Amendment 4 was designed to automatically restore the right to vote for people with prior felony convictions, except those convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense, upon completion of their sentences, including prison, parole, and probation. The first black person known to vote after the amendment's adoption was Thomas Mundy Peterson, who cast his ballot on March 31, 1870, in a Perth Amboy, New Jersey referendum election adopting a revised city charter. 100 years ago the 19th Amendment, intended to empower women with the Constitutional right to vote, was just one vote short of ratification; historians discuss ⦠Initially introduced to Congress in 1878, several attempts to pass a women's suffrage amendment failed until passing the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919, followed by the Senate on June 4, 1919. [46] In 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president after a highly contested election, receiving support from three Southern states in exchange for a pledge to allow white Democratic governments to rule without federal interference. Before its adoption, this could be done. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. And yet most Black women ⦠The Court declared that the Fifteenth Amendment "commands that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race or color, and it gives Congress the power to enforce that command. In the late 18th century, it was widely held that only the best-educated men of substance were capable of making the correct voting decisions; therefore, the right to vote was limited to white male property owners. In 2020, the Fifteenth Amendment turns 150. [63], The Court also used the amendment to strike down a gerrymander in Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960). President Grant said of the amendment that it "completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came to life. [69][70], Congress used its authority pursuant to Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, achieving further racial equality in voting. [38], African Americans called the amendment the nation's "second birth" and a "greater revolution than that of 1776" according to historian Eric Foner in his book The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. As written, the Fifteenth Amendment does not explicitly grant anyone the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided federal oversight of elections in discriminatory jurisdictions, banned literacy tests and similar discriminatory devices, and created legal remedies for people affected by voting discrimination. The Court ruled in the related case Myers v. Anderson (1915), that the officials who enforced such a clause were liable for civil damages. 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, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Enforcement Acts were passed by Congress in 1870–1871 to authorize federal prosecution of the KKK and others who violated the amendment. The term suffrage, or franchise, means the right to vote. The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Under the Constitution, residency requirements and other qualifications for voting were set by the states. Voting rights were further incorporated into the Constitution in the Nineteenth Amendment (voting rights for women) and the Twenty-fourth Amendment (prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections). [43] The Court wrote: The Fifteenth Amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone. Enlarge PDF Link 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, May 19, 1919; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.