15th Amendment: Guaranteeing Voting Rights (for African American Men)

“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.”

In 1868, 11 of the 21 northern and border states did not allow blacks to vote. Grant barely beat his Democratic opponent for the presidency, former New York governor Horatio Seymour, a virulent racist who received the majority of white votes. Congress spent the days between Grant's election and his inauguration drafting this amendment, which the states ratified by March 30, 1870.

The defeated Confederacy had already been required to extend suffrage to freed slaves in order to restore their congressional representation, so the 15th amendment was aimed primarily at the North. Yet, after Reconstruction, the southern states found ways to prevent African Americans from voting. After the withdrawal of federal troops, all of the southern states used grandfather clauses, literacy tests, poll taxes, and high property qualifications to restrict suffrage. White supremacist vigilante groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, intimidated new citizens who attempted to exercise their right to vote or run for office. The extension of unrestricted suffrage across racial lines did not become a nationwide reality until the passage of two laws: the 24th Amendment of 1963, which forbade poll taxes, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

★ WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Document Signed #12073