Civil Liberties Assignment
1. What are the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments? What were Jim Crow laws?
_The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are:
+ The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.
+ The 14th Amendment guarantees people have the right to be free from discrimination in states, to have due process of law, to have equal protection of the law.
+ The 15th Amendment prohibits the denial of voting based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
_Jim Crow laws were state and local laws passed from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the mid-1950s, by which white southerners reasserted their dominance by denying African Americans basic social, economic, and civil rights, such as the right to vote.
2. What were the main provisions of Plessy vs. Ferguson?
The main provisions of Plessy vs. Ferguson were giving states the green light to segregate on the basis of race and providing both races, the Blacks and Whites, equal treatment.
3. What rationale does the Second Amendment give for protecting the right to bear arms? How has the interpretation of the Second Amendment changed over the years? Do you support stricter gun control laws? Has your opinion changed because of recent school shootings?
+ The rationale that the Second Amendment gives for protecting the right to bear arms is self-defense, keeping the nation free, and defending against a tyrannical government.
+ In June 2008, an interpretation of the Second Amendment struck down the District of Columbia's thirty-two-year-old law banning the possession of handguns. In June 2010, the Court, again by a vote of 54, applied the ruling to cities and states by overturning Chicago's ban on handguns. Over the years, the Second Amendment has changed a lot because instead...
