WARD ELLIOTT

The post–Civil War Radical Republicans, as a group, cared very little for the black vote until they came to believe that it would help to secure their position ... against a Democratic resurgence. Once convinced that they would profit from the black vote, they passed the Fifteenth Amendment

The post–Civil War Radical Republicans, as a group, cared very little for the black vote until they came to believe that it would help to secure their position ... against a Democratic resurgence. Once convinced that they would profit from the black vote, they passed the Fifteenth Amendment