A More Perfect Union
Two basic observations:
2.The Constitution says that at the time the founders were working toward a more perfect union. We still are.
Examples:
Slavery and its aftermath
The treatment of Native Americans
The Japanese Americans in World War II
Women's issues
Making Things Right
But, we do have the procedures in place to right wrongs, to set in motion a process by which we may overturn laws and policies with which we disagree.
What are those procedures and how does that work?
Best historical example: segregation.
Slavery
Introduced in Virginia in 1619
Declaration of Independence
The three-fifths clause in the Constitution
Dred Scott case in 1857
The Civil War
13th, 14th, 15th amendments
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
Brown v. Board of Education, 1954
Civil Rights Act, 1964
Voting Rights Act, 1965
Apologies:
Six states: Virginia (February 2007), Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey and Florida.
U.S. House resolution in 2008, Senate in 2009
Native Americans
Trail of tears, 1831
The Battle at Little Big Horn, or Custer’s Last Stand, 1876
Wounded Knee, 1890
U.S. Senate apologized in 2008
Japanese and Other Americans
Roosevelt executive order, February 19, 1942
120,000 Japanese held in internment camps
(62 percent were second or third generation Americans)
(Only a few in Hawaii were detained.)
(Camps in Texas were at Crystal City, Kenedy and Seagoville.)
11,000 people of German descent, 3,000 Italians
(One of the German camps was in Baytown.)
(Some held as Germans were Jews.)
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the executive order in 1944
in Korematsu v. United States.
(Hugo Black wrote the majority opinion; the vote was 6-3;
Frank Murphy, Robert Jackson and Owen Roberts dissented.)
The United States apologized and paid reparations in 1988:
$20,000 to 82,210 Japanese Americans or their heirs.
$5,000 to Latin American Japanese who were detained.
Women
But, to make my point, I'm going to choose different topics -- topics related to women.
First, the women's movement -- perhaps that's a misnomer because everything that improves the lot of any of us improves the lot of us all. Women's rights movement is a better term.
The women's rights movement began in 1848 with the meeting of the Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, N.Y. The meeting was under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
A national Women's Rights Convention was held in 1850, led by Lucy Stone.
By 1863 the Women's National Loyal League was formed under the leadership of Susan B. Anthony.
In 1878, Anthony wrote and submitted a right-to-vote amendment to the Constitution.
In 1890, Wyoming became the first state to allow women to vote.
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman
elected to Congress. She was elected from Montana in 1916.
Women got the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920. Eight million women voted in the election on November 2, 1920.
The League of Women Voters grew out of the movement in 1920 and the National Council of Negro Women in 1935.
The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 under the leadership of Betty Friedan.
An Equal Rights Amendment passed the U.S. House in 1971 and the Senate in 1972. However, only 35 of the necessary 38 states had approved it when time ran out in 1982.
Women's Issues
The major issue for women has been their control over their own bodies.
The first leader in that area was Margaret Sanger, the mother of the birth control movement.
She was a radical. She was arrested and vilified. She put out a newspaper entitled The Woman Rebel.
The Comstock Laws
Margaret Sanger ran up against Anthony Comstock and the Comstock laws -- federal and state laws designed ostensibly to control pornography.
But, the main pornography with which Comstock and others were concerned was the availability of birth control information.
The national Comstock Law was passed in 1873. It prohibited the dissemination of birth control information. Twenty-four states later passed similar laws.
Sanger edited a publication called The Birth Control Review. She passed out a pamphlet entitled What Every Girl Should Know.
The Birth Control Issue
In 1936, United States courts upheld doctors' right to give information about contraception.
The next year, the American Medical Association publicly endorsed birth control.
In 1942 the Planned Parenthood Association of America was formed.
Eventually the issue got to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The first significant case was Griswold v. Connecticut, decided in 1965.
It overturned a Connecticut law of 1879 that made the use and/or the prescription of any form of birth control a crime for the woman and for the person who provided the prescription. The law had been interpreted to apply to anyone who gave advice about birth control.
The executive director and medical director of Planned Parenthood in Connecticut were convicted of violating the statute by giving birth control information to a married couple. The convictions were upheld by the supreme court of Connecticut.
Estelle T. Griswold was director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. C. Lee Buxton was director of an infertility clinic at Yale and medical director of the Planned Parenthood group.
The vote in the Supreme Court was 7 to 2. Justice William O. Douglas wrote an opinion for five justices. Two other justices wrote concurring opinions.
The justices' justification for overturning the statute varied. One significant aspect of the decision was Justice Douglas' declaration that the Connecticut statute infringed on the constitutionally protected right to privacy of married persons.
The case is Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 1965
In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law that made it a crime to perform an abortion. The vote was 7 to 2 with Justice Harry Blackmun writing for the court.
Roe was a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey. The lawyers in the case were Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington. Wade was Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County.
The case is Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 1973
An excellent book is available on this issue. It is Liberty and Sexuality by David J. Garrow. The hardback version was published in 1994. The paperback version was published in 1998. Both were published by the University of California Press.
Return To Top