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TheReconstruction Amendments, or theCivil War Amendments, are theThirteenth,Fourteenth, andFifteenth amendments to theUnited States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. The amendments were a part of the implementation of theReconstruction of theAmerican South which occurred after theCivil War.
The Thirteenth Amendment (proposed in 1864 and ratified in 1865) abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except for those duly convicted of a crime. The Fourteenth Amendment (proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons. The Fifteenth Amendment (proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870) prohibits discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
These amendments were intended to guarantee the freedom of the formerly enslaved and grant certain civil rights to them, and to protect the formerly enslaved and all citizens of the United States from discrimination. However, the promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions throughout the late 19th century. It was not fully realized until the Supreme Court decision inBrown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and theVoting Rights Act of 1965.
The Reconstruction Amendments were adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years which immediately followed theCivil War.[1][2] The last time the Constitution had been amended was with theTwelfth Amendment more than 60 years earlier in 1804.
These three amendments were part of a large movement toreconstruct the United States that followed the Civil War. Their proponents believed that they would transform the United States from a country that was (inAbraham Lincoln's words) "halfslave and half free"[3] to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to the entire populace, including the formerly enslaved and their descendants.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishedslavery andinvoluntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.[4][5] It was passed by theU.S. Senate on April 8, 1864, and, after one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on January 31, 1865.[6] The measure was swiftly ratified by all but threeUnion states (the exceptions were Delaware, New Jersey, and Kentucky), and by a sufficient number of border and "reconstructed" Southern states, to be ratified by December 6, 1865.[6] On December 18, 1865,Secretary of StateWilliam H. Sewardproclaimed it to have been incorporated into the federal Constitution. It became part of the Constitution 61 years after theTwelfth Amendment, the longest interval between constitutional amendments to date.[7]
Slavery had been tacitly enshrined in the original Constitution through provisions such as Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, commonly known as theThree-Fifths Compromise, which detailed how each state's total enslaved population would be factored into its total populationcount for the purposes ofapportioning seats in theUnited States House of Representatives anddirect taxes among the states.[8] Although many enslaved people had been declared free by Lincoln's 1863Emancipation Proclamation, their legal status after theCivil War was uncertain.[9]
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was proposed by Congress on June 13, 1866.[6] By July 9, 1868, it had received ratification by the legislatures of the required number of states in order to officially become the Fourteenth Amendment.[6] On July 20, 1868, Secretary of State William Seward certified that it had been ratified and added to the federal Constitution.[10] The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to the treatment offreedmen following the war. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by Southern states, which were forced to ratify it in order to return their delegations to Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark decisions such asRoe v. Wade (1973), regarding abortion, andBush v. Gore (2000), regarding the2000 presidential election.[11][12]
The amendment's first section includes several clauses: theCitizenship Clause, thePrivileges or Immunities Clause, theDue Process Clause, and theEqual Protection Clause. The Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship, overruling theSupreme Court's decision inDred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had held that Americans descended from Africans could not be citizens of the United States. The Privileges or Immunities Clause has been interpreted in such a way that it does very little. While "Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment reduces congressional representation for states that deny suffrage on racial grounds," it was not enforced after southern statesdisenfranchised blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[13] While Northern Congressmen in 1900 raised objections to the inequities of southern states being apportioned seats based on total populations when they excluded blacks, SouthernDemocratic Party representatives formed such a powerful bloc that opponents could not gain approval for change of apportionment.[14]
The Due Process Clause prohibits state and local government officials from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without legislative authorization. This clause has also been used by the federal judiciary to make most of theBill of Rightsapplicable to the states, as well as to recognizesubstantive andprocedural requirements that state laws must satisfy.[15]
The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within itsjurisdiction. This clause was the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling inBrown v. Board of Education (1954), thatracial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, and its prohibition of laws against interracial marriage, in its ruling inLoving v. Virginia (1967).[16][17]
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen theright to vote based on that citizen's "race,color, or previous condition of servitude."[18] It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.[6]
In some of the early United States, such as New Jersey prior to 1807, citizens of all races, regardless of prior enslavement, could vote provided that they could meet other requirements like property ownership.[19]But by 1869, voting rights were restricted in all states to white men. The narrow election ofUlysses S. Grant to the presidency in1868 convinced a majority ofRepublicans that protecting the franchise of black men was important for the party's future. After rejecting broader versions of a suffrage amendment, Congress proposed a compromise amendment banning franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude on February 26, 1869. The amendment survived a difficult ratification fight and was adopted on March 30, 1870.[20] After blacks gained the vote, theKu Klux Klan directed some of their attacks to disrupt their political meetings and intimidate them at the polls, tosuppress black participation.[21] In the mid-1870s, there was a rise in new insurgent groups, such as theRed Shirts andWhite League, who acted on behalf of white supremicists calling themselves "Redeemers", to violently suppress black voting.[22] While Redeemers in the Democrats regained local power in southern state legislatures, through the 1880s and early 1890s, numerous blacks continued to be elected to local offices in many states, as well as to Congress as late as 1894.[23]
Beginning around 1900, states in the former Confederacy passed new constitutions and other laws that incorporated methods todisenfranchise blacks, such aspoll taxes, residency rules, andliteracy tests administered by white staff, sometimes with exemptions for whites viagrandfather clauses.[23] When challenges reached theSupreme Court, it interpreted the amendment narrowly, ruling based on the stated intent of the laws rather than their practical effect. The results in voter suppression were dramatic, as voter rolls fell: nearly all blacks, as well as tens of thousands of poor whites in Alabama and other states,[24] were forced off the voter registration rolls and out of the political system, effectively excluding millions of people from representation.[25]
In the twentieth century, the Court interpreted the amendment more broadly, striking down grandfather clauses inGuinn v. United States (1915).[26] It took a quarter-century to finally dismantle the white primary system in the "Texas primary cases" (1927–1953). With the South having become a one-party[which?] region after the disenfranchisement of blacks,Democratic Party primaries were the only competitive contests in those states.[further explanation needed] But Southern states reacted rapidly to Supreme Court decisions, often devising new ways to continue to exclude blacks from voter rolls and voting; most blacks in the South did not gain the ability to vote until after the passage of the mid-1960s federal civil rights legislation and the beginning of federal oversight of voter registration and district boundaries. TheTwenty-fourth Amendment (1964) forbade the requirement for poll taxes in federal elections; by this time five of the eleven southern states continued to require such taxes. Together with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling inHarper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), which forbade requiring poll taxes in state elections, blacks regained the opportunity to participate in the U.S. political system.[27]
The promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions throughout the late 19th century before being restored in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1876 and beyond, some states passedJim Crow laws that limited the rights of African-Americans. ImportantSupreme Court decisions that undermined these amendments were theSlaughter-House Cases in 1873, which prevented rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment's privileges or immunities clause from being extended to rights under state law;[28] andPlessy v. Ferguson in 1896 which originated the phrase "separate but equal" and gave federal approval to Jim Crow laws.[29] The full benefits of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments were not realized until the Supreme Court decision inBrown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and theVoting Rights Act of 1965.[30] The Reconstruction Amendments affectedthe constitutional division of power between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States,[31] for the Reconstruction Amendments "were specifically designed as an expansion of federal power and an intrusion on state sovereignty."[32] The United States Supreme Court observed in 2024 with a view to the Fourteenth Amendment and thus the Reconstruction Amendments in general: "The Fourteenth Amendment “expand[ed] federal power at the expense of state autonomy” and thus “fundamentally altered the balance of state and federal power struck by the Constitution.”Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 59 (1996); see alsoEx parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345 (1880)."[33]
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