Fifteenth Amendment

Examples of Fifteenth Amendment in the following topics:

• The 15th Amendment

  • The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits states from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's race.
  • The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (for example, slavery).
  • "The Fifteenth Amendment", an 1870 print celebrating the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in February 1870, and the advancements that African-Americans had made as a result of the Civil War.
  • State the group of citizens extended protection by the 15th Amendment

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and the Movement for Women's Suffrage

  • Women's suffrage in the United States was achieved gradually, at state and local levels, during the late 19th century and early 20th century, culminating in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which gave women the right to vote.
  • Their object was to secure an amendment to the Constitution in favor of women's suffrage, and they opposed passage of the Fifteenth Amendment unless it was changed to guarantee to women the right to vote.
  • After the American Civil War, both Stanton and Anthony broke with their abolitionist backgrounds and lobbied strongly against ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, which granted African American men the right to vote.
  • In the decade following ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, both Stanton and Anthony increasingly took the position, first advocated by Victoria Woodhull, that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments actually did give women the right to vote.
  • They argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, which defined citizens as "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," included women and that the Fifteenth Amendment provided all citizens with the right to vote.

• The Reconstruction Amendments

  • The Fifteenth Amendment, proposed in late February 1869 and passed in early February 1870, decreed that the right to vote could not be denied because of, "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
  • The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.
  • The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted on July 9, 1868, was the second of three Reconstruction Amendments.
  • The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S.
  • The Fourteenth Amendment, depicted here, allowed for the incorporation of the First Amendment against the states.

• Informal Methods of Amending the Constitution: Societal Change and Judicial Review

  • However, formal recognition of the right of poor whites and black males, and later of women, was only fully secured in the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and the Nineteenth Amendment (1920).

• The Women's Suffrage Movement

  • In 1869, the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution which gave black men the right to vote, split the movement.
  • In June 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was brought before the Senate, and after a long discussion it was passed, with 56 ayes and 25 nays.

• Formal Methods of Amending the Constitution

  • In response to this pressure the Senate finally relented and approved what later became the Seventeenth Amendment for fear that such a convention—if permitted to assemble—might stray to include issues above and beyond the direct election of U.S.
  • Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution that have been ratified, Congress has specified the method of ratification through state conventions for only one: the 21st Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1933.
  • The states unanimously ratified the Bill of Rights; the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment, providing for equal protection and due process; the Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting; and the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women a federal constitutional right to vote.

• Johnson's Battle with Congress

  • Johnson ignored this, and openly encouraged southern states to refuse the ratification of the 14th Amendment.
  • The Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, were adopted between 1865 and 1870.
  • The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was ratified in 1865.
  • Full federal enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not occur until the passage of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) necessitated the amendments' legislation.
  • The states were also required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and grant voting rights to black men

• Reconstruction in the South

  • Johnson ignored the policy mandate, and he openly encouraged Southern states to deny ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Three Constitutional amendments, known as the Reconstruction Amendments, were adopted.
  • The Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified in 1865.
  • The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, guaranteeing United States citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and granting them federal civil rights.
  • The Fifteenth Amendment, proposed in late February 1869 and passed in early February 1870, decreed that the right to vote could not be denied because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude. " The amendment did not declare the vote an unconditional right; it prohibited these types of discrimination.

• Lincoln's Plan and Congress's Response

  • Lincoln's plan successfully began the Reconstruction process of ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment in all states.
  • The Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified in 1865.
  • The Fourteenth Amendment, proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, guaranteed U.S. citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and granted them federal civil rights.
  • The Fifteenth Amendment, proposed in late February 1869 and passed in early February 1870, decreed that the right to vote could not be denied because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
  • In addition, Congress required that each state draft a new state constitution—which would have to be approved by Congress—and that each state ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.

• The 19th Amendment

  • The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex.
  • The 19th Amendment recognized the right of American women to vote.