The Constitution
Reconstruction Amendments
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, ratified 1865 to 1870: abolishing slavery, guaranteeing citizenship and equal protection, and protecting the vote.
In full
Together they rewrote the relationship between the federal government and the states, giving Congress explicit power to enforce individual rights against state governments for the first time. Their promise went largely unenforced for most of a century after Reconstruction ended, and much twentieth-century civil rights law is an effort to make them operative.
Where to go next
Keep going
Browse every term in the glossary, or see the vocabulary in motion in the How government works walkthroughs.
A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.