Brian's Weblog

Black Codes - The Black Codes were laws passed on the state and national level to limit the civil rights of African Americans post-Civil War. Black codes are not to be confused with Jim Crowe laws, which used the "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson superfluously. Both Black Codes and Jim Crowe laws were enforced primarily in the South. Under Black Codes, blacks would often have to have a written "permission slip" from their employer in order to do ordinary things in life.

Civil War Amendments - Three amendments were added to the Constitution resulting from the Civil War. The 13th Amendment legally abolished slavery in the United States. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all people born in America, thus giving African Americans citizenship. The Constitution's 15th Amendment prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color or previous condition of servitude."

The term "Manifest Destiny" was the idea of expanding America throughout all of North America. It was supported by the belief that God gave the United States the right to expand its borders because the U.S. was more advanced than other cultures and countries. This could not be more wrong. God would not grant a country the right to expand at the expense of a country whose natives' land would be taken, or while people would die over the land disputes. If a country's expansion resulted in bloodshed, lives lost, or the mistreatment of the native people to that land, why would God endorse it? The United States could have gotten more supporters simply by saying that they were attempting to control the continent because they were superior to the other nations. In the case of settling Oregon, on average there was one grave every eight yards along the trail between the Missouri River and the Willamette Valley, adding up to some 20,000 settlers dead. Over 13,000 American soldiers and around 25,000 Mexican soldiers lost their lives in the Mexican American War that resulted from America annexing Texas. Manifest Destiny was nothing more than a flowery title given to Imperialism, making it seem as though America's destiny was to take North America by force.

****I personally am neutral on the idea of Manifest Destiny, but I figured I'd make my thesis stronger by actually taking a side for the time being. Let me know what you think.