On this day, February 2, 1870, Georgia ratified the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, becoming the 27th state to do so and paving the way for its final adoption the next day, which prohibited denying voting rights based on race, color, or previous servitude.
As the capstone of the Reconstruction Amendments, it built on the Thirteenth and Fourteenth by affirming equal dignity for all men, ensuring formerly enslaved African Americans could participate in democracy without racial barriers, echoing the Declaration of Independence’s ideal that all are created equal.
The amendment marked a “new birth of freedom,” fostering ongoing fights for true equality culminating in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. From a pro-life viewpoint, it reinforces the Constitution’s framework of inalienable dignity, inspiring arguments that equal protection extends to the unborn.
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