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Dred Scott had been a slave for many years, but after his owner died an abolitionist helped him to fight for his freedom. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court where chief justice Robert B. Taney ruled that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens.
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On January 1, 1863 Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves, although it did end slavery.
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The Thirteenth Amendment officially abolished and prohibited slavery.
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The Civil Rights Act was a law stating that all individuals born in the United States were U.S. citizens, however it took the Fourteenth Amendment to reinforce it so that it could be taken seriously.
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On June 13, 1866 the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed.
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On July 8, 1868 the fourteenth amendment went into effect formally defining citizenship and saying that all people born in the United States were U.S. citizens. This overruled the Dred Scott decision saying that African Americans could not sue because they were not citizens.
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The Fifteenth Amendment granted all citizens the right to vote no matter their race.
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From 1876-1965, state and local governments passed Jim Crow laws geratly reducing the rights of African American U.S. citizens.
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The Elk v. Wilkins case was brought to court because John Elk, who was born on a Native American reservation and later in live moved to Omaha, Nebraska claiming U.S. citizenship. In 1880, Elk attemped to register to vote and was denied by Charles Wilkins. In the ruling, Elk was denied citizenship because although he was born in U.S. territory, the Native American tribes "were alien nations." Elk was denied citizenship although that was later changed by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
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A U.S. News article stated that repealing the fourteenth amendment will help end our current immigration
