vGovernment Expansion

History

History 105
Unit 1 project

There are numerous ways that the US Government has expanded its authority between the start of the Civil war through the Civil Rights era. This paper will focus on a couple of examples of the government expansion and the affects that these particular examples had in influencing the political, social and economic structures.

The Civil War Reconstruction era necessitated an extraordinary expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the central government. The civil War resulted in the implementation of amendments Thirteenth, Fourteen, and Fifteen of the Constitution. These amendments created a new federal aspect of citizenship for all, and sought to guarantee universal male suffrage. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery for the entire nation (which, until then had been a state issue). The Fourteenth Amendment reversed the decision that black people could not be citizens, by declaring that any person born in the United States was a citizen. The Fifteenth Amendment carries on from the Fourteenth by saying that states can't deny citizens voting rights on the grounds of race or having once been a slave.
Once the constitution had been amended, the United States had to make sure that the new laws were protected and enforced, supporting the new powers of the national government. Which was a daunting task because these amendments changed our nation’s entire social structure which in turn changed the political and economic structures. By abolishing slavery and granting citizenship to all freed men meant that the crop producing southern states of the now had no one to work their fields unless they paid for the labor that drastically cut into the wealth of the southern aristocracy. Also giving the newly freed men the right to vote was very hard to accept especially in the south and was upsetting to the countries women who did not gain their right to vote until the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920.
As with amendments Thirteenth, Fourteen, and Fifteen the ratification of the 19th amendment is another way that the government expanded its authority. The 19th amendment stated that the rite to vote cannot be defined by race or sex. Women up until then were much like slaves they were considered nothing more than an extension of her husband. A woman was not only not allowed to vote but she couldn’t own property or a contract. When this amendment first went into play many people didn’t know what to think. The thought of women voting was simply preposterous and silly. To the women it was not just the right to vote, or being involved in the process of electing a president, it was the beginning of a way for them to take over their own lives. This for obvious reasons the end of woman’s suffrage not changed the social structure of the United States by giving women the right to vote this amendment also had a huge impact on political and economic structures because for once the women had a say.
Though one could come up with numerous examples of how the government expanded its authority from the Civil War to the Civil Rights era. The ability for the government to guarantee universal suffrage by granting all citizens the right to vote regardless of their sex or race is
There are numerous ways that the US Government has expanded its authority between the start of the Civil war through the Civil Rights era. This paper will focus on a couple of examples of the government expansion and the affects that these particular examples had in influencing the political, social and economic structures.

America and the World:The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution – 1865-70 ww.americaandtheworld.com/assets/media/pdfs/Amendments13-15.pdf
19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920) www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=63