By Gary W. Gallagher, University of Virginia
Even after the election of 1868, 11 of 21 northern states still denied the right to vote to black men. Indeed, a blot on the nation that was rectified with the Fifteenth Amendment. The Republicans drew up the amendment both because it was morally right, and because they believed it would strengthen their party in the South.
Racist Attacks on Republicans
The election of 1868 saw the Democrats calling for a return to white supremacy in the South. They nominated Governor Oration Seymour of New York and attacked Reconstruction legislation. The campaign was a very dirty one. The Republicans waved the bloody shirt. The Democrats made viciously racist attacks on the Republicans, and on what they called ‘black rule’ in the South. Southern whites, including the recently organized Ku Klux Klan, intimidated Republican voters, black and white, across the South.
A depressing number of people, mostly African Americans, were murdered in Louisiana between April and November 1868. In one especially bloody Louisiana parish, so many were killed that on election day, not a single Republican showed up at the polls to cast a vote. The intimidation by the Democrats had worked very well, and the Democrats carried Louisiana and Georgia.
Grant’s Win
Their intimidation tactics cost them support in the North, though. Republicans nominated, U.S. Grant, carried about 55 percent of the vote in the northern states, almost exactly the same percentage that Abraham Lincoln had won in 1860. Grant also won easily, in the Electoral College, 214–80.
The Republicans retained two-thirds of the House and four-fifths of the Senate, but Democrat Governor Oration Seymour won a majority, probably a very narrow majority, of the white votes cast in 1868. Only black votes in the South enabled U.S. Grant to have a majority of the popular vote, in addition to his overwhelming majority in the Electoral College.
This is a transcript from the video series A History of the United States, 2nd Edition. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Republican Party Benefitting from Black Votes
After the election, the Republican Congress turned to the question of black suffrage. Eleven of 21 northern states still denied the vote to black men. The Republicans believed if black men could vote, those would be Republican votes, almost certainly.
In fact, they were right. Black Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican until the third decade of the 20th century. It really wasn’t until Franklin Delano Roosevelt that black voters in the United States turned to the Democratic Party rather than to the Republican Party.
Justice Served
Thus, the Republicans, with the Fifteenth Amendment, could see that they would get both party gain and justice being served. The amendment prohibited denying anyone the vote because of race, color, or condition of previous servitude.
A more sweetened version, supported by the radicals, would have prohibited literacy tests and property qualifications and other obstacles later used to deny both black and white voters the franchise in the South.
Women’s Right to Vote
Unfortunately, the amendment did not address women’s right to vote. This upset a number of the women who’d worked very hard in the emancipation struggle. They felt that they had helped bring freedom for black men. Why didn’t they get to vote? Why are they ignored in this process? Black men should vote, but so should the women.
Many leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony among them, refused to support the Fifteenth Amendment, because it did not address women’s right to vote.
Other leaders of the suffrage movement disagreed, so that there was a split within the suffrage movement over this issue. It was very contentious.
The Fifteenth Amendment
Congress passed the amendment in February 1869. In March 1870, Georgia became the last state needed for ratification, and the amendment became law. Many Republicans viewed the Fifteenth Amendment as the last step in Reconstruction, the last unfinished bit of business left over from the war. They believed their work was completed, and that it was time to move on to other things. The New York Times spoke for many in April 1870 when it put it this way: “Let us have done with Reconstruction. The country is sick and tired of it. Let us have peace.”
Now, “let us have peace” was a phrase that Grant had put out when he accepted the nomination in 1868. By 1870, then, many in the North considered Reconstruction essentially complete, but white southerners chafed under what they considered corrupt and unfair Republican rule, and they hoped to regain control of their states.
It hinted towards what was coming in the last phase of Reconstruction, with violence and intimidation helping former Confederates achieve what they called ‘redemption’, and the famous Compromise of 1877 bringing to an end 12 years of Reconstruction, and more than 20 years of bitter sectional discord.
Common Questions about the Fifteenth Amendment and the Right to Vote
The Democrats made viciously racist attacks on the Republicans, and on what they called ‘black rule’ in the South. Southern whites, including the recently organized Ku Klux Klan, intimidated Republican voters, black and white, across the South.
The Republicans, with the Fifteenth Amendment, could see that they would get both party gain and justice being served. The amendment prohibited denying anyone the vote because of race, color, or condition of previous servitude.
Many leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony among them, refused to support the Fifteenth Amendment, because it did not address women’s right to vote. Other leaders of the suffrage movement disagreed, so that there was a split within the suffrage movement over this issue.
