Isabella Carter
The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, passed in 1870, was a significant step forward in the struggle for voting rights. This amendment granted African American men the right to vote, regardless of their prior slave status or ethnicity. While this was a remarkable achievement, it did not guarantee universal suffrage, and the fight for voting rights continued for many years, with the introduction of further constitutional amendments and federal laws. The Nineteenth Amendment, for example, gave women the right to vote in 1920, and the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964 prohibited poll taxes, which had been used to disenfranchise African Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also played a crucial role in protecting voting rights by prohibiting voter discrimination based on race, colour, or language minority status. These milestones in the expansion of voting rights demonstrate the ongoing efforts of activists and legislators to ensure that all citizens have the opportunity to participate in elections and have their voices heard.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Name of Amendment | Fifteenth Amendment |
| Date of Ratification | February 3, 1870 |
| Who it Granted Voting Rights to | African American men |
| What it Prohibited | Federal and state governments from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote on the basis of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude |
| What it Led to | The rise of ""Jim Crow" laws in the Southern states, which discriminated against African Americans and prevented them from exercising their right to vote |
| Voting Rights Acts Passed Subsequently | The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited voter discrimination based on race, colour, or membership in a language minority group; the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984, which required polling places to be accessible to people with disabilities; the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986; the Military and Overseas Voting Empowerment Act of 2009 |
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What You'll Learn
- The 15th Amendment granted voting rights to African American men in 1870
- The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920
- The 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes in 1964
- The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited voter discrimination based on race, colour, or language
The 15th Amendment granted voting rights to African American men in 1870
The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, passed by Congress on February 26, 1869, and ratified on February 3, 1870, granted voting rights to African American men. The amendment states 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." This marked a significant step towards racial equality in the United States, ensuring that Black men had the legal right to participate in local, state, and national elections, as well as run for political office.
Despite the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, African Americans continued to face obstacles to exercising their voting rights. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Southern states passed laws and implemented practices that made it difficult for African Americans to vote. Literacy tests, "grandfather clauses" that restricted voting rights based on ancestral voting history, and other discriminatory measures were used to disenfranchise African Americans and maintain white supremacy. These efforts effectively stripped African Americans of their political power and reduced them to second-class citizenship under the "Jim Crow" segregation system.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights organizations played a crucial role in challenging these discriminatory practices and protecting the voting rights of African Americans. They pursued legal action, such as Guinn v. United States (1915), in which the constitutionality of Oklahoma's literacy test and grandfather clause was challenged as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v. Herndon (1927) that a Texas statute barring blacks from voting in Democratic Party primaries was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson urged Congress to pass legislation to uphold the Fifteenth Amendment and ensure government "of and by all the people." This led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which abolished remaining deterrents to voting and authorized federal supervision of voter registration. The poll tax, another barrier to voting rights, was banned by a constitutional amendment in 1966. These efforts helped strengthen the enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment and expand voting rights for African Americans.
While the Fifteenth Amendment was a significant milestone in the struggle for racial equality, it is important to recognize that it did not immediately or completely eradicate voting disparities. The fight for voting rights continued well into the 20th century, with ongoing legal battles and civil rights movements working to secure and protect the voting rights of African Americans and ensure their full participation in American public and civic life.
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The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was passed in 1919 and adopted in 1920, gave women the right 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 the wider women's rights movement.
The journey towards the 19th Amendment began in the early 19th century as women agitated against the restrictions that excluded them from voting and suppressed their voices from the political sphere. In July 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, the hometown of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, launched the women's rights movement and also called for women's suffrage. Stanton, along with Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, worked closely together to pursue universal suffrage and the abolition of slavery.
In 1869, two organisations were formed: the National Woman Suffrage Association, which sought a federal constitutional amendment for women's suffrage, and the American Woman Suffrage Association, which focused on obtaining amendments in the constitutions of individual states. These organisations worked together closely and merged in 1890. In the same year, suffrage organisations focused on a national amendment while still working at the state and local levels. Lucy Burns and Alice Paul emerged as important leaders whose different strategies helped move the Nineteenth Amendment forward.
The entry of the United States into World War I helped shift public perception of women's suffrage. The National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, supported the war effort, arguing that women should be rewarded with the right to vote for their patriotic wartime service. The National Woman's Party also staged marches, demonstrations, and hunger strikes, pointing out the contradiction of fighting abroad for democracy while limiting it at home. The work of these organisations swayed public opinion, prompting President Woodrow Wilson to announce his support for the suffrage amendment in 1918.
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The 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes in 1964
The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished poll taxes in 1964. The Amendment states that citizens have the right to vote and that this right cannot be denied or abridged by the United States or any state due to the failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. This amendment was a significant step towards ensuring that all citizens, regardless of their financial status, have the opportunity to participate in federal elections and have their voices heard.
The history of the 24th Amendment is closely tied to the struggle for voting rights, particularly for African Americans and poor whites in the South. Poll taxes were adopted by several Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, often alongside literacy tests and other discriminatory practices. The explicit purpose of these poll taxes was to prevent African Americans and poor whites from voting, as they could not afford to pay the fee. This was a direct contradiction to the rights granted by the 15th Amendment, which was ratified in 1870 and ensured that all male citizens, regardless of race, had the right to vote.
Despite the existence of the 15th Amendment, Southern states found ways to circumvent it and restrict the voting rights of African Americans. This led to a long and ongoing struggle for voting rights, with activists devoting their time, energy, and resources to making society more inclusive and democratic. The 24th Amendment was a crucial step in this journey, as it directly addressed the issue of poll taxes and ensured that financial barriers could no longer be used to deny citizens their constitutional right to vote.
The process of passing the 24th Amendment was not without opposition. While some liberals opposed it, feeling that an amendment would be too slow compared to legislation, there was also resistance from Southern states that maintained the poll tax. Despite this, ratification was relatively quick, taking just over a year from August 1962 to January 1964. The amendment was a significant victory for voting rights, and President Lyndon B. Johnson hailed it as a "triumph of liberty over restriction" and "a verification of people's rights".
The impact of the 24th Amendment extended beyond the abolition of poll taxes. In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections that poll taxes for any level of elections were unconstitutional, citing the violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This ruling further solidified the right to vote regardless of financial status and set a precedent for future litigation related to discriminatory voting requirements.
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The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971
The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified on July 1, 1971, lowered the voting age to 18 years for all Americans. The Amendment states:
> The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Before the Amendment, the minimum voting age was 21 years. The 26th Amendment came about after decades of activism by young people and their allies, who argued that if citizens were old enough to fight for their country, they should be able to vote. This gave rise to the slogan "old enough to fight, old enough to vote". The Vietnam War, in particular, brought this issue to the fore, with many conscripted citizens fighting in a conflict they had no political authority to vote on.
The youth voting rights movement gained ground in some states, and in 1943, Georgia became the first state to lower the voting age to 18, although this was only for white youth. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to publicly support lowering the voting age, and in 1965, Congress voted to add an amendment to the Voting Rights Act, lowering the voting age to 18. However, this was only for federal elections, as the Supreme Court case of Oregon v. Mitchell determined that Congress did not have the authority to lower the voting age for state elections.
The 26th Amendment addressed this discrepancy by amending the Constitution, ensuring that all Americans aged 18 and older had the right to vote in all elections, regardless of state laws. The Amendment was passed by Congress on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971, with the support of 38 states.
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited voter discrimination based on race, colour, or language
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a significant piece of legislation that prohibited voter discrimination based on race, colour, or language minority status. This Act built upon the progress made by the Fifteenth Amendment, which was adopted in 1870 and granted suffrage rights to African American men. Despite the importance of the Fifteenth Amendment, it was interpreted narrowly by the Supreme Court, leading to the rise of discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws in the Southern states.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 addressed these ongoing issues by explicitly prohibiting any jurisdiction from implementing voting qualifications or prerequisites that resulted in the denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on race, colour, or language minority status. This included banning racial discriminatory practices in voting, such as literacy tests, which had been used to disenfranchise African Americans. The Act also required certain jurisdictions with a history of voter disenfranchisement to obtain approval from the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court in D.C. before making any changes to voting practices, ensuring that these changes did not deny or infringe upon the right to vote based on race or colour.
The impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was far-reaching, and it remains a crucial safeguard for Black Americans and other minority groups. However, it faced challenges and required extensions in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2007 to continue addressing voting rights issues. In 1982, Section 2 of the Act was amended to provide that a plaintiff could establish a violation if evidence showed that the challenged standard, practice, or procedure denied a racial or language minority an equal opportunity to participate in the political process.
Despite these efforts, voting rights for minorities continued to be threatened by various tactics, including redistricting, poll location changes and closures, and limited access to early voting. The most recent attempt to strengthen voting rights is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, introduced in Congress in 2019 and named after civil rights activist and long-time House of Representatives member, John R. Lewis. The ongoing work to protect and expand voting rights demonstrates the enduring struggle to ensure that the power, agency, and access to vote are protected as civil rights for all.
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Frequently asked questions
The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, passed in 1870, granted African American men the right to vote.
Frederick Douglass, a prominent abolitionist, and Radical Republicans in Congress were among those who fought for the voting rights of African Americans. Ulysses S. Grant, elected president in 1868, also played a role in convincing Republicans of the importance of protecting the franchise of Black male voters.
The 15th Amendment was a significant step towards racial equality, allowing African American men to vote and run for political office. During Reconstruction, 16 Black men served in Congress, and 2,000 Black men served in elected local, state, and federal positions.
Despite the 15th Amendment, many African Americans were still unable to exercise their right to vote due to discriminatory practices and laws such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and Jim Crow" laws enacted in the Southern states. The Supreme Court also interpreted the amendment narrowly, which contributed to the rise of these discriminatory laws and practices.
