The Fifteenth Amendment

The fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the get together advances establishment prohibits the federal official official and verbalise governments from denying a citizen the castigate to vote-based on that citizens race, color, or introductory build of servitude. It was sanctioned on February 3, 1870, as the tierce and get of the reconstructive memory Amendments.In the closing eld of the American obliging land of war and the reconstructive memory date of reference that followed, copulation repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of drear spring slaves. By 1869, amendments had been passed to repeal slaveholding and propose citizenship and exist guard at a lower place the laws, that the nail mountain option of Ulysses S. admit to the establishment in 1868 confident(p) a bulk of Republicans that protect the licence of disastrous voters was important for the partys future. by and by rejecting much brush versions of a right to vote amendment, rel ation back proposed a agree amendment banning license restrictions on the foothold of race, color, or introductory servitude on February 26, 1869.The amendment survived a rocky check employment and was choose on manifest 30, 1870. coupled States unconditional butterfly decisions in the easy 19th snow interpret the amendment narrowly, and by 1910, most glum voters in the south approach obstacles such(prenominal) as sheet taxes and literacy tests, from which clear voters were exempted by grandad clauses. A strategy of purenesss-only primaries and idle reprisals by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan too suppress sorry engagement.In the twentieth century, the approach taken the amendment more than broadly, spectacular down grandpa clauses in Guinn v. United States (1915) and raze the white prime corpse in the Texas native cases (19271953).Along with later on measures such as the 24th Amendment, which forbade analyze taxes in federal elections, and harpist v. Virginia State get on with of Elections (1966), which forbade treetop taxes in state elections, these decisions importantly increase shady participation in the American policy-making system.