Topic Two
The Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Significant Constitutional Amendments
The 1800’s were a time of growth in the United States; however, the North and the South were very different, and by the 1850’s, it was clear that the debate over slavery would not be resolved peacefully. The American Civil War, which started in 1861 after decades of tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights, and westward expansion, was fought between the North and the South. Voting, during the early days, was limited to white men who owned property. It was not until after the Civil War ended that African American men were granted the right to vote in the 15th Amendment.
African Americans and minorities systematically were denied the right to vote during Reconstruction. After the Reconstruction period, the birth of the civil rights movement seemed to ensure that the promises to African American males were enacted.13 In 1863, the 13th Amendment ended slavery. The 13th Amendment and 14th Amendment had started the process by setting slaves free and securing citizenship. However, the 15th Amendment, though theoretically giving all men the right to vote, spurred lawmakers to find ways to suppress the African American vote. Thus the 15th Amendment began a fight for equality that would continue into the twentieth and twenty-first century.
“Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be realized for almost a century. In 1940, only 3% of eligible African Americans in the South were registered to vote. Jim Crow laws like literacy tests and poll taxes were meant to keep African Americans from voting."14
It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote. It was not until after the civil rights movement in the 1960s that African Americans in the South were able to exercise their rights. “Through the amendment process, and the civic movements that demanded such amendments, more Americans were eventually included in the Constitution’s definition of "We the People."15
In 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote nationwide, and in 1971 the 26th Amendment extended suffrage to eighteen-year-olds. But these amendments were impossible without an abolitionist movement that swayed Lincoln, a women’s suffrage movement that accused Woodrow Wilson of being a hypocrite about democracy, and a youth movement that insisted someone old enough to die for his government was also old enough to elect it.”16
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