The Right to Vote for Freed Slaves-- Moral Act or Politics? Attorney General Sessions in Perspective

Recall that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president—and in the 1860s, Republicans were what we now call liberals, and Democrats were states-rights defenders of slavery. With the end of the Civil War, Republicans advocated for freed slaves to have a federal right to vote. That’s how the 15^th Amendment came into being.

At first glance, this appeared to be nothing more than the idealism of northern liberals put into practice. But in the research gem quoted below, published in Michigan Law Review (1952) by my now-deceased constitutional law professor, Gene Gressman, Prof. Gressman explains that the 15^th Amendment grew out of practical political considerations. He remarks:

It has also been pointed out that: "The Amendment nullified two parts of the Constitution: the fugitive slave and the three-fifths provisions. The former (Article IV, Section 2) provided for the rendition of 'any person held to service or labor' who should flee to another state. The much controverted fugitive slave act of 1850 had been repealed in 1864. The three-fifths provision (Article 1, Section 2), one of the famous compromises of 1787, stated that in apportioning direct taxes and representation in the House of Representatives the respective numbers should include three-fifths of all 'other persons,' that is, slaves.

Thus a consequence of the Amendment was an increase in the southern representation by about twenty seats. This prospect worried the [liberal, northern] Republicans, quickened their interest in Negro suffrage, and produced the section in the Fourteenth Amendment penalizing by a reduction in representation any state denying suffrage to Negroes.

In other words, liberal Republicans, having freed about 4,000,000 slaves in 1865, wanted also to convert this moral victory into political advantage over their Dixiecrat opponents, who were about to be reintegrated to American politics.

Today, AG Jefferson Sessions-- heir to the former Dixiecrats (now Republicans)-- is determined to reduce African-American voting. Point: America hasn't resolved its fundamental issue with black suffrage 150 years after the end of the Civil War.