The Reconstruction Amendments Facts & Worksheets

Let’s know more about The Reconstruction Amendments!

• The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are collectively referred to as the Reconstruction Amendments. These Amendments were passed to provide a constitutional basis for equality for African-Americans.

The Union Victory

• The question of slavery was at the heart of the Civil War.
• The Union did not want the westward expansion of slavery and desired that the southern states would adopt progressive measures to end it.
• The Confederacy, on the other hand, had established an economic system from the availability of cheap labour in the form of slavery.

• Abolition of slavery threatened their wellbeing and was taken as an affront to the sovereignty of the southern states.
• The Union victory meant that the balance of issues was now in favour of the Union.
• It was therefore still necessary to resolve the issue of slavery from a federal level.
• The Confederacy, without a national resolution, would still adopt constitutions that allowed for slavery before their readmission into the Union.
• In 1863, President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation which was a war manoeuvre and applicable only to the Confederacy.
• Congress, therefore, passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that provided constitutional safeguards for formerly enslaved.

Thirteenth Amendment

• The Thirteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and ratified in 1865.
• In 1776, slavery was legal in all the thirteen colonies, and most of the founding fathers had enslaved people.
• Whereas the declaration of independence provided for the liberty and equality of all in the new nation, there was no explicit mention of slavery.
• At the time of the Civil War, 15 southern and border states had over four million enslaved people.
• The Emancipation Declaration was issued as a war tactic applied to only the Confederate states rebelling against the Union.
• 1864 was an election year.
• Senate passed the proposed Thirteenth Amendment with the required two-thirds majority and forwarded it to the House of Representatives.
• In the latter house, the Democrats, the majority of whom were southern legislators, did not pass the Amendment.
• During the election, Lincoln beat the Democrat candidate General McClellan.
• Top of the Republicans’ agenda was the dicey Thirteenth Amendment.
• Lincoln was openly in favour of the Amendment, and he lobbied various Congressional representatives to vote for it, promising incentives as the President of the United States.

• In 1865, the House of Representatives also passed the Amendment by the required two-thirds majority.
• The Amendment was then forwarded to the state legislatures for ratification.
• Among the pre-conditions of the Confederate states joining the Union was the ratification of the Amendment in their respective constitution.
• The Amendment banned slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime.
• The Amendment also gave powers to Congress to pass legislation to support its implementation.
• Thus, the following year, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to address the Black Codes and widespread racial discrimination faced by African-Americans.

Fourteenth Amendment

• The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 and was ratified in 1868.
• The southern states were still bent on maintaining the institution of slavery.
• Therefore, they passed the Black Codes, meant to limit the rights and privileges of the African-Americans.
• The Black Codes prevented formerly enslaved from travelling far, owning certain types of properties, and instituting legal actions in courts.
• Further, failure to pay debts would lead to imprisonment and convicts were leased to private businesses.
• The Civil Rights Act provided for the civil rights of African-Americans, including the right to sue, own property, and engage in fair contractual terms.
• However, African-Americans were still facing racial discrimination on the political and social front.
• The omission was deliberate because Congress feared President Andrew Johnson would veto a bill that provided African-Americans with all their civil, social and political rights.
• However, as Congress feared, Johnson, who was at constant loggerheads with Congress, vetoed the bill. But Congress overrode his veto, and the bill was enacted.
• The Fourteenth Amendment was introduced by Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the House of Representatives.
• He is known for his reconstruction efforts and also introduced a motion that attempted to impeach President Andrew Jackson in 1867.
• The proposed Amendment provided for the definitions and rights of the citizens of the US, for those born or naturalised in the US.
• It squashed the Dred Scott of 1857 which provided that blacks were not eligible for citizenship.
• At this point, the balance of political power was in favour of the southern states.
• By providing the criteria for determining the number of representatives of states depending on the number of residents, the Amendment rectified the imbalance.
• It amended the 1787 Three-Fifths Compromise negotiated during the Philadelphia Convention.
• The three-fifths system gave southern states a greater slave count dominance in the House of Representatives, with 44 representatives as opposed to 33 as they would have been without the compromise.
• It also meant that southern states held control of the Electoral College whose representatives equalled the number of delegates in the Senate and House of Representatives.
• This guaranteed the South’s control over policy issues concerning slavery.
• However, over time, the population of the North rapidly grew, and after the Civil War, the balance of power shifted to the northern states and the Republicans.
• The Amendment also provided that persons who had engaged in the rebellion against the US during the Civil War were banned from taking up civil or military offices.
• It also declared that debt incurred by the Confederacy to finance the Civil War would not be taken up by the US federal government.
• The Amendment also empowered Congress to enact enforcement measures for its proper implementation. Congress passed the Amendment, and it was forwarded to the states for ratification.
• In July 1868, Louisiana and South Carolina ratified the Amendment, bringing the total number of states to approval to 28, which made it an official constitutional Amendment.
• However, Ohio and New Jersey have withdrawn their ratification, an action not provided for in the Constitution.
• Southern states were lobbied by Johnson to reject the Amendment, but Congress has required that former rebellious states be subject to military rule until they ratified the three constitutional Amendments.
• Furthermore, the withdrawals caused Congress to pass a resolution declaring the validity of the Fourteenth Amendment as a part of the federal constitution.

Fifteenth Amendment

• The Fifteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in 1869 and was ratified in 1870.
• It granted universal male suffrage to African-Americans.
• It also gave Congress the power to enact legislation for the proper implementation of the Amendment.
• By the end of the year, all former Confederate states were dominated by Republicans, in part due to the voting patterns of African-Americans.
• The dominance was somewhat short-lived as, by the end of the decade, the southern states had reverted back to the Democrats.
• Hiram Rhodes Revels from Mississippi was the first African-American to be elected to the US Senate, and 600 other African-Americans served in Congress during the Reconstruction.
• After the Reconstruction, the Amendments may have ensured African-Americans the right to vote. However, it did not stop the southerners coming up with ways to disenfranchise African-Americans. Taxes and literacy tests were introduced as pre-qualifications to prevent African-Americans from voting.
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enacted under the regime of President Lyndon Johnson, sought to remove the racial barriers that prevented African-Americans from exercising their rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.

Image sources:

[1.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/First_at_Vicksburg.jpg

[2.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Abraham_Lincoln_April_10_1865.jpg