In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”   The Emancipation Proclamation was not intended to end slavery, it only applied to areas of the Confederacy currently in a state of rebellion, it was a repeat of the strategy employed by General Howe during the American Revolution to tie up Confederate resources needed for the war effort in maintaining control over their slaves.  Slavery will not be abolished until the 13th Amendment is passed at the end of the Civil War. 

Abolitionist took advantage of the fact that the Southern states had given up their votes in Congress (2/3 majority is required for a Constitutional Amendment) and would not be able to oppose its passage.  The Senate passed it in April 1864 but the House did not. Lincoln then took an active role in promoting the amendment in Congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th Amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming 1864 Presidential election. His efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119–56.  Because the Southern States were still not readmitted to the union, the necessary three-fourths ratification by the states vote was easily achieved by December 6, 1865. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” 

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.”  In its later sections, the 14th Amendment authorized the federal government to punish states that violated or abridged their citizens’ right to vote by proportionally reducing the states’ representation in Congress, and mandated that anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States could not hold civil, military or elected office (without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate).

It also upheld the national debt, but exempted federal and state governments from paying any debts incurred by the former Confederate states.

The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “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.”  Despite the amendment’s passage, by the late 1870s dozens of discriminatory practices were used to prevent Black citizens from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South.  Southern state governments attempted to nullified both the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment, by administratively stripping Black citizens in the South of the right to vote.  A wide range of discriminatory practices including poll taxes and literacy tests were used to prevent Black men from exercising their right to vote.  It would not be until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed that Blacks were guaranteed their right to vote under the 15th Amendment. 

Now the Republican party is engaged in similar actions blatantly intended to restore Jim Crow like laws in their states to maintain political domination.   They are now using ID laws and voter registration purges to disenfranchise voters.  They are restricting access to polls and when that fails, resorting to physical intimidation in order to ensure that only their party’s votes are counted.  In 2020, Donald Trump even attempted to overturn the vote in Georgia.  They do all these things because, like the Southern aristocracy in the post Civil War South mass enfranchisement threatens the political status quo.

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