Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that an American citizen shall not be discriminated against in exercising the right to vote. It states that the federal and state governments cannot bar a citizen from voting because the person had been a slave or because of race.
The 15th Amendment was set forth in two sections: Section 1 states, “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 states, “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Amendment 15 was proposed on Feb. 26, 1869, and ratified on Feb. 3, 1870. Seven Southern states tried to bypass it by adding grandfather clauses to their constitutions. One such clause gave the right to vote to people who could vote on Jan. 1, 1867, and to their family descendants. In 1915 and 1939, the Supreme Court of the United States declared grandfather clauses unconstitutional. See Voting.
