The Pros And Cons Of The 15th Amendment

The 13th amendment abolished slavery and freed millions of African Americans. This was supposed to improve their lives and give them a new beginning. However, more than 30 years after the abolishment, their situation has not improved. Their right to vote was revoked in many southern states during the early 1890s. Less than 40% of black children were enrolled in schools in Georgia by 1880. Between 1880 and 1918, over 2400 African Americans were hanged. Africans had the lowest paying jobs and very few owned land. Jim Crow laws were established in many southern states to legalize segregation. Their situation was disastrous and wasn’t improving. Four respected spokespersons presented their ideas to fix this racial inequality crisis. The four courageous people who offered their alternatives were Ida B Wells, Booker T. Washington, Henry Turner and W.E.B Du Bois.

The documentary “13th” is very telling about the problems with the prison system and society's view of African-Americans. After the end of slavery, the economy too a hit because of the lack of labor needed for the industries. To solve this problem, people turned to prison workers, because it was cheap labor that weren’t protected under the 13th Amendment. This amendment abolished slavery and indentured servitude, but left the clause of criminal punishment. Because of this loophole, and because whites were very much still in control of society soon after the 13th Amendment was passed, police forces began going after African-Americans in order to fill prisons and satisfy work forces.

I am not sure there is such a thing as the “most important” amendment because they are all important with regard to the American people and the freedoms we have today. That being said, the amendment that had the most profound impact on U.S. history and government affairs alike is a triple header. According to Janda, the 13th, 14th, and 15th, ending slavery, granting new citizenships (including former slaves), and preventing any man from being deprived of his right to vote, respectively. Of those three amendments, the 15th has had the greatest influence on our government.

Following the American Civil War, the bloodiest armed conflict on US soil, slavery had been outlawed from the US. It had taken the US until January 31, 1865, less than two-hundred years ago, for slavery to be abolished. Yet, it was still abolished, albeit, later than many other nations throughout the world. It had taken yet over another year for the fourteenth amendment to be passed in June 13, 1866, making all former slaves into citizens. But, perhaps the greatest and most important right of all, the right essential to any democracy or republic, the right to vote, was given to former slaves through the fifteenth amendment.

The documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay was a visual masterpiece. The documentary provided its viewers with an array of information that spanned throughout centuries and was eloquently executed in less than 2 hours. The central focus of the film was about how the 13th amendment shaped this country and its prison system. The 13th amendment was the building block for mass incarceration and as time has gone on, new laws and amendments strengthened the process for more people to get incarcerated. Slavery benefited the country as a whole and as the Civil War was winding down, slavery was coming to an end. As the documentary states, the South especially relied heavily on slavery for their economy to sustain. After the passing of the 13th amendment, slaves were freed and it left the South’s economy in shambles. A stipulation within the 13th amendment, that states “Neither slavery not involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been dully convicted, shall exist within the United States.” In turn, mass amounts of newly freed slaves were arrested and deemed criminals. Being criminalized reduced them back to a lower status in the United States, and unfortunately reignited slavery in a new kind of form. The film was not only educational, it also provided its viewers with knowledge about why there is such a disparity in mass incarnations amongst people of color compared to their white counterparts.

In the wake of the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were ratified which abolished slavery and in theory granted people of all races the citizenship rights, equal protection, and suffrage that society owes them. However, that did not stop a wave of backlash policies from passing especially in Southern states that felt their way of life was threatened by the newfound independence of black Americans. These laws served to perpetuate racism and white privilege, and further divide the racist,

The Fifteenth Amendment granted black men to vote. Put emphasis on men because at this time women still couldn't vote.This amendment would not be fully followed until almost a century. What the government did was that they made a literacy test so difficult that no slave could pass because they had no education. So no blacks could vote really for a long time. So to loop their loophole that made a rule called the Grandfather Clause. This made if your grandfather could vote you did not have to take the literacy test. So every white person's grandfather could vote since they lived in england. So this rule did not apply to blacks since their grandfathers were black and could not vote. One of the main reasons that they made this rule is because

It is commonly believed that after the onset of the Civil War, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was the key driver to freeing the slaves of the south. After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional amendments were passed which aided newly freed slaves in being equally treated under the law, or so the story goes. The fact of the matter is that even after the Emancipation Proclamation and after the amendments, slavery in the United States was still “legal” and not only that, but it took on a much different form. The institution of slavery changed from having the direct enslavement of blacks, to the United States legal and prison system enslaving blacks. Yet, the enslavement itself was changed as black convicts

Thanks to the groundbreaking Thirteenth Amendment, no person may be forced to work except in retribution for a crime he or she committed. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is often viewed only as the amendment that abolished the insufferable slavery of African-Americans, - and this does appear to be the case on the surface - however many more interpretations promise many useful arguments for the labor movement and cause controversy over its ineffectiveness in combating racism and its hand in creating the hotly-debated American for-profit prison system.

By the time the sun barely peeks over the horizon, several others and I have been working the fields for hours. We pick cotton until our fingers bleed. If my first strip isn’t done before noon, the whip will come slashing. If I complete my strip and take a break before moving on to the next section, the whip will come slashing. If my legs give out and can no longer support my weight, the whip will come slashing. When I was informed about the new amendment to the constitution tears welled up in my eyes as I took a step towards freedom, or what I thought was freedom. The thirteenth amendment brought forth the idea that slavery would be abolished. However, the congressmen left a loophole in the amendment, allowing slavery to continue, but under another name.

The addition of three amendments to the constitution after the Civil War should be considered to a victory for the Northern and African American cause for the Civil War. These newly added documents protect the rights of all the citizens of the United States. Not only do they protect the rights of these people but they also establish who is a citizen and who is protected by the constitution. Most importantly it allows freedom to those who were mot protected before the Civil War, namely the former slaves.

The conclusion of the Civil War in favor of the north was supposed to mean an end to slavery and equal rights for the former slaves. Although laws and amendments were passed to uphold this assumption, the United States Government fell short. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were proposed and passed within five years of the Civil War’s conclusion. These amendments were to create equality throughout the United States, especially in the south where slavery had been most abundant. Making equality a realization would not be an easy task. This is because many problems were not perceived before and during the war. The reunification of the country would prove to be harder than expected, and entry into a new lifestyle would be

The 13th amendment focuses mainly on blacks becoming enslaved again. The law states  "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." –Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This law made slavery legal in a sense because it is easy to criminalize minorities for petty crimes rather than the oppressor. For this reason, different companies and organizations support laws arranged to break the Black community. The Prison System is used to enforce slavery once again, prisoners are being used as workers in companies like JC Penney to manufacture clothes and Walmart, just like slaves were forced to pick cotton. The Thirteenth Amendment was created solely to dismantle minorities. In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander discusses how a system of Jim Crow laws replaced slavery, and how mass incarceration replaced Jim Crow laws. During the Reconstruction period, Southerners took full advantage of the Thirteenth Amendment enslavement loophole by arresting minorities for minor crimes, such as loitering, gambling and, mostly importantly drugs. Even Though Blacks are more likely to be arrested for drugs, White Americans uses drugs at the same rates as minorities. The difference is minorities receive a harder sentence for such crimes. The the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reported, “African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites”. The statics displays that minorities are more likely to be arrested.  The “Loophole” in the thirteenth Amendment allows racist whites to imprison black citizens on minor charges and put them to

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book involving the topic of slavery and thought how did things change to be the way they are today? We have the 13th, 14th and 15th, Amendment to thank for that. In this paper I will be discussing these three amendments that changed the world forever. I’ll also be talking about the Reconstruction era and how these Amendments affected it.

“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” (Lantigua-Williams). As stated in the constitution, the Thirteenth amendment states that no person can be treated as a slave; the exception to this statement is the fact that the revision to the constitution says that anyone who is convicted of a crime can be treated like a slave. African Americans have been oppressed since they were brought over from Africa; consequently, they are constantly fighting the war on racism and having numerous struggles to overcome. The 13th shows in detail the different forms of mistreatment and inequality that people of color experience. Ava Duverney uses exceptional historical evidence, different forms of media, and expert advice to show that ever since the passage of the Thirteenth amendment, there has been an increase in the incarceration statistics of African Americans.