Race Legislation in The United States - Legislation Until The American Civil War and Reconstruction

Legislation Until The American Civil War and Reconstruction

Further information: Slavery in Colonial America

Until the Civil War, slavery was legal. After the Revolutionary War, the new Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 to provide a way for foreigners to become citizens of the new country. It limited naturalization to aliens who were "free white persons" and thus left out indentured servants, slaves, free African-Americans, and later Asians. In addition, many states enforced anti-miscegenation laws (e.g. Indiana in 1845), which prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites, that is, blacks, mulattoes, and, in some states, also Native Americans. After an influx of Chinese immigrants to the West Coast, marriage between whites and Asians was banned in some western states.

After the Revolutionary War, most northern states abolished slavery, even if on a gradual emancipation plan. Congress enacted Fugitive slave laws in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who had escaped from a slave state to a free state or territory. Black Codes were adopted by several states, generally to constrain the actions and rights of free people of color, as slaves were controlled by slave law. Although most northern states had abolished slavery, several tried to discourage freedmen from settling in the state. In some states, the Black Codes were incorporated into, or required by, the state constitution, many of which were rewritten in the 1840s. For instance, Article 13 of Indiana's 1851 constitution stated "No Negro or Mulatto shall come into, or settle in, the State, after the adoption of this Constitution." The 1848 constitution of Illinois led to one of the harshest Black Code systems in the nation before the Civil War. The Illinois Black Code of 1853 extended a complete prohibition against black immigration into the state.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 legalized deportation of Native Americans to the West; it was passed primarily to extinguish Native American tribal claims to territory in what became known as the Deep South. Under the act, the federal government removed the Five Civilized Tribes to Indian Territory. The Indian Intercourse Act of 1837 created the Indian Territory in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma as the areas where tribes would be resettled. While the tribes retained self-government and territory, their peoples were generally not considered United States citizens.

The largest federal establishment of reservations began with the Indian Appropriations Acts in the 1850s. The Dawes Act of 1887 registered members of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" and included privatization of common holdings of American Indians. Blood quantum laws determined membership in Native American groups. Some of its measures were repealed with the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, allowing a return to local self-government. Citizenship was not granted to Native Americans until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, but by that time, two-thirds of Native Americans were already citizens because of other actions.

The Dred Scott case of 1857, a "freedom suit" which was appealed to the Supreme Court, was settled with the ruling that, as the Constitution had not included people of African descent, whether they were enslaved or free, they could not be citizens of the United States (and therefore never had standing to file freedom suits or other legal cases).

The victory of the North during the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment and an expansion of the civil rights of African-Americans with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment also overturned The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited disenfranchisement on the basis of race. The Naturalization Act of 1870 ensured that immigrants people of African descent could become citizens by the naturalization process.