The Constitution's Black Presence: A Historical Overview

While the US Constitution does not explicitly mention the term black, the 14th Amendment, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868, played a pivotal role in extending liberties and rights to formerly enslaved people. This amendment, which includes the phrase All persons born or naturalized in the United States, granted citizenship to those previously enslaved. The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, further aimed to secure the voting rights of all citizens by prohibiting states from depriving voters of their rights based on race. However, despite these amendments, the struggle for civil and political rights for Black Americans continued, with efforts to disenfranchise Black voters and interpret the Constitution in ways that perpetuated racism and inequality.

How many times were Black people written into the US Constitution?

Explore related products

The Constitution of the United States of America: The Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights

$9.99 $9.99

The African American Experience: During Slavery, Federalism, War and Civil Rights

$12.95

A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution

$19.95 $19.95

"My Faith in the Constitution Is Whole": Barbara Jordan and the Politics of Scripture (Race, Religion and Politics)

$49.95 $149.95

Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution (Landmark Law Cases and American Society)

$21.06 $32.99

Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification

$17.1 $19.99

The 14th Amendment (1868)

The 14th Amendment, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868, was a significant step towards civil rights for Black Americans. It extended the liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people, granting them citizenship and equal protection under the law.

Before the 14th Amendment, Black Americans had been denied equal citizenship status, with the infamous Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court decision ruling that Black people, whether free or enslaved, were not citizens but "a separate class of persons". This decision protected slavery and allowed for discriminatory laws that denied basic rights to free Black people.

The 14th Amendment was intended to rectify this injustice. It established the principle of birthright citizenship, meaning anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen, regardless of race. This was a significant shift, as it now allowed African Americans to legally claim the same constitutional rights as all other American citizens. The amendment also included the "equal protection clause," which prohibited state governments from discriminating against Black Americans and played a pivotal role in landmark civil rights cases.

However, it's important to note that while the 14th Amendment granted Black men in southern states the right to vote and hold office for the first time, it did not extend the Bill of Rights to the states, and it failed to adequately protect the rights of Black citizens. The struggle for civil rights continued, with organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League forming to secure the rights and improve the position of African Americans.

The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, further solidified the rights of Black males by granting them the right to vote. This amendment ensured that the right to vote could not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state based on race, colour, or previous condition of servitude. While these amendments marked important milestones, the struggle for full equality and the enforcement of these rights continued for many decades.

The 15th Amendment (1870)

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified on February 3, 1870, granted African American men the right to vote. The official text of the amendment is as follows: "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."

The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment was a significant milestone in the struggle for racial equality in the United States. It was the last of the Reconstruction Amendments, coming after the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born in the United States, including former slaves. While the Fourteenth Amendment granted African Americans the rights of citizenship, it did not guarantee their right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment addressed this issue by prohibiting states from denying male citizens the right to vote based on their race, colour, or previous experience of slavery.

Despite the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, African Americans continued to face significant obstacles to exercising their right to vote, particularly in the Southern states. Discriminatory practices and laws, such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and "grandfather clauses," were used to disenfranchise African Americans and prevent them from voting. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan also used intimidation and violence to suppress the Black vote. By the late 1870s, Southern state governments had effectively nullified the Fifteenth Amendment, and the Southern Republican Party, which had been supported by Black voters, had vanished.

It was not until the mid-20th century that significant progress was made in overcoming these discriminatory practices. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aiming to abolish all remaining deterrents to exercising the right to vote and authorizing federal supervision of voter registration where necessary. The poll tax was fully banned by a constitutional amendment the following year. These measures helped to secure and protect the voting rights of African Americans, ensuring their ability to participate fully in American civic life.

The Three-Fifths Clause (1787)

The Three-Fifths Compromise, or the Three-Fifths Clause, was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. The clause was part of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, which stated that "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States...according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons...three-fifths of all other Persons [emphasis added]."

The Three-Fifths Compromise was a contentious issue during the Constitutional Convention, as it concerned the inclusion of slaves in a state's total population count. This count would determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives, the number of electoral votes each state would receive, and the amount of money states would pay in taxes. Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted, including slaves, to increase the number of Representatives they could elect and send to Congress. On the other hand, free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, as slaves had no voting rights.

The compromise that was agreed upon counted "all other persons" as only three-fifths of their actual numbers. This reduced the representation of the slave states relative to the original proposals but improved it over the Northern position. The compromise was tied to taxation in the same ratio, reducing the tax burden on the slave states. The Three-Fifths Clause remained in force until after the Civil War when the 13th Amendment freed all enslaved people in the United States, the 14th Amendment gave them full citizenship, and the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

It is important to note that the Three-Fifths Clause has been misinterpreted by many to mean that African Americans were considered three-fifths of a person or citizen. However, the clause was specifically related to the representation of enslaved blacks in Congress and the apportionment of taxes.

Explore related products

Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism

$42.99

The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Bibliographies in the History of)

$20.95 $30

Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (Cambridge Studies on the American Constitution)

$36.61 $60

The Politics of African-American Education: Representation, Partisanship, and Educational Equity

$29.35 $35

The First Americans Were Africans: Expanded and Revised

$49

White Power: Policing American Slavery

$30

Black suffrage

The original US Constitution did not mention race or colour, nor did it use the words "slave" or "slavery". Instead, it used terms such as “person held to service or labor” and “all other persons”. The Constitution did, however, include the Three-Fifths Clause, which declared that for representation in Congress, enslaved black people in a state would count as three-fifths of the number of white inhabitants of that state. This clause has been interpreted as equating five black men with three white men, suggesting that black people were considered less than human.

Following the Civil War, Congress passed the 14th Amendment, which extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people and granted citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States". This amendment also closed the door on schemes to make the US a white man's country and provided protection against removal for black Americans. The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, further secured the right of all citizens to vote by prohibiting states from depriving voters of their voting rights based on race.

Despite these amendments, efforts to prevent black citizens from voting persisted, particularly in the Southern United States. From 1890 to 1908, Southern state legislatures passed new constitutions, constitutional amendments, and laws that made voter registration and voting more difficult, especially when administered by white staff in a discriminatory manner. These measures often included “good character clauses” and educational requirements that were selectively applied to suppress black voters. As a result, most black citizens in the South were disenfranchised, and voter rolls dropped dramatically.

The Republican Party played a role in ensuring black suffrage by undoing restrictions on black voting rights, particularly in West Virginia. However, with the disenfranchisement of African Americans, the party was nearly eliminated in the region for decades. The struggle for civil and political rights for black Americans continued well into the 20th century, with legal scholars and activists arguing for profound changes to align with the Constitution's promise of equality and citizenship for all.

The Reconstruction era

The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought an end to slavery and sparked a national debate about the role and rights of African Americans in American society. The Reconstruction Era was characterised by a struggle between those seeking to uphold equality and justice for African Americans and those seeking to maintain white supremacy and the status quo.

During this period, African Americans gained the right to vote and hold office, with the passage of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1870. This amendment stated that "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". The 13th and 14th Amendments, passed earlier, had already abolished slavery and guaranteed citizenship to African Americans, respectively.

However, despite these legal protections, African Americans continued to face significant obstacles and violence as they fought for their rights and equality. White supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, and the Red Shirts, engaged in paramilitary insurgency and terrorism to disrupt the efforts of the Reconstruction governments and terrorise Republicans. Additionally, "Black Codes" were passed in the South to restrict the labour and behaviour of former enslaved people, and literacy tests and "grandfather clauses" were used to disenfranchise African Americans and reinforce social and economic segregation.

Frequently asked questions