The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-07-09


Reynolds took no part in the case.
By holding that conditions that ex
listed before the fifteenth amendment
which provides that the right to yot
shall not be denied or abridged on &C
count OF race, color or previous condi
ton of servitude, could not be brough
over to the present day in disregard O
this self-executing amendment, it is gen
orally believed that the court went
long way toward invalidating much O
the so-called grandfather clause legis
lation of Southern States.
OFFICIALS CONVICTION HOLDS.
The immediate effect of the court:
decision was to uphold the conviction
of two Oklahoma election officials, who
denied negroes the right to vote in a
Congressional election, and to award
three Maryland negroes damages from
election officials in Annapolis who re-
fused to register them. The court held
that these election officials could not
ignore the potency of the fifteenth
amendment in wiping out of State con-
situations the word white" as a quail
tication for voting. In the Maryland
case the courts decision established the
point that the fifteenth amendment ap-
plies alike to municipal as we'll as to
federal elections.
Discussing the Oklahoma cases, Chief
Justice White said the suffrage amend
ment to the State constitution first fixed
a literacy standard, and then followed
it with provision creating standard
based upon the condition existing on
Jan. l, 1866, prior to the adoption of
the fifteenth amendment and eliminat-
ed those coming under that standard
from the inclusion in the literacy test.
The court had difficulty, he said, in
finding words to more clearly demon
strate its conviction that this action of
the State recreated and perpetuated the
very conditions which the fifteenth
amendment was intended to destroy
han the language used in the amend
nent.
AMENDMENT EXPLAINED
1t is true, " continued the chief JUS
ice, that it contains no express words
If an exclusion from the standard which
establishes of any person on account
# race, color or previous condition of
ervitude prohibited by the fifteeneh
but the standard itself in
erently brings that result into exist
nee, since it is based purely upon a
eriod of time before the enactment of
be fifteenth amendment and makes
hat period the controlling and dom-k
liant test of the right of suffrage.
In other words, we seek in vain for
ny ground which would sustain any
Their Interpretation but that the pro-
sion, recurring to the conditions ex-
ting before the fifteenth amendment
as adopted, and the continuance of
hich the fifteenth amendment prohib-
ed, proposed by, in substance and
feet, lifting those conditions over
,riod of time after the amendment to
axe them the basis of the right of
ffrage conferred in direct and positive 4
sregard of the fifteenth amendment.
nd the same result, we are of opinion,
demonstrated by considering whether
is possible to discover any basis of
ason for the standard thus fixed other
an the purpose thus stated.
We say this because we are unable
discover how, unless the prohibition
the fifteenth amendment was consid-
ed, the slightest error was afforded
r basing the classification upon a
riod of time prior to the fifteenth
1endment. Certainly it cannot be
ID that there was any peculiar NEGRO
ancy in the time named which engen-
red attributes affecting the qualifica-
n to vote which would not exist at
other and different period unless the
zenith amendment was in view" Z
DECLARED SELF EXECUTING. =
The chief justice had prefaced this ii,
tement by development of the ar i,
ment that the restriction imposed by th
fifteenth amendment on the power Sc
the States over suffrage was coinci- la
1T with the limits of the power itself. in
also set forth the principle that while re-
the true sense the fifteenth amend of
mt gives no right" of suffrage, it I'M
5 long ago recognized that in opera en-