Reconstruction Amendments

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Slavery is dead? Thomas Nast presents the Republican argument for federal civil-rights legislation and constitutional amendment in this illustration for the January 12, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly Slavery is dead%3F Thomas Nast.jpg
Slavery is dead? Thomas Nast presents the Republican argument for federal civil-rights legislation and constitutional amendment in this illustration for the January 12, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly
A political cartoon of Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln, 1865, entitled "The 'Rail Splitter' at Work Repairing the Union." The caption reads (Johnson): Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever!! (Lincoln): A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended! Lincoln and Johnsond.jpg
A political cartoon of Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln, 1865, entitled "The 'Rail Splitter' at Work Repairing the Union." The caption reads (Johnson): Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever!! (Lincoln): A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended!

The Reconstruction Amendments, or the Civil War Amendments, are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. [1] The amendments were a part of the implementation of the Reconstruction of the American South which occurred after the Civil War.

Contents

The Thirteenth Amendment (proposed in 1864 and ratified in 1865) abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except for those duly convicted of a crime. [2] The Fourteenth Amendment (proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons. The Fifteenth Amendment (proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870) prohibits discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." [3]

These amendments were intended to guarantee the freedom of the formerly enslaved and grant certain civil rights to them, and to protect the formerly enslaved and all citizens of the United States from discrimination. However, the promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions throughout the late 19th century. The promise of these amendments was not fully realized until the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Background

The Reconstruction Amendments were adopted between 1865 and 1870, [1] the five years which immediately followed the Civil War. [4] The last time the Constitution had been amended was with the Twelfth Amendment more than 60 years earlier in 1804.

These three amendments were part of a large movement to reconstruct the United States that followed the Civil War. Their proponents believed that they would transform the United States from a country that was (in Abraham Lincoln's words) "half slave and half free" [5] to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to the entire populace, including the formerly enslaved and their descendants.

Thirteenth Amendment

Text of the 13th Amendment 13th Amendment Pg1of1 AC.jpg
Text of the 13th Amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime. [6] It was passed by the U.S. Senate on April 8, 1864, and, after one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on January 31, 1865. [7] The measure was swiftly ratified by all but three Union states (the exceptions were Delaware, New Jersey, and Kentucky), and by a sufficient number of border and "reconstructed" Southern states, to be ratified by December 6, 1865. [7] On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed it to have been incorporated into the federal Constitution. It became part of the Constitution 61 years after the Twelfth Amendment, the longest interval between constitutional amendments to date. [8]

Slavery had been tacitly enshrined in the original Constitution through provisions such as Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, commonly known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, which detailed how each state's total enslaved population would be factored into its total population count for the purposes of apportioning seats in the United States House of Representatives and direct taxes among the states. [9] Although many enslaved people had been declared free by Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, their legal status after the Civil War was uncertain. [10]

Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was proposed by Congress on June 13, 1866. [7] By July 9, 1868, it had received ratification by the legislatures of the required number of states in order to officially become the Fourteenth Amendment. [7] On July 20, 1868, Secretary of State William Seward certified that it had been ratified and added to the federal Constitution. [11] The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to the treatment of freedmen following the war. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by Southern states, which were forced to ratify it in order to return their delegations to Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark decisions such as Roe v. Wade (1973), regarding abortion, and Bush v. Gore (2000), regarding the 2000 presidential election. [12] [13]

14th Amendment Pg1of2 AC.jpg
14th Amendment Pg2of2 AC.jpg
The two pages of the Fourteenth Amendment in the National Archives

The amendment's first section includes several clauses: the Citizenship Clause, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause. The Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship, overruling the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had held that Americans descended from Africans could not be citizens of the United States. The Privileges or Immunities Clause has been interpreted in such a way that it does very little. While "Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment reduces congressional representation for states that deny suffrage on racial grounds," it was not enforced after southern states disenfranchised blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [14] While Northern Congressmen in 1900 raised objections to the inequities of southern states being apportioned seats based on total populations when they excluded blacks, Southern Democratic Party representatives formed such a powerful bloc that opponents could not gain approval for change of apportionment. [15]

The Due Process Clause prohibits state and local government officials from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without legislative authorization. This clause has also been used by the federal judiciary to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural requirements that state laws must satisfy. [16]

The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, and its prohibition of laws against interracial marriage, in its ruling in Loving v. Virginia (1967). [17] [18]

Fifteenth Amendment

Text of the 15th Amendment 15th Amendment Pg1of1 AC.jpg
Text of the 15th Amendment

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. [7]

In the some of the early United States, such as New Jersey prior to 1807, citizens of all races, regardless of prior enslavement, could vote provided that they could meet other requirements like property ownership. [19] But by 1869, voting rights were restricted in all states to white men. The narrow election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 convinced a majority of Republicans that protecting the franchise of black men was important for the party's future. After rejecting broader versions of a suffrage amendment, Congress proposed a compromise amendment banning franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude on February 26, 1869. The amendment survived a difficult ratification fight and was adopted on March 30, 1870. [20] After blacks gained the vote, the Ku Klux Klan directed some of their attacks to disrupt their political meetings and intimidate them at the polls, to suppress black participation. [21] In the mid-1870s, there was a rise in new insurgent groups, such as the Red Shirts and White League, who acted on behalf of white supremicists calling themselves "Redeemers", to violently suppress black voting. [22] While Redeemers in the Democrats regained local power in southern state legislatures, through the 1880s and early 1890s, numerous blacks continued to be elected to local offices in many states, as well as to Congress as late as 1894. [23]

Beginning around 1900, states in the former Confederacy passed new constitutions and other laws that incorporated methods to disenfranchise blacks, such as poll taxes, residency rules, and literacy tests administered by white staff, sometimes with exemptions for whites via grandfather clauses. [23] When challenges reached the Supreme Court, it interpreted the amendment narrowly, ruling based on the stated intent of the laws rather than their practical effect. The results in voter suppression were dramatic, as voter rolls fell: nearly all blacks, as well as tens of thousands of poor whites in Alabama and other states, [24] were forced off the voter registration rolls and out of the political system, effectively excluding millions of people from representation. [25]

In the twentieth century, the Court interpreted the amendment more broadly, striking down grandfather clauses in Guinn v. United States (1915). [26] It took a quarter-century to finally dismantle the white primary system in the "Texas primary cases" (1927–1953). With the South having become a one-party[ which? ] region after the disenfranchisement of blacks, Democratic Party primaries were the only competitive contests in those states.[ further explanation needed ] But Southern states reacted rapidly to Supreme Court decisions, often devising new ways to continue to exclude blacks from voter rolls and voting; most blacks in the South did not gain the ability to vote until after the passage of the mid-1960s federal civil rights legislation and the beginning of federal oversight of voter registration and district boundaries. The Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) forbade the requirement for poll taxes in federal elections; by this time five of the eleven southern states continued to require such taxes. Together with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), which forbade requiring poll taxes in state elections, blacks regained the opportunity to participate in the U.S. political system. [27]

Erosion, litigation, and scope

The promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions throughout the late 19th century before being restored in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1876 and beyond, some states passed Jim Crow laws that limited the rights of African-Americans. Important Supreme Court decisions that undermined these amendments were the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873, which prevented rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment's privileges or immunities clause from being extended to rights under state law; [28] and Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 which originated the phrase "separate but equal" and gave federal approval to Jim Crow laws. [29] The full benefits of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments were not realized until the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [30] The Reconstruction Amendments affected the constitutional division of power between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States, for the Reconstruction Amendments "were specifically designed as an expansion of federal power and an intrusion on state sovereignty." [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1865 Reconstruction amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1868 amendment addressing citizenship rights and civil and political liberties

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage, and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) regarding race-based college admissions. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1870 amendment prohibiting denial of voting rights on the basis of race

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1920 amendment mandating womens suffrage

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878. However, a suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby go into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1964 amendment prohibiting poll taxes

The Twenty-fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.

Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court decision that found certain grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests for voting rights to be unconstitutional. Though these grandfather clauses were superficially race-neutral, they were designed to protect the voting rights of illiterate white voters while disenfranchising black voters.

A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or being grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from the new rule are said to have grandfather rights or acquired rights, or to have been grandfathered in. Frequently, the exemption is limited, as it may extend for a set time, or it may be lost under certain circumstances; for example, a grandfathered power plant might be exempt from new, more restrictive pollution laws, but the exception may be revoked and the new rules would apply if the plant were expanded. Often, such a provision is used as a compromise or out of practicality, to allow new rules to be enacted without upsetting a well-established logistical or political situation. This extends the idea of a rule not being retroactively applied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Americans in the United States Congress</span>

From the first United States Congress in 1789 through the 116th Congress in 2020, 162 African Americans served in Congress. Meanwhile, the total number of all individuals who have served in Congress over that period is 12,348. Between 1789 and 2020, 152 have served in the House of Representatives, 9 have served in the Senate, and 1 has served in both chambers. Voting members have totaled 156, with 6 serving as delegates. Party membership has been 131 Democrats and 31 Republicans. While 13 members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 during the 92nd Congress, in the 116th Congress (2019-2020), 56 served, with 54 Democrats and 2 Republicans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil Rights Act of 1866</span> U.S. law defining citizenship and equal protection

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States.

The Reconstruction Acts, or the Military Reconstruction Acts, were four statutes passed during the Reconstruction Era by the 40th United States Congress addressing the requirement for Southern States to be readmitted to the Union. The actual title of the initial legislation was "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States" and was passed on March 4, 1867. Fulfillment of the requirements of the Acts was necessary for the former Confederate States to be readmitted to the Union from military and Federal control imposed during and after the American Civil War. The Acts excluded Tennessee, which had already ratified the 14th Amendment and had been readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voting rights in the United States</span> Suffrage in American elections

Voting rights, specifically enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been a moral and political issue throughout United States history.

Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set their internal rules, including the use of white primaries. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to delegate its authority over elections to parties in order to allow discrimination to be practiced. This ruling affected all other states where the party used the white primary rule.

The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.

The Enforcement Acts were three bills that were passed by the United States Congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes that protected African Americans’ right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws. Passed under the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, the laws also allowed the federal government to intervene when states did not act to protect these rights. The acts passed following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which gave full citizenship to anyone born in the United States or freed slaves, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which banned racial discrimination in voting.

The Lodge Bill of 1890, also referred to as the Federal Elections Bill or by critics as the Lodge Force Bill, was a proposed bill to ensure the security of elections for U.S. Representatives.

Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statutes that set requirements for voter registration, including poll tax, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and the requirement that only registered voters could serve on juries. The plaintiff, Henry Williams, claimed that Mississippi's voting laws were upheld with the intent to disenfranchise African Americans, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's laws because, even though the laws made discrimination possible, the laws themselves did not discriminate against African Americans. The court found that any discrimination toward African Americans was performed by the administrative officers enforcing the law and that there was no judicial remedy for this kind of discrimination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era</span> Post-civil war voter suppression efforts in the United States

Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in the Southern United States, was based on a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices in the South that were deliberately used to prevent black citizens from registering to vote and voting. These measures were enacted by the former Confederate states at the turn of the 20th century. Efforts were also made in Maryland, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Their actions were designed to thwart the objective of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from depriving voters of their voting rights on the basis of race. The laws were frequently written in ways to be ostensibly non-racial on paper, but were implemented in ways that selectively suppressed black voters apart from other voters.

United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214 (1876), was a voting rights case in which the United States Supreme Court narrowly construed the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that suffrage for citizens can not be restricted due to race, color or the individual having previously been a slave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black suffrage in the United States</span> Legal right of African Americans to vote in elections

African Americans were fully enfranchised in practice throughout the United States by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Prior to the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, some Black people in the United States had the right to vote, but this right was often abridged or taken away. After 1870, Black people were theoretically equal before the law, but in the period between the end of Reconstruction era and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 this was frequently infringed in practice.

References

  1. 1 2 "U.S. Senate: Landmark Legislation: Thirteenth, Fourteenth, & Fifteenth Amendments". www.senate.gov. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  2. ↑ "America's Historical Documents". National Archives. National Archives and Records Administration. January 25, 2016. Archived from the original on September 26, 2016. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  3. ↑ "The 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution". National Constitution Center – The 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  4. ↑ "(1865) Reconstruction Amendments, 1865-1870". BlackPast.org . January 21, 2007. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  5. ↑ Springfield, Mailing Address: 413 S. 8th Street; Us, IL 62701 Phone:492-4241 Contact. "House Divided Speech - Lincoln Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved March 25, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ Greene, Jamal; McAward, Jennifer Mason. "The Thirteenth Amendment". Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "All Amendments to the United States Constitution". hrlibrary.umn.edu. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2020.
  8. ↑ "The Constitution of the United States: Amendments 11-27". United States National Archives. Archived from the original on May 26, 2013. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  9. ↑ Allain, Jean (2012). The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary. Oxford University Press. p. 117. ISBN   9780199660469.
  10. ↑ "What The Emancipation Proclamation Didn't Do". NPR.org. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  11. ↑ "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875". memory.loc.gov. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2020.
  12. ↑ Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
  13. ↑ Bush v. Gore , 531 U.S. 98 (2000).
  14. ↑ "Committee at Odds on Reapportionment: Three Reports on the Bill Submitted to the House" (PDF). The New York Times. December 21, 1990. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 11, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  15. ↑ Valelly, Richard M. (October 2, 2009). The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   9780226845272. Archived from the original on April 29, 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  16. ↑ "BRIA 7 4 b The 14th Amendment and the "Second Bill of Rights"". www.crf-usa.org. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  17. ↑ Brown v. Board of Education , 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
  18. ↑ Loving v. Virginia , 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
  19. ↑ "Did You Know: Women and African Americans Could Vote in NJ before the 15th and 19th Amendments?". National Park Service. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
  20. ↑ "Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  21. ↑ "Historical Voter Suppression – Notley Scholars Voter Rights Project". Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  22. ↑ Michael Perman (2009). Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South. Univ of North Carolina Press. pp. 138–139. ISBN   978-0-8078-3324-7. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  23. 1 2 Jervis, Rick. "Black Americans got the right to vote 150 years ago, but voter suppression still a problem". USA TODAY. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  24. ↑ Feldman, Glenn (2004). The Disfranchisement Myth Poor Whites and Suffrage Restriction in Alabama. University of Georgia Press. p. 135. OCLC   474353255.
  25. ↑ Pildes, Richard H. (July 13, 2000). "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon". Rochester, NY. doi:10.2139/ssrn.224731. hdl: 11299/168068 . SSRN   224731. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  26. ↑ Guinn v. United States , 238 U.S. 347 (1915)
  27. ↑ Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections , 383 U.S. 663 (1966)
  28. ↑ Slaughter-House Cases , 83U.S.36 .
  29. ↑ Plessy v. Ferguson , 163U.S.537 .
  30. ↑ Brown v. Board of Education , 347U.S.483 .
  31. ↑ "City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156 (1980), at 179". Justia US Supreme Court Center. April 22, 1980. Archived from the original on March 4, 2024. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
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