Civil Rights, Amendments, and Court Cases - AP Government and Politics

Desegregation of the armed forces took place in 1948 and was ordered by President Harry Truman. Roosevelt had recently banned racial discrimination and segregation in government offices.

After John F. Kennedy was assasinated in November of 1963, his Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was immediately sworn in as President. This was done out of custom more than through a defined legal process. During Johnson's presidency, the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which spelled out that the sitting Vice President was absolutely the next in line and the exact process after the Vice President, was moved through the ratification process and was officially adopted in February 1967.

In the early years of the American Republic there was a considerable “lame duck” period of time, during which one President had either been voted out of office and another was waiting to enter office. This was originally four months, from the November elections until March; however, with improvements to technology and communications this was somewhat redundant by the time it was changed in 1933, with the passage of the Twentieth Amendment, which moved the beginning of the Presidential term forward from March to January.

The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, enacted in 1913, allows the Federal Government to levy an income tax. The Seventeenth provided for the direct election of senators; the Eighteenth prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol; the Nineteenth extended suffrage rights to women; and the Twenty-First repealed prohibition.

Reverse incorporations refers to the few instances in which the states have applied state law to the federal government, referencing the incorporation doctrine by which the federal government applies the Bill of Rights to the states.

Amendments are collectively referred to as safeguards of liberty. The first amendment guarantees religious freedom. The second amendment ensures the right to bear arms. The third amendment is concerned with quartering soldiers in private homes. In all cases these amendments are specifically concerned with individual rights and freedoms, hence their nickname.

Provided that you know your history, this should have been a very easy question. The 13th-15th Amendments are often collectively referred to as the “Civil War Amendments,” (AKA "Reconstruction Amendments") for obvious reasons (they were all passed directly after, and in large part a response to, the Civil War).

The 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery. Contrary to popular belief, the Emancipation Proclamation did not legally abolish slavery (although, perhaps, it may have realistically abolished it). Slavery, technically, was somewhat enshrined in the Constitution (think of the 3/5’s Compromise, for example). Thus, the Radical Republicans pushed the 13th Amendment through Congress in order to ensure that the “peculiar institution” never cropped up again.

Amendment 10 is crucial because it grants a specific role to state governments. In fact, it states that all rights not specifically given to the federal government by the Constitution should automatically go to the state governments.

When arrested, an individual may choose to "plead the 5th," alluding to the 5th amendment of the Constitution, which states various rights of individuals in criminal cases, including the right to remain silent.

The Twenty-second Amendment to the US Constitution was passed through Congress in 1947, less than two years after the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected to four terms as President. The Twenty-second Amendment was largely proposed and supported by Republicans opposed to Roosevelt and his successor Harry S. Truman. Nonetheless, by 1951, the required 36 states ratified the Amendment.

The Eighteenth Amendment, passed in 1919, prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol and represents the official beginning of the Prohibition era in American history. In 1933, fourteen years later, the Twenty-First Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and made the consumption of alcohol legal again. The Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments relate to the expansion of civil and democratic rights to freed slaves in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

The Twenty-Third Amendment, passed in 1960, granted citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote in Presidential elections as if the district were a separate state. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the sale and use of alcohol, and the Twenty-First Amendment overturned it. The Nineteenth Amendment extended suffrage to women. The Twenty-Second Amendment set a term limit for the office of President to two terms.

Prior to the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Presidency was informally established with a two-term limit, based on the precedent laid down by the first President, George Washington; however, President Roosevelt served four consecutive terms, in large part due to the extraneous circumstances of the Great Depression and World War Two. In response to this, after Roosevelt died and Truman became President, Congress passed an amendment formally limiting the President to two-terms.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1920 and represented the culmination of the decades-long battle to enfranchise women in the United States. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments primarily concern the extension of voting rights, and other rights, to racial minorities. The Sixteenth regarded taxation. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the sale and use of alcohol.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes that the Senate should not longer be chosen by State Legislatures, but should be the result of a direct election of the people. As part of the broader historical context of the United States, it may be seen as part of the gradual extension of suffrage rights to the common man that took place over the first century or so of American history. It was passed in 1913 as the culmination of the Progressive movement, led by figures like William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated for greater faith and power being placed in the hands of the common man. The prohibition of alcohol was passed with the Eighteenth Amendment, and repealed with the Twenty-First; women were granted the same suffrage rights as men with the Nineteenth Amendment; a two-term limit was established for the President with the Twenty-Second Amendment.

The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1864 during the Civil War, made slavery and involuntary servitude illegal under the United States Constitution. The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments are concerned with establishing equal rights to protection and suffrage for people of all races. The Sixteenth Amendment established an income tax. The Seventeenth Amendment established direct election of senators by a vote of the people.

The 10th Amendment was added to appease those who worried that the federal government would become too powerful and infringe upon the rights of the states. This amendment ensures that the states do have some power, although it as has some influence due to the addition of other amendments and Supreme Court rulings. This Amendment maintains that all powers not given to the federal government “are reserved to the States respectively,” so they should have control over issues not spelled out in the Constitution.

The voting age was lowered from twenty-one to eighteen by the passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, in 1971. The movement was some thirty-odd years in the making and gained a great deal of momentum in the 1960s. After Franklin D. Roosevelt had lowered the conscription age to eighteen during World War Two, it became rather obviously unjust that young men were being sent to fight in the Vietnam War without having any electoral say in whether their country should be there in the first place. This, coupled with the civic activism displayed by students and other young people in the 1960s, pressured the political powers to lower the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.