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Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott, who had been held as a slave, sued the executor of his former master’s estate under the state-citizenship diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts, seeking a determination that he had become free because his master had voluntarily taken him into free territory -
Abraham Lincoln won (Republican Party) control of the White House
Lincoln’s Administration took the legal position, contra Taney, that free blacks were indeed American citizens -
Confederate Flag was Formed
Confederate states had formed new, white-dominated governments that restricted the rights of former slaves. In response to those discriminatory laws (generally referred to as “Black Codes”), -
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act
all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens of the United States and the state in which they lived, thereby affirming a rule of citizenship by birth that did not depend on race. -
The Fourteenth Amendment as drafted
The Senate added what is now the first sentence, which grants both national and state citizenship in language quite similar to that of the Civil Rights statute, and the House agreed to the amendment. The basic principle of a federal rule of race-blind citizenship based on birth was not in much dispute, although there was some debate about the restriction of the grant of citizenship to persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.