Why couldn't blacks vote?

Answer 1

Because during that time they were slaves (not free men) and considered to NOT be citizens of the United States, even if they were born here. Only free men who were American citizens had the right to vote. Eventually, due to the 15th Amendment, African Americans obtained the right to vote and it was deemed illegal to deny them that right because of race, color, or past record of slavery.

Answer 2

Acknowledgment that blacks voted long before the 1965 Voting Rights Act was provided in the infamous 1856 Dred Scott decision in which a Democratic-controlled US Supreme Court observed that blacks "had no rights which a white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit." [3] Non-Democrat Justice Benjamin R. Curtis, one of only two on the Court who dissented in that opinion, provided a lengthy documentary history to show that many blacks in America had often exercised the rights of citizens - that many at the time of the American Revolution "possessed the franchise of [voters] on equal terms with other citizens."

Answer 3

because they were considered less of a person