Live-blogging the Fifteenth Amendment: February 22, 1869

NewDealdemocrat | February 27, 2020 9:16 am

Journalism

Live-blogging the Fifteenth Amendment: February 22, 1869

On February 22, the Senate took up the revisions that the House of Representatives had made to their proposals from one week prior. The House had struck from the Senate’s version, as sent to the House, the section extending the protections of the Amendment to qualifications for office, as well as the companion Amendment reforming the Electoral College.

Senator Stewart (Republican from Nevada) proposed that the Senate disagree with the House and send back the following version:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by any State on account of race, color, nativity, property, creed, or previous condition of servitude.

The Congress by appropriate legislation may enforce the provisions of this article.

Stewart moved that the Senate ask for a conference committee to iron out their differences. There was dismay that the House was insisting on having its exact way as to this amendment, as had been the case for the past number of years as to all legislation, and that the attempt to reconcile their differences might be futile.

The Senate decided to put off voting on the proposal for a day.

Source: Congressional Globe, 40th Congress, 3rd Session, pp. 1440-42.

1 Comment

2slugbaits says:

February 27, 2020 at 1:19 pm

Eric Foner’s new book “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution” has nice chapters on the three Reconstruction amendments plus another chapter on how those amendments were interpreted (and misinterpreted) post-Reconstruction.

The Fifteenth Amendment was seen as a sellout by suffragettes. It also had the unintended consequence of allowing Liberal Republicans the luxury of fooling themselves into believing that the work of Reconstruction was done.