When was the 15th amendment added to the constitution

Thomas Kelly, artist. The Fifteenth amendment. New York: Alfred R. The Fifteenth Amendment and its results. Baltimore: Lith. Back to top. The amendment was also denounced, however, by many prominent suffragists as being a new barrier to women rights, splitting the long-standing alliance between abolitionists and suffragists. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans and Democrats saw the Enforcement Acts passed in and under the amendment as an unprecedented intrusion into state authority.

On March 31, , Thomas Mundy Peterson became the first African-American voter to cast his ballot as a result of the amendment. Yet, despite the promise of the amendment of , the amendment has held less power in our constitutional history since than was expected. This history illustrates that constitutional rights can be little more than words on paper unless institutions exist with the power to make sure those rights are actually enforced.

Toggle navigation. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, But some states resisted ratification. At one point, the ratification count stood at 17 Republican states approving the amendment and four Democratic states rejecting it. Congress still needed 11 more states to ratify the amendment before it could become law. All eyes turned toward those Southern states which had yet to be readmitted to the Union.

Acting quickly, Congress ruled that in order to be let into the Union, these states had to accept both the Fifteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born in the United States, including former slaves. Left with no choice, the states ratified the amendments and were restored to statehood.

Finally, on March 30, , the Fifteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution. To many, it felt like the last step of reconstruction.

But just as some had predicted, Southerners found ways to prevent blacks from voting. Southern politics would turn violent as Democrats and Republicans clashed over the right of former slaves to enter civic life. White supremacist vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan gained strength as many whites refused to accept blacks as their equals.

America still faced years of struggle. Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America.