Ratified by the required three-fourths of states on February 17, 1870

Reprinted on GPO Access: Constitution of the United States (Web site)

African American men gain the right to vote

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied … on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Once the slaves were freed by the North's victory in the American Civil War (1861–65), white abolitionist (slavery opponent) William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) thought his work was done. At the May 1865 meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Garrison urged the group to disband and celebrate its success. Frederick Douglass (1817–1895), a leading African American abolitionist, said that would be a huge mistake. "Slavery is not abolished [ended] until the African American man has the ballot," said Douglass, as recorded in Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution. After a heated...