Two Important Laws That Changed America

                                                                   -Amendment 15
                                                                   -Amendment 13

The 13th Amendment                                                                                 The 15th Amendment

       

                            

   

        Amendment 15 stated that race could not be used as a criteria for voting. This might have caused concern among the political leaders of slave states because they realized that if that were the case, they would basically lose all chance of being reelected. Think about it, would the slaves vote to reelect the people who allowed them to be slaves? Of Course Not...That is why they were concerned that now slaves were eligible to vote. 

   

          On September 23rd, 1862 Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The statement said that all slaves would be declared free in those states still in rebellion against the United States on 1st January, 1863. The measure only applied to those states which, after that date, came under the military control of the Union Army. It did not apply to those slave states such as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and parts of Virginia and Louisiana, that were already occupied by Northern troops. It was not until December 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution had been passed by the House of Representatives and had been ratified by the required number of states, that slavery was finally abolished everywhere in the United States.

Works Cited :

• http://13thamendment.harpweek.com/
• http://www.greatamericanhistory.net/amendment.htm
• http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/15thamendment.html