On this day in history, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
was ratified — granting African American men the right to vote.
The amendment declared that 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."
A dramatic battle in the Tennessee House of Representatives ends with
the state ratifying the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution
on August 18, 1920. After decades of struggle and protest by suffragettes
across the country, the decisive vote was cast by a young representative
who reputedly changed his vote after receiving a note from his mother.
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing American women
the right to vote, was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.
The women’s suffrage movement was founded in the mid-19th century by
women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist
and temperance movements. In July 1848, 240 woman suffragists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to
assert the right of women to vote. Female enfranchisement was still largely opposed by most Americans, and the distraction of the North-South conflict
and subsequent Civil War precluded further discussion.
During the Reconstruction Era, the 15th Amendment was adopted, granting
African American men the right to vote, but the Republican-dominated
Congress failed to expand its progressive radicalism into the sphere of
gender.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, founders of The
National Woman Suffrage Association, circa 1881.
This 1867 drawing by Alfred Waud, “The First Vote,” depicts Black
men waiting in line to cast ballots in Southern states.
On January 8, 1867, African American men gained the right to vote in the
District of Columbia despite the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The
Republican-controlled senate overrode Johnson by a vote of 29-10
three years before a constitutional amendment granted the right to
vote to all men regardless of race.
As evidenced by his veto, Johnson valued reconciliation with the former Confederacy over racial equality and also opposed the Fourteenth
Amendment, which made freed slaves citizens. His opposition to
the Republicans’ views on Reconstruction would define his presidency
and lead to his becoming the first president ever to be impeached.
Though Johnson was unable to stop Congress from granting voting
rights to the African Americans of D.C., he spent much of his term in
office vetoing the bills of the so-called Radical Reconstructionist.
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875)
Johnson was the 17th U.S. president,
assumed office after the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln.
JOHN BELMONT
In Oslo, Norway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel
Peace Prize on this day in 1964. He was the youngest person
to receive the award.
