the Court found that the
Fifteenth Amendment "supersedes contrary
The High Court on December 1, 2011 issued a Supplementary Rule Nisi seeking cause from respondents as to why the Court should not also hold unlawful section 4 of the
Fifteenth Amendment Act, which likewise re-affirmed Islam as the state religion.
But such tests ha[d] been banned nationwide for over 40 years." (41) Chief Justice Roberts' next argued that the
Fifteenth Amendment was "not designed to punish for the past; its purpose is to ensure a better future." (42)
adoption of the
Fifteenth Amendment as well as petitioning the Board of
(22) While giving a ringing endorsement in dicta to the "one pervading purpose" of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments as the "freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him," (23) the Court in fact began a tradition of reading the amendments narrowly.
The
Fifteenth Amendment achieved its purpose for a time and black voting participation and representation in the South increased rapidly.
of the
Fifteenth Amendment 25 (1965); Alexander Keyssar, The Right to
But Reese, like Cruikshank, was based on the Court's understanding that racial animus was required where the federal government was seeking to penalize violations of
Fifteenth Amendment voting rights.
(5) Scholars cite the text most often in connection with Stanton's criticism of the
Fifteenth Amendment and her anger over women's exclusion from Reconstruction-era constitutional revision.
Their effect was to nullify, through violence, the
Fifteenth Amendment, by turning black political activity and voting into something that required taking one's life into one's hands.
Some have argued that the
Fifteenth Amendment (1870), which guaranteed the voting rights of black men, implicitly repealed the disenfranchisement provisions of the Fourteenth.
Spurred by the lingering controversy, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment, which duplicated many of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act, and the
Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited denying a citizen the right to vote based on race.
