During and immediately after the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passed three constitutional amendments that provided political and social equality for African Americans. They were termed the "Reconstruction Amendments" and were spearheaded by the Radical Republicans in Congress. 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." The amendments were directed at ending slavery and providing full citizenship to freedmen. Northern congressmen believed that providing black men with the right to vote would be the most rapid means of political education and training.
The Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865.
Slavery had been tacitly enshrined in the original Constitution through provisions such as Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, commonly known as the "Three-Fifths Compromise," which detailed how each state's total slave population would be factored into its total population count for the purposes of apportioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and direct taxes among the states. Though many slaves had been declared free by President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, their postwar status was uncertain.
Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes continued to subject some black Americans to involuntary labor, particularly in the South.
The impact of the abolition of slavery was felt quickly. When the Thirteenth Amendment became operational, the scope of Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was widened to include the entire nation. Although the majority of Kentucky's slaves had been emancipated, 65,000 to 100,000 people remained to be legally freed when the amendment went into effect on December 18. In Delaware, where a large number of escaped slaves had settled during the war, 900 people became legally free.
In addition to abolishing slavery and prohibiting involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, the Thirteenth Amendment also nullified the Fugitive Slave Clause and the Three-Fifths Compromise.
The Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted on July 9, 1868, was the second of three Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment provided the foundation for equal rights for all U.S. citizens, including African Americans, and a framework for their implementation in the former Confederate states.
The three main clauses of the amendment are the "Citizenship" clause, the "Due Process" clause, and the "Equal Protection" clause. The "Citizenship" clause overruled the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. The "Due Process" clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. The "Equal Protection" clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that led to the desegregation of U.S. schools.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had previously granted U.S. citizenship to all persons born in the United States. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment added this amendment to the Constitution for two reasons. First, to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to be unconstitutional for lack of congressional authority to enact such a law, and second, to prevent a future Congress from altering it by a mere majority vote. The amendment was also in response to the Black Codes that Southern states had passed in the wake of the abolishment of slavery. These Black Codes attempted to return former slaves to something like their former condition by, among other things, restricting their movement, forcing them to enter into year-long labor contracts, prohibiting them from owning firearms, and by preventing them from suing or testifying in court.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment, depicted here, allowed for the incorporation of the First Amendment against the states.
The Fifteenth Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's, "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.
In the final years of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of black former slaves. By 1869, amendments had been passed to abolish slavery and provide citizenship and equal protection under the laws, but the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 convinced a majority of Republicans that protecting the franchise of black voters was important for the party's future. After rejecting more sweeping versions of a suffrage amendment, Congress proposed a compromise amendment banning franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude on February 26, 1869. The amendment survived a difficult ratification fight and was adopted on March 30, 1870.
U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the late nineteenth century interpreted the amendment narrowly. From 1890 to 1910, most black voters in the South were effectively disenfranchised by new state constitutions and state laws incorporating such obstacles as poll taxes and discriminatory literacy tests, from which white voters were exempted by grandfather clauses. A system of whites-only primaries and violent intimidation by white groups also suppressed black participation.