1. Learning Target: Today we will analyze the significance the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments had on the United States.
Do Now: What is an amendment?
Answer the following: Based on the documents. What are the similarities and differences of the various Reconstruction plans created by the federal government?

2. Amendment
Amendments are changes or additions to the constitution that protect our everyday rights as U.S. citizens.

3. Reconstruction Summary/Legacy
Johnson says he’s going to carry out Lincoln’s plans, he doesn’t, allows southern states to have power compared to federal gov’t
Southern states create laws to limit freed slaves freedoms
Reconstruction put African Americans on the path toward equality (13th, 14th, 15th Amendments)

4. Civil War Amendments
13th Amendment
14th Amendment
15th Amendment

5. Activity
Each group will be given a copy of the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments.
Using a dictionary as well as a highlighter you will read and analyze the amendments.
Paraphrase the amendments in your own words.
Explain the significance of each amendment.
Share your findings.

6. Example
1st amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
Rewritten
People are allowed to speak and say whatever they want. People are also allowed to create and practice and religion they desire to.

7. Share Rewritten Amendments
13th
14th
15th

8. Civil War Amendments
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

9. 13th amendment
abolished slavery and made it illegal forever.

10. 14th Amendment
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."

11. 14th Amendment
stated that all men born in United States were citizens and had the same rights, all citizens to be granted “equal protection of the laws”, however this did not include black suffrage (right to vote).

12. 15th Amendment
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

13. 15th Amendment
states that citizens could not be stopped from voting “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

14. Silent Debate-13th,14th,15th, Amendment
Which amendment improved life for African Americans the most politically, socially and economically?

15. Essential Question
Why were the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments critical in unifying the United States?