Download 14 and 15 Amendments

14TH AMENDMENT
From: ourdocuments.gov
Background: (1868)
Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments, 13th -14th-15th, as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee
equal civil and legal rights to black citizens. The major provision of the 14th amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or
naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to former slaves. Another equally important provision was the statement that “nor
shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.” The right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the Federal and state governments.
On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and
became part of the supreme law of the land.
Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, the primary author of the first section of the 14th amendment, intended that the amendment also
nationalize the Federal Bill of Rights by making it binding upon the states. [INCORPORATION] Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan, introducing
the amendment, specifically stated that the privileges and immunities clause would extend to the states “the personal rights guaranteed and
secured by the first eight amendments.”
One legacy of Reconstruction was the determined struggle of black and white citizens to make the promise of the 14th amendment a reality.
Citizens petitioned and initiated court cases, Congress enacted legislation, and the executive branch attempted to enforce measures that would
guard all citizens’ rights. While these citizens did not succeed in empowering the 14th amendment during the Reconstruction, they effectively
articulated arguments and offered dissenting opinions that would be the basis for change in the 20th century.
14TH AMENDMENT:
Section 1:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for
President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in
any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which
the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer
of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may
by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4:
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of
pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State
shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or
emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5:
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
15th amendment
Background: From PBS.org (American Experience: U.S. Grant)
At the time of Ulysses S. Grant's election to the presidency in 1868, Americans were struggling to reconstruct a nation torn apart by war. Voting
rights for freed blacks proved a big problem. Reconstruction Acts passed after the war called for black suffrage in the Southern states,(14th
amendment), but many felt the approach unfair. The Acts did not apply to the North. And in 1868, 11 of the 21 Northern states did not allow
blacks to vote in elections. Most of the border states, where one-sixth of the nation's black population resided, also refused to allow blacks to
vote.
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. Congress spent the days between Grant's election and his inauguration drafting this new
amendment, which would be the 15th added to the Constitution.
The writers of the Fifteenth Amendment produced three different versions of the document. The first of these prohibited states from denying
citizens the vote because of their race, color, or the previous experience of being a slave. The second version prevented states from denying the
vote to anyone based on literacy, property, or the circumstances of their birth. The third version stated plainly and directly that all male citizens
who were 21 or older had the right to vote.
Determined to pass the amendment, Congress ultimately accepted the first and most moderate of the versions as the one presented for a vote.
This took some wrangling in the halls of Congress, however. Many Congressmen felt that the first version did not go far enough, and that it left
too many loopholes.
Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, 1869. But some states resisted ratification. At one point, the ratification count stood at
17 Republican states approving the amendment and four Democratic states rejecting it. Congress still needed 11 more states to ratify the
amendment before it could become law.
All eyes turned toward those Southern states which had yet to be readmitted to the Union. Acting quickly, Congress ruled that in order to be let
into the Union, these states had to accept both the Fifteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all
people born in the United States, including former slaves. Left with no choice, the states ratified the amendments and were restored to
statehood.
Finally, on March 30, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution. To many, it felt like the last step of reconstruction. But just
as some had predicted, Southerners found ways to prevent blacks from voting. Southern politics would turn violent as Democrats and
Republicans clashed over the right of former slaves to enter civic life. White supremacist vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan, backed by the
Democratic Party in the South, “Redeemers”, gained strength as many whites refused to accept blacks as their equals. America still faced years
of struggle.
The 15th Amendment:
Section 1. 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—
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.