Can a country based on freedom deny liberty to more than half its people?

When the Constitution was being written, the idea that women should be formally granted equality with men was not discussed. By contrast, the status of African Americans was a very hot topic. Southern leaders wanted slavery to continue unchanged and pushed to have slaves counted as part of each state's population. This would give those states a greater say in how the national government was run. Having just risked everything in the fight for freedom, many Americans debated whether this was the kind of country they had fought for ...

The Three-Fifths Solution

As this debate raged, an uncomfortable compromise was eventually made. Southern states were allowed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person when calculating population. The goal of the founding fathers was to create a strong national government. If Southern states felt they were being short-changed, they might have rebelled. Some Southerners — including George Washington and James Madison, who wrote much of the Constitution — believed that slavery would slowly disappear. Indeed, part of the deal was that the international slave trade would end in 20 years. And in 1808 it did.

However, the buying and selling of African Americans within the U.S. was still allowed. With the cotton industry growing in the South, planters saw only one way to meet the demand for labor: slaves. Over the next few decades, the Southern economy was built on the backs of African Americans. As the nation expanded westward in the 1800s, the question of whether new states would become "slave states" stirred up tremendous controversy. Some people believed that slavery violated the basic ideas upon which America was built and did not want to see the practice extended. Southerners viewed the potential abolition of slavery as a threat to their economy, culture, and way of life.

Women's Rights

During the first half of the 1800s, little progress was made in the area of women's rights. The country was growing, and some factory work was available to women, but these jobs were dangerous and the conditions were poor. In most cases, women were paid less than the men in the same factory. Some jobs had been open to women during the 1700s in medicine and education, but nearly all disappeared. Where women did enjoy some power and influence was in the anti-slavery movement. They proved to be exceptional organizers and, in some cases, popular speakers.

In the 1840s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott used their experience as abolitionists to campaign for women's rights. In 1848, they held a two-day convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The most significant development of that meeting was the creation of the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was modeled on the Declaration of Independence. It spelled out the rights that would make women equal to men.

The most controversial part of this document was women's suffrage (the right to vote) in local, state, and national elections. Many worried that this idea was so radical that it would keep people from reading the entire Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and leader of the movement to abolish slavery, spoke at the Seneca Falls convention. He convinced the group to keep suffrage in the Declaration.

During the early 1800s, abolitionists began attracting a large following. However, the leaders of the movement often disagreed on strategy. Douglass believed that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document and wanted to use it to fight the practice of human bondage. William Lloyd Garrison felt the Constitution supported slavery and wanted to burn it. John Brown was unconcerned with documents. His solution was to start a bloody uprising among slaves. If you had lived at this time, would you have challenged the legality of slavery, or would you have supported violent rebellion?

Is it the government's job to fight for the freedom of one group?

By the mid-1800s, it had become clear that the United States would have to deal with this question. Slaves could not fight for themselves, and abolitionist leaders such as John Brown were willing to kill and be killed to see their bondage end. The result was uncontrolled chaos and violence throughout. In 1861, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, the Civil War began as 13 slave states broke away from the Union and formed a separate government. As casualties mounted, many debated whether ending slavery was worth the high price in human lives ...

The Civil War and Reconstruction

From the start of the Civil War, slaves who lived close to the fighting tried to make their way to Union lines. Many stayed in Union camps to support the Northern troops. In 1862, President Lincoln cleared the way for African Americans to form their own regiments. They were sorely needed, as the number of Northern volunteers fell sharply that year.

In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared slaves in 10 Southern states to be free. As the Civil War wound down, there was some question as to the legal meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation. So in the weeks before the fighting ended in 1865, Lincoln pushed through the Thirteenth Amendment. It declared an official end to the practice of slavery. For the first time in the South, African Americans could legally marry and own property.

After the war ended, Southern states were welcomed back into the Union. Almost immediately, state governments in the South began passing legislation that limited the rights of the millions of now-free African Americans. Federal troops were sent back to the South, this time to protect the rights of former slaves. This period was known as Reconstruction. Most Southerners resented the presence of blue-coated soldiers and were unwilling to accept African Americans as equals.

Now allowed to vote and run for office, African Americans elected more than 1,500 men of color to public positions. In 1870, Hiram Revels of Mississippi was the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate. That same year, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first African American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Southern states responded with laws that took the vote away from hundreds of thousands of African Americans. They also crafted Jim Crow laws, which segregated black and white society. Meanwhile, African Americans were targeted for violence by vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. It guaranteed equal rights under the law to all persons. Its goal was to protect the rights of former slaves....