In July 1868, Secretary of State William H. Seward announced that the amendment had been ratified. His tally included approval by seven southern states that had first rejected the amendment and then, after new biracial governments were put in place, reversed themselves and approved it. Here, indeed, is a profound irony. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment studiously avoided including black suffrage among its provisions. But without the votes of black men in southern elections and legislatures, the amendment could never have become part of the Constitution.50
