The Ratification Of The 14th And 15th Amendments

Before the ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments African Americans had almost no rights, and not to long before the 14th and 15 amendments were passed they were slaves. Even after the African American’s were freed they still had almost no rights, and in the south almost nobody recognized the few rights that African Americans did have. It was not until the 14th and 15th amendments were passed that African Americans started getting basic rights that all people should have. Before the 14th and 15ty amendments were passed African Americans had no rights, but when the amendments were passed they were granted full equality but then began to battle the oppression placed upon them by the state governments.
The 13th amendment which freed all
slaves was supposed to give the African Americans rights as well, but the south continued to treat African Americans as if they had no rights at all. Before the 14th and 15th amendments were passed African Americans could not vote everywhere, because the states could decide who voted in their state. Because no one had ever defined citizenship or given a way to determine it African Americans were not treated as citizens in many places, especially the south. The 13th amendment was supposed to give African Americans equal rights everywhere, but because of racist southern state governments it did not happen like that at all. It was not just in elections that African Americans did not stand on equal ground as white people, African Americans did not receive equal protection under the law. White people could beat African Americans in the streets and get away with it, but if an African American tried to fight back they would be arrested on the spot. The national government knew this was a problem and was on the cusp of something that would help to help to equalize the races in as little as three years.
The 14th and 15th amendments were passed because after African Americans were freed some southern states refused to acknowledge any rights that the 13th amendment was supposed to guarantee them.
Three years after all the slaves were free the 14th and 15th amendments were ratified to grant African Americans citizenship, due process of law, equal protection under the law, and the right to vote. Southern states had been oppressing African Americans their whole lives, when they were slaves, and even after they were freed. With the 14th and 15th amendments passed African Americans would now have equal rights and there was nothing southern state governments could do about it, right? Wrong. The Southern states began to issue poll taxes. A poll tax was a tax anyone who wanted to vote had to pay before they could vote. Being newly freed slaves many African Americans did not have the money to pay so they could not vote. Not all African Americans did not have the money to vote, but the southern governments found a way to stop a lot of those who did have the money to vote: Literacy tests. A literacy was a test everyone had to take to determine if they were intellectually competent to vote. The people grading them were white supremacists so they could decide who passed and failed regardless of scores. The south encountered a slight bump in the road when they discovered that not all southerners could pass the test or pay the tax, so they instituted the grandfather clause. The grandfather
clause said that if they could vote before literacy tests and poll taxes were invented then they did not have to take them. The Sothern governments were not the only people taking measures to ensure African Americans could not vote, the Klu Klux Klan hung and threatened African Americans to scare them into not voting. Despite all the south’s best efforts African Americans still tried to vote and would continue to until they were treated as equals.
Before the 14th and 15th amendments the southern state governments did not recognize any of African American’s rights that were given to them by the 13th amendments. When the 14th and 15th amendments were passed they sparked a fuse that would burn and burn until it reached the dynamite that would blow away oppression in the south. The south tried to hold down the African Americans, but they got up every time stronger than before energized by the 14th and 15th amendments. The 14th and 15th amendments gave African Americans the strength to keep tearing away at every wall the south put up; the kkk, poll taxes, literacy tests and more. Without the 14th and 15th amendments African Americans would never be where they are today, equal.