When, after readmission, the white members of the Georgia legislature expelled all of their black colleagues, arguing that state laws prohibited African Americans from holding office, Congress protected black equality in government with the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment guaranteed that the right to vote—and, by extension, the right to hold office—could not be denied or curtailed according to “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Georgia was required to ratify this amendment as a condition of its restoration to the government in 1870.
