<P> The Reconstruction Amendments are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the Civil War . The last time the Constitution had been amended was with the Twelfth Amendment more than 60 years earlier in 1804 . The Reconstruction amendments were important in implementing the Reconstruction of the American South after the war . Their proponents saw them as transforming the United States from a country that was (in Abraham Lincoln's words) "half slave and half free" to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to the entire populace, including the former slaves and their descendants . </P> <P> The Thirteenth Amendment (proposed and ratified in 1865) abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except for those duly convicted of a crime . The Fourteenth Amendment (proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons . The Fifteenth Amendment (proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870) prohibits discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude ." This amendment did not include a specific prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex; it took another amendment--the Nineteenth, ratified in 1920--to prohibit such discrimination explicitly . Men and women of all races, regardless of prior slavery, could vote in some states of the early United States, such as New Jersey, provided that they could meet other requirements, such as property ownership . </P>

What was the purpose of the reconstruction amendments apex