THE MAKING OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION ★^583Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the Radical Repub-
licans in the House of Representatives during
Reconstruction.The Fourteenth
Amendment
Congress now proceeded to adopt its
own plan of Reconstruction. In June, it
approved and sent to the states for rat-
ification the Fourteenth Amendment,
which placed in the Constitution the
principle of citizenship for all persons
born in the United States, and which
empowered the federal government to
protect the rights of all Americans. The
amendment prohibited the states from
abridging the “privileges or immuni-
ties” of citizens or denying any person
of the “equal protection of the laws.”
This broad language opened the door
for future Congresses and the federal
courts to breathe meaning into the
guarantee of legal equality.
In a compromise between the rad-
ical and moderate positions on black
suffrage, the amendment did not grant
blacks the right to vote. But it did provide that if a state denied the vote to any
group of men, that state’s representation in Congress would be reduced. (This
provision did not apply when states barred women from voting.) The abolition
of slavery threatened to increase southern political power, since now all blacks,
not merely three- fifths as in the case of slaves, would be counted in determin-
ing a state’s representation in Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment offered
the leaders of the white South a choice— allow black men to vote and keep
their state’s full representation in the House of Representatives, or limit the
vote to whites and sacrifice part of their political power.
The Fourteenth Amendment produced an intense division between the
parties. Not a single Democrat in Congress voted in its favor, and only 4 of 175
Republicans were opposed. Radicals, to be sure, expressed their disappointment
that the amendment did not guarantee black suffrage. (It was far from perfect,
Stevens told the House, but he intended to vote for it, “because I live among
men and not among angels.”) Nonetheless, by writing into the Constitution the
principle that equality before the law regardless of race is a fundamental right
of all American citizens, the amendment made the most important change in
that document since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
What were the sources, goals, and competing visions for Reconstruction?