The so-called radical Republicans, in turn, understood that the readmission of the southern states to the nation required close federal vigilance and interference, including the presence of national troops guaranteeing black electoral enlistment in the southern states. Beginning in 1867, projects advocated by radical Republicans gained greater support, although this group of politicians was a minority in the Party's congressional delegation. This context, especially between 1867 and 1876, became known as the period of Radical Reconstruction and was marked by a series of political interventions and initiatives aimed specifically at guaranteeing black citizenship rights in American society.
On March 2, 1867, the first Reconstruction Law was passed, the text of which provided for the black vote in the election of the delegates who would draft the new state constitutions in the southern United States. To restore political autonomy, such states should extend the “privilege” of voting to black men over twenty-one. If in fact in that context the vote was thought of as a privilege, and not exactly as a right, the fact to be observed was that such a privilege, for the first time, was registered in law concerning the former slave states, as an independent exercise of race, color or precondition.
The political climate after the first Reconstruction Law has intensified discussions about black citizenship rights. In 1868, Congress ratified Amendment XIV, bringing the issue of black citizenship to the center of national political discussion. Amendment XIV to the Constitution established citizenship as an attribute of persons born in or naturalized in North American territory, thus independent of the origin or previous condition of the subject. It was thus indicated that both blacks and former slaves enjoyed general political rights in the nation and their states of residence. Such states, incidentally, should be punished with diminished representation in the Federal Congress if they did not respect the voting rights of blacks.
