Article 7 of 9 · 1787–1965
1787–1965: Who counted as a citizen—and how the Republic was changed
Individuals: Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), John Lewis (1940–2020), Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973)
The founding Constitution described a people whose political rights were unevenly distributed. Enslavement, removal of Indigenous communities, exclusion of women and racial disfranchisement make the expansion of citizenship central—not incidental—to the Republic’s history.
The founding claim meets the reality of exclusion
In 1787 the framers negotiated a Constitution that accommodated slavery while claiming authority from the people. The three-fifths provision counted enslaved people for representation without allowing them any political choice; a fugitive-slave clause protected claims by enslavers. Citizenship and voting rules were left partly to states, and property, race and sex restrictions varied across them. The United States began as a republic with elected institutions but without equal democratic membership. That contradiction affected Congress itself: slaveholding states gained additional representation from people they denied liberty.
Indigenous nations also faced an expanding republic whose federal and state governments often ignored treaty obligations and claims to sovereignty. Under President Andrew Jackson the Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized treaties exchanging eastern homelands for western lands; forced removals, including the Cherokee Trail of Tears in 1838–1839, brought dispossession and death. Calling the country a republic does not erase these events. They are part of the question of whose consent its public institutions counted.
A civil war changes the constitutional text
Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery in 1838, became an influential abolitionist whose speeches demanded that the republic’s stated principles be applied to people it had excluded. The Civil War began in 1861 after southern states seceded to protect slavery. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, declaring freedom for enslaved people in areas then in rebellion; it was a wartime measure with defined limits, not a complete national abolition.
The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery except as punishment for crime after conviction. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified July 9, 1868, established national birthright citizenship with an important jurisdictional qualification and protections for due process and equal protection. The Fifteenth, ratified in 1870, prohibited race-based denial of voting rights to citizens. Those amendments changed the Constitution’s terms. Yet emancipation and legal protections did not produce safe, equal political participation everywhere: white supremacist violence, discriminatory laws and judicial setbacks undermined Reconstruction gains.
The vote expands through organizing, law and enforcement
Susan B. Anthony and other suffrage organizers demanded an end to voting exclusions based on sex. After decades of state campaigns, marches, defeats and congressional struggle, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. Many women of color still faced racial barriers that the amendment did not remove. Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, extending U.S. citizenship to many Native Americans not already citizens, but state restrictions continued to obstruct voting in places. Citizenship on paper and the effective opportunity to cast a ballot were not identical.
In Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court held state-mandated segregation of public schools unconstitutional. As a NAACP lawyer, Thurgood Marshall had argued the case. During the 1965 Selma voting-rights campaign, demonstrators including John Lewis faced violent attacks by Alabama state police on March 7. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, responding to discriminatory registration practices. The Republic became more inclusive because named people organized, legislatures amended laws and courts enforced rights; that change cannot be described as an automatic consequence of the founders’ original design.
Dates & decisions
- 1787: Constitution incorporates compromises protecting slavery.
- 1830 & 1838–1839: Indian Removal Act and major forced removals.
- January 1, 1863: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in designated rebel areas.
- 1865, 1868 & 1870: Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments ratified.
- August 18, 1920: Nineteenth Amendment ratified.
- 1924: Indian Citizenship Act enacted.
- May 17, 1954: Brown v. Board of Education decision.
- August 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act signed into law.