Majority Rule with Respect for Minority Rights

Our forefathers, the framers of the Constitution, left the issues of slavery and discrimination to future generations to solve. Not by intentional default did we get these debates, we received them through the changing times and attitudes of the American people. Discrimination has usually fallen upon minorities. It started with the African Americans slaves, which were the minority, in Colonial America. The slaves were considered inferior to the white, the majority, and population. As the African American population began to reach its minute levels of equality, women became the next minority that had to fight for their rights to be considered equal members of society. Soon we have hundreds, even thousands, of minority groups in the United States: homosexuals, Native Americans, Veterans and Disabled Americans are among the many.

We must first understand the differences between the majority and the minority. By definition, a majority is the greater number or part; a number more than half the total. Therefore, that must mean that Majority rule is defined as being the political party, or faction, having the most power by virtue of its larger representation of electoral strength. The opposite must hold true for the definition of a minority. A minority being the smaller number of two or more groups that forms a whole. By political definition then, minority rule is the ethnic, racial, religious, or other group/individual having a distinct presence in society; a group or individual having little power or representation in relation to other groups.

Then to compare Majority Rule to Minority Rights, it represents the rules of state that evolve around the concept of decisions that are made by the majority. The minority is usually outvoted and then has to abide to the will of the majority. The will of the majority is also considered that of the people as a whole. Although these are relationship of contradiction, they are the two major supports that make the foundation of what we know as the Democratic government of today. The basic rights under a Democratic government are not exclusionary to any one individual or group, but a right for all people equally regardless of race, religion, color or national origin. The acceptance of the cultural and ethnic groups can represent one of the largest challenges that any Democratic government can face. Although, Democracies should recognize and treat these differences as a challenge and use that to strengthen and improve themselves, just not as a threat to their way of government. The only certainty is that the knowledge gained through the Democratic processes of tolerance, debate and willingness to compromise can a truly free society reach the agreement that can embrace the ideologies of majority rule and minority rights.

One such example of this concept is shown through Amendment XIII (1865), Section 1, of the United States Constitution. It reads that, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." As slavery was an institution in America in the 18th and 19th centuries, slaves were commonplace amongst many of the population. They were not considered an equal member of society, but as the "property" of their owners. The Constitutional fathers intended that Amendment XIII, established on December 10, 1865, be the beginning of the end of slavery as a whole and thus, allowing the slave population to now be considered the minority that they were not. When Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th President, many of the southern slave states then began their succession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. This led to the start of the Civil War that lasted from 1861 to 1865 as a fight for beliefs more than independence. The northern states were willing to let the African American population to have a role in the country, even as a minority. Their opinions might not make any difference, but it would allow them the chance to voice their thoughts and ideas. That is why the 13th Amendment was established, and ratified, at the end of the Civil War with all states, except Mississippi in agreement.

Amendment XXIV Section 1 (1868) reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilege or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The founders of the Constitution were attempting to give all persons that live in the United States, by birth or through legal immigration, the right to their freedoms that are set forth in the Bill of Rights. It was defining who is a citizen and how no state could enact laws that violate their rights, minority or not. For instance, this would give slaves the ability to leave, or remain in, servitude by choice and not force. Thus, allowing all persons the right to say, do and live as they see fit as long as it does not interfere or forcefully influence others. It reiterates that everyone is created, and treated, as equals and there is no superior and inferior race, religion, etc. It gives everyone the same right to insure that certain rights are not violated. Its primary concern was the reintegration of the southern states after the Civil War and clearly defined some rights of the recently freed slaves. When the Supreme Court examined the amendment, it was interpreted to mean that these guarantees were to apply to the individual states, as well as the national government. No person could, or would be, denied the basic freedoms of life, liberty or property without due process or equal protection of the laws. This was the beginning of the implementation of "separate, but equal" for many years to come by stating that segregation was acceptable so long that as the black facilities were equal and comparable to those of the whites.

On February 3, 1870, Amendment XV, Section 1, stating "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States of by and state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" was entered into the Constitution. It was entered because sixteen of the union states denied black suffrage. The amendment demanded that all of the ex-confederate states adopt new state constitutions allowing black suffrage. This had to be done before their senators and representatives could be re-admitted to Congress. It did not guarantee that blacks could hold any office, but many Congressmen believed that it should have been included. It granted blacks, the minority, to all the same rights that the white majority was, including the right to vote. Unfortunately, this then led to the beginnings of the Feminists movement for women to have the same rights granted to them, because women became the next minority to endure a period of suffrage.

Over the years, there have been hundreds of cases that have challenged aspects to the Constitution. Yet, some of the most influential in changing legislation were those that challenged the rights of minorities. Constant debates of expanding equality would continue into the future and caused some of the most painful, yet profound, chapters in United States history. In most societies, the fair treatment of minorities is one of the most fundamental, yet troublesome, responsibilities that they can face.

One of the first such cases was Plessy v. Ferguson was in 1896. In this court case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring separate but equal accommodations for the blacks and whites on the intrastate railroads was constitutional. This then led to providing a legal foundation for other separate but equal actions by the state and local governments. Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former Kentucky slaveholder, spurned the majority notion that dominant white and former slave as "separate, but equal." Justice Harlan stated, that in his opinion of the reconstruction amendments, "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." This decision provided the legal foundation needed to justify the actions of future cases by the state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites. In the majority opinion that was delivered by Henry Billings Brown, the distinction between the political and social equality claims of Thirteenth Amendment was attacked. In the sense that they had the same rights, the distinction was that blacks and whites were politically equal, but still socially unequal in the sense that blacks were not as socially advanced as a majority of whites. The decision stated, "Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based on physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the differences of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane." The majority ruling would hold true until 1954 when another infamous court case challenged and overturned this ruling.

Another such case, was Sweatt v. Painter (1950). This case had one of the significant rulings of the period that began to "chip away" at the ideology of segregation in graduate and professional education. IN 1946, an African-American male named Herman M. Sweatt, applied to attend the University of Texas Law School, and was refused due to his race. Access to this university was restricted to only whites; therefore, his application was automatically refused. When the state courts were petitioned for his admission, the University then attempted to show that a facility that would be comparable for the black population was to open soon. This university facility should have already opened in 1947. This attempt to went unfounded. The University was declared unanimously guilty of violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The law facilities for blacks were found unmatched to the white facilities. The library facilities, the courses available and overall atmosphere, were considered unequal and inferior. Those types of differences would harm the chances of the black law students' ability to be able to compete in the legal arena fairly. Then lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thurgood Marshall, and others, thought the time to challenge the doctrine that stated segregated facilities were considered equal had come.

In the early 1950's, the norm across America, was the segregation in public schools of the blacks and whites. All schools were supposed to be considered equal to each other within their school districts, but they were not. The white schools were found to be far superior to those of their white counterparts. This was the case until Oliver Brown went to the leader of the Topeka branch of the NAACP, McKinley Burnett. The case of Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education was one of the biggest cases in the fight for minority rights. Oliver Brown asked the NAACP for help after his daughter, Linda, was denied enrollment to the white elementary school just a few blocks from home by the principal. The black school was over a mile away from her home and she had to pass through a railroad switchyard in order to get there. This was what the NAACP was eagerly awaiting for years, "the right plaintiff at the right time" to challenge the idea of segregation of the public schools. Soon parents of other black children joined the Brown case and in 1951, the NAACP requested an injunction outlawing segregation in the public schools of Topeka. In June 1951, the U.S. District Court for Kansas heard Brown's case where the NAACP argued that the segregation of the schools sent a message to the black children that they were inferior to the white children. They also argued that the schools were innately unequal. They called expert witnesses that stated that the black children's curriculum was abridged due to the fact that colored children were not able to associate with white children. Yet, the black children must live in a society where 90 percent of the national society was represented by whites. Also argued was that, the curriculum in Topeka, or any other school district, could not be equal under the ideas of segregation. The Board of Education defended themselves by stating that segregation in Topeka, and elsewhere, was just representing aspects of life that the black children would have to face as adults and that it was not harmful to black children. They used Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and even George Washington Carver as examples of great African Americans that overcame more than segregation in schools in their achievements. The courts' decision for the injunction was wrought with debate. The judges agreed with the witnesses that segregation had a detrimental effect on the colored children, giving them a sense of inferiority. Yet, they had the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson that allowed for the separate but equal school systems and no court had yet to overturn that ruling and that led them to lean in favor of the Board of Education. Brown and the NAACP took the case to the Supreme Court and entered it with other cases that also challenged school segregation South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware. The first time the case was heard in December 1952, the court failed to reach a decision. The argument was heard a year later. It was requested that both sides discuss "the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868."
Re-debating the amendment did not help the courts make a decision on the case. The court then had to decide the case based on the facts of whether or not the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment had given the thought of desegregated schools. In 1868, little thought was given to whether black children would be deprived under the equal protection law. When the unanimous decision was read in May 1954, the Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine affected in the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of NAACP, Brown and the others that challenged the doctrine and then required that schools across America begin desegregation. Although, this case did not removed segregation from all public facilities, only schools, and they did not establish a deadline for this to happen. It was later established that the desegregation of schools must take place with "all deliberate speed" with Brown v. Board of Education II in 1955.

Here began the onset of many more cases that challenged the rights of the minority to the rule of the majority. Cases that began to open up many more areas of life for the minority African Americans, housing, busing, careers, just to name a few, became more frequent. Other minority groups over the years have challenged amendments and have successfully inflicted change within the nation for their voices and rights to be heard. When the courts limited the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment's "equal protection" guarantee, it was then stated as having a racially diversified impact, not just a discriminatory intent. None of the amendments were intentionally established to make any minority groups inferior, it was not the foresight of the authors to do so. They wrote the constitutional amendments based on the life that they knew. The constitutional authors did not know how life would change in the future.

References

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