Existing comment:
Legal Timeline:
Prologue: 1640–1896
1640: Negro indentured servant John Punch ran away and received a life sentence in Virginia; his white counterparts only received three-year sentences
1641: Massachusetts authorized slavery with legislation
1660: Virginia specifically punished indentured servants who ran away with Negroes slaves
1662: Virginia determined birthright of Negroes based on the status of the mother rather than the father, as had been the British custom for centuries
1680: Virginia enacted the first major slave codes
1705: Virginia relegated slaves, Indians, and mulattos to the status of property
1776: Declaration of Independence signed
1781: Quock Walker v. Jennison (Massachusetts) relied on the Declaration of Rights, which ultimately led to the abolition of slavery in 1783 there
1785: New York passed legislation for the gradual emancipation of slaves
1788: U.S. Constitution is ratified by eleven states
1789: George Washington, a slave owner, inaugurated as the first president of the United States
1791: "Bill of Rights" added to U.S. Constitution; Virginia ratified on December 15, 1791
1820: Missouri Compromise created rules for the expansion of slavery into western territories and prohibited slavery north of the 36° 30´ latitude except in Missouri
1841: Former President John Quincy Adams defended Africans aboard the Spanish ship Amistad
1850: Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required citizens to assist in the return of escaped slaves to their owners
1850: Roberts v. City of Boston (Massachusetts) found no constitutional impediment to segregated schools
1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery in the northern territories
1857: Dred Scott v. Sanford (Missouri) declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States
1862: Federal emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia
1863: Emancipation Proclamation took effect
1864: Fugitive Slave Act repealed
1865: Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery
1865: Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees
1866: Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteed equal rights under law for all people who lived within the jurisdiction of the United States
1868: Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States and prohibited states from denying any person the equal protection of the laws or depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law
1870: Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote
1870–1871: Three Enforcement Acts gave the federal government substantial authority to prosecute those who violated the civil and political rights of African Americans, especially members of the Ku Klux Klan
1873: Slaughterhouse Cases limited the Constitutional significance of the 14th Amendment's privileges and immunities clause by interpreting the clause as only protecting rights of national citizenship from actions of state government
1873: Bradwell v. Illinois rejected a woman's claim that the Fourteenth Amendment required the state to allow her to practice law in the first sex discrimination case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court
1875: Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited their exclusion from jury service
1875: Minor v. Happersett (Missouri) held that a state could constitutionally forbid a woman from voting
1883: Civil Rights Cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court declared parts of the 1875 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, including the prohibition of racial discrimination in inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement
1896: Plessy v. Ferguson (Louisiana) upheld the constitutionality of a Louisiana statute that required railroads to provide "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" |