rotunda of the national archives building in shrines the constitution of the united states, but the four pages exhibited there are the beginning of this guiding document of our national government. shortly after its ratifications 1788 the 10 amendments we know is the bill of rights were passed and over the next 200 years. we have appended 17 more amendments. in inventing equality, michael bublia looks closely at three of those amendments the 13th 14th and 15th past after the civil war to extend freedom and rights of citizenship to formally enslave persons. as the records of our nation's show ratification of these amendments was not the end of

our debate our voluminous court records preserve cases brought before the united states courts, even up to the supreme court seeking equal treatment under the law. using these records be allele brings us an examination of the evolution of the battle of true equality in america. michael buble is the author of numerous books including revolutionary outlaws arming america. 1877. america's year of living violently and the people's history of the us military. he's taught at every educational level in the united states germany, italy and the united kingdom. awarded the bancroft award in 2001. he is the only person to ever win both of the article of the year awards from the organization of american historians. is the founding director of the interdisciplinary violence studies program in denver university billial worked with community organizations and public agencies to study and respond to the numerous effects

of violence and modern life. he's also organized special educational programs to a veterans of the vietnam war and served as educational director of the veterans institute of new england. now, let's hear from michael buble. thank you for joining us today. good day. i am honored by this invitation to speak of the national archives about the core principle of human inequality and this day after the inauguration of our second catholic present and first woman vice president. we as a nation pride ourselves as living in a land of equality and opportunity the two being intricately in anexorably linked. it is also obvious that the united states has a long history of struggling to make the ideal reality. given the political language of this country which tends to promote the concept of equality. we must ask why we still fighting to ensure for instance that black lives matter. so let's go back to the start the two american founding

documents each made clear the core problem for the united states. declaration of independence of 1776 you surely know these words we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. thomas jefferson provided a perfect expression of human inequality, but what did jefferson mean by self-evident was equality self-evident not requiring any evidence sadly not even jefferson except inequality one of the most bitter and instructive ironies in american history is the fact that the same man wrote these eloquent words proclaim inequality and just four years later the first book justifying slavery and racial grounds notes understated virginia in 1780. jefferson can never get his head fully around what he meant by equality struggling with the concept for the remainder of his long life. he also is responsible for one the one perfect metaphor of

racial attitudes in the united states is relationship with sally hemings the half-sister of his wife martha. over the 75 years after jefferson wrote the declaration you will be hard put to find a single document supportive of equality what you will find instead is a steadily increasing number of books article speeches and sermons supportive of inequality. which nearly every political intellectual and religious leader insisted was natural. they were deliver stirring july 4th orations praising. the united states is the land of equality and then turn around and all sorts of exceptions. let us go back for a moment to that other founding document the constitution of 1787 when i was young we had to memorize the preamble we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union established justice ensured domestic tranquility provide for the common defense promote the

general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ours and our posterity to ordain and established this constitution for the united states of america again, the wording seems so clear. our constitution is proclaimed in the name of the people not of the states or just white protestant property owning men, but who are the people the constitution does not say never bothering to define citizenship congress was supposed to decide but the first congress left it up to the states, which generally just sort of went with those born or naturalized within their borders as citizens where again many exceptions. immediately we get all sorts of contradictions. what happens when a state refuses to acknowledge that members of a specific religious or ethnic group are not worthy of citizenship and what of that half the population which is not male. the constitution may say people

but every state read that as men. why whenever a court bothered to address the issue they usually dismiss the concept of women being equal in the eyes of the law as a ridiculous violation of reality for their view women did not have the physical or mental capacities necessary for participation in public life. such a proposal also violated the traditional legal concept of curvature the american understanding of the legal status of women. came from that renowned british legal scholar william blackstone who defined curvature in 1765 to quote by marriage that husband and wife are one person in law. that is the very being or legal. is this existence of the woman is suspended during marriage or at least is incorporated and consolidated to that of the husband under whose wing protection and cover she performs everything. this lack of legal identity was

most obvious in her lot lat. excuse me in her loss of her name upon marriage. women did not have rights, but duties and female was to be obedient first to her father and then to her husband. a woman without a man was a relic that was the legal phrase a leftover with few exceptions women could not own nor require property right a will or into a contract. they had no legal identity, but were utterly dependent on a male. there was clearly no self-evident truth inequality when it came to women. not even all men were included among those eligible for the legal inequality of citizenship a different times and places various religious and ethnic groups have been excluded from the equal detection of the law one of these exclusions brought on the most violent of that american history the civil war. obviously i'm speaking of slavery and is supportive ideology of white supremacy slaveholders from thomas,

jefferson to jefferson davis did not hesitate to label the united states the land of freedom while insisting on the inferiority of those they felt justified in enslaving. the big problem for the united states. was that ever more states rejected slavery and those still guilty of racist policies these states insisted on freedom for their citizens of african heritage. so what happens when a black citizen of a free state travels to a slave state or slave finds his way into a free state? it is important to note that racism warped every aspect of american law politics society culture and language for instance given attendency of white slave owners to rate their female slaves leading to lighter skinned children it often became difficult to define blackness. and what happened when black sailors for the united states navy was integrated stepped assurance slaves state in 1822,

south carolina declared that they would be sold into slavery the supreme court declared their law and constitution, but south carolina did not care. southern states opened mail checking for antislavery sentiments and terminated all first amendment rights. there was no education for blacks and or for most whites for that matter because there was no public education. through the 1850s these contradictions began to tear the country apart as those living outside the slave states became more dissatisfied with the efforts of the slave owners to nationalize their institutions. occasionally one of the southern leaders like john c. calhoun would make a claim for the supremacy of states rights over national rights, but even he wanted the federal government to expand its powers in order to hunt and recapture runaway slaves as divisions intensified chief justice roger taney that that he could solve the contradictions by terminating the concept of equality in 1857. this supreme court issued the

dred scott decision stating that a black person could never be a citizen since the constitution was written by and for white men alone and that black people were property by birth. instantly most people in free states. saw the problem. they would soon be no free states as slavery would be nationalized. as illinois senate candidate abraham lincoln best summarized the situation and i quote a house divided against itself. cannot stand. either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it forward. until it should become lawful and all the states north as well as south end quote lincoln captured. well the fear that the dred scott decision would lead directly to the creation of a slavery republic that certainty

led to lincoln's victory in the 1860 election the secession of 11 slave states and the civil war. now strange thing happened in the civil war. there was little doubt that most white americans were racists in 1860 in the sense that at the very least. they were white supremacists. this was true of lincoln as well who repeatedly stayed that he felt white men superior to blacks. however, lincoln turned back to jefferson's understanding of equality to reframe the issue. he argued that jefferson had put forth a simple understanding of equality. that entitled everyone to the natural rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. lincoln thought it reasonable and right to let black americans decide for themselves how to live for the declaration to put forth the radical notion that each individual is best able to determine his or her own happiness. most northern whites seem to have shared that simple and

minimal understanding of equality at the start of the civil war. there was a general feeling that everybody deserved to write to decide for themselves how they would live given what they perceived as natural limitations of age ability race and gender but as the war progressed white people from the free states began meeting blacks and discovered that they were people too in fact admirable people. and i'm going to give just one example. one of the greatest joys of produced conducting historical research is prying in reading the private letters in journals of unknown people gain access to the mental process of common americans. for instance chauncey cook a farm boy from wisconsin had never seen a black person in his life until he marched down their mississippi with the union army in 1863. he was delighted with them. writing his family that they

were the most gentle nicest and polite people he had ever met. they were all so deeply grateful to the white soldiers for fighting to free them those positive characteristics stirred out all the more as quote every white man and woman in mississippi is ready to shoot a poison us in quote. the union troops learn that quote the negroes were our only southern friends and let's not forget. they were southerners and they kept us posted on what the whites were doing and saying, bringing us food along with military intelligence as he march through the south cook became convinced that slavery had damaged the whites almost as much as the blacks. delete had deliberately kept poor whites ignorant of the outside world denying them equality as well by his count only one tenth of the confederate prisoners could read

and write account matched by most studies by the time the war ended in 1865 most northern whites and a great many southern whites felt that black americans deserve citizenship. similarly black and white women had repeatedly proven themselves brave and committed citizens as thousands came forth to serve the cause of freedom in a number of ways as nurses and spies office clerks and guides support staff and recruiters for the military in fact, the person prays by lincoln and frederick douglass as the most effective exponent of the union cause was anna dickinson the first woman to address congress in a courageous order who stood down pro slavery mobs in the same way. immigrants and catholics left. no doubt that day two willingly risked everything for their country by the time the war ended in 1865 a consensus has spread through the country that those previously denied the rights of citizenship had proven

that worth and deserved full legal inequality. the result was a trio of amendments that sought to correct to glaring contradictions in the constitution. it's unstated support for slavery, and it's failure to define citizenship. the first issue was resolved by the 13th amendment which ended slavery in the united states. defining citizenship proved a little bit more difficult difficult and contentious resulting in the 14th amendment which became part of the constitution 1868. its opening words appeared to make clear the legal inequality of all americans in eloquent and precise language and is worth quoting. all citizens excuse me, all persons born or naturalized in the united states and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the united states and if the state wherein they reside no state, shall make or

enforce any law, which shall a bridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states nor shall any state deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. nothing could be clearer. a literal reading of the opening paragraph leaves. no doubt that all persons are equal in the eyes of the law. however as is so often the case in american history the eloquent evocation of rights is soon followed by the qualifiers. the second section of the amendment states that the vote may not be denied to male inhabitants. women route with outraged leaders of the women's right rights movement had agreed to put ending slavery first with the understanding that their legal equality would then be addressed? but the all white male congress

undermine that understanding as elizabeth cady stanton said that the insertion of the word male and the first time gender had been inserted into the constitution. into the 14th amendment undermine the concept of women's equality and set back the women's suffrage movement by a century. congress followed up with the 15th amendment which protected the right of black men to vote. it's very specific again in the gender the initial result of these amendments was the period known as reconstruction and the nation's first true almost democratic elections. the republican party swept elections around the country including in the south were alliances between former slaves and poor whites led to dramatic changes such as the first public schools infrastructure projects and the creation of our free press. former confederates hated it all and they countertop

counterattacked often quite literally. through violence and intimidation acute klux klan and other white supremacist groups determined to force inequality in the nation. and it worked. they found a powerful ally in the supreme court. which slowly whittled away the meaning of the reconstruction amendments when the brilliant myra colby bradwell applied for the illinois bar. she was ejected because women could not be lawyers. bradwell appealed appealed to the supreme court citing the 14th amendment as establishing equal rights in 1873 the supreme court dismissed her suit and the basis of nature and divine ordinance nature had made women timid and delicate and thus unfit for civil life to quote. the decision. god had made women to have one job and one job only motherhood for these were reasons quote a woman had no legal existence

separate from her husband and could not hold property or enter into contracts and therefore cannot practice law. all human laws even the constitution the supreme court declared must bend to the law of the creator making any notion of equality between men and women, silly and downright dangerous. two years later virginia minor appeared before the court using the 14th amendment to insist on her right to vote again a unanimous court rejected minors argument her status as a citizen was irrelevant entering into perfectly circular logic the court reason that since women are citizens, but cannot vote that women did not have a right to vote. when congress attempted to protect the equality of black americans with a serious series of civil rights acts the court overturned them on the basis of congressional overreach in trying to enforce that 14th amendment congress had violated the tenth extending its reach

into private matters if a southern state wanted if southern state governments wanted to limit the rights of their black citizens, that was their business the court impatiently noted that 18 years had passed since the civil war surely it was time to move on from these issues the civil war and reconstruction taught white supremacists that they had to keep whites and blacks apart or they might come to see one another as equals the white supremacist southern state governments. therefore began a policy as segregation in the 1880s the so called jim crow laws named after a common stage stereotype of blacks. they recognize its stereotypes only work. if the races do not get to know one another. inequality also gained powerful intellectual support in 1877 when a new concept appeared in the united states social darwinism perceived as a result of indisputable science social

darwinism became an obsession among educated americans even ministers who as a group rejected darwinism celebrated social darwinism the idea that the successful deserved their power while any effort to aid the week undermines natural selection and thus human progress. so social darwinism also rated the races with the whites conveniently on top while rather self-serving for this successful and white it all cleared the consciences of the majority of white americans social darwinism was a clarion call for inaction. that's ended america's brief experiment with the with equality. and a return to inequality on a national scale once more women were to shut up and stay home blacks were do it whites told them and immigrants were subject to disdain and control for instance in 1882 congress passed its first national immigration legislation the chinese exclusion act buying all future chinese immigration. this act was not repealed until 1965.

in 1893 the supreme court issued their decision plessy versus ferguson, which rejected the notion that segregation violate the 14th amendment. the admitted that the amendment sought to enforce the inner quote to enforce the absolute inequality of the two races before the law but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based on color. they could court could not imagine how anyone thought that a law establishing quote merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races could anyway undermine legally quality a distinction is not discrimination separate but equal facilities. do not imply inferiority. no evidence was required to prove that segregation hurts. no one since it's simply quote is too clear for argument. as justice john marshall harlan pointed out in his stunning descent the supreme court chose to ignore reality. they ignored the violence the paralyzing effects of racism on both the victims and american

democracy that separate is never equal and the fact that the constitution is color blind. there was a more subtle yet equally devastating form of inequality exclusion. pretending that women blacks chinese hispanics jews at all were never part of american history is a deeply harmful form of inequality for century after the civil war historians ignored these groups and wrote almost entirely about white men for instance 270,000 black troops fought for the union during a civil war. i just finished a search of dozens of history textbooks published between 1880 and 1950 and cannot find a single one that mentions this essential fact. my own high school textbook the growth of the american republic written by the prominent historians samuel morrison and henry calmenter had a two-page section out of 830 pages on slavery that began and i am

quoting it as for sambo who's wrongs moved the abolitionists to wrath and tears. there was some reason to believe that they suffered less than any other class in the south. if i made peculiar institution end quote this absurdity is followed by assurances that the slaves were happy saying and danced and learned a lot from their masters who never used violence. we were supposed to believe that nonsense you don't have to what we now see clearly as it is that in a single decade of the 1860s thousands of americans discovered human inequality and invented a clear understanding of legal inequality that has formed the foundation for every struggle for positive change. since