• The Thirteenth Amendment

Question

• The Fourteenth Amendment
• The Fifteenth Amendment

The three items listed above are called the Reconstruction Amendments. What was the main purpose of these three amendments?
A.
to punish the southern states for seceding
B.
to admit three more states into the Union
C.
to rebuild cities that the war had destroyed
D.
to free and grant basic rights to slaves

Answer 1

The main purpose of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, known as the Reconstruction Amendments, was:

D. to free and grant basic rights to slaves

• The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.
• The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves.
• The Fifteenth Amendment aimed to protect the voting rights of African American men by prohibiting the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.