The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution (2024)

FAQs

The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution? ›

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.

Reconstruction Amendments: Definition and Overview

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to all people born in the US. The 15th Amendment gave Black Americans the right to vote.

In those years, African Americans in the South faced tremendous obstacles to voting, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions to deny them the right to vote. They also risked harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals, and physical violence when they tried to register or vote.

The Fifteenth Amendment would guarantee protection against racial discrimination in voting. Many women's rights activists objected to the proposed amendment because the protections would only apply to men. Still, enough states approved the Fifteenth Amendment that it was adopted in 1870.

Republicans' answer to the problem of the Black vote was to add a Constitutional amendment that guaranteed Black suffrage in all states, and no matter which party controlled the government.

Lincoln and other leaders realized amending the Constitution was the only way to officially end slavery. The 13th Amendment forever abolished slavery as an institution in all U.S. states and territories. In addition to banning slavery, the amendment outlawed the practice of involuntary servitude and peonage.

If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President.

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

What is the 24th Amendment? ›

Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 24 – “Elimination of Poll Taxes” Amendment Twenty-four to the Constitution was ratified on January 23, 1964. It abolished and forbids the federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

However, the issue of suffrage and Chinese immigrants caused the California State Senate to reject the Fifteenth Amendment by a substantial margin and the Oregon legislature not even to consider it (the two states finally ratified it nearly a century later in 1962 and 1959, respectively).

They opposed the 15th Amendment, arguing — at times in strident racist rhetoric — that white women deserved voting rights before Black men. Though it took another half century, white women eventually did win the right to vote.

So, to answer your question, the 15th Amendment did exclude women from gaining the right to vote. The amendment aimed to protect the voting rights of African American men who had been previously denied the right to vote due to racial discrimination.

What was a weakness of the Fifteenth Amendment? It did not prohibit voting restrictions such as literacy tests. It did not apply in states that belonged to the Confederacy. It mandated that elections occur on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

what is the 15th amendment. allowed all men to vote without being denied by race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.

Amendment Sixteen to the Constitution was ratified on February 3, 1913. It grants Congress the authority to issue an income tax without having to determine it based on population.

Section 1: In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Ulysses S. Grant & the 15th Amendment (U.S. National Park Service)