Political Science 1100, Introduction to American Politics, September 5, 2007

1. Race in the United States: An American Dilemma

2. The Constitution: The Framers evade the issue of slavery

    Three Constitutional Provisions support slavery

    Result: An endless series of unanswered questions about civil rights
 

3. How Americans Answered Three Major Questions Evaded by the Framers

    a). Unanswered Question #1
        Do slaveowners hold the balance of power in America?

        How did we answer the question?
        Political Compromise (Missouri Compromise)
 

b). Unanswered Question #2

        Can slaveowners start their own nation?

        How did we answer?
        Civil War
 

c). Unanswered Question #3
    

      Are African-American’s civil rights protected by the states?
     

       How did we answer?

        At first, by letting states segregate the races by law (de jure segregation)

Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 upholds Jim Crow laws

 

 

Voting Rights Restrictions in the south in the late 1800s:

• Literacy Tests
  
   
• Citizenship Tests
  
   
• Poll Taxes
  
   
• Grandfather Clauses
  
   
• White Primaries

    Then, de jure segregation was defeated in the mid-twentieth century by
        court decisions, social movements, and new national laws  

4.    How did politics change civil rights?
 

Brown versus Board of Education (1954)
  undermines Jim Crow

The Civil Rights Movement

 

 

      - The 1964 Civil Rights Act

 

 

     - The 1965 Voting Rights Act

5. The Political Consequences of Civil Rights

    a). The Civil Rights agenda expands to de facto segregation
 

• Housing (Fair Housing Laws)
  
   
• Schools (Busing)
  
   
• Jobs (Affirmative Action)

... and to other groups

• Gender: The Equal Rights Amendment
   
• Other Minorities: Hispanics
   
• Disability
   
• Gays

    b). African-American voters strengthen ties to the Democrats

        while Southern white conservatives begin to
        abandon the Democrats

    c) and America has many issues left to address

Civil Liberties: What Problems Should Not Be Public?

1. The Constitution at its Most Ambiguous: Civil Liberties

- An Example: Freedom of Religion

2. Two Positions on Civil Liberties
 

a) The Absolutist Position (Hugo Black)

 

 

b) The Balancing Position (Most Judges)

3. Free Speech Against Security Threats
   

a)  The Passions of War

 

 

b) The Case of Schenck v. U.S. (1919)

- The Espionage Act

- The "Clear and Present Danger" Test for Limiting free speech

 

 

c) The Case of Dennis v. U.S. (1951)

- "McCarthyism"

- The Supreme Court Majority Opinion

- Hugo Black's Opinion

 

 

4. The Right to Privacy
 

a) Not explicit in the Constitution

 

b) The case of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

 

- The Supreme Court Majority Opinion

 

- Hugo Black's Opinion

 

1. What is Political Tolerance and who cares?

2. How do political scientists find out how tolerant Americans are?

3. So how tolerant are they?