Arguing Over the 15th Amendment: The Republican Platform of 1868 Said that Voter Qualifications Would Be Left to States

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Long Island, NY
@matthew mckeon elsewhere asked me what were the arguments for the 15th Amendment outlawing the color bar on voting rights. I decided to start several threads discussing the arguments for and against the adoption of the 15th Amendment. First here is the language of the amendment adopted by Congress in Feb. 1869:

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.


One of the most repeated reasons for opposing the 15th Amendment raised by Democrats was the fact that the Republican Party during the 1868 Presidential Campaign had adopted a platform that stated that while the states lately in rebellion were compelled to adopt color-blind suffrage, the loyal states were to be left to decide for themselves who could qualify as voters. Democrats not only pointed out the inconsistency in Republicans winning in November 1868 on that plank, and then reversing themselves three months later, they also charged that voters, deceived by the Republican platform, had never given the Republicans a mandate to pass the amendment.

Democratic Senator Doolittle's speech, reprinted in pertinent part below, makes this argument ably.

Daily Globe
Saturday, Feb 13, 1869
Washington (DC), DC
Page: 10

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