14th Amendment

19th Century NY Law and Birthright Citizenship

June 22, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

In August 1829 the passenger ship Emily arrived from Liverpool and anchored in New York Harbor. Like many 19th century ships entering New York’s bustling port, Emily carried migrants intent on making a new life in the city. Passages such as the Emily’s were commonplace but the actions of her master, William Thompson, proved exceptional.

Thompson, likely on the order of shipowner George Miln, flagrantly ignored an 1824 New York State law intended to regulate the flow of migrants into the metropolis. [Read more…] about 19th Century NY Law and Birthright Citizenship

The Voting Rights Act & The Great Betrayal of 1877

April 30, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On April 24, 1877, on orders from President Rutherford B. Hayes, federal troops withdrew from the state house in Louisiana — the last federally defended state house in the South — just 12 years after the end of the Civil War.

This withdrawal marked the end of Reconstruction and paved the way for the unrestrained resurgence of white supremacist rule in the South, carrying with it the rapid deterioration of political rights for Black Americans.

What began with Hayes’s elevation to the Presidency following the disputed Election of 1876, is now having dramatic political consequences 150 years later. [Read more…] about The Voting Rights Act & The Great Betrayal of 1877

The End of Reconstruction & The Civil Rights Cases of 1883

August 19, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Shortly after the Supreme Court handed down the Civil Rights Cases in 1883 [which declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional], a mass meeting was called for Lincoln Hall in the nation’s capital. Two prominent Republican orators — one black and one white — were the featured speakers. Frederick Douglass — the runaway slave who had become an avid student of the Constitution in the course of his career as an abolitionist — spoke first.

Robert G. Ingersoll [born in 1833 in Yates County, NY] — highly valued as a Republican orator despite his outspoken atheist views — closed the program. In some ways, the event was a political rally, similar to others that had characterized both the long battle against slavery and the heady early days of Reconstruction. [Read more…] about The End of Reconstruction & The Civil Rights Cases of 1883

George Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy

June 18, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

During his seven-decade career in public life, George Sewall Boutwell sought to “redeem America’s promise” of racial equality, economic equity, and the principled use of American power abroad.

From 1840 to 1905, Boutwell was at the center of efforts to abolish slavery, establish the Republican Party, assist President Lincoln in funding the Union war effort, facilitate Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, impeach President Andrew Johnson, and frame and enact the Fourteenth and Fifteenth civil rights amendments. [Read more…] about George Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy

New York’s Kidnapping Club Redux

April 9, 2025 by Alan J. Singer Leave a Comment

David Ruggles was a free Black man born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1810. He moved to the city of New York in 1826 where he worked as a mariner, eventually opened a grocery, and later ran book store. An active opponent of slavery, Ruggles was a sales agent for abolitionist newspapers, published his own anti-slavery journal, and was secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee aiding freedom seekers who escaped from slavery, helping them evade slavecatchers, and providing legal assistance if they were captured.

One of the people Ruggles helped to escape from slavery was Frederick Douglass. [Read more…] about New York’s Kidnapping Club Redux

How West Point Academy Terrorized Its First Black Cadets

April 8, 2025 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

In its first 133 years of existence (1802–1935), over 10,000 cadets graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, only three were African Americans.

West Point Academy was founded in 1802 with the passage of the Military Peace Establishment Act, signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson. It was designed to educate and train future Army officers. Jefferson claimed that West Point would be established under democratic ideals — a meritocracy that would admit cadets based on their character and abilities rather than their wealth and family connections. However, these democratic ideals only applied to white men. [Read more…] about How West Point Academy Terrorized Its First Black Cadets

Black History, Birthright Citizenship & Civil Rights

March 17, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Very few protections existed under state laws for free Black people during the era of enslavement and their actions were strictly regulated.

In New York free Black citizens faced legal limitations on voting rights, property ownership, and social interactions, some for nearly a century after the abolition of slavery. [Read more…] about Black History, Birthright Citizenship & Civil Rights

Jan 20, 1870: America’s 1st Black Member of Congress Denied His Seat

January 20, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On January 20, 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) was elected to the U.S. Senate, and slated to become the first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress. Revels was elected in Mississippi to fill the vacancy left after the state’s secession from the United States prior to the Civil War. [Read more…] about Jan 20, 1870: America’s 1st Black Member of Congress Denied His Seat

Oct 1883: An Albany County Justice Helps Strike Down Civil Rights

October 16, 2024 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Radical Republican Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts introduced the Civil Rights Act in 1870 as an amendment to a general amnesty bill for former Confederates who had fought against the United States during the Civil War. His bill guaranteed all citizens, regardless of color, access to accommodations, theatres, public schools, churches, and cemeteries. It also forbid the barring of any person from jury service on account of race, and provided that all lawsuits brought under the new law would be tried in federal, not traditionally racist state courts.

Sumner predicted that the Civil Rights Act would be the greatest achievement of Reconstruction, saying “Very few measures of equal importance have ever been presented.” [Read more…] about Oct 1883: An Albany County Justice Helps Strike Down Civil Rights

The 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the 14th Amendment, and Jim Crow New York

May 31, 2022 by Alan J. Singer 5 Comments

The United States Supreme Court is now poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. In a draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito described the 1973 7-2 Court decision as an over-extended application of the federal government’s 14th Amendment responsibility to protect the right of citizens to due process and equal protection of the law. He argued “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

The Supreme Court took a similar position on the 14th Amendment in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases when an earlier conservative majority declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, effectively ending the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and ushering in 100 years of state and local Jim Crow segregation laws.

In the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court consolidated four challenged to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act. One of the cases, U.S. v. Singleton, involved the refusal by a New York theater to admit an African American patron who had purchased a ticket. [Read more…] about The 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the 14th Amendment, and Jim Crow New York

14th Amendment

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