Fifteenth Amendment — Right of Citizens to Vote

Amdt15.1 Overview of Fifteenth Amendment, Right of Citizens to Vote

The Fifteenth Amendment is the last of the three Civil War Amendments,¹ adopted in response to the end of the American Civil War with the intent to grant the federal government additional powers to address the lingering remnants of slavery.² The Fifteenth Amendment addresses the right of suffrage,³ providing in Section 1 that the right of U.S. citizens to vote may not be abridged by the government “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”⁴ The Supreme Court recognized as early as 1872 that although the Civil War and responsive Amendments may have been primarily focused on “African slavery,” the protections granted by that text were not limited to those “of African descent.”⁵ Describing this provision simply shortly after its adoption, the Supreme Court said “[i]f citizens of one race having certain qualifications are permitted by law to vote, those of another having the same qualifications must be.”⁶ The Court early on also struck down a state law that, although it contained “no word of discrimination on account of race or color,” had the effect of “inherently” making a prior condition of servitude “the controlling and dominant test of the right of suffrage.”⁷

Unlike the guarantees in the original Bill of Rights, the Fifteenth Amendment expressly constrains both “the United States” and “any State” from abridging these rights.⁸ The Fifteenth Amendment, with the other Civil War Amendments, thus helped to “fundamentally alter[ ]” the “balance of the pressures of localism and nationalism” by making “civil rights a national concern.”⁹ Further, while Section 1’s prohibitions are “self-executing,”¹⁰ Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment gives Congress the additional power to pass laws to enforce this guarantee.¹¹ As the Supreme Court explained in a 2009 opinion, “[t]he first century of congressional enforcement of the Amendment, however, can only be regarded as a failure.”¹² Although federal laws were adopted to enforce the Amendment shortly after ratification, enforcement was “spotty and ineffective,”¹³ and ultimately those early laws were “repealed with the rise of Jim Crow.”¹⁴ Finally, Congress adopted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, discussed in more detail in a subsequent essay.¹⁵

Amdt15.2 Historical Background on Fifteenth Amendment

In the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Congress extended the right to vote to African American men by statute in the District of Columbia and the territories, and in the seceded states, as a condition of readmission, the states had to guarantee Black men suffrage.¹ Following the election of President Ulysses S. Grant, the “lame duck” third session of the Fortieth Congress passed the amendment on February 26, 1869, and sent the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. The struggle was intense because Congress was divided into roughly three factions: those who opposed any federal constitutional guarantee of Black male suffrage, those who wanted to go beyond a limited guarantee and enact universal male suffrage, including abolition of all educational and property-holding tests, and those who wanted or who were willing to settle for an amendment merely proscribing racial qualifications in determining who could vote under any other standards the states wished to have.² The latter group ultimately prevailed, and the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified by the states on February 3, 1870.³