page_title: Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
section_title: Ratification
hierarchical_section_title: Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution / Proposal and ratification / Ratification
caption_attribution_description: "The Fifteenth Amendment", an 1870 print celebrating the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in February 1870, and the advancements that African-Americans had made as a result of the Civil War. Portraits in image: At the top corners, President Ulysses S. Grant and Vice President Schuyler Colfax. (The Grant administration was much more satisfactory to African-Americans than the preceding Andrew Johnson administration.) Smaller portraits (inset from the bottom corners) of the deceased white heroes of Black rights, Abraham Lincoln and John Brown. At top center, African-American leaders Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and Hiram Revels. Vignettes in image (counterclockwise from top left): 1. "Reading Emancipation Proclamation" Raggedly-dressed black man holding document signed "LINCOLN". 2. "Life, Liberty, and Independence" Sword and olive wreath. 3. "We Unite the Bonds of Fellowship" Three men dressed in sashes and aprons of black fraternal organizations, with corresponding banners. 4. "Our charter of Rights - The Holy Scriptures" Book labelled "Holy Bible". 5. "Education will prove the Equality of the Races" Schoolroom scene with Black woman schoolteacher. 6. "Liberty Protects the Marriage Altar" Double wedding scene. 7. "Celebration of Fifteenth Amendment, May 19th, 1870" (at center) Large vignette of black parade with drums and mounted men leading marchers on foot, viewed by a friendly white audience. 8. "The Ballot Box is open to us" Black man casting secret ballot. 9. "Our representative Sits in the National Legislature" Floor of Congress scene, presumably depicting Sen. Hiram Revels sitting at his desk as other Blacks watch from the galleries. 10. "The Holy Ordinances of Religion are free" Black church scene with Black preacher. 11. "Freedom unites the Family Circle" Domestic scene. 12. "We will protect our Country as it defends our Rights" Black military unit parading past cheering white spectators. 13. "We till our own Fields" Two black men reaping grain. 14. "The Right of Citizens of the U.S. to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S. or any State on account of Race, Color, or [previous] Condition of Servitude - 15th Amendment" Quill pen(?) and scroll of Constitution of the United States. Bibliographic information found at LoC site: TITLE: The Fifteenth amendment CALL NUMBER: PGA - Kelly (T.)--Fifteenth amendment (A size) (A size) [P&amp;P] REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZC4-2399 (color film copy transparency) LC-USZ62-36272 (b&amp;w film copy neg.) SUMMARY: Parade surrounded by portraits and vignettes of Black life, illustrating rights granted by the 15th amendment. MEDIUM: 1 print on wove paper&#160;: lithograph with watercolor&#160;; 25.2 x 31.4 cm. CREATED/PUBLISHED: N.Y.&#160;: Published &amp; printed by Thomas Kelly, 17 Barclay St., c1870. CREATOR: Kelly, Thomas, fl. 1871-1874. NOTES: A reduced version of Kelly's large print "The Fifteenth Amendment, Celebrated May 19th 1870" (no. 1870-4), with a key to the picture added in the lower margin. Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston&#160;: G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1870-5. TOPICS: African Americans (portrayed), in the U.S. military. Baltimore, Md. Brown, John. Colfax, Schuyler. Constitutional amendments, fifteenth. Delany, Martin Robinson. Douglass, Frederick. Emancipation Proclamation. Grant, Ulysses S., presidency. House of Representatives. Masons. Revels, Hiram. Schools, for African Americans. Voters and voting. SUBJECTS: African Americans--Civil rights--1870. Liberty--1870. FORMAT: Lithographs Hand-colored 1870. REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA DIGITAL ID: (color film copy transparency) cph 3g02399 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g02399 (b&amp;w film copy neg.) cph 3a36683 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a36683 CARD #: 93510386
context_page_description: The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.
  In the final years of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of former black slaves. By 1869, amendments had been passed to abolish slavery and provide citizenship and equal protection under the laws, but the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 convinced a majority of Republicans that protecting the franchise of black male voters was important for the party's future. On February 26, 1869, after rejecting more sweeping versions of a suffrage amendment, Congress proposed a compromise amendment banning franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude. After surviving a difficult ratification fight, the amendment was certified as duly ratified and part of the Constitution on March 30, 1870.
context_section_description: Though many of the original proposals for the amendment had been moderated by negotiations in committee, the final draft nonetheless faced significant hurdles in being ratified by three-fourths of the states. Historian William Gillette wrote of the process, "it was hard going and the outcome was uncertain until the very end."
  One source of opposition to the proposed amendment was the women's suffrage movement, which before and during the Civil War had made common cause with the abolitionist movement. However, with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had explicitly protected only male citizens in its second section, activists found the civil rights of women divorced from those of blacks. Matters came to a head with the proposal of the Fifteenth Amendment, which barred race discrimination but not sex discrimination in voter laws. After an acrimonious debate, the American Equal Rights Association, the nation's leading suffragist group, split into two rival organizations: the National Woman Suffrage Association of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who opposed the amendment, and the American Woman Suffrage Association of Lucy Stone and Henry Browne Blackwell, who supported it. The two groups remained divided until the 1890s.
  Nevada was the first state to ratify the amendment, on March 1, 1869. The New England states and most Midwest states also ratified the amendment soon after its proposal. Southern states still controlled by Radical reconstruction governments, such as North Carolina, also swiftly ratified. Newly elected President Ulysses S. Grant strongly endorsed the amendment, calling it "a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day." He privately asked Nebraska's governor to call a special legislative session to speed the process, securing the state's ratification. In April and December 1869, Congress passed Reconstruction bills mandating that Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia ratify the amendment as a precondition to regaining congressional representation; all four states did so. The struggle for ratification was particularly close in Indiana and Ohio, which voted to ratify in May 1869 and January 1870, respectively. New York, which had ratified on April 14, 1869, tried to revoke its ratification on January 5, 1870. However, in February 1870, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas ratified the amendment, bringing the total ratifying states to twenty-nine—one more than the required twenty-eight ratifications from the thirty-seven states, and forestalling any court challenge to New York's resolution to withdraw its consent.
  The first twenty-eight states to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment were:
  Nevada: March 1, 1869
  West Virginia: March 3, 1869
  North Carolina: March 5, 1869
  Illinois: March 5, 1869
  Louisiana: March 5, 1869
  Michigan: March 8, 1869
  Wisconsin: March 9, 1869
  Maine: March 11, 1869
  Massachusetts: March 12, 1869
  Arkansas: March 15, 1869
  South Carolina: March 15, 1869
  Pennsylvania: March 25, 1869
  New York: April 14, 1869 (Rescinded ratification: January 5, 1870; re-ratified: March 30, 1870)
  Indiana: May 14, 1869
  Connecticut: May 19, 1869
  Florida: June 14, 1869
  New Hampshire: July 1, 1869
  Virginia: October 8, 1869
  Vermont: October 20, 1869
  Alabama: November 16, 1869
  Missouri: January 10, 1870
  Minnesota: January 13, 1870
  Mississippi: January 17, 1870
  Rhode Island: January 18, 1870
  Kansas: January 19, 1870
  Ohio: January 27, 1870 (After rejection: April 1/30, 1869)
  Georgia: February 2, 1870
  Iowa: February 3, 1870
  Secretary of State Hamilton Fish certified the amendment on March 30, 1870, also including the ratifications of:
  29. Nebraska: February 17, 1870
  30. Texas: February 18, 1870
  The remaining seven states all subsequently ratified the amendment:
  31. New Jersey: February 15, 1871 (After rejection: March 17/18, 1870)
  32. Delaware: February 12, 1901 (After rejection: March 17/18, 1869)
  33. Oregon: February 24, 1959 (After rejection: October 26, 1870)
  34. California: April 3, 1962 (After rejection: January 28, 1
caption: 1870 print celebrating the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in February 1870, and the post Civil War political empowerment of African Americans
exif: {}