Jean Pfaelzer, Historian: The minute the Northern troops are withdrawn from the South — and Reconstruction falls apart — and the South is voting again in Congress, and can take apart the civil-rights victories of the Civil War — it becomes an invitation to race wars. You all see it coming and that makes a movie without any suspense. They couldn't believe it, the government did that. Supreme Court — citing the citizenship clause of the 14 th Amendment — ruled that Wong Kim Ark, like any one else born on American soil, was an American citizen. The declaration of your independence, and all the acts of your government, your people, and your history are all against you.
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