Prior to the American Civil War, the legal definition of the Negro was, according to Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, “ an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic.” Negros were not considered citizens or even human beings, only property that could be bought and sold. Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was most likely influenced by Chief Justice John Marshall, who in 1833, ruled that the Bill of Rights only applied to the national government, meaning that states were allowed to keep African Americans from becoming state citizens. As a result, it was only logical to conclude that because African Americans are not citizens, then they are not protected by the Bill of Rights. However, the Fourteenth Amendment passed in June 1866, gave full rights of citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including African Americans. …show more content…
The American South took measures to make sure that African Americans still felt like the deferential society, by enforcing laws that separated blacks and whites. Many African Americans hated segregation, calling it unjust. On the other hand, some whites such as Woodrow Wilson, a former president of the United States of America felt it was necessary. He once said, “Segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit…”. The question of whether segregation was a necessity for American society or a hindrance, was the central focus of two society changing Supreme Court cases—Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of