Fourteenth Amendment
            
             Before the slaves were freed, most citizens relied on their states to be protectors of their basic rights against the federal government (Klotter, Kanovitz, and Kanovitz 24). After the war freed the slaves, the relationship between the national government and state government changed (Klotter, Kanovitz, and Kanovitz 24). Many citizens realized that the state government in comparison to the federal government was a greater threat to their liberties (Klotter, Kanovitz, and Kanovitz 24). The Supreme Court, after the war restricted its view, did not apply the Bill of Rights to State offences (Burns et al. 101). This obliviously left the determination of protection and equality to state governments, which in the South, had been cruel to the former slaves (Schwartz 218).
             The Republican Party was troubled with the south's violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights after the Civil war (Curtis 35). The Southern states, before the Civil War, had violated most of the Bill of Rights in its maintenance of slavery (Burns et al. 101). After the Civil War the Southern legislatures developed and passed many different restrictions known as the "Black Codes," to deny the newly freed slaves their basic rights (Curtis 35).
             To counteract these problems, when the Thirty-ninth Congress met on December 4, 1865, the Northern Senators and Representative voted to exclude Representatives from the defeated southern states (Palmer 331; Curtis 58). During their assembly, Congress appointed a joint committee of fifteen to investigate the treatment of the freed slaves of the southern states (Curtis 58). They were to decide if they should allow the southern states to readmit to the Union (Curtis 58).
             Congressman Bingham as a member of the Joint Committee made clear, his belief that the federal government should be authorize to enforce the Bill of Rights against the states (Curtis 59). On December 6, 1865, he intro...