Informative Essay: The 15th Amendment

Finally, with the ratification the fifteenth amendment in 1870s, it secured the vote for the African Americans, and it forbid states from denying any citizens from the right to vote based on race, color, or “previous condition of servitude.” These three amendments were significant changes during the Reconstruction period because all people, not just white, can fully enjoy being an American citizen without worrying over their race or

The role of African Americans in the US has been crucial to every period of American history. For over a hundred years they had been enslaved, and disagreements over slavery culminated in the US’s bloodiest war. Groups such as abolitionists and northern, Republican politicians ultimately sought to use the war to change the status of slaves and all African Americans. When the Union won, three amendments were passed, which changed the lives of black people nationwide: the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The respectively ended slavery, made all citizens equal under the law regardless of color, and gave blacks the right to vote.

At the end of the U.S.A’s reconstruction the 13 th Amendment was a great success, because America made the South do a pledge to not use slavery anymore, while the 15th Amendment was not because it “sparked” the KKK which did many bad things to African Americans to make sure they did not vote, many other people tried to stop African Americans from voting in many

The 15th Amendment was the last of the “Reconstruction Amendments” to be accepted. On the basis of race and condition of the slavery, black people were discriminated by the white people and this amendment was against of that, which was elaborated to prohibit the discrimination for the benefit of black people. Prominent Army general during the American Civil War and Commanding General at the end of that war – Ulysses Grant was nominated for the presidency in 1868. In that election he achieved votes of large number of people. “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace” – said Grant (speech in London 1889) and he worked on Reconstruction to put

The questions at hand were complex, and involved citizenship and government aid, and had to take the public’s varied opinions into account, as well as the political makeup of Congress. The 13th Amendment freed the slaves, but gave the slaves nothing except their freedom. The 14th amendment defined citizenship, then not only made discriminatory legislation (such as black codes) illegal, but provided consequences for states that did not comply. The Reconstruction Acts, although too broad and expensive to be applied in their entirety, required that the former Confederate States ratify the 13th and 14th amendments, as well as submit redrafted state Constitutions in order to be readmitted to the Union. The 15th Amendment made it possible for people to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”, making it a radical, although certainly not selfless, act that granted African-Americans political power

Which, was due to the veto from President Jonson against Freedmen’s Bureau bill and the Civil Rights bill the radical republicans retaliated by passing through congress the Reconstruction Acts. These Acts were set up in two part fist the 14th Amendment and second the 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was written by Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan on July 9, 1868. The 14th Amendment gave equal rights and protect to all citizens and to all who were born in the United States along with all the slaves who emancipated after the Civil War. The 15th Amendment was passed 1870 this assured any person of color or from previous condition of servitude the right to vote.

‘‘Brown tried to get Douglass to join him countless times in his physical escapades but Douglass refused. (Wu page 55) Slavery was eventually abolished in 1865. Douglass then started campaigning for blacks to have the right to vote. After years of devoting his life to antislavery he then started devoting it towards equality between blacks and whites. The 15th amendment was passed in 1870 which gave blacks the right to vote.

In his speech he explained why they wanted the right to vote, “If the Negro knows enough to pay taxes to support government, he knows enough to vote; taxation and representation should go together... ” (“African Americans,” 2016). In 1869, when Congress debated on the Fifteenth Amendment, the first ever black national meeting of African Americans took place in the convention in Washington, D.C and those who attended the convention spent time meeting with member of Congress, encouraging them to pass a strong Amendment guaranteeing black male suffrage worldwide (“African Americans,” 2016). Democrats feared ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, because they believed that it would create 170,000 loyal black Republican voters in the North and West and to vote against it, they claimed that it restricted the states’ rights to run their own election and also that the low literacy of the black population would affect the votes (“African Americans,” 2016). Despite all Democratic oppositions, the Republicans won ratification victories and in March 30, 1869, President Grant officially proclaimed the Fifteenth Amendment as part of the Constitution.

The 15th Amendment (Amendment XV), which gave African-American men the right to vote, was inserted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although the amendment was passed in the late 1870s, many racist practices were used to oppose African-Americans from voting, especially in the Southern States like Georgia and Alabama. After many years of racism, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overthrow legal barricades at the state and local levels that deny African-Americans their right to vote. In the

The 15th amendment aimed to give more federal protection to former slaves. Specifically, this amendment gave all male citizens, including former slaves the right to vote. Next, this other civil rights act granted equal rights to whites and African Americans in all public locations. This was helpful to former slaves, because it made them feel respected. Except, it was not strictly

Living in America run by men, having no voice and no say. We are made to be silent and tend to our masters. The fifteenth amendment gave a right to all men, why are women still viewed as less than. come together and have a voice, fighting for a life woman yearn for. We birth them all, only to be told we 'll never be equivalent.

But, when these officials were elected to Congress, they passed the “black codes” and thus the relations between the president and legislators became worst (Schriefer, Sivell and Arch R1). These so called “Black Codes” were “a series of laws to deprive blacks of their constitutional rights” that they were enacted mainly by Deep South legislatures. Black Codes differ from a state to another but they were stricter in the Deep South as they were sometimes irrationally austere. (Hazen 30) Furthermore, with the emergence of organizations such as the Red Shirts and the White League with the rise of the Conservative White Democrats’ power, efforts to prevent Black Americans from voting were escalating (Watts 247), even if the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S constitution that gave the Blacks the right to vote had been ratified in 1870.

One of reasons the confederacy failed was because the U.S. Congress, with Lincoln’s support, proposed the 13th amendment which would abolish slavery in America. Although the confederate peace delegation was unwilling to accept a future without slavery, the radical and moderate Republicans designed a way to takeover the reconstruction program. The Radical Republicans wanted full citizenship rights for African Americans and wanted to implement harsh reconstruction policies toward the south. The radical republican views made up the majority of the Congress and helped to pass the 14th amendment which guaranteed equality under the law for all citizens, and protected freedmen from presidential vetoes, southern state legislatures, and federal court decisions. In 1869, Congress passed the fifteenth amendment stating that no citizen can be denied the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

This lead to black codes which were laws passed by southern states in 1865 and 1866 in the United States after the American civil war with the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans’ freedom ,and of compelling them to work in the labor economy based on low wages or debts. On February 3, 1870 the 15th Amendment granted African Americans the right to vote. Blacks were scared of the Ku Klux Klan, which used violence, such as lynchings to scare African Americans from voting. This was a hate group in the southern U.S. who was active for several years after the civil war, which aimed to suppress the newly acquired rights of black people and to oppose carpetbaggers from the North, and which was responsible for many lawless and violent

Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.