After the Civil War ended and slaves were freed in 1865, the United States needed to find a way to assimilate them into society and restore their personhood. Additionally, the United States needed to make sure that such inhumanity would not be able to occur again within America. The solution that followed was part of a large effort to rehabilitate the South known as Reconstruction. During this period came several initiatives to rehabilitate slaves and make them part of society, from congressional acts to constitutional amendments. Amendments 13, 14, and 15 became known as the “Reconstruction Acts,” as they were all ratified in quick succession during the Reconstruction period and guaranteed rights and equality to black citizens. The most significant…show more content… On a daily basis, they were treated by slave owners typically as property, and less than human. A common belief was that they were entirely different species, which was known as scientific racism. This is why slavery and racism were so morally justifiable to so many people; they believed that slaves were biologically inferior. At other times, however, slave owners wanted slaves to be counted as citizens, more specifically, when population was counted in order to determine legislative apportionment, which later led to the 3/5ths compromise. The famous case Dred Scott v. Sandford illustrates the depth of this systematic racism. The majority decision held that Dred Scott “could not be an American citizen and therefore did not have standing to sue in federal court.” Additionally, they held that he was legal property, and the government could not “free” him as it would violate the Fifth Amendment. The Founders of the Constitution were right to include the Bill of Rights. They protected important rights and privileges to ensure that the government would not become a…show more content… However, this clause made sure that they would have to be treated equally in the eyes of the law, at the very least. It was used initially to support segregation in schools in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, but later to strike it down in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Even later, it was used in Loving v. Virginia to protect interracial couples from states outlawing them. Evidently, the 14th amendment had a large impact on historically oppressed people immediately and even larger over time. More groups have benefitted than was originally intended by the writers of the 14th amendment. For example, it was used in 1898 in United States vs. Wong Kim Ark to protect a Chinese man from deportation by asserting that he deserved birthright citizenship. Later, the equal protection clause was cited in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges to protect the marriage rights of same sex couples and reduce their historic discrimination. Finally, one of the most significant examples was in the recent case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in
