XV catch the negro without debarring any considerable number of CHAP. white people, the essential object could still be attained. And the history of the suffrage in the South during the past thirty years has been mainly a story of the adoption and administration of discriminatory regulations of this character. In Mississippi-the first state to incorporate clauses for this purpose in its constitution (1890)—the voter must have paid all taxes assessed against him, including a poll tax of two dollars, and must be able either to read any section of the state constitution or to understand it when read to him and to give a reasonable interpretation thereof.1 The uneducated negro, being proverbially careless, is more than likely to be unable to produce his tax receipt; on the other hand, the registration officers are prone to "forget" to ask the white voter to produce a receipt. Comparatively few Mississippi negroes, furthermore, can read; still fewer can give an interpretation of the state constitution which will be accepted as "reasonable" by white officials with a strong predisposition against negro voting. If, in replying to detailed personal questions which are put to him, too, the candidate for registration deviates by a jot from the truth, he becomes guilty of perjury, for which he may be disfranchised. Here again the authorities may apply wholly different standards to applicants according to their color.2 father The Mississippi plan has served more or less as a model for "Grandother states. It proved, however, to have one drawback. Notwith- clauses" standing judicious administration, it did not sufficiently protect the illiterate white; and in certain states this defect has been partially remedied by so-called "grandfather clauses." South Carolina, in 1895, excused for three years from the regular educational test all men, otherwise qualified, who were voters, or whose progenitors were voters, in 1867. The object was frankly to enable the illiterate whites to get their names on the roll of permanent voters, while keeping the negroes from doing so. The Louisiana constitution of 1898, after requiring voters to be able to read and write, or in lieu of that to be the owners of property valued at not less than $300, went on to exempt from both of these qualifications any person who was himself, or whose father or grandfather was, 1 The requirement of residence, also, has been raised to two years in the state and one year in the election district. "T. F. Jones, "Powers of the Southern Election Registrar," Outlook, LXXXVII, 529-531 (Nov. 9, 1907); W. F. White, "Election by Terror in Florida," New Repub., XXV, 195-197 (Jan. 12, 1921). CHAP. Merits of the southern procedure on January 1, 1867, or on any prior date, a voter anywhere in the United States. The benefit of this exemption fell, and was intended to fall, almost exclusively to the illiterate and poor whites. All of the distinctly southern states have brought into service devices of these and other kinds, with the thinly-disguised purpose of making it difficult or impossible for the negro to take part in politics and government; and it is commonly estimated that in most of these states not more than one negro in a hundred actually votes, even at the most important elections.1 The letter of the Fifteenth Amendment is ingeniously observed, but the spirit of it is flagrantly violated. Speaking broadly, the situation rouses no strong dissatisfaction. Southern whites regard it as natural and inevitable. The disfranchised negroes are, as a rule, indifferent. Even in the North there is no strong disapprobation; in 1904 the Republican party significantly stopped putting in its platform the time-honored castigation of the southern policy. Furthermore, appeals to the Supreme Court have usually been unavailing. In 1892, and again in 1898, the court held that the Mississippi constitution does not discriminate on account of race or color, and hence does not violate the Fifteenth Amendment." On the other hand, a grandfather clause in the constitution of Oklahoma was declared void in 1914. In most cases the grandfather clauses, however, have long since served their purpose, being intended simply as a means of getting illiterate whites on the registration lists, where they have remained. The southern restrictions are objectionable, in that they set up discriminations which are really based on considerations of race, and also in that they are deliberate evasions of the fundamental law of the country. Most southern negroes, however, are poorly qualified for political power; many of them manifest no desire to vote; some of their leaders consider that the race will gain more in the long run by accepting white control; and the heavily outnumbered white. populations must be conceded to have the logic of cold facts largely on their side. The initial mistake was made when the freedmen were enfranchised en masse sixty years ago.* 1 J. C. Rose, "Negro Suffrage; the Constitutional Point of View," Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev., I, 17-43 (Nov., 1906). Sproule v. Fredericks, 11 South., 472; Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U. S., 213 (1898). Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S., 347 (1914). Members of the yellow race are debarred from voting in so far as they are ineligible for citizenship (see p. 189). American-born persons of that race, however, may obtain the suffrage on the same terms as whites. XV disfran not en With a view to penalizing states which restrict the suffrage, the CHAP. Fourteenth Amendment provides that if a state denies or abridges the right of any of its male inhabitants, being twenty-one years of Penalty for age and citizens of the United States, to vote, "except for partici- chisement pation in rebellion, or other crime," the basis of representation in forced such state shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of unenfranchised male citizens bears to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in the state. Attempt has been made to show that this penalty was intended to fall only in case of denial of the suffrage on account of race or color.1 But the phraseology of the amendment admits of no such interpretation: Massachusetts is quite as liable to a reduction of its quota of representatives in Congress because of its general educational qualifications as is Louisiana on account of its restrictions aimed at the negro. In point of fact, this provision has never been carried out. The average number of voters in the South who elect a representative to Congress is very much smaller than the average number in the North; and loud complaint has long been made, mainly by northern Republicans. Enforcement of the constitutional penalty would, however, raise embarrassing questions and would have doubtful political effects. Consequently, although numerous bills on the subject have appeared in Congress, all have fallen by the wayside at one stage or another. REFERENCES A. N. Holcombe, State Government in the United States (New York, 1916), J. Bryce, American Commonwealth (4th ed., New York, 1910), II, Chap. XCVI. A. C. McLaughlin and A. B. Hart, Cyclopedia of American Government (New K. H. Porter, History of Suffrage in the United States (Chicago, 1918). F. G. Gaffney, "Suffrage Limitations at the South," Polit. Sci. Quar., XX, A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. by Reeve (3rd ed., Cambridge, G. H. Haynes, "Educational Qualifications for the Suffrage in the United 1E. G. Murphy, "Shall the Fourteenth Amendment be Enforced?" North Amer. Rev., CLXXX, 109-133 (Jan., 1905). CHAP. E. G. Murphy, Problems of the Present South (New York, 1904). C. C. Catt, Woman Suffrage by Constitutional Amendment (New York, 1917). CHAPTER XVI CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT We have now seen how the constitution of the United States was made, what relations it sets up between the nation and the states, and what rights and privileges fall to the citizen living under it. One other matter calls for attention before we turn to a description of the various systems of government-national, state, and local-which operate in accordance with it. This is the modes by which the constitution expands and develops, adapting itself from generation to generation, and even from year to year, to changing ideas and needs. Viewing the constitution in the narrowest possible sense, as simply the written instrument drawn up at Philadelphia in 1787 and put into operation in 1789, there has been a great amount of change: some clauses have become obsolete, and nineteen amendments have been added. Viewing it, however, in the broader and better sense, as the whole body of fundamental rules which directly or indirectly affect the distribution and exercise of sovereign power, the constitution presents the spectacle of a vast, living, growing organism, in constant flux, and defying all attempts of the philosophers to classify it as rigid or static.1 Four methods of growth are chiefly to be noted: formal amendment, statutory amplification, judicial construction, and usage or custom.2 The con stitution in constant change for amend The framers of the constitution of 1787 were far from believing Provisions their handiwork perfect. Furthermore, they were sufficiently ment statesmanlike to know that, however satisfactory the instrument might be considered at the moment, changing circumstances would require alterations in it. On the other hand, they did not want the process of amendment to be so easy as to encourage frequent and ill-considered change. They accordingly devised alternative methods, as follows: "The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both 1 See p. 40. 2 Speaking broadly, the state constitutions have developed in the same ways, although formal amendment, including total revision, has played a relatively more important rôle. Their growth may best be considered when we come to describe the state governments of the present day. See Chap. xxxiv. |