Post-Civil War Law
Post-Civil War Law: Who Did It Benefit? For most Americans today, the law is a static entity, something which, from day to day, does not cross our minds because of its relatively fixed position. Theoretically, the law protects all Americans equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, or class, and is the tool of just and impartial lawmakers who represent us in Congress. The judiciary, both at the state and federal levels, serves as the interpreters of the law, supposedly wielding little power in influencing state and national policy. That is the theory. Following the Civil War, the United States was a country in turmoil, having narrowly averted the secession of eleven states and now faced with the prospect of integrating those states back into the Union. From 1860, the beginning of the Civil War, to 1920, the beginning of the first World War, American society changed drastically with the integration of the freedman and the Industrial Revolution, and the law changed with it. Unfortunately, during this time American law was influenced heavily by a handful of elites who used the law to their benefit while hampering the efforts of minorities to succeed. This influence on American law had profound effects on minorities in two ar
Thus, we again see how the elites pushed their will into the law, and this time they succeeded remarkably well, as segregation laws were not challenged until the mid-1950s. After the emancipation of the slaves following the end of the Civil War, The U. This victory for Singer enabled companies in American to become more nationalized, thus more and more of them became concerned with litigation of the kind. The Ryan case dealt with the issue of proximate cause, holding that businesses could only be held liable for actions which "are the natural and direct result of the careless or improper conduct of the [corporation]" (Belknap, 86. The working class and small business owners were largely affected by a new economy which developed after the Civil War. United States, and Abrams v United States, illustrate how unpopular views were squashed by those elite lawmakers who were fervently patriotic to the cause of the War. Ah Tong, the issue of aliens possessing claims to a mine arose. The Court's majority again ruled against blacks, stating, "Laws permitting, and even requiring, their [the races] separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power" (Belknap, 64. As blacks and whites grew further apart in the South, the issue of equality between the races came to the forefront, none more so than in the landmark case of Plessy v. Justice Holmes, in dissent, summed up the period's legal and economic entanglement when he said, "a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire" (Belknap, 131.
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Acceptance Essays
