{"id":270,"date":"2022-08-30T11:19:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T11:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211constitution\/?page_id=270"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:28:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:28:32","slug":"fifteenth-amendment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211constitution\/syllabus\/fifteenth-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifteenth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cSlavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot, or [while] any discrimination exists between white and black\u2026\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u2013Frederick Douglass, (May 9, 1865<\/a>)<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fifteenth Amendment (1869 \/ 1870)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.<\/p>\n

ORIGINS: Reconstruction Act (1867) SEC. 5: And be it further enacted, That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law…<\/em><\/p>\n

\"First<\/a><\/p>\n

Woman’s Suffrage and the New Departure<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cMy natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all of my sex, are, by your honor\u2019s verdict, doomed to political subjection under this, so-called, form of government.\u201d –Susan B. Anthony, statement at sentencing, US district court, 1873<\/p><\/blockquote>\n