PS 201 Study Guide Chapter 4

Question 1

Define Civil Rights

Answer 1

Civil rights are those powers and privileges which government secures and protects on behalf of its citizens. In many cases, civil rights extend to documented resident aliens.
Examples: voting, equal treatment

Question 2

How are civil rights different from civil liberties?

Answer 2

However, there is an important conceptual difference: civil liberties are legal (often constitutional) protections against government interference with or restriction of personal freedoms (speech, assembly, religious orientation, etc.)
Neither civil rights nor civil liberties are absolute. Significant public interest or competing civil rights or liberties may constrain civil rights (or civil liberties).

Question 3

Missouri Compromise

Answer 3

1820, Matching entry of slave states and free states to maintain regional balance in the Senate. (a balance of a slave state to a non slave state)

Question 4

Compromise of 1850

Answer 4

-Missouri Compromise collapses with the
admission of California as a free state.
-New compromise allows territorial residents
to determine free or slave status when they
apply for statehood

Question 5

13th Amendment

Answer 5

Emancipated the slaves (abolished slavery)

Question 6

14th amendment

Answer 6

granted citizenship to former slaves

Question 7

15th amendment

Answer 7

expanded the suffrage to former slaves

Question 8

Jim Crow Laws

Answer 8

-Institutionalized segregation
A variety of rules and practices were established to prevent Black Americans from voting:
-White primary
-Poll tax
-Literacy tests
-Grandfather clauses (designed for the
protection of poor and illiterate whites)

Question 9

Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer 9

(1896): Supreme Court ruling that separate facilities are not inherently unequal. Established the “separate but equal doctrine”.

Question 10

New Deal

Answer 10

FDR, Worked to eliminate racial discrimination in the distribution of federal aid, Appointed a significant number of Black administrators, Restructured the civil liberties division of the Department of Justice.

Question 11

Brown v. Board of Education

Answer 11

1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional

Question 12

Voting rights Act of 1965

Answer 12

Prohibits racial discrimination against voting

Question 13

Civil Rights Issues Today

Answer 13

-Ballot access
-Housing
-Education
-Employment
-Criminal Justice