Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment

Wednesday February 29, 2012

     Today in class we discussed chapter 7 out of our "Major Problems in American Constitutional History" textbooks.  Most of the discussion questions today dealt with the 13, 14, of 15th Amendment.  We mainly talked about the 14th Amendment, which deals with citizenship.  We talked about women's suffrage, or women's right to vote.  Woman were fighting for the right since the 1850s, but did not get the right until 1920.  One question we talked about was, "Why did the Constitution only allow men the right to hold political offices?"  A court case called Minor v. Happersett (1875) deals with women's rights.  Minor was a women who fought for women's suffrage in Missouri.  The Supreme Court said that she does NOT have the right to vote under the 14th Amendment, but she is technically a citizen.  The court made their decision on what they thought the founding fathers would have done.  This court case was never overturned, but it was amended with the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote.  This is quite strange to me, because at the time women were considered citizens, but were not allowed to vote because they were seen as property of their husband, fathers, or brothers.  So they are citizens and property at the same time, but cannot vote.  Typical sexist men in government!  When covering this topic in other classes I learned that women were very angry that the U.S. federal government gave African American men the right to vote decades before women got the right.  The voting rights sort of resembles the presidency: first only white men, then an African American, and maybe in the future we will have a female president.
     "Why was the first ten amendments called the "Bill of Rights?"  The Bill of Rights was actually added to the Constitution in order to appease the anti-federalists.  Prior to the Civil War, most judges believed that the federal government would/should not take away individual rights, but states could.  Most court cases before the Civil War dealt with basic freedoms and those after the war dealt mostly with inequality.  The creators of the Bill of Rights wanted to make sure that people knew their basic rights and that they had some protection from the federal government.
     Back in the days of the Civil War era being a woman was considered to be a form of disability when it came to doing any job (a job that a man could do).  I believe that this was the common belief because women were mainly expected to stay at home, look after the household, and raise children.  People did not really believe that a woman could have a successful career.  Women who did try to have a career were often looked down upon because their male co-workers believed that they were radical women who did not follow tradition.  Throughout history men were thought to be better, more productive workers.  Many of the beliefs came about because women who have children were considered a liability in the workplace.  Women would want/need to take more days off work to care for their children, have to put kids in a daycare, and that they would be preoccupied with business at home than at work.  A good example of this is the Triangle Shirtwaist Company.  The company hired women to make clothing, but found that some women were leaving work during their lunch hours and breaks to run home and check on their children.  The supervisors did not like this idea and began chaining women to their machines, monitoring their breaks, and putting other strict requirements on them.  Well, one day there was a fire and women  could not get out of the building because they were either chained to their machines or the doors were locking them inside.  Several women died and some tried to jump out of a window, but they died too.  This was a tremendous event that changed several work codes/ethics.  Its strange because I work in a factory and the women are WAY more productive than the men.  It always seems like men have to stop working in order to have a conversation (can't handle more than one thing at a time).  The women all work very hard and can easily out-do the men when it comes to productivity.  Today, women are seen as more productive, but yet, are still paid less than men for the same exact job.  Even though the country has come a long way since the Civil War era, there is still ramped discrimination against women and minority culture groups.  
     There was no "Butters' Topic" for today's class session.  Class will not meet again until after spring break, on March 12, 2012.