Reconstruction Amendments

The first of the Reconstruction Amendments, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. It was proposed on January 31, 1865, and it was ratified on December 6, 1865 by all the northern states and eight former Confederate states. Ratified on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment asserts that all native-born or naturalized Americans "are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside;" this meant that African Americans would then be considered American citizens. It also allowed state representation to be based on numbers of voting-age males that are not "any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime." This was in response to the Republican worry that the South would gain a considerable number of representatives due to their increase in number represented--the addition of former slaves. Another provision hostile towards Southern interests is that no former Confederate could hold office. The final section of the Fourteenth Amendment repudiates the Confederate debt. The final Reconstruction Amendment, ratified on February 3, 1870, ensured former slaves' voting rights.

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

Although this amendment was required for Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia to rejoin the Union, many white supremacists and Democratic supporters found ways to still encroach upon blacks' rights to vote in the form of literacy tests and poll taxes among other things. This is a accurate portrayal of how these efforts and many other efforts like them that tried to help the newly freed slaves were not effective enough to empower them to be active citizens of the United States.


Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 462, 471. Print.

Mount, Steve. "Notes on the Amendments." U.S. Constitution Onlie. N.p., 08 Sep 2010. Web. 13 Nov 2010. <http://www.usconstitution.net/constamnotes.html>.

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