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Today in History (1862) - The U.S. government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation. On the same day in 1865, the Confederate Congress voted to enlist 300,000 black troops, granting them freedom with the consent of their owners. Lee surrendered a few weeks later. |
As previously noted, the texts of the 15th and 19th Amendments are the same except that where the former says, "race, color, or previous condition of servitude," the latter says, "sex." Yet for some reason the listing of amendments on Cornell's Legal Information Institute website paraphrases them quite differently: "Amendment XV [Rights Not to Be Denied on Account of Race (1870)]" versus "Amendment XIX [Women's Right to Vote (1920)]." Anyone know why the voting rights amendments are paraphrased so differently?