Ninety-five years ago, when the U.S. added the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, President Ulysses S. Grant called it "a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind, from the foundation of our free Government to the present day." The 15th did indeed have a grand ring: it promised that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude."
Nevertheless, the great promise of the...
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