Home >
The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified...
The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified...
Item # 605349
Currently Unavailable. Contact us if you would like to be placed on a want list or to be notified if a similar item is available.
March 31, 1870
THE NEW-YORK TIMES, March 31, 1870
* Fifteenth 15th Amendment ratified
* Right to vote - race - color
* President Ulysses S. Grant
The top of the first column on page 5 has: "General Telegrams" "The Fifteenth Amendment" "Ratification Proclaimed--A Message from the President of the United States". Hereafter is a message from the President to Congress in which he discusses the importance and significance of the Fifteenth Amendment. The President's message begins: "It is unusual to notify the two Houses of Congress by message of the promulgation by proclamation of the Secretary of State of the ratification of a Constitutional amendment. In View, however, of the vast importance of the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution...I deem a departure from the usual custom justifiable..." with more, & he concludes: "...the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment...completes the greatest civil change, and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life....I would therefore call upon Congress to take all the means within their...power ...to see to it that all who possess and exercise political rights shall have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge which will make their share in the Government a blessing and not a danger...", signed in type: U.S. Grant.
Following the President's message is a "Proclamation" issued by the Secretary of State that recognizes and includes the text of original resolution proposed by Congress in 1868, section 1 of Article 15 which reads: "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." The Proclamation continues by announcing that the necessary number of states had ratified the amendment, reading, in part: "...be it known that I, Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State...do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid...as a part of the Constitution of the United States...", signed in type: Hamilton Fish. See this hyperlink for much more on the Fifteenth Amendment.
Eight pages, irregular at the spine margin which as some effect to some inside pages. As the photos show there is no affect to the Fifteenth Amendment text (see).
Category: Post-Civil War
No Longer Available
