Over the course of the next eleven years, the Confederation Congress hammered out the Constitution of the United States of America, and it became effective on June 21, 1788. The Constitution appeared to be more inclusive by beginning with the words, "We the People. . ." Through the years, however, there has been much debate about just who "WE" really are.

Two years later Congress transmitted Amendments to the state legislatures and these first ten Amendments, called the Bill of Rights, were ratified effective December 15, 1791.

Even before the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the question had been discussed: "Whence arises the Right of the men to govern women without their consent?" The new nation made women citizens, but in some situations, referred to as coverture, the married woman's status and citizenship were acquired through her husband.

In 1792 Thomas Paine wrote and published The Rights of Man, in which he compared natural (or individual or personal) rights with civil rights (rights conferred by society).  Already we observe that the definition of "man" can be limited by the body developing the definition and these were white males of European origin.

In 1848 the first woman's rights convention in the United States was held in Seneca, New York. The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, developed at that convention, stated: "the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman; never permitted to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise; compelled to submit to laws, in the formation of which she has no voice; deprived of the elective franchise is left without representation in the halls of legislation; if married, [she is] in the eye of the law, civilly dead." Women were beginning to rebel.

Dred Scott was a Negro slave whose master had taken him from the slave state of Missouri to Illinois (a free state) and then into the Wisconsin Territory (a free territory), and back to Missouri. Dred Scott sued for his freedom in the Missouri state courts on the grounds that his residence in a free state and a free territory had made him a free man. The case went on a long sojourn up to the U.S. Supreme Court where, under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a southerner, Scott was denied his freedom. Taney's 1857 opinion is most often cited on account of its far-reaching implications for the sectional crisis. Taney wrote that Negroes had "no rights which any white man was bound to respect." The Dred Scott decision "increased antislavery sentiment in the North, strengthened the Republican Party, and fed the sectional antagonism that burst into war in 1861."

The American Civil War or the War Between the States, 1861-1865, in reality, was an attempt by eleven Southern states to assert their right to secede from the Union. At issue was the doctrine of states' rights, especially with regard to the holding of slaves. Economics played a large part in the struggle since the South's economy was based on large farms using slave labor.

On December 6, 1865, Constitutional Amendment XIII was ratified abolishing slavery. This amendment, however, did not put an end to the difficulty and in 1866 Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act which said that citizens of every race and color were to enjoy equal status in all civil and legal transactions with equal protection for person and property. Unfortunately, no provision was made for enforcement of this act.

Constitutional Amendment XIV was ratified on July 9, 1868 providing citizenship to all persons 21 years of age or older. Politics now engendered much debate on this issue since including all free men in the numerical basis of representation would give the South the majority in the Congress. Women should have been covered by this amendment, but since they were not specifically mentioned, they were not included.

It became necessary to develop another amendment, number XV ratified on February 3, 1870, to ensure that the States could not deny the right to vote to any citizen. A citizen was still defined as male and 21 years of age or older.

The first Civil Rights Act with full legal authority was passed in 1875.

In 1880 in the case of Strauder v. West Virginia the Supreme Court ruled that Blacks could not be excluded from juries.

In 1883 the Supreme Court was able to rule most of the 1875 Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional since the 14th amendment was directed toward actions of the State and could not be applied to actions by private individuals.

The case of Plessy v. Ferguson resulted in the Supreme Court's rendering the "separate but equal" decision, 1896. In his dissent, John Marshall Harlan issued a ringing rebuke to those who argued that the United States was composed of a dominant and subordinate race (sometimes referred to as Social Darwinism). Justice Harlan said, "In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will in time prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case . . . "

The 19th amendment, adopted on August 18, 1920 finally gave women the vote. The 15th amendment had stated that the vote shall not be denied to people on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Amendment 19 specifically stated that the right to vote cannot be denied on account of sex.

Cases were still being argued in 1935 when the Supreme Court ruled, in Norris v. Alabama, that Negroes are entitled to juries of their peers. Just because they could not be excluded from juries (Strauder v. West Virginia), did not necessarily mean that any Negroes would be placed on a jury where a Negro was on trial. Norris v. Alabama was an attempt to assure that.

In 1954 the Supreme Court overthrew the "Separate But Equal" decisions of 1868 and 1896 by deciding in favor of Brown in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, a landmark decision. The Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This 1954 decision declared that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal. Other cases: Sweatt v. Painter abolished the segregated law school and McLaurin v. Oklahoma abolished the segregated graduate school.

The modern Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 is comprehensive U.S. legislation intended to end discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. It provides for equal voting rights, prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation, mandates desegregation of public schools, broadens the duties of the Civil Rights Commission, and assures nondiscrimination in the distribution of funds under federally assisted programs.

Legislation continues to be revised and rewritten. Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments ensures that "no person in the United States, shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity of any educational institution receiving Federal financial assistance."

The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act extends civil rights protection to citizens with physical or mental disabilities; protects people with disabilities from discrimination in employment and public accommodations; mandates that buildings, public transportation systems, telecommunications systems, and other public services be made accessible to individuals with disabilities. The bill broadens the definition of disability to include persons with infectious and communicable diseases, specifically AIDS patients and HIV-infected persons.