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Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford
Decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. -
Free Blacks Declared Citizens
Led by Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party won control of the White House in the election of 1860; and Lincoln’s Administration took the legal position, contra Taney, that free blacks were indeed American citizens. -
Restricted Rights of Former Slaves - Black Codes
At the end of the Civil War, the Republican Party was in control of the 39th Congress at a time when the former Confederate states had formed new, white-dominated governments that restricted the rights of former slaves. -
Civil Rights Act of 1866
Declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens of the United States and the state in which they lived, thereby affirming a rule of citizenship by birth that did not depend on race. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal".