Art representing actions taken before the 15th Amendment was passed
Republicans took a long time to officially propose the Fifteenth Amendment, about two months. House and Senate had rejected some versions of it in the process. Voting rights for African Americans already existed in eleven southern states, but a few more states, besides ones in the south, needed to ratify it so it could be passed. Republicans came into terms with Democrats by cutting a deal, which was that southerners had to approve Rutherford B. Hayes for President, and Republicans had to remove troops located in the south along with their proposal of black male suffrage. Seventy- five years would pass before African American voting rights were paid attention to and put under importance in the south again.
On February 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified. It was proposed under the guidance of Representative William Stewart.
Cartoon representing the states that did not support African American male suffrage