The Fifteenth Amendment

Examples of The Fifteenth Amendment in the following topics:

• 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.

• African Americans in Southern Politics

  • About 137 black officeholders had lived outside of the South before the Civil War.
  • Some had escaped from slavery to the North, become educated, and returned to help the South advance in the postwar era.
  • The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote, but did not guarantee that the vote would be counted or the districts would be apportioned equally.
  • Because he preceded any African American in the House, he was the first African American in the U.S.
  • House of Representatives, the second black person to serve in the U.S.

• 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.

• Legislative Change

  • The Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since the Reconstruction Era following the American Civil War.
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1960 addressed some of the shortcomings of the 1957 act.
  • Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.
  • Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act secured voting rights for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South.
  • That was the only time the two ever met.

• 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.

• Civil Rights and Voting Rights

  • Congress asserted its authority to legislate about civil rights under three parts of the United States Constitution: its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws (under the Fourteenth Amendment), and its duty to protect voting rights (under the Fifteenth Amendment).
  • The bill would soon be followed by the equally momentous Voting Rights Act, which effectively ended the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South.
  • The bill divided and engendered a long-term change in the demographics of both the democratic and republican parties.
  • Goldwater had supported previous attempts to pass Civil Rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 as well as the 24th Amendment outlawing the poll tax; however, he rejected the idea of the national government regulating such acts.
  • In January 1964, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, prohibiting the imposition of poll taxes on voters, was finally ratified.

• 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

• The Bourbons and the Redeemers

  • Redeemers were the southern wing of Bourbon Democrats—the conservative, pro-business wing of the Democratic Party during Reconstruction.
  • Strong supporters of reform movements such as the Civil Service Reform and opponents of the corrupt city bosses, Bourbons led the fight against the Tweed Ring.
  • The anticorruption theme earned the votes of many Republican Mugwumps in 1884.
  • Redeemers were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats—the conservative, pro-business faction in the Democratic Party who sought to oust the Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags.
  • The Thirteenth Amendment (banning slavery), Fourteenth Amendment (guaranteeing the civil rights of former slaves and ensuring equal protection of the laws), and Fifteenth Amendment (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote on grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude) enshrined such political rights in the Constitution.

• The Radical Record

  • Johnson, however, was content with allowing former Confederate states into the Union as long as their state governments adopted the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.
  • The Senate overrode the veto by the close vote of 33:15, the House by 122:41.
  • The Radical Republicans also passed the Reconstruction Amendments, which were directed at ending slavery and providing full citizenship to freedmen.
  • For instance, the Fourteenth Amendment, whose principal drafter was John Bingham, was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution.
  • Full federal enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not occur until passage of legislation in the mid-1960s as a result of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968).