CHAPTER XXIII

THE RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS (1865-1870)

SUGGESTIONS

THE Thirteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress Feb. 1, 1865, and declared to have been ratified by twenty-seven of the thirty-six States, Dec. 18, 1865.

The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress June 16, 1866, and declared to have been ratified by thirty of the thirty-six States, July 28, 1868.

The Fifteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress Feb. 26, 1869, and declared to have been ratified by twenty-nine of the thirty-seven States, March 30, 1870.

With the examination of the three amendments, we reach the farthest extension of free institutions by the Teutonic race. Beginning with the liberty of the baron, set forth in Magna Charta in 1215, the doctrine that all men are born equal in so far as rights and privileges in government are concerned was in these documents finally demonstrated and made good by law.

For Outlines and Material, see Appendix B.

DOCUMENTS

Thirteenth Amendment (1865)

SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servi- American Histude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the tory Leaflets, No. 8 (text party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist from original within the United States, or any place subject to manuscript Rolls). Slavtheir jurisdiction. ery forbidden

SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce by law in this article by appropriate legislation.

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in

every place under U. S. jurisdiction.

Citizenship

the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction defined by

the Court," Dred Scott

Case. This

law. Note thereof, are citizens of the United States and of "Opinion of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

section was modified by the adoption

of the 15th Amendment, which absolutely took away from the State the power to exclude the negro from suffrage.

SECTION 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twentyone years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

SECTION 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

SECTION 4. The validity of the public debt of the

Confederate

United States, authorized by law, including debts Federal Debt incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for assumed. services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, repudiated. shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

SECTION 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

By this amendment

suffrage was made impartial, but not necessarily universal, to male citizens

SECTION 1. 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, colour, or previous condition of servitude. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to above the age enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

CONTEMPORARY EXPOSITION

COFFROTH (1865)

of twentyone years.

Mr. Speaker, I speak not to-day for or against slavery. I am contented that this much agitated question shall be adjudicated at the proper time by the people. It is my purpose to state in all candour the reasons which prompt me to give the vote I shall now soon record. The amending of our Constitution is fraught with so much importance to the American people that before it is accomplished the amendments proposed should be scrutinized with the strictest criticism. . . . The life and existence of this nation is centered in the observance and faithful execution of the powers conferred by the Constitution upon the servants of the people.

It is argued that this amendment is unconstitutional; that the Congress of the United States has no legal authority to propose this amendment, nor have the states in ratifying it the consti

tutional power to destroy or interfere with the right of property. Learned gentlemen of this House differ on this subject. The Constitution itself provides the remedy by which all these differences of opinion can be legally adjudicated. (See Sec. 2 of Art. 3 of the Constitution.) . . . I have voted for every peace resolution in this House. My heart yearns for peace . . . and if by my vote this amendment is submitted to the States, and it brings this war to a close, I will ever rejoice at the vote I have given.

A. H. COFFROTH, Congressional Globe, 38 Cong. 2d Sess. 523. Jan. 31, 1865.

BROWN (1865)

It is mischievous in so far as it would tie the hands of the President, in so regulating the mode of abolishing slavery as not to precipitate upon the country three million ignorant and debased negroes, without the slightest preparation for liberty or power on the part of the Government, by a system of apprenticeship or otherwise to require them to labour. .

England, in emancipating the slaves on her islands, not only established a system of apprenticeship, but compensated those who lost. It is no answer that slavery is immoral: individuals, upon the faith of laws which recognized rights in negro labour, have invested their property in such rights. When the Government sees fit to change its policy and destroy its rights, it owes compensation. Of course compensation is due only to loyal

Owners.

It is a dangerous abuse of the power of amendment conferred by the Constitution.

J. S. BROWN, in House of Representatives, Congressional Globe, 38 Cong. 2d Sess. 527. Jan. 31, 1865.

BLAINE (1886)

The proposed Constitutional amendment was brought before the House on the 6th of January by Mr. Ashley of Ohio, upon whose motion to reconsider the adverse vote of the preceding session, the question continued to have a parliamentary status. He made a forcible speech in support of the amendment, but the chief value of his work did not consist in speaking, but in his watchful care of the measure, in the quick and intuitive judgment with which he discerned every man on the Demo

cratic side of the House who felt anxious as to the vote he should give on the momentous question, and in the pressure which he brought to bear upon him from the best and most influential of his constituents. The issue presented was one that might well make thoughtful men pause and consider. The instant restoration to four millions of human beings of the God-given right of freedom so long denied them, depended upon the vote of the House of Representatives. It addressed itself to the enlightened judgment and to the Christian philanthropy of every member. Each one had to decide for himself whether so far as lay in the power of his own vote he would give liberty to the slave, or forge his fetters anew. The constitutional duty of not interfering with slavery in the States could not be pleaded at the bar of conscience for an adverse vote. There was no doubt that under the terms of the Constitution such interference was unwarranted. But this was a question of changing the Constitution itself so as to confer upon Congress the express power to enlarge the field of personal liberty and make the Republic free indeed. It came therefore as an original and distinct question whether millions of people with their descendants for all time should be doomed to slavery or gifted with freedom.

The vote was 119 yeas to 56 nays more than the constitutional two-thirds. When the announcement was made, the Speaker became powerless to preserve order. The members upon the Republican side sprang upon their seats cheering, shouting, and waving hands, hats, and canes, while the spectators upon the floor and in the galleries joined heartily in the demonstrations. . .

The great act of Liberation, so far as Congress could control it, was complete. The amendment was at once submitted to the States, and by official proclamation of December 18, 1865,

less than eleven months after Congress had spoken, the Secretary of State announced that it had been ratified by the Legislatures of twenty-seven States and was a part of the Constitution. The result was attained by the united action of one party and the aid of a minority of the other party. The cooperation of the Democratic members had gained for the cause of emancipation a whole year. The action was of transcend