Bellringer

Chapter 4, Section 3Extending the Bill of Rights

I. Protecting All Americans (pages 109–112)A. At first, the Bill of Rights applied only to adult white males. It also applied only to the national government, not to state or local governments. Later amendments and courtrulings made the Bill of Rights apply to all people and all levels of government.

B. The Civil War amendments - the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth –extended civil liberties to African Americans.C. The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, freeing thousands of African Americans.

D. After the Civil War, many Southern states passed “black codes” that limited the rights of African Americans. The Fourteenth Amendment remedied this situation by defining citizens as anyone born or naturalized in the United States, which included African Americans. It required all states to grant citizens equal protection of the laws.

E. The Fourteenth Amendment also nationalized the Bill of Rights by forbidding state governments from interfering with the rights of citizens. The Supreme Court upheld - this interpretation of the amendment in Gitlow v. New York.

F. The Fifteenth Amendment says that no state may take away a person’s voting rightson the basis of race, color, or previous enslavement. It was intended to guaranteeSuffrage - the right to vote - to African Americans. It applied only to men.

•Do you know when women get the right to vote? •What is that called?

G. According to the Constitution, state legislatures were to choose senators. TheSeventeenth Amendment changed this to allow voters to elect senators directly.H. The Constitution did not grant or deny women the right to vote. As a result, statesmade their own decisions. The Nineteenth Amendment solved this problem by establishing women’s right to vote in all elections.

I. Because Washington, D.C., is a district, not a state, its citizens could not vote innational elections. The Twenty-third Amendment established their right to vote.J. Several Southern states required people to pay poll taxes to vote. Because manyAfrican Americans and poor whites could not afford to pay, they could not vote. The Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawed poll taxes.

K. The Twenty-sixth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to citizens 18 and older.Before this amendment, most states set the minimum voting age at 21.Discussion QuestionWho benefits from the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?(The equal protection clause benefits not only African Americans for whom it was intended, but in years it has also been used to benefit women, people with disabilities, and other groups whose rights have not always been recognized.)

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