Protecting All Americans
• At first, the Bill of Rights applied
only to adult white males.
• It also applied only to the national
government, not to state or local
governments.
•Later amendments and court rulings made
the Bill of Rights apply to all people and all
levels of government.
•The Civil War amendments–the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth–extended civil
liberties to African Americans.
Protecting All Americans (cont.)
• The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery,
freeing thousands of African Americans.
• After the Civil War, many Southern
states passed “black codes” that limited
the rights of African Americans.
•The 14th Amendment remedied this
situation by defining citizens as anyone born
or naturalized in the United States, which
included African Americans.
•It required all states to grant citizens equal
protection of the laws.
Protecting All Americans (cont.)
• The 15th Amendment says that no state
may take away a person’s voting rights
on the basis of race, color, or previous
enslavement.
• It was intended to guarantee suffrage–the
right to vote–to African Americans.
• It applied only to men.
•According to the Constitution, state
legislatures were to choose senators.
•The 17th Amendment changed this to
allow voters to elect senators directly.
Protecting All Americans (cont.)
• The Constitution did not grant or deny
women the right to vote.
• As a result, states made their own
decisions.
• The Nineteenth Amendment solved this
problem by establishing women’s right to
vote in all elections.
•Because Washington, D.C., is a district, not a
state, its citizens could not vote in national
elections.
•The Twenty-third Amendment established
their right vote.
Protecting All Americans (cont.)
• Several Southern states required people to
pay poll taxes to vote.
• Because many African Americans and poor
whites could not afford to pay, they could not
vote.
• The Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawed poll
taxes.
•The Twenty-sixth Amendment
guaranteed the right to vote to
citizens 18 and older.
•Before this amendment, most
states set the minimum voting age
at 21.
Protecting All Americans (cont.)
Who benefits from the “equal protection”
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
The equal protection clause benefits not
only African Americans for whom it was
intended, but in recent years it has also
been used to benefit women, people with
disabilities, and other groups whose rights
have not always been recognized.
(pages 109–
112)
Checking for Understanding
Define Match the terms on the right with their definitions on the
left.
__
B 1. a sum of money required of voters
before they are permitted to cast a
ballot
A 2. the right to vote
__
Click the mouse button or press the
A. suffrage
B. poll tax
Checking for Understanding (cont.)
Explain How was the promise of the
Civil War amendments fulfilled in the
mid-twentieth century?
Laws were passed removing restrictions
on voting.
Click the mouse button or press the
Checking for Understanding (cont.)
Describe How did the Twenty-fourth
Amendment expand voting rights?
It outlawed the poll tax, which had kept
poor people from voting.
Critical Thinking
Concluding Which of the voting rights
amendments (17, 19, 23, 24, 26) do you
think was the most important? Why?
Answers will vary.
Analyzing Visuals
Infer Review the chart on page 110 of
your textbook. Which amendment limited
presidents to two terms in office?
The Twenty-second Amendment limited
presidential terms.
Click the mouse button to return to the Contents slide.