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Pre Civil War
African American's were enslaved for labor work to White farm owners or business owners. Slaves were revoked of any civil right that the Whites had. -
The Constitution
The constitution, although at the time not stating that any one person was citizen, in Article II, states that any natural born citizen of America could be president. -
Dred Scott vs. Sanford
Dred Scott, once a slave, sued the executor of his former master’s estate under the state-citizenship diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts, seeking a determination that he had become free because his master had voluntarily taken him into free territory (Amar & Harrison, 2022). -
The end of the Civil War
The end of the Civil War resulted in the one's who were once enslaved, being free, American citizens -
Civil Rights Act
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act stating that anyone who was born into the U.S. would be a citizen of the country and of the state they were born into. -
The Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment was written into the Constitution to further ground the Civil Rights statue, stating that everyone born into citizenship were to be granted the same rights as everyone else.