The Pros And Cons Of Voting Amendments

The Voting Rights Act was one of the most revolutionary bills ever passed by the congressional legislation in the United States. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into law on August 6th, 1965, not only as part of politics but also, a depiction of morals. Since 1965, it has protected minority voters at the polls, but it has been fifty years since the Voting Rights Act has been passed and it is still a controversial topic that is constantly debated on today. The voting rights of all minorities throughout the country are once again under attack which impacts one’s ability to exercise his or her constitutional right as a citizen.

The fifteen amendment of the United States Constitution prohibit the federal and state government from denying the citizens the right to vote, based on that citizen’s race, color or previous condition of servitude. The fifteen Amendments finally gave the African American the right to vote, but also allowed them to be able to elect into public office. Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promises if the 15 amendment would not fully realized for almost a century, thought the used of poll taxes, literacy test and other means. Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African American. Current controversies over the right to vote can be divided into two types of claims. The first involves the ability to get to the ballot box and cast a vote: these are

Sophia Pienciak Mr. Kotlewski Period 8 17 January 2017 Latter Amendments Essay Martha Griffiths a lawyer once said, “This amendment [the Equal Rights Amendment], if passed, would be like a beacon which should awaken nine sleeping Rip Van Winkle 's to the fact that the twentieth century is passing into history.” A summary of the twenty-fourth amendment is banning poll taxes. That means that in the 1800’s to 1900’s they used to make you pay to vote for a President or a Vice President. This amendment was important to our country.

These laws were hard to get around and go through because many African Americans did not have the money to afford the poll tax and many could not pass the literacy tests because they were not provided with adequate education. In addition, many African American’s grandparents were in enslavement, therefore unable to vote. These inabilities, segregation, and discrimination caused African Americans to be upset and start the Civil Rights Movement and made them want to fight for the rights and goals that they believed in. They would fight until they were satisfied with justice coming about and prevailing (Document 3). They would fight back with peaceful protests and marches.

The Fifteenth Amendment was the third of the Reconstruction Amendments. This series of changes to the Constitution was designed to help create a country in which all men, regardless of race, enjoyed equal rights and liberties. This last of the three amendments to the Bill of Rights guaranteed the right to vote to all men (it did not include women). This right for men was regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of [slavery]." Problems with the New Amendment

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.

They placed laws requiring voters to pass literacy tests (which could be judged arbitrarily) and pay poll taxes (which hit poor whites and poor blacks alike), effectively denying black men the franchise that was supposed to have been guaranteed by the 15th amendment"(page 4, reading #3). Since many blacks were poor and uneducated, the government used methods such as literacy tests and poll taxes to ensure that blacks would not be able to vote. Literacy tests were usually unnecessarily long and if a voter answered one question wrong, their entire participation in the election process was taken away. Blacks didn 't receive the best education, some received no education at all, making them more likely to not pass the test taking away their privilege to vote.

The 17th Amendment passed in 1913 to allow the citizen to have direct election for a Senators. . Related to the political reforms, a change in who has the right to votes were also made. During the Progressive Era, women were also trying to fight for their right to votes in the political matter. People thought women were weak and have no power. They do not support their suffrage and thought what their doing was useless(Doc F).

The Amendments that led up to the 24th were just as significant, but brought no real change. This was huge for the equal rights movement and gave African-Americans a real opportunity to vote and have a voice in politics to one day change the lives of them and their children to come. Poll taxes were a capital tax that applied equally to adults. They were a decent form of revenue for some governments until the mid-1800s. Poll taxes are often closely associated with voting rights in the United States.

This amendment finally gave them the right they thought almost impossible to achieve. It was first drafted as the federal women suffrage amendment and took many decades of struggles (almost forty years) to be ratified (“Nineteenth Amendment”). Senator S. C. Pomeroy of Kansas was the first one to introduce it in 1868. In 1920, it was finally ratified by three- fourths of the states and in Congress (“Women Get the Vote”). It was a lengthy struggle, but it was a great success for women since they proved men how equally important and intelligent they were and this was significantly acknowledged with the 19th amendment that clearly prohibited the denial of vote based on the sex of the

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

As noted in Document 1, the 14th Amendment explicitly affirmed: “…All persons born or naturalized in the United State, 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…” The 14th Amendment ------------ (lead into the 15th amendment) 15th Amendment: The Fifteenth Amendment granted all male citizens, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” the right to vote.

One major change was women throughout the 1920s. The most important reason was equal suffrage. For the longest time, women were not allowed to vote because they were not recognized as worthy members of society. Many people, men and women alike, thought this was very unfair. On August 18th, 1920, women were granted their rights through the 19th Amendment.

The Voting Rights Act was passed into law on August 6, 1965. The law prohibited the use of poll taxes and literacy tests that prevented Southern Blacks from voting. It also gave the federal government authority to supervise how poll taxes are conducted within places with disfranchised African Americans. After the Civil War, regardless of the 15th amendment, which banned the states from denying the right to vote of male citizens based on their race or previous condition of servitude before the war, discrimination was still around, prevented African Americans from voting. Many voting rights activists were also being mistreated violently.

Primary Source Analysis- During the time of reconstruction, which was after the civil war, the government passed the 13, 14, and 15th amendment to give African Americas freedom and rights. The 15th amendment gave the former African American slaves the right to vote. Between 1890 and 1906, the "new" south wanted to eliminate this right for the African Americans. Any African American who fought for their rights would be faced with violence known as lynching, murdering of three or more people.