Universal Male Suffrage
Section I: "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."
Section II: "The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
The fifteenth amendment was the final requirement for reconstruction following the Civil War. The northern Republicans hoped that allowing freed slaves to vote would swell the ranks of their party while simultaneously reducing the power of the southern Democrats. However, poll taxes and voter intimidation kept freedmen from voting in many cases.