Amendment XV
Ratified: February 3, 1870
Summary
Prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Full Text
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.
History and Context
The final of the three Reconstruction Amendments, the Fifteenth was intended to be the capstone of freedom, securing the most fundamental right of a citizen in a republic: the right to vote. After the Civil War, there was a fierce debate over whether the formerly enslaved should be given the franchise. Radical Republicans pushed for this amendment to ensure that Black men could not be disenfranchised by the states they lived in. While a monumental step, its promise was betrayed for nearly a century. Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, and brutal intimidation to prevent Black Americans from voting, a wrong that would not begin to be corrected until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.