15 Amendment Pros And Cons

Before the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment they were not recognized as US citizens, therefore they were not allowed to vote or serve in Senate or in Congress. After the Amendments were ratified, they gained the right to vote. To protect their right, the government made a law that if the South denied blacks the right to vote, they would be punished. In the government, African-Americans started to run for political positions. Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first ever African-American to serve in the US Senate when he was elected to the US Senate to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era.

The ⅗ Compromise was a solution to a conflict between the United States northern and southern states in 1787. The conflict was whether or not enslaved people would be counted as representing a whole person when it came to representation in the Electoral College and the House of Representatives in Congress. It was decided that each slave would represent ⅗ of the value of a free person. The impact of this compromise was that it temporarily solved a problem that could have kept our country from moving forward as a new nation. The ⅗ Compromise allowed our country to ratify the US Constitution in 1790 but also pointed out the great flaw of slavery in our nation and opened our eyes to the reality of slavery and how the slaves weren’t treated like ⅗ of a person at all.

Can be separate but equal? The supreme court thought so in 1892.Just before The Supreme court decided this the 14th amendment was passed. It stated that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”(The United States Constitution) were considered citizens. In the next coming years tension grew as African Americans soon found out that their separate stations were not equal to the white stations. Homer Plessy was the first to stand up and voice his opinion.

The 13th amendment was passed by the congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on december 6, 1865. President Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation But it started to help abolishing slavery and making it and

The houses of Congress requires a ⅔ vote and the states require a ¾ vote. As of today, Congress have only ratified 17 amendments and each amendment has impacted the American society economically, socially, and politically. The 14th amendment was adopted on July 9, 1868, which is one year after the civil war ended. The purpose of the civil war was to end slavery and at the end of the war when the slaves were free, Congress implemented an amendment that helped the African American slaves become citizens of the united states.

362) These government measures gifted African Americans the rights and benefits of citizenship. However, planters resented these advancements and wished to regain their previous social and political dominance. When the First Reconstruction Act was passed in 1867, political activity among African Americans surged, with “approximately 735,000 black and 635,000 white voters” enrolled in the ten unreconstructed states, and black electoral majorities in five states, as reported by Faragher. (Out of Many, p. 372) After African Americans were granted the right to vote in February 1869 with the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, “Congress required the four remaining unreconstructed states to ratify both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments before readmission,” as stated by Faragher.

Unfortunately, the United States of Representatives did not pass the legislation until January 31, 1865 after president Abraham Lincoln made it his number one priority in his 1864 re-election campaign.

The fourteenth amendment was formed, when the Civil War had just came to a finish, which defeated the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln, who was president at the time, had declared the slaves freed at the end of the war; but there were still a lot of questions concerning the former Confederates and what the status of slaves in the country would become. Congress shaped the Reconstruction Amendments which included the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution. The thirteenth amendment was ratified in December of 1865 and put an end to slavery in the United States. This new law stated that slaves were no longer the property of the people, but the new law did not answer questions about the new rights that they were now definite.

This decision is considered the worst rendered by the Supreme Court; however, would subsequently be later overturned by the passing of the 13th and 14th Amendment. With the civil war going on its third year, National Archives states, “It was only until President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, henceforward shall be free” (The Emancipation Proclamation, 2018). President Lincoln gave moral reinforcement to the union’s cause but also gave hope to hundreds of thousands of African Americans.

One man, Homer Plessy refused to move to a black train car when asked. This eventually started the Plessy v. Ferguson Court Case. Plessy V. Ferguson decided the “separate but equal” doctrine, meaning that the black and whites could have separate facilities, as long as they were the same in equality. In 1890, U.S government officials decided to put the Separate Car Act into place in Louisiana.

The 14th amendment completely rewrites the whole constitution and deems the slaves as full citizens of the United States. This amendment also undoes the ruling of the Dred Scott case which states that no black man has any rights that any white man should recognize. Even with this amendment being passed only two states explicitly allowed black men to vote, Tennessee and Iowa. Eventually because many white men began to find loop holes in letting the black men vote the 15th amendment was passed. The new 15th amendment states a list of reasons that a state cannot allow an individual to vote.

Constitution place on state’s power to determine voter qualifications? Those limitations start with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act prohibits racial discrimination when voting in the local, state, and federal levels. “Section 2, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color” (ourdocuments.gov). Not since the reconstruction period after the civil war had there been such a “significant statutory change in the relationship between the Federal and state governments” (ourdocuments.gov).

1867 - The Reconstruction Act of 1867 1868 – Ratification of 14th Amendment 1920 – Nineteenth Amendment 1923 – Equal Rights Amendment The Reconstruction Act of 1867 was an act that would not allow for confederate states to rejoin the union unless they ratified the 14th amendment and guaranteed black men the right to vote. This was one of the first pieces of legislation that began the journey for equal rights for all people in America. Although the Reconstruction Act of 1867 was not entirely successful on its own, it did eventually lead to the ratification of the 14th amendment in 1868. Before the ratification of the 14th amendment, people held that the amendment did not apply to slaves or former slaves.

African Americans never had freedom in the past, as they were treated poorly. White people discriminated black people back then just because they weren’t the same skin color or came from the same origin. “Set free by the 13th amendment, with citizenship guaranteed by the 14th amendment, black males were given the vote by the 15th amendment. From that point on, the freedmen were generally expected to fend for themselves. In retrospect, it can be seen that the 15th amendment was in reality only the beginning of a struggle for equality that would continue for more than a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life.

People of color were long decided that they were not pure. Moreover in 1661 a law was passed that stated if a white servant run away with a negro they were given special services for extra years to the master of the runaway negro, because servants white or black worked together and did not see black and white. And in 1691 there was a ban in interracial marriages, a white man or woman was not to marry a Negro, Indian and mulatoo even If they were free. All these laws described above were passed during a labor intensive time in Virginia, were black slaves worked more, were treated harshly just like the negro Emmanuel and were considered property of the master who did as he saw fit if the slave misbehaved. In the article written by Omi and Winant they describe the first step of racial formation theory as, “ A process of historically situated projects in which human bodies and social structure are presented and organized.