History 269 The Civil War and Reconstruction
The Reconstruction Amendments
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was a military measure that applied only to the states in rebellion that were under Federal control. In order to ensure that slavery was permanently eliminated throughout the United States, including border states with slavery such as Kentucky, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment on January 31, 1865 (ratified December 6, 1865).AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Thirteenth Amendment fell short in several respects; in particular, it did not explicitly define the status of freedmen. Were they citizens? Did they have the same rights as other Americans? In order the retain as much control as possible over former slaves, and to restore the political, economic and social status quo, new Southern state governments began enacting "Black Codes." While these state laws gave freedmen certain legal rights, they also imposed strict race-based restrictions. Congress tried to address the problem of discrimination by passing the Freedmen's Bureau Act and Civil Rights Act of 1866. President Andrew Johnson vetoed both bills but Congress overrode his veto. Then when Johnson demonstrated his unwillingness to enforce the Civil Rights Act, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution on June 13, 1866 (ratified July 9, 1868). Section 1 explicitly established that freedmen were citizens entitled to equal rights in the state where they resided and equal protection of the laws.AMENDMENT XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Voting rights remained a sticky point despite ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Whereas the Constitution originally provided for three-fifths representation of the South's slave population in Congressional apportionment (Article I, Section 2), the Thirteenth Amendment had effectively nullified this provision and the Fourteenth Amendment further stated that denying anyone [by implication, freedmen] the right to vote would result in a reduction in the state's apportionment. President Johnson had encouraged Southern states to vote against the Fourteenth Amendment and he was not about to enforce the Reconstruction Act of 1867 which extended voting rights to freedmen in the former Confederate states. Moreover, black men generally did not have voting rights in most Northern States. Consequently, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, 1869 (ratified February 3, 1870).AMENDMENT XV
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Absent from the Fifteenth Amendment were explicit prohibitions of restrictions on suffrage such as literacy tests, property ownership, residency requirements (e.g., the infamous "grandfather clause"), or poll taxes. Moreover, women were still not guaranteed suffrage.*
*The literacy test, grandfather clause and poll tax were effectively used throughout the South to disenfranchise millions of blacks until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly a century after Reconstruction. Women were guaranteed the right to vote with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on June 4, 1919 (ratified August 18, 1920).
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