The Supreme Court and Citizens' Rights

The Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution to protect Americans' liberties, and citizens today commonly think of their freedoms as rights. Surprisingly, rights did not play a particularly large role in most early Supreme Court decisions. In the nineteenth century, most of the Court's rulings concerned the powers of the federal government and the states, and issues related to economic growth. (Certainly, however, the right to private property was relevant in many of these cases.)

The struggle against slavery once again made the issues of rights, equality, and freedom central to our constitutional history. As a growing number of Americans began to believe that slavery violated basic American freedoms, they urged the abolition of this cruel, unfair institution. The Civil War (1861-1865) resulted not only in the end of slavery, but in the addition of three important amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibited slavery, and the Fifteenth granted black men the right to vote.