[Music] hey guys welcome to hipu history we're hitting you up with the last of the Reconstruction Amendment and that would be the 13th 14th to 15th amendment giving African-American males the right to vote let's look at the words of the amendment the leadup to the amendment but more importantly the kind of the failure of the amendment the effect of the amendment and uh we're about to grow your brain so getting up to learning [Music] and first there were the words section one the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or Abridged by the United States or by any state on the account of race color or previous condition of servitude section two the Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate [Music] legislation all right before we talk about the 15th Amendment we want to put it into context and I think years are important this will help you a little bit of course we know that the Civil War ended in 1865 and uh we also get the 13th Amendment in 1865 this is like Lincoln's last harah before he's assassinated and that Amendment gets ratified but by abolishing slavery and this is really due to really the failure of the Emancipation Proclamation really to live after the Civil War Northern Republicans are especially worried about representation in Congress you have to go to the house go to the house and the house is based on population you have to remember that these southern states were represented in those congressional districts before the Civil War with a three-fifths slave population now that three-fifths is going to be full representation which means they're going to get more House Seats and that means that if they can control kind of how you know people vote and who votes and all that stuff they're really going to uh expound their numbers they're going to grow as a force the Democrats are going to take over um in 1866 we get the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and this is an attempt by The Radical Republicans really to start to enfranchise African-Americans who are facing automatically Black Codes which are stripping them of any rights which are denying them um equal access which are really uh doing kind of a Neo slavery job of them so in 1866 they passed the Civil Rights Act which is very flowery in its language about the federal government is going to protect the rights of these new African-American free you know peoples and uh what do we get we get an Andrew Johnson veto so learning alert the first override of a veto in American history comes when those Radical Republicans in Congress were like hey hey Johnson we call you and we override your veto and it became law but it's still going to be a problem because the courts are going to interpret in a way where it's really non-enforceable and really Congress isn't going to have the teeth to uh really you know do what they need to do do and uh there's also this problem of Republicans also having some discrimination in their minds I mean we have nativism on the East Coast we have nativism with the Chinese you know stuff going on in the railroads out west so really there's no really rush to enforce Spirit of the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 so what do we get we get the Radical Republicans saying that we have to get this into the Constitution and this is a really quick history I'm probably talking too much about it but that results in the 14th Amendment which becomes a precondition for those Southern States coming back into to the union we're going to make these African-Americans citizens so now that they're citizens there's this real Rush that we need to allow them to vote because the representation is changing so that's where we are uh we're in 1868 right around there and Radical Republicans are seeing these new Southern States coming back into the union and they're thinking um our days are numbered so the amendment the 15th Amendment is really born in the beginning of 1869 by a very nervous Nelly Republican controlled um house they're worried that you know they lame Ducks they have no power and the Democrats are coming so before the Democrats can get there let's give African-Americans the right to vote so those African-Americans in the South are going to be Republican voters and maybe we can hold on to our majority I think really that's the spirit rather than this kind of you know flower equality language it's really pragmatically a way to keep themselves in power but of course it's still the right thing to do so we get that proposal in 1869 and it's very controversial it's controversial not only in the South but in the north there's only eight northern states that allowed African-Americans to vote in their states so we're asking the north to change along with the South and we already talked about nativism that's rampant on the east coast and the west coast and another source of contention is with women's groups you have really a split in the suffrage movement um the National Women's Suffrage Association this is with Susan banthony who's you know opposed to the amendment because they want in and then you have the American women's sufferage Association this is Lucy Stone and these are the people that are supporting the amendment so it's really splitting other groups but the end of the day they're going to squeak this thing through it was really a close call both in the house and in the Senate it's a party vote it's Republicans favoring it because it's expanding their base and it's Democrats that are opposing it for a variety of reasons so there we go we get that in 1870 right before the Democrats are going to be coming back and controlling soon the house we get this amendment thrown into the ratification process and we all know that you need 34s of the states and one of the issues is going to be at least from a southern perspective that these are legislatures that are being controlled by Radical Republicans and by you know a union dominated South these really aren't representations of Southern viewpoints that in a sense they're being strong armed into accepting this amendment but yada yada yada bada bada boom we get the 15th Amendment right around June now I don't know about the month it just rhymed but in 1870 we definitely get the 15th Amendment and now we're definitely going to take a minute to look at the effects of the 15th Amendment or maybe the failure of the 15th Amendment called [Music] that so here's a little bit of irony for you folks out there in 1876 we have African-Americans that are voting in the South they're voting mainly because their Union occupied and now we have the 15th Amendment and they're voting for a guy by the name of Rutherford B Hayes who's a Republican and of course he's running against the Democrat Samuel tillin who was from New York whatever but at the end of that you know scenario what occurs is that um Tien probably wins he wins the popular vote and he probably wins the electoral vote but through this kind of backdoor dealing this compromise occurs where the Ruth Rie Hayes takes the presidency and removes those Union troops and now the irony is that it's those African-Americans that got him elected and now he's turning his back on those African-Americans who are going to be stripped of those rights of vote um by state enacted laws these are now Jim Crow laws so we have literacy tests we have uh poll taxes you have to pay you have to read under the literacy test and you have grandfather clauses which say to White voters that if your grandfather voted you don't have to read or you don't have to pay huh what up with that and what up with that is that the Supreme Court which is the final arbitrator and what this fth 15th amendment means is basically going to say this doesn't so much give African Americans the right to vote it just really restricts the Southern States from denying them the right to vote so if you have race neutral laws like pole taxes asking people to pay five bucks for bureaucratic paperwork or that you need to read because we think that you have to have a certain level of IQ or something like that in order to vote that's up to the southern states that doesn't mean they're doing it because they're black [Music] yeah so that's really going to be the rule and through intimidation of course the Kut Clan you know Democratic you know power in the South you know racist power blacks aren't going to be able to exercise that right to vote yet those southern states are going to get more representation because they have these African-American citizens of the state so that's hash [Music] irony so fast forward to what 1965 where we get the Voting Rights Act and now the federal government is finally going to get some teeth to really supervise these elections in these racist uh areas of the country and uh everybody lived happily ever after maybe maybe not so that's the 15th Amendment guys we hope that you learned it remember it's 15 to remember those three amendments you can watch the other Amendment videos I think that's really important to get those down but now you ain't a clown and it's like I'm a rapper today or something like that so giddy up for that guys thanks for watching you know what I'm going to say I'm going to say where attention goes energy loads and we'll see you next time um that you press my buttons you better be subscribed a couple quick shout outs guys uh hip history went down like a clown about a month two months ago um Somebody's Daughter we're not going to name who it is or who the daughter is might have been spilling a little bit of juice on someone's computer and it might have died and uh yada yada y we raised enough money to buy another one and I wanted to give a couple shout outs Cory Wilkerson elizabth sofle uh Facebook friends you guys are really cool people really cool parents and I know that you use hipu history kind of a homeschooling activity so I wanted to thank you for chipping into the pot and I wanted to thank Paul Anderson do you know this guy Boseman biology my YouTube edu Guru brother from another mother uh you chipped into the pot and I definitely want to direct people to your website because your YouTube is just # awesome and Alexis danis another YouTube edu Guru a great friend who has a channel bite siiz you should go check her science videos out to blow your brain inside it out you tipped into the pot so I wanted to thank you as well so I think that's three thank yous thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you for pressing my buttons we'll see you next time you do it again [Music]