“The Work Accomplished — Ceremonies at Promontory Summit.

“Special Dispatch to the New York Times.

“Promontory, Utah, Monday, May 10.

“The long-looked for moment has arrived. . . . The inhabitants of the Atlantic seaboard and dwellers of the Pacific slopes are henceforth emphatically one people. Your correspondent is writing on Promontory Summit amid the deafening shouts of the multitude, with the tick, tick, of the telegraph close to his ear. The proceedings of the day are: . . .

“Laying of the two rails, one opposite the other—one for the Union Pacific Railroad, and one for the Central Pacific Railroad. . . .

“Driving of the last spikes by the two Companies; [the] telegraph [is] to be attached to the spike of the Central Pacific Company, and the last blow to announce to the world by telegraph the completion of the Pacific Railroad.

“Telegram to the President of the United States.

“Telegram to the Associated Press. . . .”

The New York Times, news report, 1869

The development of the railroads as described in the excerpt had which of the following effects on westward expansion in the late 1800s?

“The Thirteenth Amendment does not permit the withholding or the deprivation of any right necessarily inhering in freedom. It not only struck down the institution of slavery as previously existing in the United States, but it prevents the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that constitute badges of slavery or servitude. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. This court has so adjudged. But that amendment having been found inadequate to the protection of the rights of those who had been in slavery, it was followed by the Fourteenth Amendment, which added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship and to the security of personal liberty. . . .

“These two amendments, if enforced according to their true intent and meaning, will protect all the civil rights that pertain to freedom and citizenship. . . .

“These notable additions to the fundamental law were welcomed by the friends of liberty throughout the world. They removed the race line from our governmental systems. They had, as this court has said, a common purpose, namely to secure to a race recently emancipated, a race that through many generations have been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the [White] race enjoy.’”

John Marshall Harlan, United States Supreme Court Justice, dissenting opinion in the case Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

The historical situation of the court ruling described in the excerpt could best be used to support which of the following claims about African Americans during the late 1800s?