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Constitutional amendments · 1865–1870

The Reconstruction Amendments

By Congress of the United States

About This Document

Author
Congress of the United States
Date
1865–1870
Type
Constitutional amendments
Rights
Public domain in the United States (a work of the federal government; ratified 1865–1870).

Historical Context

The Emancipation Proclamation was a war measure that reached only areas in rebellion. To end slavery everywhere, Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment. The Senate passed it in April 1864, but the House fell short until Lincoln made it part of the Republican platform for that year’s election; the House approved it on 31 January 1865 by a vote of 119 to 56. Ratification by three-fourths of the states was completed on 6 December 1865.

The Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on 13 June 1866 and ratified on 9 July 1868, made “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” citizens and forbade any state to deny any person due process of law or the equal protection of the laws. Its second section cut a state’s representation in Congress if it denied the vote to adult male citizens; its third barred from office those who had sworn to support the Constitution and then joined the rebellion. The Fifteenth Amendment, passed on 26 February 1869 and ratified on 3 February 1870, prohibited denying or abridging the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Together the three amendments, adopted as part of Congress’s program of Reconstruction, turned emancipation into national law and wrote citizenship and equal protection into the Constitution. Black men voted and held office across the South in the years that followed. From the 1890s, however, Southern states used literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and other devices to strip Black citizens of the vote, and the Supreme Court long read the Fourteenth Amendment narrowly. The promises made here were enforced in earnest only in the twentieth century, through litigation, the civil rights movement, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Document

Full text of all three amendments, as transcribed by the National Archives. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment later changed in effect: its reference to citizens “twenty-one years of age” was changed by section 1 of the Twenty-sixth Amendment.

Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XV

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—

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Transcription: National Archives and Records Administration, “The Constitution: Amendments 11–27,” America’s Founding Documents. View the source

Questions for Discussion

  1. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” Why might that clause have been included, and what consequences did it have after the war?
  2. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment defines who is a citizen. Why was a constitutional definition of citizenship necessary in 1866?
  3. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment penalizes states that deny the vote to “male inhabitants,” and the Fifteenth Amendment says nothing about sex. How did these choices affect women, Black and white, who were fighting for the vote?
  4. Each amendment ends by giving Congress power to enforce it “by appropriate legislation.” Why do you think the authors added this clause, and how has it mattered since?
  5. If the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the vote regardless of race in 1870, why was the Voting Rights Act needed in 1965?

Sources

  1. National Archives, “The Constitution: Amendments 11–27.” Link
  2. National Archives, “13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865),” Milestone Documents. Link
  3. National Archives, “14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868),” Milestone Documents. Link
  4. National Archives, “15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870),” Milestone Documents. Link

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“The Reconstruction Amendments.” Black-History.com, 30 Sept. 2026, https://black-history.com/primary-sources/reconstruction-amendments/.
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Black-History.com Editors. “The Reconstruction Amendments.” Black-History.com. September 30, 2026. https://black-history.com/primary-sources/reconstruction-amendments/.
Editorial Note

By the Black-History.com editors. Last reviewed 30 September 2026. To suggest a primary source or a correction, write to editors@black-history.com or use our corrections form.

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