February 3, 1870

Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Iowa ratifies the Fifteenth Amendment, completing the three-fourths threshold

New York had tried to retract its approval a month earlier. The federal government did not recognize the withdrawal.

The twenty-eighth state

The Iowa legislature ratified the proposed Fifteenth Amendment on 3 February 1870 and was counted as the twenty-eighth ratifying state — the three-fourths of thirty-seven states required by Article V.

Congress had proposed the amendment on 26 February 1869 and sent it to the states. Georgia ratified on 2 February 1870, and Iowa's vote the next day supplied the conventionally recognized final approval.

A contested count

New York had attempted to withdraw its earlier ratification on 5 January 1870, which raised a live counting question at the time.

Secretary of State Hamilton Fish's proclamation treated the withdrawal as ineffective, and federal institutions consistently give 3 February as the ratification date.

What the text does and does not say

The amendment prohibits the United States and every state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, and empowers Congress to enforce that rule. It speaks of citizens, not of men — but it left sex-based disenfranchisement untouched and did not itself eliminate poll taxes, literacy tests or other facially race-neutral barriers.

Reaching the threshold was also not the last step. Fish formally certified the amendment on 30 March 1870, a separate administrative act.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes, 1 issue open

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

New York attempted to withdraw its earlier ratification on 5 January 1870, raising a contemporaneous counting issue. Fish's proclamation treated the withdrawal as ineffective, and federal institutions consistently give 3 February as the ratification date.
The certification occurred on 30 March, but authoritative federal sources distinguish that later promulgation from the 3 February completion of ratification.