ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed Republicans this support. Ironically, the Fifteenth Amendment also forced reluctant northern states to give blacks the right to vote. Even though most of the new postwar state constitutions in the South gave blacks the right to vote, many northern states refused to follow suit, because they considered universal manhood suffrage a solution unique to the South that was unnecessary in the North. The amendment also granted voting rights to poor whites, especially in the South. Prior to the Civil War, landowners were the only social group who had the privilege to vote, excluding the majority of poor, landless whites from active political participation. The Fifteenth Amendment thus brought sweeping changes for blacks, poor whites, and politics in general in the United States.
Reconstruction LEQ Notes Reaction from Suffragettes The Fifteenth Amendment did not secure the right to vote for all Americans: women still did not have the right to vote, and leaders in the Women’s Suffrage movement felt betrayed by their exclusion from the amendment. Prior to the Civil War, the women’s suffrage movement and the Abolition Movement had been closely related: both groups strived to achieve political and civil rights for the underrepresented in society. After the Union victory, prominent women in the movement, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony , saw a window of opportunity: they believed that with progressive, Unionist support in Congress, blacks and women would achieve enfranchisement. Radical Republicans in Congress believed otherwise. Republicans assumed that if Congress granted all men and women the right to vote, their party would lose support in both the South and North. As it turned out, women would have to wait almost fifty more years for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment that granted them the right to vote. Reconstruction Plans Lincoln’s plan was known as the 10% Plan. It was simple. With a few exceptions, Lincoln offered pardons to any Confederate who swore allegiance to the Union and the Constitution. When the number of people who took an oath of allegiance equaled 10% of the number of voters who participated in the election of 1860, the state would be readmitted to the Union after organizing a new state government which abolished slavery. Lincoln was assassinated before this plan could be put into effect. Johnson’s plan was also lenient towards the southern states. He would grant pardons to anyone taking a loyalty oath to the U.S. except for high ranking Confederate political and military leaders, and people owning property worth more than $20,000. States would be readmitted to the Union once they created a new state government that abolished slavery, repealed the state’s ordinance of secession, and repudiated Confederate debts. This was put into effect when Congress was in recess. Johnson’s Plan did not really address the fortunes of newly freed slaves and southern states began to pass “black codes”’ or laws which severely limited the civil rights of freedmen. When Congress reconvened, it refused to recognize Johnson’s plan by refusing to seat any person
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- Fall '15
- Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant, Reconstruction era of the United States, President Andrew Johnson