Why Has the United States Paid Lip Service to the 14th & 15th Amendments While It Venerates Amendments 1-10? Essay

Why has the United States paid lip service to the 14th & 15th Amendments while it venerates Amendments 1-10?

Amendments 1-10 are known as the Bill of Rights and guarantee individual freedoms and protections from the intrusion of the federal government. Perhaps the most important and critical amendment is the first 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.”   This amendment details the freedoms the founders were seeking to give the people; for with these rights they guaranteed that we can assert our views of religion, of speech, that we can protest and change unfair practices.

Three Amendments are called the Reconstruction Amendments for the period following the Civil War called Reconstruction 1865-1877. The concept was that the defeated southern states would be rehabilitated and brought back to normal standing as citizens of the united states during this reconstruction period. The reality was far from satisfactory to most southerners and resentments over forced changes were very high.   Into this charged atmosphere come the reconstruction or civil war amendments. The 14th Amendment (1868) addresses the birthright of citizenship so that the slaves freed by the 13th Amendment (1865), are made citizens by right of birth. The 15th Amendment (1870) guarantees all the voting privileges of citizens no matter which state they reside in (although did not go far enough in guaranteeing an absolute right without condition), "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on the account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."  

The love for the people of the first ten amendments then is easy to understand as they protect us and gift us guaranteed...