Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution

Introduction to Primary Source: The three amendments listed bellowed attempted to ensure certain freedoms and rights to African Americans. While African Americans in the rebellious Confederate States were declared free by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, it did not end slavery in the nation. The 13^th Amendment was passed after the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union, but still had trouble passing the House of Representatives. By a vote of 119-56 it finally passed the House in January 1865 and was ratified by three-fourths of the state by December 6, 1865 finally ending slavery in the United States. The 14^th Amendment was intended to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people. Unfortunately, racism, Southern resistance, and Jim Crowe laws negated the promises of the 14^th Amendment. To former abolitionists and to the Radical Republicans in Congress who fashioned Reconstruction after the Civil War, the 15th Amendment, enacted in 1870, appeared to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African American by giving Black males the right to Vote. Similar to the 14^th Amendment, it would take more than a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life.

13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (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.

Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.

Note: A portion of Article IV, section 2, of the Constitution was superseded by the 13th Amendment.

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)

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.

15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870)

Fortieth Congress of the United States of America;

At the third Session, Begun and held at the city of Washington, on Monday, the seventh day of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.

A Resolution Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both Houses concurring) that the following article be proposed to the legislature of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which, when ratified by three-fourths of said legislatures shall be valid as part of the Constitution, namely:

Article 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.