Lessons from the Constitution: Thinking Through the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments

Lisa Tetrault

he colored citizens of Baltimore yesterday celebrated in an imposing and hearty and these twin amendments did nothing “Tmanner the ratification of the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the to change that. United States, under which they acquire the same right of suffrage as is possessed Second, the Constitution leaves voting by white citizens,” The Baltimore Sun reported on May 19, 1870. With seven brass up to the states. Although talk of consti- bands, multiple drum corps, a mass parade, bright colors, crowded sidewalks, and tutional amendments lures us into think- people hanging out of windows, the assembly of roughly 20,000 presented “a lively ing that voting is federally governed, it is scene.” Frederick Douglass, the great African American statesman, spoke triumphantly not. In divvying up the powers between to the throngs clogging the streets. Similar scenes unfolded across the nation. The the federal and state governments (feder- United States, another headline declared, had miraculously given “freed slaves the alism), our Constitution gives individual right to vote.” states authority over this matter. Who can vote depends largely—at the found- Fifty years later, in 1920, another On this anniversary, it behooves us to ing, and still now—upon state law. amendment, modeled exactly on the take a look back at these moments, partly States, in other words, define who can Fifteenth, made its way through Congress because they are so widely misunder- (and can’t) vote within their boundar- and won ratification. For every state that stood. Despite the incredible optimism ies, through clauses in their state consti- had ratified, the women’s suffrage leader and expectations surrounding them, nei- tutions, where voter qualifications are Alice Paul had stitched a yellow star onto ther amendment did what it promised to spelled out, and through state laws gov- her National Woman’s Party flag, three do: secure a citizen’s right to vote. What erning eligibility. For most of American bold stripes of purple, cream, and gold. each failed to resolve—the guarantee of a history, states have severely limited who Quickly states had fallen in line, then right to vote—continues to be the unfin- could vote. They have been free to do stopped—one short. It would come down ished work of the American democratic this, because voting is, in point of fact, to one man, Harry T. Burn, the youngest project. not a federal citizenship right. Thus, it member of the Tennessee legislature. His may be abridged. surprise vote in favor broke a tie in that The Right to Vote and the U.S. One of many ways states abridged vot- state and pushed the amendment over to Constitution ing was on grounds of race and sex. By the victory. Paul hastily affixed her final gold To frame this history, a few basic consti- 1820s and 30s, requirements that voters star and rushed outside to unfurl the ban- tutional lessons are necessary. First, con- be “white” and “male” had become fairly ner amidst celebrations erupting across trary to popular presumption, the origi- uniform across all states. The Fifteenth the nation. “SUFFRAGE WINS!” trum- nal Constitution contains no mention of and Nineteenth Amendments worked peted the Lowell Sun, “Giving Women of a citizen’s right to vote. The Fifteenth and to remove those words from state voter the Entire Nation Vote.” Nineteenth Amendments, then, did not qualifications. That was their opera- These two tightly connected, historic extend an (unjustly stolen) “right to vote.” tion. Neither federalized or conferred amendments are about to celebrate a sig- Yet, like contemporary headlines did, we a non-existent “right to vote.” Instead, nificant milestone—their 150th and 100th still routinely speak of them this way, as both effectively demanded the removal, anniversaries. More festivities are brewing positively conferring voting rights. But in the case of the Fifteenth Amendment, as celebrants across the nation organize to neither did that, in reality, because there of the word “white,” and in the case of commemorate these important landmarks is no federally defined right to vote. The the Nineteenth Amendment, the word in the evolution of American democracy. Constitution is mute on this question, “male,” from state voter qualifications.

November/December 2019 361 Photographer: Carol M. Highsmith/Courtesy Carol Photographer: of the Library of Congress

A sculpture of women's suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony with abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass, in Rochester, New York's Susan B. Anthony Square Park, by artist Pepsy M. Kettavong.

After their ratification it became uncon- The first of the Reconstruction amend- black male voting rights. Congress had stitutional to explicitly discriminate on ments, the Thirteenth (1865), perma- tentatively extended this right in a num- those two grounds. States could no lon- nently abolished slavery. Next came tan- ber of different ways, but it remained an ger do this, or they stood in violation gled questions about what laws governed incomplete, vulnerable patchwork. That of the Constitution and could be sanc- the lives of the roughly four million freed the Republican-controlled Congress tioned by the federal government. people. The Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred evolved into embracing voting rights So why didn’t these amendments Scott decision had said that freed blacks was itself a surprise. secure a right to vote for black men and were not citizens. So did U.S. law apply At the war’s end, the enfranchising of all women, as is so commonly claimed? to them? Did they enjoy its rights and black men was a distant fantasy, incon- To understand this requires a deeper protections? No one knew. ceivable among whites, North and South. dive into the history—and language—of The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Among freed people, however, it was an each amendment. Amendments (along with a whole host absolutely central demand, one they of legislation) strove to settle these ques- forced into national debate again and The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) tions. The Fourteenth (1868) established again. Leaders like Frederick Douglass That the Civil War (1861–65) would black citizenship, by instituting birthright channeled this groundswell into ora- end with a remaking of the Constitution citizenship, meaning if you were born in tions and lobbying, insisting that the was no given. Many call the era after the the U.S., you were a citizen—no matter vote was central to freed people’s dignity war, known as Reconstruction (1865– the color of your skin. It also stated that and survival. A number of complicated 1877), the “second founding” to under- all citizens enjoyed “equal protection” events quickly moved congressional score how the constitutional revisions of before the law, and that citizens could Republicans to agree, and they opened the time birthed a brand new nation. To not be deprived of their rights without debate on the matter at the end of 1868 this point in U.S. history, there had been the “due process of law,” challenging the and into the early months of 1869. Thus little tinkering with the Constitution. vigilante white supremacist mobs that began the first sustained discussions of But the three Reconstruction amend- acted outside of the law and were daily voting rights at the national level. ments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, destroying the lives of freed people. Congressional debate was wide rang- and Fifteenth—announced a greatly Then came the Fifteenth Amendment ing, with public opinion continually emboldened federal state and a new (1870), the last of the Reconstruction chiming in, though there was little agree- national project. amendments, which was meant to resolve ment about what the amendment should

Social Education 362 look like. The choices broke down along cal power, and to help keep the northern striking down “white” in state voter two lines: (1) affirming that federal citi- Republican party in power. Constitutional requirements. zens had an inalienable right to vote and, issues aside, many white Congressmen Yet many viewed this historic victory thus, spelling out national voting stan- from the North and West simply weren’t as securing voting rights for black men. dards that would protect this right from interested in giving up the ability to disen- And for a time, with this obstruction state interference, meaning a “positive” franchise within their home states. removed, black men did, indeed, begin assertion of rights; or (2) a “negative” The eventual wording of the amend- voting in massive numbers. assertion of rights, prohibiting states ment was a messy compromise that For the next several decades, the from using certain criteria, such as race, defied the normal operations of con- United States undertook its first experi- to bar voters, but leaving voting other- gressional process. It was hastily written, ment in bi-racial democracy. Although wise within state control. Within that partly in back channels, and it passed white supremacists tried to stop black continuum, there were endless options. largely out of many lawmakers’ despair men from voting, the second and final Those arguing that the franchise needed at being able to settle upon any other section of the amendment had given an overhaul to more evenly distribute and agreeable language, as well as the urgent Congress the right to enforce the article. enshrine it as an inherent right, locked demand for action. And enforce it, they did (at least until horns with those who saw this as a bridge In the end, they cooked up a negative 1877, when the last federal troops vacated too far, a federal overreach into what assertion, not technically (or, positively) the South). Black men, in turn, showed was a constitutionally-sanctioned state conferring suffrage upon anyone. “The up en masse at the polls. prerogative. The question, they argued, right of citizens of the United States to They elected black local officials, needed to be confined to freedmen in vote,” the amendment began, “shall not black justices of the peace, and black the South (where the vast majority of be denied or abridged by the United state legislators. In South Carolina, one African Americans resided), who had to States or by any state on account of race, branch of the state legislature was now be enfranchised, as an emergency mea- color, or previous condition of servi- majority black, a stark reversal of a seam- sure, to protect their own lives, to prevent tude.” In other words, states could not less history of all-white control. These secessionists from regaining state politi- discriminate on the basis of race, thus eager democratic citizens even sent the

Teaching Hard History: American Slavery A groundbreaking, free suite of resources for teaching the history of American slavery: Frameworks for teaching all grades, with guidance for K–2, 3–5, 6–12 A new season of the Teaching Hard History: American Slavery podcast, hosted by Hasan Kwame Jeffries New classroom-ready videos, featuring Ibram X. Kendi, Annette Gordon-Reed and other leading historians

NOW AVAILABLE AT TOLERANCE.ORG/HARDHISTORY

November/December 2019 363 first black Congressmen to Washington, women suffragists and their allies had From Stanton and Anthony’s point of D.C. What followed in the wake of advocated for—two of that century’s view, the Fifteenth Amendment had only the Fifteenth Amendment was nothing most prominent suffragists, Elizabeth one redeeming feature: it had federal- short of a revolution in the practice of Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, ized suffrage. This long-held preroga- American democracy. refused to support it. A large contingent tive of the states was now within federal But the narrow, negative wording of of suffragists, however, championed power, they argued. And they birthed a that amendment—which worked at cross ratification, having spent years in the brand new idea, a federal amendment for purposes by extending voting, while anti-slavery fight. Ugly fights within women’s suffrage. simultaneously affirming the possibil- this coalition ensued. Stanton, using the An antebellum women’s rights move- ity of discrimination on other grounds— derogatory term “Sambo” in reference to ment had already fought for women’s would soon come back to haunt this black men, argued that if one class were suffrage for several decades, but they ground breaking episode in democracy’s to vote first, it should be educated white had worked at the state level, trying expansion. women. Douglass countered that black to remove the word “male” from each men needed the vote to protect them- individual state constitution. Concluding The Nineteenth Amendment selves against white vigilante violence. this method was now moot, Stanton and (1920) It was, he intoned, an urgent matter of Anthony launched a massive campaign However, women (who had been advo- life and death. for a Sixteenth Amendment. cating for suffrage since at least the Unyielding, Stanton and Anthony While they stormed the congressional 1840s) now demanded to know why they broke from the coalition and formed the citadel, Lucy Stone and the American were being left out of this constitutional National Woman Suffrage Association. Association claimed the Fifteenth and democratic remaking. Stunned, their former allies regrouped Amendment had done no such thing. It When Congress passed the Fifteenth and formed the American Woman had not reversed constitutional preroga- Amendment—omitting women, by not Suffrage Association, led loosely by tives around voter regulation. It was a war banning the word “male,” something another prominent suffragist, Lucy Stone. measure only, setting no new precedent.

Understanding Islam and Muslims Dar al Islam is pleased to oﬀer our 31st annual residential Teachers’ Institute July 5-18, 2020 in Abiquiu, New Mexico Participants will learn about the depth and breadth of Islamic faith, practice, history and culture from university-level content experts. Participants will also engage with curricular resources to teach about Islam in social studies, religion or world history classes. Finally, participants will utilize Institute materials and collaborate on a ﬁnal project that lends itself to immediate use in their classrooms.

e Teachers’ Institute is FREE!! Participants pay their round trip travel expenses to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dar al Islam provides books and supplementary materials, on- site room and board, and transportation between our campus in Abiquiu and the Albuquerque International Airport.

Apply Now! Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until May 15th with priority given to those submitted by April 1st. While the focus of this Institute is on secondary education, we accept and consider applications from a diversity of professionals.

For more information visit us online at www.daralislam.org. If you have any questions, con- tact us at [email protected].

Social Education 364 The fight for women’s suffrage, there- This was an exact mirror of the Fifteenth ernments and regained control of state fore, still had to be won at the state level, Amendment, substituting “sex” for “race.” politics. By the 1890s, white suprema- which was the only branch of govern- And while it too referenced a right to cists were determined to formally disen- ment properly in charge of the question. vote, it did not establish one. That refer- franchise black men, through legal means. This strategy scored all the early suc- ent was, at least constitutionally, a mirage. With no federal government looking over cesses. Wyoming enfranchised women in But as suffragists championed this their shoulder, they quickly realized they 1869. Utah followed a year later. From amendment, the vulnerabilities in its could now exploit the gaping loopholes 1893 forward, a quick succession of west- framing began to ring clear. As the federal in the Fifteenth Amendment’s language. ern states fully enfranchised women. By government increasingly turned a blind Whites understood they could legally 1917, New York had surrendered the bal- eye toward violence in the South, eventu- disenfranchise black men, as long as they lot to women. Then Michigan. By 1919, ally ignoring it altogether, white suprem- did not openly cite race as their reason. women were already voting on equal acists had overthrown the bi-racial gov- So starting in 1890, Southern states terms with men in 18 states. As this state campaign proceeded apace, the Sixteenth Amendment stalled out. Along the way, women in this camp began arguing that they already possessed the right to vote. Nothing was a more basic right of citizenship, they argued, than the right to vote. Surely as citizens, therefore, they were also voters. Women would go to the polls, cast their ballots, get arrested, and try this argu- ment in court—doing an end run around Free Workshops on Teaching About the cumbersome legislative process. Islam & World History One woman quite famously pushed her case all the way to the Supreme Georgetown University’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim- Court. But in its 1875 decision, Minor v. Christian Understanding offers teacher workshops at no cost to Happersett, the Court rejected this idea, school districts, community colleges, university outreach centers, affirming that voting was not a right of private schools, civic organizations and other institutions in the US citizenship. Voting was merely a “privi- and Canada. Schedule a customized workshop program selecting lege,” and could therefore be restricted. from nine interdisciplinary content modules, including: With that, the so-called New Departure strategy died, and this camp went back to • Basic Islamic beliefs and practices advocating a federal amendment. • The Sixteenth Amendment (as it was World religions in history and geography • then known) got several hearings in Cultural exchange in art and sciences Congress, but it never got anywhere. • Geography and demographics of the Muslim world During the first hearing, in 1878, the text • Contemporary hot-button issues that Senator Aaron Sargent introduced became the text of the eventual amend- Attendees receive handouts, access to extensive teaching ment, which passed as the Nineteenth resources, and certificates of attendance. Lunch is provided for Amendment 41 years later, in 1919. But, full-day workshops. Workshops are conducted by ACMCU amazingly, we don’t know who wrote it. Education Consultant Susan Douglass, who draws on over 20 That text was modeled on the Fifteenth; and like that amendment, it years of expertise in history education, curriculum design, and was a considerable retreat from an ear- teacher training lier positive assertion of a citizen’s right to vote. “The right of citizens of the For details and registration visit: https://acmcu.georgetown.edu/k14-outreach/teaching-workshops United States to vote,” it read, “shall not or e-mail [email protected] be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

November/December 2019 365 began adding new provisions to their evident. White suffragists stuck to the list of voter qualifications: poll taxes, From Stanton and text of their amendment, likely because literacy tests, understanding clauses, it allowed for discrimination in voting. and more. Had the original amendment Anthony’s point of This is hard to wrap our heads around: said black men had a right to vote, any view, the Fifteenth how and why white suffragists could infringement upon that right would have advocated for an expansion in vot- have been illegal. As it stood, however, Amendment had only one ing, while also tacitly condoning sweep- these infringements were perfectly legal, ing denials. because they did not mention race. redeeming feature: The answer lies in both realism and Many were ensnared by these new racism. A positive assertion of voting was restrictions, including some poor whites, it had federalized unlikely to ever pass, as it would have but these provisions were mostly tar- much larger reverberations (including re- geted at black men. These requirements suffrage. enfranchising all the black men that the had the veneer of plausibility (shouldn’t South had just finished disenfranchising). voters demonstrate an understanding of ously eliminated across the South. These The minimal appetite in Congress for government before casting a vote, for infringements drew little commentary radically remaking voting had collapsed example?), but whites made it impos- from white suffragists, however. Whereas back in 1870, and the Supreme Court sible to pass such tests (picking arcane black women insisted that voting rights had consistently pushed back against minutiae, like demanding the applicant be extended to black women and now, citizens’ attempts to expand it. Suffragists name all 65 county judges). This innova- once again, to black men, white women also needed white Southern votes to get tion swept the South. By 1913, the region’s generally remained silent. the amendment through Congress. This experiment in black voting was over. Notably, white suffragists also did narrow wording assured those men that Over the 1890s, then, while women’s nothing to shore up their own amend- a vote for women’s suffrage would not voting was expanding across the West, ment against similar abuses, the possi- be a vote for black suffrage. Those white black men’s voting was being simultane- bilities for which were now exceedingly supremacists could still prevent black

Summer Institutes Teaching the Humanities through Art

JUNE 22–26 or JULY 13–17, 2020

Be inspired this summer! Attend one of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s week-long Institutes in the nation’s capital. Join educators from across the country for an exciting exploration of the connections among American art, social studies, and English / language arts. Gain practical strategies for inte grating art into your curriculum to strengthen students’ visual literacy and critical thinking skills.

“ The Institute was a stunning success. I have Apply by March 30, 2020 | AmericanArt.si.edu/institutes become visually literate, I have learned new teaching strategies, and I have access to an amazing collection of resources.”

Social Education 366 women from voting, just as they were ously declaring that women had won lions, would not be able to vote until now preventing black men. This, white the right to vote. And as the Lowell the passage of the Voting Rights Act suffragists hoped, would bring white Sun further affirmed, this new provi- in 1965. men’s votes around. At the same time, sion applied to “women of the Entire many white suffragists held racist notions Nation,” a common misconception The Still Elusive Right to Vote about supposedly “unfit” voters. The then and now. The passage of the Voting Rights Act, language of their amendment was also For the majority of black women, an outgrowth of the civil rights move- a concession to their own racist beliefs who continued to reside in the South, ment, signaled Congress’s willing- that perhaps not all women should vote. however, voting was still blocked by ness to once again launch a sweeping The years leading up to the passage of literacy tests, understanding clauses, intervention into the discriminatory the amendment, in 1919, were wild. The and poll taxes. The Nineteenth actions of individual states. African old National and American Associations Amendment had struck down “male,” Americans had, since the passage had united in 1890, forming the National and brought about one of the largest of the Fifteenth Amendment, been American Woman Suffrage Association expansions in the voting populace in demanding federal protection against (NAWSA), which then splintered in turn. U.S. history, but it had not brought all state voter discrimination—legal and A new generation took over. Their orga- women along. extralegal. It took Congress almost a nizations launched a full-scale assault Continued voting restrictions also century to once again take decisive upon the federal government, replete ensnared Latina women across the action. with skillful political lobbying, brazen Southwest, and women of color more The 1965 Voting Rights Act barred street theater, imprisonment, and from generally around the nation, who states from enacting voting restrictions inside jail cells, brutal hunger strikes. faced a host of barriers (including that were racially discriminatory in When that amendment was finally citizenship bans)—things not gener- their effect, even if those restric- ratified in 1920, newspapers around ally visited upon white women. Many tions didn’t explicitly mention race. the country celebrated by errone- of these women, numbering in the mil- Moreover, it gave the federal govern-

The Long Road From Brown School Desegregation in Virginia g

July 12- July 17 OR July 26 - July 31, 2020 March 1, 2020

"Students Walking to Class. Life Magazine. Photograph. Little Rock, 1957. https://sites.wp.odu.edu/thelongroadfrombrown/ . (Accessed October 29, 2019)

November/December 2019 367 ment enforcement power, signaling the within their borders. And just as the to be—this story is far from over and the return of direct federal oversight in South did in the 1890s, states—North long pursuit of an elusive “right to vote” the South. This law has been one of and South—are dreaming up new remains an unfinished project. the most successful pieces of federal plausible sounding barriers to voting legislation ever enacted, restoring or (voter ID laws in the name of fraud Lessons on the Law is a contribution of the extending voting to millions upon mil- prevention, voter roll purges in the American Bar Association’s Division for Public lions. The Voting Rights Act, how- name of “efficiency,” and more) that Education. The mission of the Division is to ever, was quite vulnerable—a tempo- are, in fact, devastating in their effect. advance the rule of law and its role in society. rary piece of legislation that Congress In the past decade, tens of millions Content in this article does not necessarily has had to periodically reauthorize. of people have lost the ability to vote. reflect the official policy of the American Bar Association, its Board of Governors, or the ABA Then, in 2013, the Supreme Court Although estimates vary, the number Standing Committee on Public Education. invalidated some of its most impor- is far larger than the margin deciding tant provisions. elections. International entities that We are now in the midst of a mas- track democratic indicators, recently sive wave of state voter suppression, downgraded the United States from a Educational resources for commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment to a movement that disproportionately “functioning” to a “flawed” democracy. the U.S. Constitution are available at www. targets voters of color. The failure of Today, the United States does not even ambar.org/19thamendment. our Constitution to establish and pro- make it into the list of the top 25 best tect an inalienable “right to vote”—the functioning democracies around the unfinished work of both the Fifteenth world. Lisa Tetrault is an Associate Professor of his- and Nineteenth amendments—means Situating these amendments into this tory at Carnegie Mellon University, She is the that once again, with the current longer history, and into their constitu- author of Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and restrictions on the Voting Rights Act, tional framework, reminds us that as tri- the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848–1898. states are able to disenfranchise voters umphal as these anniversaries are liable

Funded Opportunities for Enhancing the Teaching About the Arab World

Learn more at qfi.org/asc

Social Education 368