Benjamin Butler Civil Rights Leader..??

[5fish]

Benjamin Franklin Butler to many of us we like to mock his military ineptitude while he served in the union army in the war between the states. He may have been an incompetent general but as a politician he was not inept or incompetent. He should be promoted as the father of Civil Rights Law for he sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1871(Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, while in the U.S. House.

Civil Rights Act of 1871 nicknamed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, It did not give any new rights but open the courts for people to seek a remedy to social injustice. It was used effectively by federal troops against the Klan but faded from used until 1961 in the Supreme Court case Monro vs Pape brought the law back in vogue with teeth.

Civil Rights Act of 1875 The Act guaranteed that everyone, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in "public accommodations" (i.e. inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement).

The Supreme Court 1883 struck it down in a civil rights case but in the Civil rights Act of 1964 many of the provisions from the earlier Civil rights Act of 1875 became law again.

Benjamin Butler was ahead of his time when it came to bring civil justice for all....he should be consider one of the fathers of Civil Rights in our nation. It is his laws the Civil Rights movement use to promote their cause but he is rarely to never mention.


Maybe we should reconsider our notions of Mr. Butler..

[Freddy]

Butler the politician did well before and after the Civil War.

Butler the political general did not do well during the Civil War.

Butler's dismal military career has defined him, while little recognition is given for his political successes in both Massachusetts government and in the Federal government.

[5fish]

I am amazed the laws we used to end segregation in the 20th century were on the books almost hundred years earlier. It is this law Civil Rights Act 1871 that killed segregation in the states the following is from Wiki:

For most of its history, the Act had very little effect. The legal community did not think the statute served as a check on state officials, and did not often litigate under the statute. However, this changed in 1961 when the Supreme Court of the United States decided Monroe v. Pape.[2] In that case, the Court articulated three purposes that underlay the statute: "1) 'to override certain kinds of state laws'; 2) to provide 'a remedy where state law was inadequate'; and 3) to provide 'a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not available in practice.'" Blum & Urbonya, Section 1983 Litigation, p. 2 (Federal Judicial Center, 1998) (quoting Monroe v. Pape). Pape opened the door for renewed interest in Section 1983.


The Supreme Courts ruling in 1961 basically was the death nail in the States Rights argument for segregation.

The Radicals in congress pushed these Laws through like the two Civil Rights Acts and the 13th , 14th, and 15th amendments. All these laws seem to be ahead of the social mood of our nation at that time so where was the support of these type laws coming from within our nation. I can not believe these Congressmen were not doing these Laws without an eye on the next election because they are politicians.



A wondering thought......

[timewalker]

In the same way, the Fourteenth Amendment was gutted by the Supreme Court in cases jafter the Civil War (i.e. Plessy v. Ferguson), but then suddenly, in Brown v Board of Education they rediscovered the Fourteenth Amendment and struck down separate but equal. After reading the equal protection clause out of the 14th, they put it back in by creating the doctrine of "substantive due process." Legal chicanery at its most foul. The Court could not admit that years of legal interpretation from the Supreme Court was simply wrong, which has led to a confusing body of Constitutional Law. I cursed the S.Ct. constantly about all of this during my Con Law courses.

[5fish]

Originally Posted by timewalker

In the same way, the Fourteenth Amendment was gutted by the Supreme Court in cases jafter the Civil War (i.e. Plessy v. Ferguson), but then suddenly, in Brown v Board of Education they rediscovered the Fourteenth Amendment and struck down separate but equal. After reading the equal protection clause out of the 14th, they put it back in by creating the doctrine of "substantive due process." Legal chicanery at its most foul. The Court could not admit that years of legal interpretation from the Supreme Court was simply wrong, which has led to a confusing body of Constitutional Law. I cursed the S.Ct. constantly about all of this during my Con Law courses.

Plessy vs Ferguson gutted the 14th amendment and Brown vs Brown put the teeth back into the 14th amendment. So is Justice Harlan who dessent considered one of the great dissent opinions that proved to be right:

But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.

I was just wondering because some descent later become law in another case.

I have a question: In 1883 the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. What civil rights case was it for I have been unable to fine it.

The 1964 Civil Rights law put much of what was in the Civil Rights Act 1875 and made it the law again.
My question is: If the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional then how can the 1964 Civil Rights Law be constitutional for it was basically a rewrite of the old Civil Rights Act of 1875?

Timewalker or any member of this board can answer these questions in English since I am not a lawyer it would be appreciated...thanks..


A wondering mind wants to know.....

[5fish]

I found my answer to what civil right cases in 1883 were used to make the Civil Right Act 1875 unconstitutional and this is what I found:

Civil Rights Cases, 1883


American Eras | Date: 1997

Civil Rights Cases, 1883

Sources
Civil Rights Act of 1875. Race remained a contentious issue in America after the Civil War, and racial discrimination a fact of life for minorities. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations. Sumner said that “It is essential to just government that we recognize the equality of all men before the law, and, it is the duty of government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to ail, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political.” The act guaranteed that “ali persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, of inns, public conveyances on land and water, theaters and other places of amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color.” Violators could be fined up to $1,000, and/or be sent to jail for a year.
Reaction to the Act. The public response to this federal legislation varied from place to place. Some hotels closed rather than comply, while certain theaters interpreted “equal enjoyment” to mean that blacks could be seated in the balcony. A Louisville, Kentucky, theater restricted African Americans to the balcony, while the theater across the Street allowed them to sit anywhere. Federal judges, like the hotel and theater owners, also disagreed about the exact meaning of the Civil Rights Act. Some dismissed cases of discrimination because they believed the Civil Rights Act was an unconstitutional infringement on state or local power. Others ruled the Civil Rights Act a legitimate exercise of power. Federal judges in Texas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky found the act constitutional, while judges in New Jersey, California, and North Carolina did not.
In New York, Missouri, Kansas, and Tennessee panels of federal judges divided on the issue, calling for the Supreme Court to clarify the law.
The Civil Rights Cases. Five cases came before the Supreme Court in November 1882. Two of them involved hotels in Missouri; two concerned theaters in San Francisco and in New York City; and the fifth involved a railroad. In each case the plaintiff had been denied service because of color. The defendants had clearly and consciously based their refusals on the complainant’s race; but sometimes the person’s ethnicity was not obvious. For example, a husband and wife sued the Memphis and Charleston Railroad when the conductor forbade the woman from entering the women’s car. She was dark, but her husband was so light-skinned that the conductor thought he was white. Based on that assumption, the conductor deduced that the woman must be an “improper person,” and that her relationship with this white man was inappropriate. In the New York case, William Davis (an African American) and his lady friend (an octoroon, or a person of one-eighth black ancestry) bought two tickets to the Grand Opera House. When they appeared at the entrance, doorkeeper John Singleton told them their tickets were not valid. Davis and his friend then found a white boy who agreed to buy two more tickets, which the couple then presented to Singleton. The tickets were valid, Singleton admitted, but the theater managers did not admit “colored people.” “Perhaps the managers do not,” Davis said, “but the laws of the country do.” He refused to leave, was arrested, and then filed a civil suit in federal court.
The Supreme Court. When the five cases reached the Supreme Court, it was not clear how the Court would rule. The U.S. government argued that Congress had the power to pass the Civil Rights Act by virtue of the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), which forbade slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment (1865), which barred states from denying any person the equal protection of the laws. Racial discrimination was a badge of servitude, the government maintained, and Congress had the power to eliminate it. On the other hand, the defendants argued that Congress did not have the power to tell individuals how to run their businesses, and that only certain kinds of state action were banned under the Fourteenth Amendment. For example in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) the Court determined that the Fourteenth Amendment forbade the abridgment of those rights associated with United States, not state, citizenship. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876) the Court said Congress could forbid states from discriminating, but not individual citizens.
The Court Rules. On 15 October 1883 Justice Joseph Bradley wrote the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, which held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. The Thirteenth Amendment, according to eight of the nine justices, did not give Congress the broad authority claimed by the U.S. government. Private discrimination was neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. “It would be running the slavery argument into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination. When a man has emerged from slavery, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.” Bradley clearly thought that this stage had been reached. In addition the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited state actions of a certain character — for example, depriving citizens of the right to vote or serve on juries or hold property. The kinds of discrimination banned by the Civil Rights Act, Bradley said, could not be touched by congressional action because they dealt with individual businesses.
Reaction. At a protest meeting in Lincoln Hall in Washington, African American leader Frederick Douglass said the Court had left his people “naked and defenseless against . . . malignant, vulgar, and pitiless prejudice.” Douglass recalled that before the Civil War the Supreme Court had ruled that states and individuals could not interfere with the Fugitive Slave Act. “When slavery was the base-line of the Republic,” Douglass charged, Congress’s power was unlimited. Now that freedom was the issue, the Court restricted Congress’s power and said individuals could deprive one another of liberty. Orator Robert Ingersoll said that “From the moment of the adoption of the thirteenth amendment the law became color-blind.” John Finnel of Kentucky wrote to his friend Justice John M. Harlan: “Now the patriotic vagabonds of the South will feel called upon to vindicate the Supreme Court by ‘jumping on’ the poor darkey. . . .”
Harlan’s Dissent. Harlan was the only former slave-owner on the Supreme Court; he was also the only dissenter in these cases. The Thirteenth Amendment, Harlan wrote, was intended to abolish slavery. The institution of slavery rested on an assumption of racial inferiority, and in order to do away with slavery this notion of inferiority had to go as well. The second clause of the amendment, Harlan wrote, gave Congress the power to enforce the act through “appropriate legislation.” He observed that his colleagues on the Court had declined to decide in 1877 whether it was appropriate for states to regulate grain elevators, but now the Court would decide what kind of laws were “appropriate” to remove racial barriers. In addition, Harlan noted that aside from granting all Americans’ citizenship, the Fourteenth Amendment gave Congress further power to remove racial distinctions. As for Bradley’s contention that the Civil Rights Act made blacks “the special favorite of the laws,” Harlan said the Act merely extended to blacks the same rights as other citizens enjoyed. “The one underlying principle of congressional legislation has been to enable the black race to take the rank of mere citizen. The difficulty has been to compel a recognition of their legal right to take that rank. . . . Today, it is the colored race which is denied, by corporations and individuals wielding public authority, rights fundamental in their freedom and citizenship. At some future time, it may be that some other race will fall under the ban of race discrimination. If the constitutional amendments be enforced, according to the intent with which, as I conceive, they were adopted, there cannot be in this republic, any class of human beings in practical subjection to another class, with power . . . to dole out. . . just such privileges as they may choose to grant.” Harlan’s forceful dissent was widely published and is one of the classic statements in the Supreme Court’s history. One hundred years later his position would be accepted as the legitimate one. However, at the time, the majority of the Court allowed certain persons to be treated as second-class citizens.


Members of the board,

Racism was alive a well after our little Civil War. Look how our nations attitude has change over next one hundreds until the 1960's....


I wondered and found something...

[Vareb]

Do you really think that racism has been exterminated here in the US? MERCY! Where have y'all been?

Out side of allowing blacks to vote, force the education to accept more blacks, Dream on, folks.

[unionblue]

I am reminded of the old joke, "Wherever two or three of you gather in my name, two will gang up on the one."

No, racism is not dead, but things have gotten just a tad better.

I mean after all, a black man is running for president, after just barely defeating a woman trying to get nominated for the same office.

Racism is deeply rooted in our country and in our culture and it will not ever be completely wiped out, not as long as there are those who are comfortable in their ignorance.

The amazing thing is, even 140 years ago, there were people who knew racism, discrimination, and denying equal treatment was wrong. It was the people who were comfortable in continuing the ignorance that reversed this idea.

This nation is still pretty young, considering some other nations on this planet. I'd say were doing pretty well and have a chance to do better, if we can just shake off the 'glass half empty' thinking, and go with the 'glass half full' thinking.

Unionblue

[Vareb]

Racism is deeply rooted in our country and in our culture and it will not ever be completely wiped out, not as long as there are those who are comfortable in their ignorance.

Racism will never be defeated in America.

[M E Wolf]

Dear VAReb;

Racism will never be defeated in civilization.

History in the past civilization is full of it.

I will further add, that that gender bias out lives racism. Look how long it took to allow women to get the right to vote? Blacks men were voting long before women of any color were allowed to vote.

Pay still is not equal to men.

Life isn't fair -- Take a number and wait in the never ending line of 'Complaints of life, fairness and equality.' [Now serving 223--looks at my ticket 1,983,764,201,543,110,998] LOL [Sees express window for Illegal immigrants]

Just some thoughts.

Respectfully submitted for consideration, with a lot of humor;
M. E. Wolf