15th Amendment

US Constitution of 1787

15th Amendment

#	US Constitution Amendment	Proposal Date	Enacted Date
15th	Prohibits the denial of suffrage based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude - Signers: Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax (R-IN) & US Senator Benjamin F. Wade (R-OH)	February 26, 1869	February 3, 1870

Black male suffrage becomes universal when the Fifteenth Amendment, stipulating that no state shall deprive any citizen of the right to vote because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude” is adopted with President Grant's help and approval. The suffrage amendment, which also applied to Native Americans, was only partially successful. During Reconstruction, black men voted frequently; following Reconstruction, however, whites used discriminatory laws and taxes to disenfranchise black men. Laws were also enacted to prohibit Native Americans from using the ballot box.  

Exhibited here is a 15^th Amendment Harpers Weekly March 12, 1870 “Sho Fly, don’t Bother Me!” Cartoon, with a  Speech of Honorable Francis P. Blair of Missouri in the United States Senate on the Native American question and the very important March 1870 US Senate printing of the Message of the President of the United States Communicating the Proclamation of the Secretary of State of the ratification of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and recommending the adoption of means to promote education throughout the county.  In this document Secretary of State Hamilton Fish certifies the amendment and President Grant concludes his message to Congress, stating:

…  I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington. If these recommendations were important then, with a population of but a few millions, how much more important now, with a population of 40,000,000, and increasing in a rapid ratio. I would therefore call upon Congress to take all the means within their constitutional powers to promote and encourage popular education throughout the country, & upon the people everywhere to see to it that all who possess and exercise political rights shall have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge which will make their share in the Government a blessing and not a danger. By such means only can the benefits contemplated by this amendment to the Constitution be secured. -- U. S. GRANT, President

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.

Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

….  Now, therefore, be it known that I, Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress approved the 20th day of April, in the year 1818, entitled "An act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States, and for other purposes," do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution of the United States. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this 30th day of March, A. D. 1870, and of the Independence of the United States -- Hamilton Fish Secretary of State

15^th Amendment - Speech of Honorable Francis P. Blair of Missouri in the United States Senate on the Native American question

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