Act Two: Amendment XV—Former Slaves’ Voting Rights—Ratified February 3, 1870
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The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits denial of citizens’ voting rights based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. It was the last of the three Reconstruction Amendments. The Thirteenth ended slavery; the Fourteenth granted citizenship rights to former slaves but failed to explicitly protect the voting rights of an estimated four million new citizens.
The amendment simply declares that,
“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.”
The Fourteenth Amendment was relatively toothless in that the only punishment for the arbitrary disenfranchisement of males over 21 was to reduce their representation in the House of Representatives. This was not enough to keep the former states of the Confederacy from denying black voters their rights, and even the Northern states dragged their heels; only eight of the former Union states let black citizens vote.
One of the most contentious issues in ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment was that it failed to address the rights of women, which caused deep divisions in the women’s suffrage movement. Since the 14th Amendment only addressed the citizenship of men, it was considered enough of a precedent to push for ratification of the 15th.
However, a number of factors kept this amendment from being adequately enforced. The courts tended to use a very narrow interpretation, saying that its intent was, rather than to end discrimination, to avoid giving preference
“… in this particular, to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Thus, states were able to interpret poll taxes and literacy tests as methods to guarantee against preferences rather than discrimination against the poor and uneducated. People who were able to vote before the Civil War and their descendants were exempted from these requirements (giving rise to the term grandfather clause).
Although Congress had passed a number of laws known as the Enforcement Acts to uphold the provisions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, Reconstruction ended in 1877, and with the withdrawal of Union troops from the former Confederacy, there was a lack of oversight to guarantee proper enforcement.
Jim Crow laws flourished, and militia violence from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and others became rampant. It would not be until 1941, with the Supreme Court case United States vs. Classic, that the courts started interpreting these laws more broadly and gave them some teeth.
As with the Fourteenth Amendment, it looked good on paper, but proper enforcement lagged behind its passage.
Next – Act Three: Amendment XVII – Direct Election of US Senators
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E.A., thanks for this series. I think it is very helpful for folks to get a lesson in voting rights from time to time.
Subscribing to comments. It looks like my typesetting marks didn’t take.
It’s not a question of “didn’t take” and more of a question of “didn’t see.” It takes me a while to edit, set, and publish posts, and, from time to time, I overlook the author notes.