The need for the Reconstruction Amendments after the American Civil War act as a reflection of the repression and injustices that black Americans had to contend with at the time.
The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the U.S Constitution are commonly referred to as the Reconstruction Amendments. They were drafted and passed by the U.S Congress. They were enacted after the American Civil War and were mainly targeted towards imposing civil liberties to all. The amendments were mainly targeted at the slaves and freed men who were predominantly black.
The need for amendments to the constitution was necessitated by the rampant discrimination and mistreatment they faced. It was also as a result of the divide between the North states that were in favor of abolishing slavery and the South states that still wanted the continuation of slavery. It was, therefore, a reflection of how the American society had been divided at the time. In fact, the issue of slavery was one of the contributing factors in starting the civil war. Consequently, the fight for the rights of freedmen and slavery is synonymous to the struggle for equality by black Americans. Therefore, it is important to have a background look at the situation before the passage of the Reconstruction amendments to appreciate the motivation of Congress in passing the amendments.
At the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, slavery was widely practiced across all the thirteen states in America. It had been introduced in North America by the English men. The slaves were primarily sourced from Africa through the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The treatment of the slaves was generally harsh. Some slave owners used sexual abuse such as rape as a form of punishment against the slaves. While relations between whites and the black slaves were not uncommon especially in the South, even children born out of such relationships were still considered slaves and as such denied their rights.
The slaves were also subjected to inhumane working conditions. They often had to work for long hours. There are recorded instances in which they worked for over sixteen hours a day. They worked under the heavy handedness of their masters where canning was the most common form of delivering instructions. For some of the slaves, they had to find time over and above their normal working time to attend to their crops. The idea of making the slaves work for long hours was strategic. It was thought that keeping them occupied would act as a deterrent from any thoughts of dissent. However, over time, some states limited the number of hours the slaves worked to fifteen hours during the summer and fourteen hours in winter. Sadly, this limitation on the working hours was not born out of compassion but rather due to self-interest of the owners and the state to prevent any revolts.
The right to access medical care for the slaves was also limited. There was no universally agreed system through which they could access medical care; it was largely dependent of the goodwill of the slave owner. However, a majority of the slave owners fueled by self-interest ensured that their slaves received some limited form of healthcare. It was necessary to keep the slaves healthy to ensure they could continue offering their labor as well as remaining fertile to enable them to bear more slaves for their masters. The slaves’ right to own possessions especially land was limited.
There was no legal restriction on the slave owners on the means of punishment they used on their slaves. Caning was the common form of punishment usually used to punish slow workers, indiscipline, and breaking of the law. The punishment was often meted out publicly in front of the slaves to serve as a lesson to the others. There have been recorded incidents of public shootings and the use of dogs as well as severing body parts such as the ears. Even worse for the slaves, there was no legal reprieve for them. In some states such as Maryland, they passed laws that denied the slaves the right to have a jury during their trials. Some states such as South Carolina made some efforts to prohibit mistreatment of the slaves, but they were so full of loopholes that punishments such as death and mutilations were still rampant.
Nothing illustrated the denial of basic freedoms to the slaves such as the various slave codes passed by the states. It would surprise anyone that even inhumane actions of the denial of fundamental freedoms were anchored in the law. The slaves were as such considered non-persons except in the case of the slave having committed a crime.
Following the Revolutionary War, most of the states in the north made efforts to abolish slavery; there were also concerted efforts to ban the importation of more slaves from Africa. Consequently, slave trade was outlawed in 1807. Some abolitionist movements such as the American Colonization Society (ACS) advocated for the return of the blacks back to Africa. However, most of them had been born and raised in America. As a result, the agitation for equal rights as the whites had begun in earnest.
The clamor for equal rights among the blacks brought about divisions between states. Some states in the South contended that slavery should be allowed to continue to which the northern states opposed. It is such divisions that led to the Civil War in 1861. Victory of the northern states ended the institution of slavery. The victory was followed by the emancipation proclamation which changed the legal status of millions of slaves. The war served the purpose of pricking the historical conscience of America. It led to the ratification amendments to fully legalize the status of black Americans in the country.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. However, it was still permitted under some exceptional circumstances such as retribution for crime. It was a fundamental step in unifying the northern states with their southern counterparts. It formed the basis for a progressive movement towards other legal remedies for civil liberties. Despite the amendment being fully accepted in the North, there were some pockets of resistance in the South who enforced some black codes meant to ensure the continuation of slave like conditions. Congress responded to this by empowering the Freedman’s Bureau, a federal agency mandated to offer assistance to the freed slaves.
The Fourteenth Amendment granted all individuals born and naturalized in America the right to citizenship. It was proposed in reaction to issues relating to the treatment of the freed slaves after the war. It was contested by the southern states even though they had been forced to ratify the amendment in order to have their delegation allowed back in congress. To illustrate the gravity of the issue the amendment sought to remedy; it is one of the most debated elements of the U.S Constitution. While the freed men had been granted equal rights after the war, they had not been granted citizenship in the U.S. The amendment changed the perception of the constitution was merely a document that outlined the manner in which the state and federal governments would relate with each other. It was clear that the Constitution was also a means of providing some form of legal redress against members of the minority communities.
The Fifteenth Amendment granted the all citizens the right to vote regardless of one’s skin color, or previous condition in servitude. Despite the amendments, blacks continued to be segregated especially in the South where a majority of them resided. Despite the Fifteenth Amendment also having granted them the right to vote, some states still found ways of circumventing the amendment by passing laws that created stumbling blocks for black Americans such as the imposition of the poll tax and literacy tests as a pre-condition for one to be registered as a voter. The grandfather clauses also acted as an impediment to black Americans to vote.
Debate is still rife on whether in passing the amendments, congress acted in good faith and the appreciation of the frustrations of black Americans rather than being a continuation of the tug of war for political supremacy between the ideologies of the North and South. There have been arguments that the issue of equal rights was merely a pretext for gaining control of the south. Opponents of this view argue that the north was genuinely concerned with the plight of black Americans for having been prominent slaveholders themselves, they had seen the benefits of freeing the slaves not merely from a humanity point of view but also economically and socially. However, whichever the argument, it is clear that the reconstruction amendments laid the framework for the progressive exposition of the right of black Americans that continues to this day.
However, the slow pace of ensuring civil rights for all is an illustration that these amendments even though embedded in the constitution are not self-enforcing. Progressive efforts need to be continually made to actualize their aspirations. Traditional ideas that entrenched racism continued to persist. The Supreme Court continued to interpret the amendments in a bias and conservative way that was akin to jurisprudence that sought to negate the letter and spirit of the amendments. This is especially the case with the Jim Crows laws which were implicitly supported by the U.S Supreme Court. It had the effect of scaling back the gains made even by the northern states as racial discrimination became the norm once more.
Ultimately, the new racial system put in place by the traditional American values aided by the judicial system persisted well into the twentieth century. It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that a considerable effort was made by black American to end the racial segregation. However, despite the Reconstruction Amendments not having acted as a panacea to all the racial problems black Americans encountered, it is clear that they created the platform to enable black Americans to continue with their fight for equal civil rights and an end to racial discrimination.
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Chin, Gabriel, J. 2004. Reconstruction, felon disenfranchisement, and the right to vote: Did the
fifteenth amendment repeal section 2 of the fourteenth amendment? Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 92, No.259, pp 115-134, accessed Apr 13, 2016 from http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/fd_reconstruction_fr_rtv.pdf
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