Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Audience

Once proposed and ratified by the required majorities, constitutional amendments join other parts of the Constitution as part of what Article VI of the Constitution calls “the supreme law of the land.” The language of amendments thus speaks to the American people and to the world as a whole. Like the two previous amendments, the Fifteenth helped articulate American values and provide legal language that individuals can cite when they attempt to secure their rights in courts. Many Americans, including President Grant, who had favored its adoption, viewed it as the culmination of earlier provisions in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments and as a practical implementation of the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence.

The Fifteenth Amendment arguably carried different messages for North and South. It required states in the North, which had previously rejected Black suffrage, to accept it, while attempting to assure that southern states, on which Congress had imposed such suffrage, would retain it. While the former hopes were largely fulfilled, the latter were dashed relatively quickly and did not reemerge for nearly a century.