Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
Chapter 20, Lesson 1: A Government of Citizens (pp. 592-597)
I. Citizenship Defined
B. The writers of the U.S. Constitution determined that the citizens of the United States would be responsible for creating and maintaining the U.S. government.
C. One can become a U.S. citizen by being born in the United States, by having a citizen as a parent, or by becoming naturalized.
II. Citizenship Expanded
B. By giving a new definition of citizenship, the Fourteenth Amendment included blacks as citizens.
C. American Indians remained excluded from citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act (the Snyder Act) of 1924.
B. The right to vote gradually expanded to include all white men, then black men, then women, then American Indians, and most recently, people aged 18 to 20.
B. For many decades, discriminatory laws and practices prevented black Americans and American Indians from registering to vote.
C. Although women have had the right to vote since 1920, they have experienced discrimination in many other ways.
Lesson at a Glance Outline
A. A citizen is someone who, by birth or naturalization, owes loyalty to and is protected by a country.
A. The first law defining U.S. citizenship excluded blacks and Indians.
III. Voting Rights Expanded
A. At first, only white men owning property were allowed to vote.
IV. Ideal Versus Reality
A. Even when laws and Constitutional Amendments have existed to guarantee voting rights and citizenship, some groups have been denied their basic rights.
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