On February 26, 1869, the US Senate passed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, giving people of all races and colors the right to vote. The Amendment would be ratified and become official US law a year later. Following the issuance of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery, Congress began to debate the rights of former slaves. Those African Americans would now be counted as citizens in the South, which would increase Southern power in the population-based House of Representatives. Northern Republicans hoped to decrease the South’s advantage by giving African Americans the right to vote.