Why did southern states refuse to ratify the 14th Amendment?
Asked by: Kaia Lakin | Last update: July 19, 2025Score: 4.9/5 (13 votes)
Southerners thought the 14th Amendment had been passed to punish them for starting the Civil War, and they refused to ratify it. Indeed there were sections which prevented ex-Confederates from voting, holding office, or being paid back for lending money to the Confederacy.
Why was the 14th Amendment not ratified?
The Southern states had been placed under military rule, and were forced to ratify the Amendment—which they despised—as a condition of ending military occupation and rejoining the Union. The Amendment can therefore claim no warrant to democratic legitimacy through original popular sovereignty.
Did Southern states ratify the 14th Amendment?
") With the exception of Tennessee, the Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which set the conditions the Southern states had to accept before they could be readmitted to the union, including ratification of the 14th Amendment.
Why did Republicans require southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment?
In addition, each state was required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. After meeting these criteria related to protecting the rights of African Americans and their property, the former Confederate states could gain full recognition and federal representation in Congress.
Which states refused to ratify the 14th Amendment?
Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, as we have seen, rejected the proposed amendment outright, and California did so later. Ohio, New Jersey, and Oregon rescinded their ratifications. If the rescissions were allowed, only nineteen states, not the requisite twenty, would have ratified.
What the 14th Amendment says about birthright citizenship
Why did the South not like the 14th Amendment?
Southerners defended these laws as honest attempts to restore order in the South. They also said these codes protected blacks from the results of their own "laziness and ignorance." Southerners thought the 14th Amendment had been passed to punish them for starting the Civil War, and they refused to ratify it.
Who opposed the 14th Amendment and why?
Opposition to the 14th Amendment was not limited to the South. In northern and western states, the Democratic Party appealed to white voters who opposed the idea of equal rights for African Americans.
Why did Congress require Southern states to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments?
Southern states also resisted, but Congress required them to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments as a condition of regaining representation in Congress, and the ongoing presence of the Union Army in the former Confederate states ensured their compliance.
Are black people still considered 3-5?
It's out of date. Slaves (black people) in the US *were* counted as 3/5 of a free (white) person before and during the Civil War. When slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War, each free male citizen of the US counted as one person (for establishing the number of representatives a state had in Congress).
Why didn t the southern states support the 19th Amendment?
Many white southerners, like Gordon, feared that a national woman suffrage amendment would bring increased federal scrutiny of elections and enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Racial ideology was central to political struggles in the New South.
Why was the 14th Amendment considered unsuccessful?
However, the Fourteenth Amendment is often considered unsuccessful because its provisions were not fully protected or enforced. Discrimination by private individuals was not prohibited and the Supreme Court interpreted its powers narrowly.
How did many Southern states respond to the 14th and 15th Amendments?
However, after Reconstruction ended in 1877, Southern States completely ignored the Fifteenth Amendment and began passing laws that stripped Black Americans of most of their civil rights. Southern states used things like poll taxes to prevent Black Americans from voting.
What was the result of some former Confederate states refusal to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment?
As a result of some former Confederate states' refusal to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress established military rule in the South.
When did the southern states ratify the 14th Amendment?
Ratification was completed on July 9, 1868, when the legislature of South Carolina became the twenty-eighth state to ratify it. On October 8, 1869, both houses of the General Assembly of Virginia ratified both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.
Why did people not want the Constitution to be ratified?
The Anti-Federalists opposed the ratification of the 1787 U.S. Constitution because they feared that the new national government would be too powerful and thus threaten individual liberties, given the absence of a bill of rights.
What was one reason the 14th and 15th amendments failed?
The primary reason the 14th and 15th Amendments failed to prevent future racial segregation was that the South was allowed to pass Jim Crow laws and restrict voting rights.
Were there white slaves in America?
Many people know Britain was involved with the slave trade, but did you know that some white Europeans were taken to America as slaves, as well? The slavery of Europeans was a prelude to the mass slavery of Africans in the Americas says our next guest, Michael Walsh.
Who is 3 5ths of a person?
Although the Constitution did not refer directly to slaves, it did not ignore them entirely. Article one, section two of the Constitution of the United States declared that any person who was not free would be counted as three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation.
What state was the last to abolish slavery?
Mississippi Becomes Final State to Abolish Slavery.
Who is the person who ended slavery?
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
Who abolished slavery first?
France was the first nation to abolish slavery, in 1794, at the height of the French and Haitian Revolutions and then reintroduced it under Napoleon in 1802, meaning that its final abolition was only in 1848.
When were black people considered citizens?
When slavery ended in 1865, a period of Reconstruction began. By 1868, all Black persons born in the United States were citizens and equal before the law. But efforts to create an interracial democracy were contested from the start.
How were U.S. senators originally chosen?
Article I, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, as written by the framers, provided for election of senators by state legislatures.
Which Amendment is the most controversial?
The Fourteenth Amendment was the most controversial and far-reaching of these three Reconstruction Amendments.