To insure the continuance of the radicals in power, the Fifteenth Amendment was framed and sent out to the States on February 26, 1869.

This amendment appeared not only to make safe the Negro majorities in the South but also gave the ballot to the Negroes in a score of Northern States and thus assured, for a time at least, 900,000 Negro voters for the Republican party.
When Johnson's term ended and he gave place to President Grant, four states were still unreconstructed--Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi, in which the reconstruction had failed, and Georgia, which, after accomplishing reconstruction, had again been placed under military rule by Congress.

In Virginia, which was too near the capital for such rough work as readmitted Arkansas and Alabama into the Union, the new constitution was so severe in its provisions for disfranchisement that the disgusted district commander would not authorize the expenditure necessary to have it voted on.

In Mississippi a similar constitution had failed of adoption, and in Texas the strife of party factions, radical and moderate Republican, had so delayed the framing of the constitution that it had not come to a vote.
The Republican politicians, however, wanted the offices in these States, and Congress by its resolution of February 18, 1869, directed the district commanders to remove all civil officers who could not take the "ironclad" oath and to appoint those who could subscribe to it.

An exception, however, was made in favor of the scalawags who had supported reconstruction and whose disabilities had been removed by Congress.
President Grant was anxious to complete the reconstruction and recommended to Congress that the constitutions of Virginia and Mississippi be re-submitted to the people with a separate vote on the disfranchising sections.