counterparts' inability to keep up with agricultural demands while fighting the war. As European farmers began to recover postwar, U.S. agriculture suffered from overproduction, and demand and prices plummeted. American farmers, who had gone heavily into debt to finance their expansion during the war, faced difficulty in honoring their repayments and asked the government for assistance, hoping tariffs would lead to an increase in prices; ultimately, this only helped prices for specific products, such as sugar and wool. Upon taking office, President Harding implemented the Emergency Tariff of 1921, which imposed duties on over two dozen food imports and agricultural products.

In 1922, President Harding signed the Fordney-McCumber Act into law, which raised tariffs by about 25 percent and made it easier to enact them without congressional approval. In 1930, Congress also passed the Smoot-Hawley Act, which raised duties and tariffs significantly on over 20,000 foreign products in all sectors of the economy. Many debate whether these tariffs were effective, but in the long term, they may have done more harm than good, as other countries retaliated by increasing their own tariffs. In turn, this created trade barriers that ultimately hurt American producers and jobs by decreasing the presence of U.S. products in foreign markets. It also impeded Europeans from generating enough revenue to pay back their wartime debts to the United States. Many economists argue that the combination of these tariffs and other factors led to the collapse of the U.S. economy in 1929.

Immigration Quotas

With 1.3 million immigrants passing through Ellis Island, New York in 1907 alone, Congress had grown concerned that continuing to accept immigrants at an unfettered rate would become costly to the U.S. economy. Efforts to restrict immigration began during World War I with the 1917 Immigration Act, which imposed literacy tests and taxes on immigrants and banned immigrants deemed "undesirables"-essentially any sick, disabled, or criminal members of society. The label of undesirable soon came to include specific races and ethnicities; all immigrants from a region termed the Asiatic Barred Zone (modern day India, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Southeast Asia and the Asian-Pacific islands) were blocked, supposedly as an effort to protect national interests and security.

The U.S. government sought to enact greater limits on immigration after World War I because of strong anti-European sentiment, exacerbated by the "Red Scare" that convinced many Americans that communism, anarchism and a Bolshevik-style revolution would soon sweep the United States. Attempts were made to Americanize immigrants through new naturalization processes that included higher taxes on immigrant adults and new literacy initiatives. After the war the U.S. economy slowly declined into recession while anti-immigration sentiments continued to peak. The cost of living had become unmanageable for most Americans and unemployment rates had spiked, with many citizens holding a belief that their misfortune was due to a disproportionate number of recent immigrants claiming jobs that would normally be worked by native U.S. citizens.

In 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which set numerical quotas for the number of immigrants coming to the United States. Under the Emergency Quota Act, the U.S. would refer to the 1910 census in order to determine the number of foreign citizens living in America; subsequently, the U.S. would admit immigrants on a country by country basis, taking no more than the equivalent of three percent of a country's existing U.S.-based population. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were disproportionately targeted by the new limits with a three percent quota of total immigrants already living in the United States; professionals, such as actors, scientists, ministers and other specialists from all countries were excluded from the quota.

In 1924, Congress enacted the Johnson-Reed Act to replace the Emergency Quota Act. The Johnson-Reed Act further reduced the percentage of immigrants eligible for admission to the U.S.; the act would allow for a number of immigrants equal to two percent of a country's population already present in the United States. Because this act used data from the 1890 census, rather than the 1910 census, the lower number of current residents being used to calculate the percentages practically ensured that far fewer immigrants would be accepted into the U.S. The act was notable for introducing the concepts of consular control and border protection to fight smuggling by establishing Border Patrol and requiring visas to be obtained abroad prior to being allowed to enter the U.S.

During Woodrow Wilson's presidency, the United States briefly shed its isolation-based foreign policy in order to defend democracy on a global scale. However, the effects of World War I led the United States to retreat from global affairs and engage in isolationist policies to help foster internal growth and development-with decidedly mixed results. By completing a Master of International Relations degree program, students can enhance their understanding of how isolationist policies have impacted other international governments and juxtapose that knowledge with what they have learned about U.S. foreign policy to develop a strong grasp of the ways in which diverse theories of international relations can impact the global community.

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As the nation's oldest private military college, Norwich University has been a leader in innovative education since 1819. Through its online programs, Norwich delivers relevant and applicable curricula that allow its students to make a positive impact on their places of work and their communities.

Our online Master of Arts in International Relations program offers a curriculum that evolves with current events to help you face the future of international affairs. Norwich University's master's degree in international relations covers many subjects to give you a look at the internal workings of international players, examine the role of state and non-state actors on the global stage, and explore different schools of thought. You can further strengthen your knowledge by choosing one of five concentrations in International Security, National Security, International Development, Cyber Diplomacy, or Regions of the World.
Recommended Readings: Sources:
Do Economic Sanctions Work?
Interstate Relations Versus International Relations Careers
American Business and Foreign Policy, Google Books

American Economic History: A Dictionary and Chronology, Google Books

Treaty of Versailles, Library of Congress

American Isolationism in the 1930's, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs

Protectionism in the Interwar Period, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs

The League of Nations, 1920, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs

The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act), Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs

1930's Isolationism, U.S. History

Words and Deeds in American History, American Memory

The Harding Administration, the League of Nations, and the Separate Peace Treaty, JSTOR

League of Nations, Library of Congress

Long Echoes of War and Speech, The New York Times

League of Nations Instituted, History Channel

Immigration Act of 1921, Immigration to United States

Did My Family Really Come "Legally"?, American Immigration Council

Literacy Tests and Asian Exclusion Were the Hallmarks of the 1917 Immigration Act, Smithsonian

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Isolationism and U.S. Foreign Policy After World War I

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Beginning with George Washington's presidency, the United States sought a policy of isolationism and neutrality with regards to the internal affairs of other nations. Early American political leaders argued that with the exception of free trade, self-defense and humanitarian emergencies, the U.S.

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The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s was a social campaign to help secure equal rights and opportunities for women in addition to enhanced personal freedom. Known as the “second wave” of feminism, this movement, which is arguably still in motion, helped redefine women’s role in all areas including school, work and home and helped open up a world of opportunities not previously available.

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As part of the New Deal, workers’ rights were addressed through the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which guaranteed private sector employees the right to organize unions. As part of this law, the National Labor Relations Board was established as an independent agency to enforce the law and the rights extended to employees.

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Labor Unions: History of Unions & Collective Bargaining

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Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish immigrant who made a fortune in the steel business during the late 1800’s due to his innovations around steel manufacturing, enabling cheaper and more efficient production. Subsequent to amassing his wealth, he spent the latter years of his life devoted to philanthropy focusing on social and educational causes.

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A landmark Supreme Court decision in 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against an enslaved black man who sued for his freedom after his owners transported him through both slave and free states. In this case, the Supreme Court clarified that the US Constitution and its protections did not apply to people of African descent.

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Printable Version On March 6, 1857, in a small room in the Capitol basement, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.

In 1846, a Missouri slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom. Scott argued that while he had been the slave of an army surgeon, he had lived for four years in Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory, and that his residence on free soil had erased his slave status. In 1850 a Missouri court gave Scott his freedom, but two years later, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed this decision and returned Scott to slavery. Scott then appealed to the federal courts.

For five years, the case proceeded through the federal courts. For more than a year, the Court withheld its decision. Many thought that the Court delayed its ruling to ensure a Democratic victory in the 1856 elections. Then, in March 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney announced the Court's decision. By a 7-2 margin, the Court ruled that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the territories.

All nine justices rendered separate opinions, but Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the Court's majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position.

The chief justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Second, Taney declared that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the federal territories since any law excluding slavery property from the territories was a violation of the Fifth Amendment prohibition against the seizure of property without due process of law. For the first time since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.

Newspaper headlines summarized the Court's rulings:

SLAVERY ALONE NATIONAL--THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE UNCONSTITUTIONAL--NEGROES CANNOT BE CITIZENS--THE TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY COMPLETE.

In a single decision, the Court sought to resolve all the major constitutional questions raised by slavery. It declared that the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were not intended to apply to black Americans. It stated that the Republican Party platform--barring slavery from the western territories--was unconstitutional. And it ruled that Stephen Douglas's doctrine of "popular sovereignty"--which stated that territorial governments had the power to prohibit slavery--was also unconstitutional.

Republicans reacted with scorn. The decision, said the New York Tribune, carried as much moral weight as "the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington barroom." Many Republicans--including an Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln--regarded the decision as part of a slave power conspiracy to legalize slavery throughout the United States.

The Dred Scott decision was a major political miscalculation. In its ruling, the Supreme Court sought to solve the slavery controversy once and for all. Instead the Court intensified sectional strife, undercut possible compromise solutions to the divisive issue of the expansion of slavery, and weakened the moral authority of the judiciary.

Copyright 2021 Digital History

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Printable Version On March 6, 1857, in a small room in the Capitol basement, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. In 1846, a Missouri slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom.

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The Steamboat, developed in the early 1800’s, expanded riverboat travel to include the upstream transportation of people and goods. This important invention connected Midwestern communities to international trading hubs, enhanced commerce and hastened the Industrial Revolution.

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Following the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1790, the Bill of Rights were added as the first ten amendments to the Constitution due in large part to James Madison’s leadership. These ten amendments, formally ratified in 1791, are focused on guarantees of personal freedoms and rights and limiting the power of the federal government.

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- [Tutor] The Bill of Rights, as we know it today were the first 10 amendments to the Constitution and these amendments guaranteed individual liberty to make sure that citizens had stated expectation for what the government could or could not do to them and you can kind of see here in many of these rights, the legacy of the Revolutionary War and the kinds of government abuses, that citizens in the Colonies had feared. Now I'm going to go over these very quickly, we'll spend a lot more time in other videos talking more about these amendments, but I wanna give you an overall sense of what they're driving at. Now the first four amendments guarantee individual liberties, these are freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, freedom to ask the government for redress of grievances or to deal with a problem, that the government may have caused in your life, the right to bear arms and assemble militias, state and local militias had made the Revolutionary War a success for the United States, a ban on quartering soldiers in homes, recall that the Quartering Act, when the British government said that the Colonies had to put up soldiers in their homes was a major driver of revolution and a ban on unreasonable search and seizure, that is it would be necessary for the government to get a warrant to enter your home or to search your belongings. The next four amendments in the Bill of Rights deal with protections for people accused of crimes and again, you see the legacy of the Revolutionary War and the idea that the Crown had had too much power to persecute individuals, so this includes things like the right to due process, that is to make sure that all the steps of following the law are taken, a ban on being tried twice for the same crime, rights to a speedy and public trial, a jury of your peers, to even have a jury in cases, that don't have to do with violent crimes, but rather civil disputes and a ban on excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment, basically this is a guarantee that the government will respect the rights of individuals. Now, one of the arguments made against including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution was that listing out those rights might then mean that they were the only rights and that by listing out these rights in particular, they might be forfeiting their liberties in other ways, so the ninth and tenth amendments attempt to deal with that worry, they say in the ninth amendment, any right that isn't listed here is still retained by the people, so this is not an exhaustive list, this is not the complete list of all the rights retained by the people and the tenth amendment is slightly different, but kind of on the same line, they say that if this Constitution has not delegated a right directly to the federal government, then that right is reserved to the states or the people, so the federal government can only do the things that are listed in this Constitution, it is a limited government, limited by this document. On the other hand, the rights of the people are unlimited, so if the Constitution doesn't say that the federal government can do it, that's then a right of the states or the people.

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The Bill of Rights: an introduction (video) | Khan Academy

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Tutor] The Bill of Rights, as we know it today were the first 10 amendments to the Constitution and these amendments guaranteed individual liberty to make sure that citizens had stated expectation for what the government could or could not do to them and you can kind of see here in many of these rights, the legacy of the Revolutionary War and the kinds of government abuses, that citizens in the Colonies had feared.

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George Washington is a key figure in early United States American History. His military and political contributions are noteworthy. Washington led the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and served as the first President of the United States where his leadership helped direct the country through some of its most formative years.

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Ancient China was an advanced civilization which exhibited the ability to organize and unify a large number of people over an expansive area. As Chinese civilization evolved, a number of legendary leaders oversaw the development of a powerful military, the establishment of trading routes with the Middle East and Europe and the buildout of the Great Wall of China, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Ancient China is also responsible for a number of transformational inventions, most notably paper, gunpowder, silk and the compass.

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Ancient China produced what has become the oldest extant culture in the world. The name 'China' comes from the Sanskrit Cina (derived from the name of the Chinese Qin Dynasty, pronounced 'Chin') which was translated as 'Cin' by the Persians and seems to have become popularized through trade along the Silk Road.

The Romans and the Greeks knew the country as 'Seres', "the land where silk comes from". The name 'China' does not appear in print in the west until 1516 CE in Barbosa's journals narrating his travels in the east (though the Europeans had long known of China through trade via the Silk Road). Marco Polo, the famous explorer who familiarized China to Europe in the 13th century CE, referred to the land as 'Cathay. In Mandarin Chinese, the country is known as 'Zhongguo' meaning "central state" or "middle empire".

Prehistory

Well before the advent of recognizable civilization in the region, the land was occupied by hominids. Peking Man, a skull fossil discovered in 1927 CE near Beijing, lived in the area between 700,000 to 300,000 years ago, and Yuanmou Man, whose remains were found in Yuanmou in 1965 CE, inhabited the land 1.7 million years ago. Evidence uncovered with these finds shows that these early inhabitants knew how to fashion stone tools and use fire.

While it is commonly accepted that human beings originated in Africa and then migrated to other points around the globe, China's paleoanthropologists "support the theory of 'regional evolution' of the origin of man" (China.org) which claims an independent basis for the birth of human beings. "The Shu Ape, a primate weighing only 100 to 150 grams and being similar to a mouse in size, lived [in China] in the Middle Eocene Epoch 4.5 to 4 million years ago. Its discovery posed a great challenge to the theory of African origin of the human race" (China.org). This challenge is considered plausible due to genetic links between the Shu Ape fossil and both advanced and lower primates, standing, then, as a 'missing link' in the evolutionary process.

However one interprets this data (the Chinese conclusions have been disputed by the international community), the solid evidence provided by other finds substantiates a very ancient lineage of hominids and homo sapiens in China and a high level of sophistication in early culture. One example of this is Banpo Village, near Xi'an, discovered in 1953 CE. Banpo is a Neolithic village which was inhabited between 4500 and 3750 BCE and comprises 45 houses with floors sunk into the ground for greater stability. A trench encircling the village provided both protection from attack and drainage (while also helping to fence in domestic animals) while man-made caves dug underground were used to store food. The design of the village, and the artifacts discovered there (such as pottery and tools), argue for a very advanced culture at the time it was constructed.

It has generally been accepted that the Chinese 'Cradle of Civilization' is the Yellow River Valley which gave rise to villages sometime around 5000 BCE. While this has been disputed, and arguments have been made for the more widespread development of communities, there is no doubt that the Henan province, in the Yellow River Valley, was the site of many early villages and farming communities.

In 2001 CE, archaeologists uncovered two skeletons "buried in a collapsed house, which was covered with a thick layer of silt deposits from the Yellow River. In the layer of deposits, archaeologists found more than 20 skeletons, an altar, a square, pottery, and stone and jade utensils" (Chinapage.org). This site was only one of many prehistoric villages in the area.

The First Dynasties

From these small villages and farming communities grew centralized government; the first of which was the prehistoric Xia Dynasty (c. 2070-1600 BCE). The Xia Dynasty was considered, for many years, more myth than fact until excavations in the 1960s and 1970s CE uncovered sites which argued strongly for its existence. Bronze works and tombs clearly point to an evolutionary period of development between disparate Stone Age villages and a recognizable cohesive civilization.

The dynasty was founded by the legendary Yu the Great who worked relentlessly for 13 years to control the flooding of the Yellow River which routinely destroyed the farmer's crops. He was so focused on his work that it was said he did not return home once in all those years, even though he seems to have passed by his house on at least three occasions, and this dedication inspired others to follow him.

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After he had controlled the flooding, Yu conquered the Sanmiao tribes and was named successor (by the then-ruler, Shun), reigning until his death. Yu established the hereditary system of succession and thereby the concept of dynasty which has become most familiar. The ruling class and the elite lived in urban clusters while the peasant population, which supported the elite's lifestyle, remained largely agrarian, living in rural areas. Yu's son, Qi, ruled after him and power remained in the hands of the family until the last Xia ruler, Jie, was overthrown by Tang who established the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE).

Tang was from the kingdom of Shang. The dates popularly assigned to him (1675-1646 BCE) do not in any way correspond to the known events in which he took part and must be considered erroneous. What is known is that he was the ruler, or at least a very important personage, in the kingdom of Shang who, around 1600 BCE, led a revolt against Jie and defeated his forces at the Battle of Mingtiao.

The extravagance of the Xia court and the resultant burden on the populace is thought to have led to this uprising. Tang then assumed leadership of the land, lowered taxes, suspended the grandiose building projects begun by Jie (which were draining the kingdom of resources) and ruled with such wisdom and efficiency that art and culture were allowed to flourish. Writing developed under the Shang Dynasty as well as bronze metallurgy, architecture, and religion.

Prior to the Shang, the people worshipped many gods with one supreme god, Shangti, as head of the pantheon (the same pattern found in other cultures). Shangti was considered 'the great ancestor' who presided over victory in war, agriculture, the weather, and good government. Because he was so remote and so busy, however, the people seem to have required more immediate intercessors for their needs and so the practice of ancestor worship began.

When someone died, it was thought, they attained divine powers and could be called upon for assistance in times of need (similar to the Roman belief in the parentes). This practice led to highly sophisticated rituals dedicated to appeasing the spirits of the ancestors which eventually included ornate burials in grand tombs filled with all one would need to enjoy a comfortable afterlife.

The king, in addition to his secular duties, served as chief officiate and mediator between the living and the dead and his rule was considered ordained by divine law. Although the famous Mandate of Heaven was developed by the later Zhou Dynasty, the idea of linking a just ruler with divine will has its roots in the beliefs fostered by the Shang.

The Zhou Dynasty

Around the year 1046 BCE, King Wu (r. 1046-1043 BCE), of the province of Zhou, rebelled against King Zhou of Shang and defeated his forces at the Battle of Muye, establishing the Zhou Dynasty (1046- 256 BCE). 1046-771 BCE marks the Western Zhou Period while 771-256 BCE marks the Eastern Zhou Period. Wu rebelled against the ruling Shang after the king of Shang killed his older brother unjustly. The Mandate of Heaven was invoked by Wu and his family to legitimize the revolt as he felt the Shang were no longer acting in the interests of the people and so had forfeited the mandate between the monarchy and the god of law, order, and justice, Shangti.

The Mandate of Heaven was thus defined as the gods' blessing on a just ruler and rule by divine mandate. When the government no longer served the will of the gods, that government would be overthrown. Further, it was stipulated that there could be only one legitimate ruler of China and that his rule should be legitimized by his proper conduct as a steward of the lands entrusted him by heaven. Rule could be passed from father to son but only if the child possessed the necessary virtue to rule. This mandate would later be often manipulated by various rulers entrusting succession to unworthy progeny.

Under the Zhou, culture flourished and civilization spread. Writing was codified and iron metallurgy became increasingly sophisticated. The greatest and best-known Chinese philosophers and poets, Confucius, Mencius, Mo Ti (Mot Zu), Lao-Tzu, Tao Chien, and the military strategist Sun-Tzu (if he existed as depicted), all come from the Zhou period in China and the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought.

The chariot, which was introduced to the land under the Shang, became more fully developed by the Zhou. It should be noted that these periods and dynasties did not begin nor end as neatly as they seem to in history books and the Zhou Dynasty shared many qualities with the Shang (including language and religion). While historians find it necessary, for clarity's sake, to break events into periods, the Zhou Dynasty remained extant through the following recognized periods known as The Spring and Autumn Period and The Warring States Period.

The Spring & Autumn Period & The Warring States

During the Spring and Autumn Period (c. 772-476 BCE and so called from the Spring and Autumn Annals, the official chronicle of the state at the time and an early source mentioning General Sun-Tzu), the Zhou government became decentralized in their move to the new capital at Luoyang, marking the end of the 'Western Zhou' period and the beginning of 'Eastern Zhou'. This is the period most noted for advances in philosophy, poetry, and the arts and saw the rise of Confucian, Taoist, and Mohist thought.

At the same time, however, the different states were breaking away from central rule by Luoyang and proclaiming themselves sovereign. This, then, led to the so-called Warring States Period (c. 481-221 BCE) in which seven states fought with each other for control. The seven states were Chu, Han, Qi, Qin, Wei, Yan, and Zhao, all of whom considered themselves sovereign but none of whom felt confident in claiming the Mandate of Heaven still held by the Zhou of Luoyang. All seven of the states used the same tactics and observed the same rules of conduct in battle and so none could gain the advantage over the others.

This situation was exploited by the pacifist philosopher Mo Ti, a skilled engineer, who made it his mission to provide each state with equal knowledge of fortifications and siege ladders in hopes of neutralizing any one state's advantage and so ending the war. His efforts were unsuccessful however and, between 262 and 260 BCE, the state of Qin gained supremacy over Zhao, finally defeating them at The Battle of Changping.

A Qin statesman by the name of Shang Yang (d. 338 BCE), a great believer in efficiency and law, had recast the Qin understanding of warfare to focus on victory at any cost. Whether Sun-Tzu or Shang Yang is to be credited with the reformation of military protocol and strategy in China depends on one's acceptance of Sun-Tzu's historicity. Whether Sun-Tzu existed as people claim, however, it is very probable that Shang Yang was acquainted with the famous work, The Art of War, which bears Sun-Tzu's name as author.

Ying Zheng emerged from the Warring States conflict supreme in 221 BCE, subduing & unifying the other six states & proclaiming himself Shi Huangdi.

Prior to these reforms, Chinese warfare was considered a nobleman's game of skill with very set rules dictated by courtesy and the perceived will of heaven. One did not attack the weak or the unprepared and one was expected to delay engagement until an opponent had mobilized and formed ranks on the field. Shang advocated total war in pursuit of victory and counseled taking the enemies' forces by whatever means lay at hand. Shang's principles were known in Qin and made use of at Changping (where over 450,000 captured Zhao soldiers were executed after the battle) giving the Qin the advantage they had been waiting for.

Still, they did not make further effective use of these tactics until the rise of Ying Zheng, King of Qin. Utilizing Shang's directives, and with an army of considerable size using iron weapons and driving chariots, Ying Zheng emerged from the Warring States conflict supreme in 221 BCE, subduing and unifying the other six states under his rule and proclaiming himself Shi Huangdi -`First Emperor' - of China.

The Qin Dynasty

Shi Huangdi thus established the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), initiating the period known as the Imperial Era in China (221 BCE-1912 CE) when dynasties ruled the land. He ordered the destruction of the walled fortifications which had separated the different states and commissioned the building of a great wall along the northern border of his kingdom. Though little remains today of Shi Huangdi's original wall, The Great Wall of China was begun under his rule.

It stretched for over 5,000 kilometres (3,000 miles) across hill and plain, from the boundaries of Korea in the east to the troublesome Ordos Desert in the west. It was an enormous logistical undertaking, though for much of its course it incorporated lengths of earlier walls built by the separate Chinese kingdoms to defend their northern frontiers in the fourth and third centuries. (Scarre and Fagan, 382)

Shi Huangdi also strengthened the infrastructure through road building which helped to increase trade through the ease of travel.

Five trunk roads led from the imperial capital at Xianyang, each provided with police forces and posting stations. Most of these roads were of rammed-earth construction and were 15 metres (50 feet) wide. The longest ran southwest over 7,500 kilometres (4,500 miles) to the frontier region of Yunnan. So precipitous was the countryside that sections of the road had to be built out from vertical cliff faces on projecting timber galleries. (Scarre and Fagan, 382)

Shi Huangdi also expanded the boundaries of his empire, built the Grand Canal in the south, redistributed land and, initially, was a fair and just ruler.

While he made great strides in building projects and military campaigns, his rule became increasingly characterized by a heavy hand in domestic policy. Claiming the Mandate from Heaven, he suppressed all philosophies save the Legalism which had been developed by Shang Yang and, heeding the counsel of his chief advisor, Li Siu, he ordered the destruction of any history or philosophy books which did not correspond to Legalism, his family line, the state of Qin, or himself.

Since books were then written on strips of bamboo fastened with swivel pins, and a volume might be of some weight, the scholars who sought to evade the order were put to many difficulties. A number of them were detected; tradition says that many of them were sent to labor on the Great Wall, and that four hundred and sixty were put to death. Nevertheless some of the literati memorized the complete works of Confucius and passed them on by word of mouth to equal memories. (Durant, 697)

This act, along with Shi Huangdi's suppression of general freedoms, including freedom of speech, made him progressively more unpopular. The ancestor worship of the past and the land of the dead began to interest the emperor more than his realm of the living and Shi Huangdi became increasingly engrossed in what this other world consisted of and how he might avoid traveling there. He seems to have developed an obsession with death, became increasingly paranoid regarding his personal safety, and ardently sought after immortality.

His desire to provide for himself an afterlife commensurate with his present one led him to commission a palace built for his tomb and an army of over 8,000 terracotta warriors created to serve him in eternity. This ceramic army, buried with him, also included terracotta chariots, cavalry, a commander in chief, and assorted birds and animals. He is said to have died in 210 BCE while on a quest for an elixir of immortality and Li Siu, hoping to gain control of the government, kept his death a secret until he could alter his will to name his pliable son, Hu-Hai, as heir.

This plan proved untenable, however, as the young prince showed himself to be quite unstable, executing many, and initiating a widespread rebellion in the land. Shortly after Shi Huangdi' s death, the Qin Dynasty quickly collapsed through the intrigue and ineptitude of people like Hu-Hai, Li Siu, and another advisor, Zhao Gao, and the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) began with the accession of Liu-Bang.

The Chu-Han Contention

With the fall of the Qin Dynasty, China was plunged into the chaos known as the Chu-Han Contention (206-202 BCE). Two generals emerged among the forces which rebelled against the Qin: Liu-Bang of Han (l. c. 256-195 BCE) and General Xiang-Yu of Chu (l. 232-202 BCE), who fought for control of the government. Xiang-Yu, who had proven himself the most formidable opponent of the Qin, awarded Liu-Bang the title of 'King of the Han' in recognition of Liu-Bang's decisive defeat of the Qin forces at their capital of Xianyang.

The two former allies quickly became antagonists, however, in the power struggle known as the Chu-Han contention until Xiang-Yu negotiated the Treaty of Hong Canal and brought a temporary peace. Xiang-Yu suggested dividing China under the rule of the Chu in the east and the Han in the west, but Liu-Bang wanted a united China under Han rule and, breaking the treaty, resumed hostilities. At the Battle of Gaixia in 202 BCE, Liu-Bang's great general, Han-Xin, trapped and defeated the forces of Chu under Xiang-Yu and Liu-Bang was proclaimed emperor (known to posterity as Emperor Gaozu of Han). Xiang-Yu committed suicide but his family was allowed to live and even serve in government positions.

The new emperor Gaozu treated all of his former adversaries with respect and united the land under his rule. He pushed back the nomadic Xiongnu tribes, who had been making incursions into China, and made peace with the other states which had risen in rebellion against the failing Qin Dynasty. The Han Dynasty (which derives its name from Liu-Bang's home in Hanzhong province) would rule China, with a brief interruption, for the next 400 years, from 202 BCE to 220 CE. The Han is divided into two periods: Western Han - 202 BCE-9 CE and Eastern Han - 25 -220 CE.

The Han Dynasty

The resultant peace initiated by Gaozu brought the stability necessary for culture to again thrive and grow. Trade with the west began during this time and arts and technology increased in sophistication. The Han are considered the first dynasty to write their history down but, as Shi Huangdi destroyed so many of the written records of those who came before him, this claim is often disputed. There is no doubt, however, that great advances were made under the Han in every area of culture.

Gaozu embraced Confucianism & made it the exclusive philosophy of the government, setting a pattern which would continue on to the present day.

The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine, China's earliest written record on medicine was codified during the Han Dynasty. Paper was invented at this time and writing became more sophisticated. Gaozu embraced Confucianism and made it the exclusive philosophy of the government, setting a pattern which would continue on to the present day.

Even so, unlike Shi Huangdi, he did not legislate philosophy for others. He practiced tolerance for all other philosophies and, as a result, literature and education flourished under his reign. He reduced taxes and disbanded his army who, nevertheless, rallied without delay when called upon.

After his death in 195 BCE, his wife, Empress Lu Zhi (l. 241-180 BCE), installed a series of puppet kings, beginning with the crown prince Liu Ying (Emperor Hui, r. 195-188 BCE), who served her interests but still continued his policies. These programmes maintained stability and culture enabling the greatest of the Han emperors, Wu Ti (also known as Wu the Great, r. 141- 87 BCE), to embark on his enterprises of expansion, public works, and cultural initiatives. He sent his emissary Zhang Qian to the west in 138 BCE which resulted in the official opening of the Silk Road in 130 BCE.

Confucianism was further incorporated as the official doctrine of the government and Wu Ti established schools throughout the empire to foster literacy and teach Confucian precepts. He also reformed transportation, roads, and trade and decreed many other public projects, employing millions as state workers in these undertakings. After Wu Ti, his successors, more or less, maintained his vision for China and enjoyed equal success.

Increase in wealth led to the rise of large estates and general prosperity but, for the peasants who worked the land, life became increasingly difficult. In 9 CE, the acting regent, Wang Mang (l. 45 BCE-23 CE), usurped control of the government claiming the Mandate of Heaven for himself and declaring an end to the Han Dynasty. Wang Mang founded the Xin Dynasty (9-23 CE) on a platform of extensive land reform and redistribution of wealth.

He initially had enormous support from the peasant population and was opposed by the landowners. His programs, however, were poorly conceived and executed resulting in widespread unemployment and resentment. Uprisings, and extensive flooding of the Yellow River, further destabilized Wang Mang's rule and he was assassinated by an angry mob of the peasants on whose behalf he had ostensibly seized the government and initiated his reforms.

The Fall of Han & Rise of The Xin Dynasty

The rise of the Xin Dynasty ended the period known as Western Han and its demise led to the establishment of the Eastern Han period. Emperor Guangwu (r. 25-57 CE) returned the lands to the wealthy estate owners and restored order in the land, maintaining the policies of the earlier Western Han rulers. Guangwu, in reclaiming lands lost under the Xin Dynasty, was forced to spend much of his time putting down rebellions and re-establishing Chinese rule in the regions of modern-day Korea and Vietnam.

The Trung Sisters Rebellion of 39 CE in Vietnam, led by two sisters, required "ten odd thousands of men" (according to the official state record of Han) and four years to put down. Even so, the emperor consolidated his rule and even expanded his boundaries, providing stability which gave rise to an increase in trade and prosperity. By the time of Emperor Zhang (r. 75-88 CE), China was so prosperous that it was partners in trade with all the major nations of the day and continued in this way after his death. The Romans under Marcus Aurelius, in 166 CE, considered Chinese silk more precious than gold and paid China whatever price was asked.

Disputes between the landed gentry and the peasants, however, continued to cause problems for the government as exemplified in the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion (142 CE) and the Yellow Turban Rebellion (184 CE). While the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion began as a religious movement, it involved a large number of the peasant class at odds with the Confucian ideals of the government and the elite. Both of these revolts were in response to governmental neglect of the people which worsened as the late Han Dynasty became increasingly corrupt and ineffective. The leaders of both rebellions claimed that the Han had forfeited the Mandate of Heaven and should abdicate.

The power of the government to control the people began to disintegrate until full-scale revolt erupted throughout the country as the Yellow Turban Rebellion gained momentum. Han generals were sent to put the rebellion down but, as soon as one enclave was crushed, another would spring up. The revolt was finally put down by the general Cao Cao (l. 155- 220 CE). Cao Cao and his former friend and ally Yuan-Shao (d. 202 CE) then fought each other for control of the land with Cao Cao emerging victorious in the north.

Cao attempted a complete unification of China by invading the south but was defeated at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 CE, leaving China divided into three separate kingdoms - Cao Wei, Eastern Wu, and Shu Han - each of which claimed the Mandate of Heaven. This era is known as the Period of the Three Kingdoms (220-280 CE), a time of violence, instability, and uncertainty which would later inspire some of the greatest works in Chinese literature.

The Han Dynasty was now a memory and other, shorter-lived dynasties (such as the Wei and Jin, the Wu Hu, and the Sui) assumed control of the government in turn and initiated their own platforms from roughly 208-618 CE. The Sui Dynasty (589-618 CE) finally succeeded in reuniting China in 589 CE. The importance of the Sui Dynasty is in its implementation of highly efficient bureaucracy which streamlined the operation of government and led to greater ease in maintaining the empire. Under the Emperor Wen, and then his son, Yang, the Grand Canal was completed, the Great Wall was enlarged and portions rebuilt, the army was increased to the largest recorded in the world at that time, and coinage was standardized across the realm.

Literature flourished and it is thought that the famous Legend of Hua Mulan, about a young girl who takes her father's place in the army and saves the country, was developed at this time (though the original poem is thought to have been composed during the Northern Wei Period, 386-535 CE). Unfortunately, both Wen and Yang were not content with domestic stability and organized massive expeditions against the Korean peninsula. Wen had already bankrupted the treasury through his building projects and military campaigns and Yang followed his father's example and failed equally in his attempts at military conquest. Yang was assassinated in 618 CE which then sparked the uprising of Li-Yuan who took control of the government and called himself Emperor Gao-Tzu of Tang (r. 618-626 CE).

The Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) is considered the 'golden age' of Chinese civilization. Gao-Tzu prudently maintained and improved upon the bureaucracy initiated by the Sui Dynasty while dispensing with extravagant military operations and building projects. With minor modifications, the bureaucratic policies of the Tang Dynasty are still in use in Chinese government in the modern day.

By the time of the rule of Emperor Xuanzong (712-756 CE) China was the largest, most populous, & most prosperous country in the world.

Despite his efficient rule, Gao-Tzu was deposed by his son, Li-Shimin, in 626 CE. Having assassinated his father, Li-Shimin then killed his brothers and others of the noble house and assumed the title Emperor Taizong (r. 626-649 CE). After the bloody coup, however, Taizong decreed that Buddhist temples be built at the sites of the battles and that the fallen should be memorialized.

Continuing, and building upon, the concepts of ancestor worship and the Mandate of Heaven, Taizong claimed divine will in his actions and intimated that those he had killed were now his counselors in the afterlife. As he proved to be a remarkably efficient ruler, as well as a skilled military strategist and warrior, his coup went unchallenged and he set about the task of governing his vast empire.

Taizong followed his father's precepts in keeping much of what was good from the Sui Dynasty and improving upon it. This can be seen especially in Taizong's legal code which drew heavily on Sui concepts but expanded them for specificity of crime and punishment. He ignored his father's model of foreign policy, however, and embarked on a series of successful military campaigns which extended and secured his empire and also served to spread his legal code and Chinese culture.

Taizong was succeeded by his son Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE) whose wife, Wu Zetian, would become China's first - and only - female monarch. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690-704 CE) initiated a number of policies which improved the living conditions in China and strengthened the position of the emperor. She also made ample use of a secret police force and highly efficient channels of communication to stay always one step ahead of her enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Trade flourished within the empire and, along the Silk Road, with the West. Rome having now fallen, the Byzantine Empire became a prime buyer of Chinese silk. By the time of the rule of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE) China was the largest, most populous, and most prosperous country in the world. Owing to the large population, armies of many thousands of men could be conscripted into service and military campaigns against Turkish nomads or domestic rebels were swift and successful. Art, technology, and science all flourished under the Tang Dynasty (although the high point in the sciences is considered to be the later Sung Dynasty of 960-1234 CE) and some of the most impressive pieces of Chinese sculpture and silverwork come from this period.

The Fall of Tang & Rise of the Song Dynasty

Still, the central government was not universally admired and regional uprisings were a regular concern. The most important of these was the An Shi Rebellion (also known as the An Lushan Rebellion) of 755 CE. General An Lushan, a favorite of the imperial court, recoiled against what he saw as excessive extravagance in government. With a force of over 100,000 troops, he rebelled and declared himself the new emperor by the precepts of the Mandate of Heaven.

Although his revolt was put down by 763 CE, the underlying causes of the insurrection and further military actions continued to plague the government through 779 CE. The most apparent consequence of An Lushan's rebellion was a dramatic reduction in the population of China. It has been estimated that close to 36 million people died as a direct result of the rebellion, either in battle, in reprisals, or through disease and lack of resources.

Trade suffered, taxes went uncollected, and the government, which had fled Chang'an when the revolt began, was ineffective in maintaining any kind of significant presence. The Tang Dynasty continued to suffer from domestic revolts and, after the Huang Chao Rebellion (874-884 CE) never recovered. The country broke apart into the period known as The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 CE), with each regime claiming for itself legitimacy, until the rise of the Song Dynasty (aka Sung).

With the Song, China became stable once again and institutions, laws, and customs were further codified and integrated into the culture. Neo-Confucianism became the most popular philosophy of the country, influencing these laws and customs, and shaping the culture of China recognizable in the modern day. Still, in spite of advances in every area of civilization and culture, the age-old strife between wealthy landowners and the peasants who worked that land continued throughout the following centuries.

Periodic peasant revolts were crushed as quickly as possible, but no remedies for the people's grievances were ever offered, and each military action continued to deal with the symptom of the problem instead of the problem itself. In 1949 CE, Mao Tse Tung led the people's revolution in China, toppling the government and instituting the People's Republic of China on the premise that, finally, everyone would be equally affluent.

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Ancient China produced what has become the oldest extant culture in the world. The name 'China' comes from the Sanskrit Cina (derived from the name of the Chinese Qin Dynasty, pronounced 'Chin') which...

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Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the cotton gin is a machine that quickly and efficiently separated cotton fibers from their seeds. This invention made cotton production less labor intensive and, in turn, significantly more profitable.

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A unanimous, landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional, even if accommodations were "separate but equal".

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The Supreme Court's opinion in the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954 legally ended decades of racial segregation in America's public schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier and served as a catalyst for the expanding civil rights movement. Read more...

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Additional Background Information

While the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution outlawed slavery, it wasn't until three years later, in 1868, that the 14th Amendment guaranteed the rights of citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including due process and equal protection of the laws. These two amendments, as well as the 15th Amendment protecting voting rights, were intended to eliminate the last remnants of slavery and to protect the citizenship of Black Americans.

In 1875, Congress also passed the first Civil Rights Act, which held the "equality of all men before the law" and called for fines and penalties for anyone found denying patronage of public places, such as theaters and inns, on the basis of race. However, a reactionary Supreme Court reasoned that this act was beyond the scope of the 13th and 14th Amendments, as these amendments only concerned the actions of the government, not those of private citizens. With this ruling, the Supreme Court narrowed the field of legislation that could be supported by the Constitution and at the same time turned the tide against the civil rights movement.

By the late 1800s, segregation laws became almost universal in the South where previous legislation and amendments were, for all practical purposes, ignored. The races were separated in schools, in restaurants, in restrooms, on public transportation, and even in voting and holding office.

Plessy v. Ferguson

In 1896, the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts' decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Homer Plessy, a Black man from Louisiana, challenged the constitutionality of segregated railroad coaches, first in the state courts and then in the U. S. Supreme Court.

The high court upheld the lower courts, noting that since the separate cars provided equal services, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment was not violated. Thus, the "separate but equal" doctrine became the constitutional basis for segregation. One dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, declared the Constitution "color blind" and accurately predicted that this decision would become as baneful as the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857.

The NAACP

In 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was officially formed to champion the modern Civil Rights Movement. In its early years its primary goals were to eliminate lynching and to obtain fair trials for Black Americans. By the 1930s, however, the activities of the NAACP began focusing on the complete integration of American society. One of their strategies was to force admission of Black Americans into universities at the graduate level where establishing separate but equal facilities would be difficult and expensive for the states.

At the forefront of this movement was Thurgood Marshall, a young Black lawyer who, in 1938, became general counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund. Significant victories at this level included Gaines v. University of Missouri in 1938, Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma in 1948, and Sweatt v. Painter in 1950. In each of these cases, the goal of the NAACP defense team was to attack the "equal" standard so that the "separate" standard would in turn become susceptible.

Five Cases Consolidated under Brown v. Board of Education

By the 1950s, the NAACP was beginning to support challenges to segregation at the elementary school level. Five separate cases were filed in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Delaware:

Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, et al.

Harry Briggs, Jr., et al. v. R.W. Elliott, et al.

Dorothy E. Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al.

Spottswood Thomas Bolling et al. v. C. Melvin Sharpe et al.

Francis B. Gebhart et al. v. Ethel Louise Belton et al.

While each case had its unique elements, all were brought on the behalf of elementary school children, and all involved Black schools that were inferior to white schools. Most importantly, rather than just challenging the inferiority of the separate schools, each case claimed that the "separate but equal" ruling violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The lower courts ruled against the plaintiffs in each case, noting the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of the United States Supreme Court as precedent. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Federal district court even cited the injurious effects of segregation on Black children, but held that "separate but equal" was still not a violation of the Constitution. It was clear to those involved that the only effective route to terminating segregation in public schools was going to be through the United States Supreme Court.

In 1952 the Supreme Court agreed to hear all five cases collectively. This grouping was significant because it represented school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one. Thurgood Marshall, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs (he argued the Briggs case), and his fellow lawyers provided testimony from more than 30 social scientists affirming the deleterious effects of segregation on Black and white children. These arguments were similar to those alluded to in the Dissenting Opinion of Judge Waites Waring in Harry Briggs, Jr., et al. v. R. W. Elliott, Chairman, et al. (shown above).

These [social scientists] testified as to their study and researches and their actual tests with children of varying ages and they showed that the humiliation and disgrace of being set aside and segregated as unfit to associate with others of different color had an evil and ineradicable effect upon the mental processes of our young which would remain with them and deform their view on life until and throughout their maturity....They showed beyond a doubt that the evils of segregation and color prejudice come from early training...it is difficult and nearly impossible to change and eradicate these early prejudices however strong may be the appeal to reason...if segregation is wrong then the place to stop it is in the first grade and not in graduate colleges.

The lawyers for the school boards based their defense primarily on precedent, such as the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, as well as on the importance of states' rights in matters relating to education.

Realizing the significance of their decision and being divided among themselves, the Supreme Court took until June 1953 to decide they would rehear arguments for all five cases.

The arguments were scheduled for the following term. The Court wanted briefs from both sides that would answer five questions, all having to do with the attorneys' opinions on whether or not Congress had segregation in public schools in mind when the 14th amendment was ratified.

The Order of Argument (shown above) offers a window into the three days in December of 1953 during which the attorneys reargued the cases. The document lists the names of each case, the states from which they came, the order in which the Court heard them, the names of the attorneys for the appellants and appellees, the total time allotted for arguments, and the dates over which the arguments took place.

Briggs v. Elliott

The first case listed, Briggs v. Elliott, originated in Clarendon County, South Carolina, in the fall of 1950. Harry Briggs was one of 20 plaintiffs who were charging that R.W. Elliott, as president of the Clarendon County School Board, violated their right to equal protection under the fourteenth amendment by upholding the county's segregated education law. Briggs featured social science testimony on behalf of the plaintiffs from some of the nation's leading child psychologists, such as Dr. Kenneth Clark, whose famous doll study concluded that segregation negatively affected the self-esteem and psyche of African-American children. Such testimony was groundbreaking because on only one other occasion in U.S. history had a plaintiff attempted to present such evidence before the Court.

Thurgood Marshall, the noted NAACP attorney and future Supreme Court Justice, argued the Briggs case at the District and Federal Court levels. The U.S. District Court's three-judge panel ruled against the plaintiffs, with one judge dissenting, stating that "separate but equal" schools were not in violation of the 14th amendment. In his dissenting opinion (shown above), Judge Waties Waring presented some of the arguments that would later be used by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia

Marshall also argued the Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, case at the Federal level. Originally filed in May of 1951 by plaintiff's attorneys Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, the Davis case, like the others, argued that Virginia's segregated schools were unconstitutional because they violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. And like the Briggs case, Virginia's three-judge panel ruled against the 117 students who were identified as plaintiffs in the case. (For more on this case, see Photographs from the Dorothy Davis Case.)

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Listed third in the order of arguments, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was initially filed in February of 1951 by three Topeka area lawyers, assisted by the NAACP's Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg. As in the Briggs case, this case featured social science testimony on behalf of the plaintiffs that segregation had a harmful effect on the psychology of African-American children. While that testimony did not prevent the Topeka judges from ruling against the plaintiffs, the evidence from this case eventually found its way into the wording of the Supreme Court's May 17, 1954 opinion. The Court concluded that:

To separate them [children in grade and high schools] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone.

Bolling v. Sharpe

Because Washington, D.C., is a Federal territory governed by Congress and not a state, the Bolling v. Sharpe case was argued as a fifth amendment violation of "due process." The fourteenth amendment only mentions states, so this case could not be argued as a violation of "equal protection," as were the other cases. When a District of Columbia parent, Gardner Bishop, unsuccessfully attempted to get 11 African-American students admitted into a newly constructed white junior high school, he and the Consolidated Parents Group filed suit against C. Melvin Sharpe, president of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia. Charles Hamilton Houston, the NAACP's special counsel, former dean of the Howard University School of Law, and mentor to Thurgood Marshall, took up the Bolling case.

With Houston's health already failing in 1950 when he filed suit, James Nabrit, Jr. replaced Houston as the original attorney. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court on appeal, George E.C. Hayes had been added as an attorney for the petitioners, beside James Nabrit, Jr. According to the Court, due to the decision in Plessy, "the plaintiffs and others similarly situated" had been "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment," therefore, segregation of America's public schools was unconstitutional.

Belton v. Gebhart

The last case listed in the order of arguments, Belton v. Gebhart, was actually two nearly identical cases (the other being Bulah v. Gebhart), both originating in the state of Delaware in 1952. Ethel Belton was one of the parents listed as plaintiffs in the case brought in Claymont, while Sarah Bulah brought suit in the town of Hockessin, Delaware. While both of these plaintiffs brought suit because their African-American children had to attend inferior schools, Sarah Bulah's situation was unique in that she was a white woman with an adopted Black child, who was still subject to the segregation laws of the state. Local attorney Louis Redding, Delaware's only African-American attorney at the time, originally argued both cases in Delaware's Court of Chancery. NAACP attorney Jack Greenberg assisted Redding. Belton/Bulah v. Gebhart was argued at the Federal level by Delaware's attorney general, H. Albert Young.

Supreme Court Rehears Arguments

Reargument of the Brown v. Board of Education cases at the Federal level took place December 7-9, 1953. Throngs of spectators lined up outside the Supreme Court by sunrise on the morning of December 7, although arguments did not actually commence until one o'clock that afternoon. Spottswood Robinson began the argument for the appellants, and Thurgood Marshall followed him. Virginia's Assistant Attorney General, T. Justin Moore, followed Marshall, and then the court recessed for the evening.

On the morning of December 8, Moore resumed his argument, followed by his colleague, J. Lindsay Almond, Virginia's Attorney General. Following this argument, Assistant United States Attorney General J. Lee Rankin, presented the U.S. government's amicus curiae brief on behalf of the appellants, which showed its support for desegregation in public education. In the afternoon, Robert Carter began arguments in the Kansas case, and Paul Wilson, Attorney General for the state of Kansas, followed him in rebuttal.

On December 9, after James Nabrit and Milton Korman debated Bolling, and Louis Redding, Jack Greenberg, and Delaware's Attorney General, H. Albert Young argued Gebhart, the Court recessed. The attorneys, the plaintiffs, the defendants, and the nation waited five months and eight days to receive the unanimous opinion of Chief Justice Earl Warren's court, which declared, "in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."

The Warren Court

In September 1953, President Eisenhower had appointed Earl Warren, governor of California, as the new Supreme Court chief justice. Eisenhower believed Warren would follow a moderate course of action toward desegregation. His feelings regarding the appointment are detailed in the closing paragraphs of a letter he wrote to E. E. "Swede" Hazlett, a childhood friend (shown above). On the issue of segregation, Eisenhower believed that the new Warren court would "be very moderate and accord a maximum initiative to local courts."

In his brief to the Warren Court that December, Thurgood Marshall described the separate but equal ruling as erroneous and called for an immediate reversal under the 14th Amendment. He argued that it allowed the government to prohibit any state action based on race, including segregation in public schools. The defense countered this interpretation pointing to several states that were practicing segregation at the time they ratified the 14th Amendment. Surely they would not have done so if they had believed the 14th Amendment applied to segregation laws. The U.S. Department of Justice also filed a brief; it was in favor of desegregation but asked for a gradual changeover.

Over the next few months, the new chief justice worked to bring the splintered Court together. He knew that clear guidelines and gradual implementation were going to be important considerations, as the largest concern remaining among the justices was the racial unrest that would doubtless follow their ruling.

The Supreme Court Ruling

Finally, on May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren read the unanimous opinion: school segregation by law was unconstitutional (shown above). Arguments were to be heard during the next term to determine exactly how the ruling would be imposed.

Just over one year later, on May 31, 1955, Warren read the Court's unanimous decision, now referred to as Brown II (also shown above). It instructed states to begin desegregation plans "with all deliberate speed." Warren employed careful wording in order to ensure backing of the full Court in his official judgment.

The Brown decision was a watershed in American legal and civil rights history because it overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine first articulated in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. By overturning Plessy, the Court ended America's 58-year-long practice of legal racial segregation and paved the way for the integration of America's public school systems.

Reaction

Despite two unanimous decisions and careful, if not vague, wording, there was considerable resistance to the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In addition to the obvious disapproving segregationists were some constitutional scholars who felt that the decision went against legal tradition by relying heavily on data supplied by social scientists rather than precedent or established law. Supporters of judicial restraint believed the Court had overstepped its constitutional powers by essentially writing new law.

However, minority groups and members of the Civil Rights Movement were buoyed by the Brown decision even without specific directions for implementation. Proponents of judicial activism believed the Supreme Court had appropriately used its position to adapt the basis of the Constitution to address new problems in new times. The Warren Court stayed this course for the next 15 years, deciding cases that significantly affected not only race relations, but also the administration of criminal justice, the operation of the political process, and the separation of church and state.
Parts of this text were adapted from an article written by Mary Frances Greene, a teacher at Marie Murphy School in Wilmette, IL. Materials created by the National Archives and Records Administration are in the public domain.

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The Supreme Court's opinion in the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954 legally ended decades of racial segregation in America's public schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

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This act was a part of the Compromise of 1850 and made the United States federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.

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The Fugitive Slave Acts were congressional statutes passed in 1793 and 1850 that permitted for the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escaped from one state and fled into another ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.). The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as a part of the Compromise of 1850, required that the U.S. government actively intervene to help slave owners regain control over their slaves (Ohio History Connection, n.d.). This act dictated that fugitive slaves were neither allowed to testify on their own behalf, nor were they allowed to have a trial by jury ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.) . This was "justified" through legislators' claims that African Americans could not be United States citizens and thus were not afforded any protections (Ohio History Connection, n.d.).

Moreover, federal marshals who refused to enforce the law and individuals who helped slaves to escape were heavily penalized and were fined $1,000 (Ohio History Connection, n.d.). Furthermore, special commissioners were given concurrent jurisdiction with U.S. courts enforcing this act ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.) . This was determined to be wildly corrupt, for these special commissioners were paid $10 to rule in favor of slave owners, but they only received $5 if they sided with slaves. Between 1850 and 1860, 343 fugitive slaves appeared before these special commission, and of those, 332 were returned to slavery in the South (Ohio History Connection, n.d.).

The severity of this statute inspired an increased number of abolitionists, the development of a more efficient Underground Railroad , and the establishment of new personal-liberty laws in the North ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.) . These personal liberty laws were enacted in eight Northern States and prohibited state officials from assisting in returning fugitive slaves to the South (Olson & Mendoza, 2015). This prominent resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 incited further hostility between the North and the South and bolstered the controversy over slavery ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.) . Anti-Fugitive Slave Act riots erupted all over the North in 1851 (Olson & Mendoza, 2015). The Fugitive Slave Acts were not repealed until June 28, 1864 ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.) .
For further reading: Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, courtesy of The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. References:
Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Fugitive Slave Acts: United States (1793, 1850). In Encyclopedia Britannica online . Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Fugitive-Slave-Acts

Ohio History Connection. (n.d.). Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Ohio History Central. Retrieved from http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Fugitive_Slave_Law_of_1850

Olson, J. S. & Mendoza, A. O. (2015). Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. In American Economic History: A Dictionary and Chronology . Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

How to Cite this Article (APA Format): Paul, C. A. (2016). Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved from https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/federal/fugitive-slave-act-of-1850/

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The Fugitive Slave Acts were congressional statutes passed in 1793 and 1850 that permitted for the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escaped from one state and fled into another ( Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.). The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as a part of the Compromise of 1850, required that the U.S.

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A prominent, powerful, influential banker and financier from the late 19th century/early 20th century who, during this time, had significant influence and sway over the United States financial markets and financial policies.

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Amendment that prohibits the United States and its states from preventing citizens from voting on the basis of sex. This amendment gave women the right to vote.

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Series edited by Tamara Gaskell.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution barred states from excluding women from the ballot based solely on the basis of their sex. Signed into law on August 26, 1920, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment was the result of decades of work by tens of thousands across the country who worked for change. Not everyone followed the same path in fighting for women's equal access to the vote, and the history of the Nineteenth Amendment is frought with competing agendas and betrayals. But it is also the story of cooperation and alliances across movements and across the United States and globally.

Well before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, women could vote in state and local elections in some US states and territories, especially in the West. After it became law, many women across the US were still excluded from voting because they were not citizens or because of state restrictions on certain populations voting.

This essay series was commissioned by the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers and the National Park Service in recognition of the centennial of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Focusing on the Nineteenth Amendment, the series examines the history of woman suffrage across the United States, including early adopters, international influences, anti-suffragists, depiction in popular culture, and its lasting influence.

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19th Amendment and Women's Access to the Vote Across America - Women's History (U.S. National Park Service)

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Series edited by Tamara Gaskell. The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution barred states from excluding women from the ballot based solely on the basis of their sex. Signed into law on August 26, 1920, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment was the result of decades of work by tens of thousands across the country who worked for change.

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A presidential proclamation and executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln which declared that all slaves located in states that had succeeded from the Union be "forever free" and recognized as free by the United States government.

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

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Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

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The Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation laws did not violate the United States Constitution so long as the accommodations were of equal quality. This established the "separate but equal" doctrine which strengthened and validated Jim Crow laws.

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"Separate But Equal" | Plessy v. Ferguson

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Texas succeeded from Mexico, fought for independence from Mexico, became its own country (The Republic of Texas), and was eventually annexed by the United States on December 29, 1845 becoming the 28th state.

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The Texas Revolution (Story Time with Mr. Beat)

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Music by Electric Needle Room. http://electricneedleroom.com Here's the story about how Texas became part of Mexico, then became its own country, and finally became part of the United States. Please subscribe to my podcast! http://iammrbeat.podomatic.com All images in the public domain.

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The first constitution of the United States. Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent while Congress was granted the power to maintain an army, create money, and negotiate treaties and alliances. Notably, these articles did not grant Congress the ability to levy taxes or regulate commerce.

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After considerable debate and alteration, the Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. This document served as the United States' first constitution, and was in force from March 1, 1781, until 1789 when the present day Constitution went into effect.

Read more at Our Documents...

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Enlarge PDF Link Articles of Confederation Engrossed and corrected copy of the Articles of Confederation, showing amendments adopted, November 15, 1777, Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives.

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Franklin was a statesmen, diplomat, scientist and inventor who served in the Second Continental Congress, helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and helped negotiate the Treaty or Paris (1783) that ended the Revolutionary War.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 32nd President of the U.S. and he experienced the Great Depression which led to The New Deal Coalition.

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Harriet Tubman was the person who led slaves to freedom through the process called "The Underground Railroad."

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The Life of Harriet Tubman for Kids | Learn facts about Harriet Tubman | Black History Month

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The Gettysburg Address is a famous speech made by President Abraham Lincoln stating that all humans were equal.

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The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was delivered on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863. This speech was made during the American Civil War, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This was four-and-a-half months after the Union Army had a victory over the Confederate States Army at the Battle of Gettysburg.

The address is one of the greatest speeches in the history of the United States. Lincoln spoke of how humans were equal as it said in the Declaration of Independence. He also said the Civil War was a fight not simply for the Union, but "a new birth of freedom" that would make everyone truly equal in one united nation.

The speech famously begins with "Four score and seven years ago", referring to the American Revolution in 1776. "Score" in this case is an old word meaning "twenty." Lincoln used the ceremony at Gettysburg to encourage the people to help America's democracy, so that the "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish (be destroyed) from the earth".

The speech is very important in the popular culture of the United States. However, people are not sure about the exact words of the speech. The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address are different from one another in some details. They are also different from the words of the Gettysburg Address that have been printed in modern newspapers.

Background

About 172,000 American soldiers fought in the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1-3, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg was an important influence on the American Civil War and on the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where only 2,400 people lived. The battlefield had more than 7,500 bodies of dead soldiers and 5,000 horses. Sarah Broadhead, a wife and mother living in the town, feared that they would "be visited with pestilence". Eliza Farnham, a nurse, called the place "one vast hospital". An army medical officer spoke similarly: "The ... ten days following the battle of Gettysburg was ... the greatest amount of human suffering known in this nation since its birth".

The people of Gettysburg wanted to bury the dead properly. At first, they planned to buy land for a cemetery and ask the families of the dead to pay for the burial. However, David Willis, a rich 32-year-old lawyer, did not like this idea. He wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew Gregg Curtin, asking that a National Cemetery be supported by the states. Wills was allowed to buy 17 acres (69,000 m²) for a cemetery to honor the people who died in the battle. He paid $2,475.87 for the land.

At first, Wills wanted to dedicate this new cemetery on Wednesday, October 23. He asked Edward Everett to be the main speaker. Everett was a very famous orator at that time. He had also served as Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, Governor of Massachusetts, president of Harvard University, and Vice Presidential candidate. However, Everett replied that he would not be able to prepare a good speech so quickly, and wanted to move the date of the dedication. The organizing committee agreed, and the dedication was moved to Thursday, November 19.

Wills and the event committee then asked President Lincoln to join in the ceremony. Wills' letter said, "It is the desire that, ... you, as Chief Executive of the nation, formally (officially) set apart these grounds ... by a few appropriate (proper) remarks". Lincoln was officially asked to join only 17 days before the ceremony, while Everett had received his invitation 40 days earlier. "Although there is some evidence Lincoln expected Wills's letter, its late date makes the author (writer) appear presumptuous ... Seventeen days was extraordinarily (remarkably) short notice for presidential participation even by nineteenth-century standards". Also, Wills's letter "made it equally clear to the president that he would have only a small part in the ceremonies".

Lincoln came by train to Gettysburg on November 18. He spent the night in Wills's house on the Gettysburg town square. There, he finished the speech he had written in Washington, D.C. There is a popular story that Lincoln completed his address on the train on the back of an envelope, but it is not true. There are several early copies on Executive Mansion paper, and reports of Lincoln finishing his speech while he was a guest of David Wills at Gettysburg. On the morning of November 19 at 9:30 a.m., Lincoln, riding a brown horse, joined the townspeople, and widows marching out to the grounds to be dedicated.

About 15,000 people went to the ceremony. This included the governors of six of the 24 Union states. They were Andrew Gregg Curtin of Pennsylvania, Augustus Bradford of Maryland, Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, Horatio Seymour of New York, Joel Parker of New Jersey, and David Tod of Ohio. Canadian politician William McDougall came as Lincoln's guest. Historians do not agree about the exact place where the dedication ceremony was held inside the cemetery. Moving all the bodies to the graves in the cemetery was less than half complete on the day of the ceremony.

Political importance

By August 1863, millions of people had been killed or hurt because of Civil War battles. This made people in the North begin to dislike Lincoln and the war. Lincoln's 1863 drafts were not popular, and people became angriest with them around the time of the New York Draft Riots. This was just ten days after the Battle of Gettysburg. In September 1863, Pennsylvania's Governor Curtin told Lincoln that people were turning against the war effort:

If the election were to occur now, the result would be extremely doubtful (not sure), and although most of our discreet friends are sanguine of the result, my impression is, the chances would be against us. The draft is very odious in the State... the Democratic leaders have succeeded in exciting prejudice and passion, and have infused their poison into the minds of the people to a very large extent, and the changes are against us.

In the summer of 1864, Lincoln was worried that the people's bad feelings would make him lose the Presidential election. In the fall of 1863, he grew very concerned about keeping up the Union's spirits toward the war effort. That was the greatest purpose of Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg.

Program and Everett's "Gettysburg Oration"

The program organized for that day by Wills and his committee included:

Music, by Birgfield's Band

Prayer, by Reverend T.H. Stockton, D.D.

Music, by the Marine Band

Oration, by Hon. Edward Everett

Music, Hymn made by B.B. French, Esq.

Dedicatory Remarks, by the President of the United States

Dirge, sung by a chosen Choir

Benediction, by Reverend H.L. Baugher, D.D.

Lincoln's short speech became known in history as one of the best examples of English public speeches. Everett's two-hour oration was called the "Gettysburg address" that day, but his oration is not well-known today. It began:

"Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the ... silence of God and Nature. But the duty ... must be performed; - grant me, I pray you, ... your sympathy".

It ended two hours later with:

"But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that ... in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg".

Text of Gettysburg Address

After Everett finished his speech, Lincoln spoke for two or three minutes. Lincoln's "few appropriate remarks" summarized the war in ten sentences.

Lincoln's speech is very important in history, but modern scholars do not agree about the words of the speech. There are many different modern versions printed in newspaper accounts of the event. Among these, the Bliss version, written some time after the speech for a friend, is seen by lots of people as the most reliable text. Its text is different, however, from the written versions prepared by Lincoln before and after his speech. It is the only version Lincoln put his signature on. It is also the last he is known to have written.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived (started, made) in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract (take away). The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve (decide) that these dead shall not have died in vain (for nothing)-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln's sources

In Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills notes the similarity between Lincoln's speech and Pericles's Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War (James McPherson and Gore Vidal also note this). Pericles' speech begins with remembering honored people: "I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present". This is very much like the Gettysburg Address's famous beginning. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln had begun by speaking of how "our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation". He then praises their State's firm democracy: "If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all". He honors the dead's sacrifice: "Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face". He also warmly encourages the living to continue to fight for true democracy: "You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue".

But writer Adam Gopnik felt differently. In The New Yorker, he said that Everett's Oration was openly neoclassical. For example, Everett spoke directly about Marathon and Pericles. But he said that "Lincoln's rhetoric is, instead, deliberately Biblical". He added that it is hard to find any obviously classical references in all of his speeches. Gopnik felt that "Lincoln had mastered the sound of the King James Bible so completely that he could recast (make again) abstract issues of constitutional law in Biblical terms (words from the Bible), making the proposition (suggestion) that Texas and New Hampshire should be forever bound by a single post office sound like something right out of Genesis".

There are many theories about where Lincoln's expression of "government of the people, by the people, for the people" came from. In The American Monthly Review of Reviews, it is suggested that the writings of William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, much influenced Lincoln. William Herndon wrote in Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of A Great Life that he had brought some of the sermons of abolitionist minister Theodore Parker to Lincoln, who had been moved by them.

"I brought with me additional sermons and lectures of Theodore Parker, who was warm in his commendation of Lincoln. One of these was a lecture on 'The Effect of Slavery on the American People' ... which I gave to Lincoln, who read and returned it (gave it back). He liked especially the ... expression, which he marked with a pencil, and which he ... afterwards used in his Gettysburg Address: 'Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.'"

Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of A Great Life

Craig R. Smith, In "Criticism of Political Rhetoric and Disciplinary Integrity", suggested that the Gettysburg Address was influenced by the speech of Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster. In his " Second Reply to Hayne", Webster had famously cried out, " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable"! In this 1830 speech, Webster had also described the Federal Government as "made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people". This expression was very similar to Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Webster also said, "This government ... is the independent offspring of the popular will. It is not the creature of State legislatures ... if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto (until now) supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties".

Wills was interested in how Lincoln used the ideas of birth, life, and death. Lincoln had described the nation as "brought forth", " conceived", and that shall not " perish". Others, such as Allen C. Guelzo, suggested that Lincoln's expression "four score and seven" was about the King James Version of the Bible's Psalms 90:10. There, man's life is described as "threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years".

Five manuscripts

Each of the five manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address are named for the person who received it from Lincoln. Lincoln gave a copy to each of his private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. Both were written around the time of his November 19 address. The other three copies of the address (the Everett, Bancroft, and Bliss copies) were written a long time after November 19. They were written by Lincoln for charitable purposes. The Bliss copy has become the most widely accepted text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. This is partly because Lincoln gave it a title and signed and dated it.

There has been some controversy about the two earliest drafts of the Address. Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, made Nicolay and Hay the legal guardians of Lincoln's papers in 1874. The Nicolay Copy appeared as a copy in an article written by Nicolay in 1894. After that, it was thought to be among the papers passed to Hay by Nicolay's daughter Helen when Nicolay died in 1901. Robert Lincoln began a search for the first copy in 1908. He discovered a handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address among the papers of John Hay-a copy now known as the "Hay Draft".

The Hay Draft was different from the Gettysburg Address printed by Nicolay in 1894 in many important ways. For example, it was written on a different kind of paper, had a different number of words on every line, had a different number of lines, and had corrections in Lincoln's handwriting.

Both the Hay and Nicolay copies of the Address are inside the Library of Congress. They are inside specially designed, temperature-controlled, sealed containers with argon gas. This is to protect the documents from oxidation.

Nicolay Copy

The Nicolay Copy is often called the "first draft". This is because it is thought to be the earliest copy that exists. Scholars are not sure if the Nicolay Copy was actually the copy Lincoln read from at Gettysburg on November 19. In an 1894 article, Nicolay wrote that Lincoln had brought to Gettysburg the first part of the speech written in ink. Nicolay also said that Lincoln had written the second page in pencil on lined paper before November 19. Matching folds can still be seen on the two pages, suggesting it could be the copy that eyewitnesses say Lincoln took from his coat pocket and read at the ceremony. But some of the words and expressions in the Nicolay Copy do not match modern transcriptions of Lincoln's speech. Because of this, some people believe that the text used at Gettysburg has been lost. The words "under God", for example, are missing in this copy from the phrase "that this nation (under God) shall have a new birth of freedom..." If the Nicolay draft was the copy Lincoln read from, either the modern transcriptions are not correct, or Lincoln spoke differently from his written text several times. John Nicolay kept this copy of the Gettysburg Address until he died in 1901. When he died, it was passed on to his friend John Hay. It is on permanent display as part of the American Treasures exhibition of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

In 1906, it was first announced that the Hay Copy had been discovered. It had been found among the papers of John Hay when people were searching for the " original manuscript" of the Address. There are some important differences from the copy of the Address described by John Hay in his article. There are many important words taken out and added by Lincoln's own handwriting, which often changed the basic meaning of the sentence. In this copy, like in the Nicolay Copy, the words "under God" are not there.

This version has been described as "the most inexplicable" of the drafts. It is sometimes referred to as the "second draft". The "Hay Copy" was probably made on the morning of the delivery of the Address. It could also have been made shortly after Lincoln came back to Washington. The people who believe it was completed on the morning of his address note that it has some expressions that are not in the first draft but are in the reports of the address and in later copies by Lincoln. It is likely, they say, that Lincoln used this copy when he delivered the address. Lincoln later gave this copy to his other secretary, John Hay. Hay's descendants gave it and the Nicolay Copy to the Library of Congress in 1916.

Everett Copy

The Everett Copy is also known as the "Everett-Keyes Copy". It was sent by President Lincoln to Edward Everett in early 1864. Everett, who was collecting the speeches at the Gettysburg dedication into one book to sell for hurt soldiers at New York's Sanitary Commission Fair, had asked for it. The Illinois State Historical Library in Springfield, Illinois has it on display. It is in the Treasures Gallery of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Bancroft Copy

The Bancroft Copy of the Gettysburg Address was written by President Lincoln in February 1864. The famous historian George Bancroft, the "father of American History", who wrote History of the United States, had asked him to write it for him. Bancroft wanted to put this copy in Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors and sell it at a Soldiers' and Sailors' Sanitary Fair in Baltimore. But Lincoln wrote on both sides of the paper, so he could not use it for this purpose. Therefore, Bancroft was allowed to keep it. This copy was kept by the Bancroft family for many years. Then, it was sold to different dealers and bought by Nicholas and Marguerite Lilly Notes. They donated it to Cornell in 1949. It is now kept by the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections in the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University. Among the five copies, it is the only one to be privately owned.

When Lincoln found that his fourth written copy could not be used, he wrote a fifth copy. The Bliss Copy was named for Colonel Alexander Bliss, Bancroft's stepson. It is not known if Lincoln made any more copies. Lincoln wrote this copy with much care. He gave it a title-"Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg"-and signed and dated this copy. In fact, it was the only copy of the Gettysburg Address he signed. Partly because of this, it has become the most well-known version of the Gettysburg Address. It is the source of most modern copies of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Today, this copy hangs in the Lincoln Room of the White House. It is a present from Oscar B. Cintas, who used to be a Cuban Ambassador to the United States. Cintas liked to collect art and manuscripts. He had bought the Bliss Copy for $54,000 at a public auction in 1949. It "set a new high record for the sale of a document at public auction". The Castro government claimed Cintas' properties after it became powerful in 1959. But Cintas, who died in 1957, had willed the Gettysburg Address to the American people, if it would be kept at the White House. It was moved there in 1959, and is still there today.

Another source of the Gettysburg Address is the copy from the Associated Press. It was copied from the notes taken by reporter Joseph L. Gilbert. It is different from the drafted words in a few ways.

Contemporary sources and reaction

Eyewitnesses reports about Lincoln's performance are various. In 1931, 87-year-old Mrs. Sarah A. Cooke Myers suggested that there was a dignified silence after Lincoln finished his speech. She had been there when she was 19 years old. "I was close to the President and heard all of the Address, but it seemed short. Then there was an impressive silence like our Menallen Friends Meeting. There was no applause when he stopped speaking". Historian Shelby Foote said that the applause, which came after a long time, was "barely polite". But the governor of Pennsylvania, Curtin, said, "He pronounced (said) that speech in a voice that all the multitude (people) heard. The crowd was hushed into silence because the President stood before them ... It was so Impressive! It was the common remark of everybody. Such a speech, as they said it was!"

There is a story that Lincoln turned to his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon and said that his speech "won't scour (wouldn't be successful)". Garry Wills argued that this story was not true. He said that Lamon was the only person who remembered this remark, and that it was not reliable. Garry Wills felt that Lincoln had done what he wanted to do at Gettysburg.

The following day, Everett wrote a letter to Lincoln. In the letter, he praised the President for his speech, saying, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central (main) idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes". Lincoln replied that he was glad the speech was not a "total complete failure".

Other public reaction to the speech was different according to each party. The Democratic Chicago Times said, "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances (remarks) of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States". However, the Republican New York Times praised the speech. The Springfield, MA. Republican newspaper printed the entire speech, calling it "a perfect gem" that was "deep in feeling, compact (simple) in thought and expression, and tasteful and elegant in every word and comma". The Republican said that Lincoln's short remarks would "repay further study as the model speech".

Audio memories

William R. Rathvon is the only known eyewitness of the Gettysburg Address to have left an audio recording of what he remembered. One year before he died in 1939, Rathvon's remarks were recorded on February 12, 1938. It included his reading the address itself. The title of the record was "I Heard Lincoln That Day - William R. Rathvon, TR Productions". The National Public Radio (NPR) discovered a copy during a "Quest for Sound" project in 1999. NPR allows people to hear the record around Lincoln's birthday.

Photographs

The only known and confirmed photograph of Lincoln at Gettysburg was taken by David Bachrach. It was identified in the Mathew Brady collection of photographic plates in 1952. Lincoln's speech was short, but he and others sat for hours during the rest of the program. Because Everett's speech was very long, and because it took a long time for 19th century photographers to prepare for taking a picture, it is likely that photographers were not prepared for how short Lincoln's speech was. In 2006, John Richter identified two more photographs in the Library of Congress collection.

The Nicolay and Hay copies do not have the words "under God", but they appear in the three later copies (Everett, Bancroft, and Bliss). So, some skeptics suggest that Lincoln did not say "under God" at Gettysburg. Yet at least three reporters telegraphed the words of the Gettysburg Address with the words "under God" included. Historian William E. Barton says:

"Every stenographic report, good, bad and indifferent poor, says 'that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom.' There was no common source from which all the reporters could have obtained those words but from Lincoln's own lips at the time of delivery. It will not do to say that [Secretary of War] Stanton suggested those words after Lincoln's return to Washington, for the words were telegraphed by at least three reporters on the afternoon of the delivery".

The reporters who were there at that time included Joseph Gilbert, Charles Hale, John R. Young. There were also reporters from the Cincinnati Commercial, New York Tribune, and New York Times. Charles Hale "had notebook and pencil in hand, [and] took down the slow-spoken words of the President". "He took down what he declared was the exact language of Lincoln's address ... His associates confirmed his testimony, which was received, as it deserved to be at its face value". Lincoln probably spoke differently from what he had prepared and added the expression when he was speaking.

The Gettysburg Address's importance in the history of the United States can be seen by the long time it has been a part of American culture. Popular works often refer to the Gettysburg Address as if expecting that the audience will know Lincoln's words. Many years have passed after the Address was delivered, but it is still one of the most famous speeches in American history. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech of "I Have a Dream" spoke of the Gettysburg Address. In August 1963, King spoke of President Lincoln and his well-known words: "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This ... decree came as a great ... light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of ... injustice".

The Constitution of France spoke of France as a "gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple et pour le peuple" ("government of the people, by the people, and for the people"). This was a direct translation of Lincoln's words.

The address has become a part of American tradition. It is studied in schools and warmly praised by writers. The Gettysburg Address shows an important interpretation of the Declaration of Independence that is still remembered and used. It is widely accepted as one of the most important documents in U.S. history, together with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. To this day, it is one of the most famous, beloved, and most quoted of modern speeches.

Images for kids

One of the two confirmed photos of Lincoln (center, facing camera) at Gettysburg, taken about noon, just after he arrived and some three hours before his speech. To his right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.

The Lincoln Address Memorial, designed by Louis Henrick, with bust of Lincoln by Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, erected at the Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1912.

Analysis of this photograph, taken by Alexander Gardner looking northeast on November 19, 1863, rules out the Traditional Site at Soldiers' National Monument as a possible location for the speaker's platform.

In Spanish: Discurso de Gettysburg para niños

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Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist who is famous of his anti-slavery writtings.

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Frederick Douglass (born February 1818, Talbot county, Maryland, U.S.-died February 20, 1895, Washington, D.C.) was an African American abolitionist, orator, newspaper publisher, and author who is famous for his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. He became the first Black U.S. marshal and was the most photographed American man of the 19th century.

Early life and enslavement

Douglass was born enslaved as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Holme Hill Farm in Talbot county, Maryland. Although the date of his birth was not recorded, Douglass estimated that he had been born in February 1818, and he later celebrated his birthday on February 14. (The best source for the events in Douglass's life is Douglass himself in his oratory and writings, especially his three autobiographies, the details of which have been checked when possible and have largely been confirmed, though his biographers have contributed corrections and clarifications.) Douglass was owned by Capt. Aaron Anthony, who was the clerk and superintendent of overseers for Edward Lloyd V (also known as Colonel Lloyd), a wealthy landowner and slaveholder in eastern Maryland. Like many other enslaved children, Douglass was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was very young. He spent his formative years with his maternal grandmother, Betsey Bailey, who had the responsibility of raising young enslaved children.

Harriet Bailey worked as a field hand on a neighbouring plantation and had to walk more than 12 miles (about 19 km) to visit her son, whom she met with only a few times in his life. He described her as "tall and finely proportioned, of dark, glossy complexion, with regular features, and amongst the slaves was remarkably sedate and dignified." She died when he was about seven years old. As an adult, Douglass learned that his mother had been the only Black person in what was then Talbot county who could read, an extraordinarily rare achievement for a field hand.

When Douglass was age five or six, he was taken to live on Colonel Lloyd's home plantation, Wye House. Lloyd's plantation functioned like a small town. Young Douglass found himself among several other enslaved children competing for food and other comforts. In 1826 at approximately age eight, he was sent to live with Hugh and Sophia Auld at Fells Point, Baltimore. Hugh's brother Capt. Thomas Auld was the son-in-law of Douglass's owner, Aaron Anthony. Douglass's responsibility in Baltimore was to care for Hugh and Sophia's young son, Thomas. Sophia began teaching Douglass how to read, along with her son. The lessons ended abruptly, however, when Hugh discovered what had been going on and informed Sophia that literacy would "spoil" a slave. According to Douglass, Hugh stated that if a slave were given an inch, he would "take an ell [a unit of measure equal to about 45 inches]." In Maryland, as in many other slaveholding states, it was forbidden to teach enslaved people how to read and write. Douglass continued his learning in secret, by exchanging bread for lessons from the poor white boys he played with in the neighbourhood and by tracing the letters in Thomas's old schoolbooks.

In March 1832 Douglass was sent from Baltimore to St. Michaels, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. After both Aaron Anthony and his daughter Lucretia died, her husband, Capt. Thomas Auld, became Douglass's owner. Teenage Douglass experienced harsher living conditions with Auld, who was known for his abusive practices.

In January 1833 Douglass was leased to local farmer Edward Covey. Leasing or hiring out enslaved persons was a common revenue-generating practice. Farmers would pay slaveholders a monthly fee for enslaved people and take responsibility for their care, food, and lodging. Covey was known as a "slave breaker," someone who abused slaves physically and psychologically in order to make them more compliant. According to Douglass, Covey's abuse led to a climactic confrontation six months into Douglass's time with the farmer. One day Covey attacked Douglass, and Douglass fought back. The two men engaged in an epic two-hour-long physical struggle. Douglass ultimately won the fight, and Covey never attacked him again. Douglass emerged from the incident determined to protect himself from any physical assault from anyone in the future.

In January 1834 Douglass was sent to William Freeland's farm. Living and working conditions were better under Freeland; however, Douglass still desired his freedom. While living with Freeland, he started a Sabbath school at which he taught area Blacks how to read and write. Along with four other enslaved men, Douglass plotted to escape north by taking a large canoe up the coast of Maryland and to proceed to Pennsylvania, but their plot was discovered. Douglass and the other participants were arrested. Captain Auld then sent Douglass back to Baltimore to live again with Hugh and Sophia Auld and to learn a trade.

Hugh Auld hired out Douglass to local shipyards as a ship caulker. Now working as a skilled tradesman, Douglass was paid by the shipyards for his efforts. He would then submit his earnings to Auld, who gave Douglass a small percentage of the wages. Douglass would eventually hire out his own time, which meant that he paid Auld a set amount every week but was responsible for maintaining his own food and clothing. During this time, Douglass became more involved in Baltimore's Black community, which led him to meet Anna Murray, a freeborn Black woman, whom he would eventually marry.

Escape from slavery, life in New Bedford, and work with the American Anti-Slavery Society

Douglass moved about Baltimore with few restrictions, but that privilege came to an end when he decided to attend a religious meeting outside of Baltimore on a Saturday evening and postpone paying Auld his weekly fee. The following Monday, when Douglass returned, Auld threatened him. After that encounter, Douglass was determined to escape his bondage. He escaped in September 1838 by dressing as a sailor and traveling from Baltimore to Wilmington, Delaware, by train, then on to Philadelphia by steamboat, and from there to New York City by train. Black sailors in the 19th century traveled with documents granting them protection under the American flag. Douglass used such documents to secure his passage north with the help of Anna, who, according to family lore, had sold her feather bed to help finance his passage.

New York City was a dangerous place for enslaved people seeking freedom. Numerous slave catchers traveled to the city to track down those who had escaped. Many locals, Black and white, were willing, for money, to tell the authorities about people trying to escape enslavement. For his own protection, Douglass (still months from assuming that name) changed his name from Frederick Bailey to Frederick Johnson. A chance meeting with Black abolitionist David Ruggles led Douglass to safety. Anna arrived in New York several days later, and the two were married by the Reverend J.W.C. Pennington.

At Ruggles's recommendation, the couple quickly left New York City for New Bedford, Massachusetts. Ruggles had determined that New Bedford's shipping industry would offer Douglass the best chance to find work as a ship caulker. In New Bedford the couple stayed with a local Black married couple, Nathan and Polly Johnson. Because many families in New Bedford had the surname Johnson, Douglass chose to change his name again. Nathan Johnson suggested the name Douglass, which was inspired by the name of an exiled nobleman in Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake. The newly minted Frederick Douglass earned money for the first time as a free man. However, despite Douglass's previous work experience, racial prejudice in New Bedford prevented him from working as a ship caulker (white caulkers refused to work with Black caulkers). Consequently, Douglass spent his first years in Massachusetts working as a common labourer.

Douglass remained an avid reader throughout his adult life. When he escaped to New York, he carried with him a copy of The Columbian Orator. In New Bedford he discovered William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Inspired by it, Douglass attended a Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society convention in Nantucket in the summer of 1841. At the meeting, abolitionist William C. Coffin, having heard Douglass speak in New Bedford, invited him to address the general body. Douglass's extemporaneous speech was lauded by the audience, and he was recruited as an agent for the group.

As an agent of both the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass traveled the country promoting abolition and the organizations' agenda. He and other persons who had escaped conditions of enslavement frequently described their own experiences under those conditions. The American Anti-Slavery Society supported "moral suasion" abolition, the belief that slavery was a moral wrong that should be resisted through nonviolent means. Douglass strongly promoted this philosophy during the early years of his abolitionist career. In his speech at the 1843 National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York, Black abolitionist and minister Henry Highland Garnet proposed a resolution that called for enslaved people to rise up against their masters. The controversial resolution ignited a tense debate at the convention, with Douglass rising in firm opposition. His belief in moral suasion would repeatedly place him at odds with other Black abolitionists during this phase of his career. Work as an agent provided Douglass with the means to support his family. He and Anna had five children: Rosetta (born 1839), Lewis (born 1840), Frederick, Jr. (born 1842), Charles (born 1844), and Annie (born 1849).

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, European travel, and The North Star

In 1845 Douglass published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Prior to its publication, audiences at Douglass's lectures had questioned his authenticity as an ex-slave because of his eloquence, refusal to use "plantation speak," and unwillingness to provide details about his origins. The Narrative settled these disputes by naming people and locations in Douglass's life. The book also challenged the conventional employment of ghostwriters for slave narratives by boldly acknowledging that Douglass wrote it himself. Douglass would publish two additional autobiographies: My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). The Narrative quickly became popular, especially in Europe, but the book's success contributed to Hugh Auld's determination to return Douglass to the conditions of enslavement.

The threat of capture, as well as the book's excellent performance in Europe, prompted Douglass to travel abroad from August 1845 to 1847, and he lectured throughout the United Kingdom. His English supporters, led by Ellen and Anna Richardson, purchased Douglass from Hugh Auld, giving him his freedom. In the spring of 1847, Douglass returned to the United States a free man with the funding to start his own newspaper.

Douglass moved to Rochester, New York, to publish his newspaper, The North Star, despite objections from Garrison and others. Basing the newspaper in Rochester ensured that The North Star did not compete with the distribution of The Liberator and the National Anti-Slavery Standard in New England. The North Star's first issue appeared on December 3, 1847. In 1851 the paper merged with the Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which ran until 1860. Douglass would publish two additional newspapers during his life, Douglass' Monthly (1859-63) and New National Era (1870-74).

The move to Rochester surrounded Douglass with political abolitionists such as Gerrit Smith. During his first few years in Rochester, Douglass remained loyal to Garrison's philosophy, which promoted moral suasion, stated that the U.S. Constitution was an invalid document, and discouraged participation in American politics because it was a system corrupted by slavery. In 1851, however, Douglass announced his split from Garrison when he declared that the Constitution was a valid legal document that could be used on behalf of emancipation. Consequently, Douglass became more engaged in American politics and constitutional interpretation.

Involvement with John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony

The country's tension around slavery rapidly increased in the 1850s. Douglass's Rochester home was part of the Underground Railroad and hosted numerous fellow abolitionists. In 1859 Douglass met with abolitionist John Brown in a quarry in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Brown invited Douglass to participate in the planned raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), which Brown hoped would inspire a massive uprising by enslaved people. Douglass declined the invitation. Shortly after the raid (October 16-19), Douglass received word that the authorities were looking to arrest him as an accomplice. He quickly fled to Canada before heading to Europe for a scheduled lecture tour. Douglass returned home in April 1860 after learning that his youngest daughter, Annie, had died.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Douglass strongly advocated for inclusion of Black soldiers in the Union army. He became a recruiter for the Massachusetts 54th, an all-Black infantry regiment in which his sons Lewis and Charles served. In 1863 Douglass visited the White House to meet with Pres. Abraham Lincoln to advocate for better pay and conditions for the soldiers. Lincoln then invited Douglass to the White House in 1864 to discuss what could be done for Blacks in the case of a Union loss. Douglass would meet with Lincoln a third time, after the president's second inauguration and about a month before his assassination.

The Emancipation Proclamation and the Union's victory presented a new reality: millions of Black people were free. Douglass dedicated himself to securing the community's rights to this new freedom. He strongly supported the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted Blacks citizenship, but he realized that this new citizenship status needed to be protected by suffrage. Initially Douglass supported a constitutional amendment supporting suffrage for all men and women. Having attended the 1848 women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, he was a longtime supporter of women's rights, joining Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in this stance. Reconstruction politics, however, indicated that a universal suffrage amendment would fail. Douglass then supported Black male suffrage with the idea that Black men could help women secure the right to vote later. This placed him at odds with Stanton and Anthony. Douglass hoped that the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment would encourage African Americans to stay in the South to consolidate their power as a voting bloc, but the region's high levels of violence against African Americans led him to support Black migration to safer areas of the country.

Move to Washington, D.C., the Freedman's Bank, government office-holding, and later years

After a fire destroyed his Rochester home, Douglass moved in 1872 to Washington, D.C., where he published his latest newspaper venture, New National Era. The newspaper folded in 1874 because of its poor fiscal health. That same year Douglass was appointed president of the Freedman's Savings & Trust, also known as the Freedman's Bank. The bank failed four months after he became president because of the years of corruption that predated his association with the bank. The bank's failure harmed his reputation, but Douglass worked with the U.S. Congress to remedy the damage caused by the bank.

After the Freedman's Bank debacle, Douglass held numerous government appointments. He became the first Black U.S. marshal in 1877 when he was appointed to that post for the District of Columbia by Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes. He served in that capacity until 1881, when Pres. James A. Garfield appointed him to the high-paying position of recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia. In 1889 Pres. Benjamin Harrison selected Douglass as the U.S. minister resident and consul general to the Republic of Haiti. The major controversy during Douglass's tenure was the quest by the United States to acquire the port town of Môle Saint-Nicolas as a refueling station for the U.S. Navy. Douglass disagreed with the Harrison administration's approach, preferring to promote the autonomy of the Haitian government. He resigned the position in 1891 and returned to his home in Washington, D.C.

Douglass spent the last 17 years of his life at Cedar Hill, his home in the Anacostia neighbourhood of Washington, D.C., to which he had moved in 1878. On August 4, 1882, Anna Murray Douglass died in the home after suffering a stroke. In 1884 Douglass married Helen Pitts, his white secretary, who was about 20 years younger than her husband. The marriage was controversial for its time, and it resulted in Douglass's temporary estrangement from some friends and family.

During the latter years of his life, Douglass remained committed to social justice and the African American community. His prominence and work resulted in his being the most photographed American man in the 19th century. His distinguished photographs were deliberate contradictions to the visual stereotypes of African Americans at the time, which often exaggerated their facial features, skin colour, and physical bodies and demeaned their intelligence. He served on Howard University's board of trustees from 1871 to 1895. Douglass cultivated relationships with younger activists, most notably Ida B. Wells, who featured his letter to her in her book Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. He also contributed to her pamphlet protesting the exclusion of exhibits dedicated to African American culture from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition.

Douglass died in his Cedar Hill home on February 20, 1895. After his death, Helen Pitts Douglass established the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association to preserve his legacy. She bequeathed the home and its belongings to the organization in her will. Cedar Hill became part of the National Park system in 1962, and it was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in 1988. The U.S. Library of Congress digitized its holdings of Douglass's papers, which include letters, speeches, and personal documents.

At the end of his life, Douglass, an American icon who fought for social justice and equity, became known as the "Lion of Anacostia." Through his writings, speeches, and photographs, he boldly challenged the racial stereotypes of African Americans. Douglass's contributions to the Black American community and American history were recognized in the early 20th century during Negro History Week, the predecessor of Black History Month, which many communities anchored to the day on which his birthday was celebrated, February 14. Today Douglass is renowned not just for his rise from slavery to the highest levels of American society but also for his dedication to challenging the country to recognize the rights of all people and be consistent with its ideals.

Noelle Trent

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Frederick Douglass | Biography, Accomplishments, & Facts

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Frederick Douglass, African American abolitionist, orator, newspaper publisher, and author who is famous for his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. He became the first Black U.S. marshal and was the most photographed American man of the 19th century.

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Biography of Abraham  Lincoln for Kids: Meet the American President for Kids - FreeSchool

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President Thomas Jefferson bought a large portion of land from Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803 because 1)Napoleon needed money to fund a war and 2)Thomas Jefferson wanted control of the Mississippi River.

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After the United States acquired land through the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark out to explore the new land.

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The constitution is the oldest written document that indicates the basic rights of United States citizens and identifies all aspects of our government.

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The 13 colonies were a collection of states that once belonged to the British, but they eventually wanted their freedom from Great Britain and the American Revolutionary War began.

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The Trail of Tears occurred when tens of thousands of indigenous people were forced in a not so kind way to relocate due to gold and land.

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The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved).

Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this "Indian problem" was to simply "civilize" the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, enslaved persons).

In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs and became known as the "Five Civilized Tribes."

Did you know? Indian removal took place in the Northern states as well. In Illinois and Wisconsin, for example, the bloody Black Hawk War in 1832 opened to white settlement millions of acres of land that had belonged to the Sauk, Fox and other native nations.

But the Native Americans' land, located in parts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white settlers flooded the region. Many of these whites yearned to make their fortunes by growing cotton, and often resorted to violent means to take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns; committed mass murder; and squatted on land that did not belong to them.

Worcester v. Georgia

State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and rights and encroaching on their territory.

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations "in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have no force."

Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court's rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would "[fall]...still born." Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands and would go to great lengths to secure this territory.

Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called "Indian removal." As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida-campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers.

As president, he continued this crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the "Indian colonization zone" that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. This "Indian territory" was located in present-day Oklahoma.

The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their ancestral lands. However, President Jackson and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations.

Trail of Tears

In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot (some "bound in chains and marched double file," one historian writes), and without any food, supplies or other help from the government.

Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a "trail of tears and death."

The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

Treaty of New Echota

The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the government's determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions.

In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi - roughly 7 million acres - for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property.

To the federal government, the treaty (signed in New Echota, Georgia) was a done deal, but a majority of the Cherokee felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. Most Cherokee people considered the Treaty of New Echota fraudulent, and the Cherokee National Council voted in 1836 to reject it.

John Ross

"The instrument in question is not the act of our nation," wrote the nation's principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the Treaty of New Echota. "We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people." Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross's petition, but Congress approved the treaty anyway.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian Territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while his men looted their homes and belongings.

Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were epidemic along the way. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.

Legacy of the Trail of Tears

By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, "Indian Country" shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was considered lost.

A 2020 decision by the Supreme Court, however, highlighted ongoing interest in Native American territorial rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that a huge area of Oklahoma is still considered an American Indian reservation.

This decision left the state of Oklahoma unable to prosecute Native Americans accused of crimes on those tribal lands - only federal and tribal law enforcement can prosecute such crimes. (A later 2022 Supreme Court decision rolled back some provisions of the 2020 court finding.)

The Trail of Tears - actually a network of different routes - is over 5,000 miles long and covers nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Today, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is run by the National Park Service and portions of it are accessible on foot, by horse, by bicycle or by car.

Sources

Trail of Tears. NPS.gov.
Trail of Tears. Museum of the Cherokee Indian.
The Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The Treaty That Forced the Cherokee People from Their Homelands Goes on View. Smithsonian Magazine.
Justices rule swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation. Associated Press.
Justices limit 2020 ruling on tribal lands in Oklahoma. Associated Press.

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Trail of Tears: Definition, Date & Cherokee Nation - HISTORY

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The Trail of Tears was the deadly route Native Americans were forced to follow when they were pushed off their ancestral lands and into Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of 1830.