	
	In 1865, America did not meet the modern minimum standards of a democracy. These minimums include a control over government decisions about policy that is constitutionally vested in elected representatives chose in frequent and fair elections, a government which encourages and allows rights of citizenship such as freedom of speech, religion, opinion, and association, majority rule that is accompanied by respect for the rights of minorities and the right of all adult citizens to vote in elections and run for political office. Even though from 1865 to 1924, America underwent massive social and economic changes, the overall level of democracy in the United States of America over this 60 year period stayed relatively the same.
	The Industrial Revolution, which would last for 65 years after the Civil War would cause major change in the United States, but it did not increase or decrease the overall democratic nature of the American governmental system. This industrial growth lead to the creation of many of the business systems we are familiar with today, including corporations, unions and labor strikes. These new capitalist systems were a blessing to the might of the nation, but caused much civil strife among the American class system over hours, wages, working conditions and organization of labor. The corporation allowed for the organization of business into more efficient, profit oriented endeavors than had been seen before. At the same time, unions began forming to protect and promote the rights of the working class.
	The creation of limited liability corporations allowed for increased profits and a system for which companies could grow. These corporations, without any governmental restrictions, took advantage of unorganized labor, forcing workers to work long hours, for low wages in harsh conditions. While corporations were expanding and reaching higher and higher profits, workers suffered under the new corporate systems. In attempts to organize labor, workers formed unions and began strikes for better working conditions. Unfortunately for labor, who did not have the lobbying abilities of large corporations, government, especially Republicans, sided with the corporations and usually sent troops in to end strikes. 
	This support of the corporations over workers, who made up a larger portion of the public may seem like a decrease in the democratic liberties of the American public, however it was more of a side effect. Troops were brought in to end strikes more because strikes were likely to turn violent more than as an oppression of the working class. Elected officials, siding with the corporations, were still acting on democratic principles. These officials could be voted out of office, however new officials still sided with corporations and would continue to do so until the 1930s. This was mostly because the Industrial Revolution was increasing the power of America and its interests internationally. These politicians saw it in the interests of America to continue the progress of the Industrial Revolution, which meant making sure that production was kept up in important industries, such as railroads, steel, oil, automobiles, and arms. 
	Although workers did not gain immediate sweeping changes, they slowly gained rights from various world and American events. World War I showed workers that they would be able to gain such sought after principles as the 8 hour day, a living wage and better working conditions. The progressive movement of the early 20th century also saw the end of most child labor in the United States as well. These advances in the labor movement gave workers hope that they could achieve proper working conditions, which they would finally gain in the mid 1930s.  The conflict and fraction that northern workers encountered during the later part of the 19th century and early 20th century was mild compared to the discrimination and resistance to democracy and equality in the South.
	After the Civil War, African Americans were gaining new freedoms and rights. No longer slaves, newly freed black sought to become land owners and get back and stand on their own economically. When the federal government, under the Freeman's Bureau did not provide blacks with economic support in form of 40 acres and a mule, African Americans were forced into a system of sharecropping, renting land, tools and farm supplies from their former white masters. Under this system, blacks began to rack up large debts, and returned to an unofficial slavery.
	While Union soldiers still were stationed in the south, which would occur from 1865 to 1877, Blacks were able to attain a newfound political freedom. Blacks were given the right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and with Union soldiers in the South to ensure blacks could vote (and at times, restrict the Southern white ability to vote), Blacks and pro-Republican reformers were elected to public offices and given civic jobs. This enforcement of the 15th Amendment was only temporary.
	With the compromise of 1877 Union troops were withdrawn from the Southern states and the South was given control of its own affairs again. The removal of Union troops lead to a drastic reduction in the democratic level of the southern United States. It meant that Blacks would no longer have easy access to the polls. Although the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted equal protection under the law to all, disregarding race, sex or religion, made it difficult for hostile southern whites to unlawfully discriminate against black voters, southern whites got aggressive in their attempts to curtail Black voting practices. Gerrymandering became commonplace to affect the Election Day outcomes of voting districts. Poll taxes and literacy tests were used to drive poor and uneducated blacks away from the polls. If none of these practices could sway the system in the favor of southern whites, they resorted to violence.
	The KKK, founded to resist change to southern practices after the Civil War had ended, used violence and domestic terror against blacks to force them into submission. Lynching and murder became a racially based act of vigilantly violence, which became a social event for southern whites, who saw it as a social event to lynch a black person. These violent actions, backed by judicial verdicts threatened to completely wipe out black rights in the South. In 1896 with the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Furgesson, freedom and equality for blacks took a blow that would loom over blacks for the next sixty years. If democracies have a majority rule with respect for the rights of minorities, then with the induction of segregation in the United States after 1896, the United States had, on a practical level, gained no ground when it came to the rights of African Americans. 
	African Americans were not the only ethic or racial group discriminated against in between 1865 and 1924. Immigration restriction, with its focus on restricting the immigration to America so only certain "desirable" groups could enter the United States, left the democratic level of the United States unchanged. Americans around the turn of the century felt that non Anglo-Saxon or Germanic peoples were inferior peoples, who should not be allowed to ruin the superior design of the modern American ethic makeup. Eastern and Southern Europeans, Slavs, Jews, Italians, Turks and Russians, were all seen as inferior, lazy and dimwitted peoples who would only drag down America. There was similar sentiment on the west coast against Asian immigrants, including people from China, Japan, Korea or any of the other smaller Asian countries or colonies.
	This hatred of outsiders not only stemmed from America's isolationist tendencies, but also from its vastly Anglo-Saxon Protestant population that felt that they were the superior race of people and America should only be a beacon of hope to others from the same ethnic background. Spurred on by the Eugenics movement, based on the theories of Gregor Mendel about the human genome, people attempted to restrict "inferior peoples" from entering and corrupting America. Americans were still happy to have immigrants from Northern and Western European countries such as France, Germany, England, Ireland, Norway and Sweden, because these were the places their own forefathers had immigrated from. 
	In reaction to the popular support to immigration restriction, lawmakers passed several laws curtailing the immigration abilities of undesired foreigners. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. This act restricted most Chinese people from coming into the country. Most of the Chinese immigrants had come between 1849 and 1882, beginning with the California Gold Rush. After the gold rush, Chinese immigrants worked as farmers, on railroad construction crews, and in low-paying, dangerous, industrial jobs. Similarly in 1917, literacy requirements were passed into law for immigrants to be able to enter the country. The final legal blockade came in the form of the immigration act of 1924, which limited a specific quota of people allowed into the country from each different ethnic group based on current census data.
	Although these laws made it difficult for immigrants to enter the country, they did not truly lower the level of democracy in the United States. Restricting immigration was not only the will of the majority of the American people; it is not technically in violation of the requirements for a democracy. Because immigrants are not technically citizens, restricting their entry into the country does not discourage their rights, because they do not have any rights due to their lack of citizenship. Therefore, although unfair and most likely unjust, immigration restrictions to the United States, which followed the will of the American public, followed the guidelines for how a democracy makes policy. This means that for the Americans at the time, the United States stayed equally democratic as it had been when concerning immigrants.
	Although there were any areas of American life that seem unjust or unlawful in a modern lens, at the time, there were major steps towards reform and improvement in the American system. In 1913, the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed. This Amendment made the United States Senate a popularly elected legislative body. Until this point, Senators had been elected by State Congressional votes. With the addition of the 17th Amendment, Americans could now elect more representatives who had to answer to the American people. In a democratic republic, this is a solid step towards a more democratic system.
	Other Progressive Era reforms came for women, who were gaining more and more of a voice in the governmental system. Thanks to women's organizations, who lobbied for the recognition of women's dominance in the area of the American household, women were able to make changes in governmental policy. The Women's Bureau and the Children's Bureau were important steps for women to improving their status in American society. Women gained notoriety for organizations like the Hull House and the "Female Domain" became an accepted area of expertise in the North. The crowning moment for democratic expansion came in 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Women's Suffrage Amendment was an increase in the democratic nature of the American system, now that the other 50% of citizens could vote. The only downfall of the Women's Suffrage Amendment was that it did not affect the outcomes of election to any major degree. Women still tended to listen to their husbands about political issues, and even if they did not agree 100%, families usually had similar political outlooks and voting practices, just like the majority of American families today.
	If you look at the American political and social landscape from 1865-1924, you find that although major socio-economic developments have taken place due to the Industrial Revolution, you find that the amount of democracy in America from the end of the Civil War to right after the first World War to not have changed that much. Most of the same minimum requirements for democracies are being met in 1924, just as much as they were 60 years prior. The parts of the definition of a democracy that were not being followed in 1865 were mostly not fixed by 1924, it would take a Second World War, a Civil Right movement, and a generational revolution to finally secure the changes that were necessary for America to meet the minimum requirements for a democracy.
	


