15th+Amendment+(Lawrence)

15th Amendment

15th Amendment



The Fifteenth Amendment is the third of the rebuilding Amendments. This amendment prohibits the states and the federal government from using a citizen's race, color or previous status as a slave as a voting ability. The main purpose was to help former slaves to vote. While some states had allowed them to vote and even before the permission from Constitution. This right was rare because not always enforced and often under attack. “The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld this right of free men of color to vote; in response, amendments to the North Carolina Constitution removed the right in 1835.” This gave free African American the right of to vote could be seen as giving them the rights of citizens.

The original House and Senate draft of the Amendment said the right to vote and to be an entrant wouldn’t be reduced by the States because of race, shade or belief. This was eventually misplaced because of excitement created by several Northern Republicans. To leave their own laws the same, which prevented African Americans to take part in government. The Amendment did not establish exactly worldwide male suffrage partly because Southern Republicans were troubled to damage loyalty tests.

The first African American to vote after the agreement of this amendment was Thomas Mundy Peterson, who cast his ballot in a school board election. Additional blacks were elected to political office during the period from 1865 to 1880 than at any other time in American history. Even though no state voted for black governor during Reconstruction, many of state legislatures were in effect under the power of an important African American group. These legislatures brought in plans that were considered part of government's to day. They also help put an end to all racially prejudiced laws, including anti-miscegenation laws (laws prohibiting interracial marriage).

Regardless of the efforts of groups like the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize black voters and white Republicans. The agreement of federal support for democratically elected southern governments meant that the majority of Republican voters can equally vote and act in confidence. “For example, when an all-white mob attempted to take over the interracial government of New Orleans, President Ulysses S. Grant sent in federal troops to restore the elected mayor.” Then again, after the close election of Rutherford B. Hayes, in order to calm down the South, he agreed to withdraw federal troops. He also unnoticed poll violence in the Deep South, even with several attempts by the Republicans to pass laws protecting the rights of black voters and to punish any harassers.

The Fifteenth Amendment was an important beginning, giving the constitutional right of all black men to contribute in local, state, and national government for the first time in American history. With no the limits, voting place violence against blacks and Republicans increased, as well as instances of murder. Most of this was done without any interference by law enforcement and often even with their assistance. By the 1890s, many Southern states had aware voter qualification laws, including literacy tests and poll taxes. Some states even made it complicated to find a place to register to vote.


 * Anthony Lawrence

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