Court Opinion

ID: 9624155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:52:51.882491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:40.151535
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge:
Congress in enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “directed” the Attorney General to institute suits “against the enforcement of any requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting.” 1 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 included Congress’ specific findings that the poll tax violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.2 Pursuant to the direction of Congress, the Attorney General on behalf of the United States here seeks a judgment declaring unconstitutional and enjoining the enforcement of Sections 178 and 194 of the Alabama Constitution and the statutes implementing those sections of the Constitution which precondition the right to vote in State, local, general, special and primary elections on payment of a poll tax for each of two years next preceding the election. We hold that the Alabama poll tax violates the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Judge Johnson, as indicated by his concurring opinion, would also hold that it violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The poll tax is therefore invalid.
The Constitution and statutes of Alabama3 require that, in order to vote in any election, a person must (1) be a citizen of the United States and 21 years of age or older; (2) have resided in the State one year, in the county six months, and in his voting precinct three months prior to any election in which he seeks to vote; (3) be able to read and write any article of the United States Consti*97tution,4 not be an idiot or insane person or have been convicted of any of certain enumerated crimes; and (4) have paid the poll taxes for which he is liable.5
A poll tax in the amount of $1.50 is imposed annually on every non-exempt resident of the State between the ages of 21 and 45.6 The Constitution and statutes exempt from the payment of the tax all persons over 45; veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War; presently serving members of the Alabama Naval or National Guard, or those who were members for 21 years.7 The poll tax can be paid only between October 1 and February l.8 During this period the prospective voter must have paid the poll taxes due for the previous two years in order to vote in an election in the ensuing year.9 Collection of the poll tax by enforcement of legal process is prohibited.10 The funds collected are used for the support of public schools11 Poll taxes are paid to the County Tax Collector.12 On or before March 15 of each year the collector is required to furnish the Judge of Probate in his county with a list, by name, sex and race, of those persons who have paid the poll tax.13 The Probate Judge compiles the list of qualified voters by comparing the list of registered electors with the poll tax lists furnished to him by the tax collectors,14 and furnishes the list of qualified electors to the appropriate election officials.15
Under Article I, Sec. 2, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution and under the Seventeenth Amendment, the States are empowered to set reasonable qualifications for voters in elections of members of Congress. As to State and local elections, that right is reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. The power of the States over suffrage is recognized by the Fifteenth Amendment, but that coordinate amendment restricts the States’ power to regulate suffrage under certain circumstances. The Fifteenth Amendment provides that: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Therefore, any requirement that “abridges” the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” is invalid.
Negroes were first enfranchised in Alabama under the Constitution of 1867 which provided that every male person 21 years of age and over who satisfied the citizenship and residence require*98ments “shall be deemed an elector.”16 With the end of reconstruction in Alabama came the mounting efforts of the white citizens to regain their former political supremacy. History records the sordid attempts to disfranchise the Negro voters through fraud and often outright intimidation. Those practices shocked the conscience and were not entirely effective. A demand grew for more sophisticated means of depriving Negroes of the vote.
As shown by contemporaneous newspapers at the turn of the century attention was focused on amendments to the State Constitution setting suffrage requirements which would permit white persons to vote but effectively disfranchise Negroes.17 On May 21, 1901, a State Constitutional Convention assembled largely, if not principally, for the purpose of changing the 1875 Constitution so as to eliminate Negro voters.
Delegate after delegate took the floor eager to be put on record18 as favoring “the absolute disfranchisement of the Negro as a Negro.”19 They did “not believe in disfranchising a single white vote.” 20 Viewed in the context of today, these testimonials are fraught with discredited notions, such as: “I say here without fear of contradiction that if there is any good in the Negro race such as elevates a nation or elevates his race, I say that good comes from the Caucasian blood that runs in his veins.”21 The Journals of the Convention leave absolutely no doubt as to what the delegates of the white citizens of Alabama wished the Convention to accomplish:
“ * * * We want the white man who once voted in the state and controlled it to vote again. We want to see that old condition restored. Upon that theory we took the stump in Alabama having pledged ourselves to the white people upon the platform that we would not disfranchise a single white man if you trust us to frame an organic law for Alabama, but it is our purpose, it is our intention, and here is our registered vow to disfranchise every Negro in the state and not a single white man.” 22
Although the delegates expressed the view “that the State of Alabama never adopted the 15th Amendment,” 23 or any of the other reconstruction amendments, they were anxious to provide devices that *99would avoid a legal attack based on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments but still successfully subvert the purpose of those amendments. One solution to the dilemma adopted by the delegates was the poll tax. Delegate Hood voiced his approval as follows:
“Now in my judgment, this poll tax qualification is the most important provision in this entire article. We are told that in the Black Belt and that in many counties in the state, there is a large percentage of those young Negroes who are coming of age that will be able to read and write, therefore will be qualified under the provisions of this article. The only safety valve, Mr. President, that is contained in this article after 1903 for a large proportion of the Negroes in this State is this poll tax of $1.50.
* -X- * * * *
“Now the main purpose of this Committee in dispensing with the compulsory collection of the poll tax was to allow the poll tax to accumulate and to pile up on this class of voters that we want to get rid of — the vicious voter in Alabama. We want that poll tax in Alabama. We want that poll tax to pile up so high that he will never be able to vote again. If you provide a compulsory way of collecting the poll tax you destroy the objects and purposes of the committee in reporting the provision as it is reported.” 24
The suffrage plan which finally emerged from the Convention with the overwhelming support of the delegates was a two-stage affair.25 The temporary provisions, effective until January 1, 1903, included a grandfather clause for veterans and their descendants under which most white persons could register without meeting other new requirements, and a requirement that voters be of good character and understand the duties of citizenship. The permanent plan, effective on January 1, 1903, included a residence requirement, education, employment and property qualifications, a disqualifying crimes provision, and the non-compulsory cumulative poll tax requirement — cumulative from January 1, 1901.26
The effect of the new suffrage provisions in the 1901 Constitution on the Negro voters was dramatic. Whereas in 1900, 100,000 Negroes had voted in Alabama, the number eligible to vote under the temporary plan in 1903 dropped to 2,980 while white registrants numbered 191,492. In 1904 the registration figures show a total of 3,654 Negroes and 205,-278 whites registered. By 1908 there were only 3,742 Negroes registered, while white registration had risen to 250,381.27
We hold that from its inception the Alabama poll tax was illegal and invalid as an attempt to subvert the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The necessary effect of the poll tax as adopted in 1901 was to disfranchise Negro voters. The history of the poll tax leaves no doubt that this was its sole purpose. Such clear and intentional attempt to deny or abridge the right to vote necessarily runs afoul of the Fifteenth Amendment.
Like the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment does not disable any appropriate governmental body from regulating suffrage where a legitimate State interest exists. The two-amendments mean simply that the States and the Federal Government must exer*100cise their powers so as not to discriminate between their inhabitants, except upon some reasonable differentiation fairly related to the object of the regulation. The Fifteenth Amendment teaches that race can never be a reasonable ground for discrimination.
The poll tax was born of an effort to discriminate on the basis of race or color and it has had just that narrow effect. The equality provided by the Fifteenth Amendment is not an abstract principle of justice. The framers of our fundamental charter of liberty knew, and we must never forget, that there is no more effective or practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which governments impose on a minority must be equally and fairly applicable to the majority. Moreover, nothing encourages arbitrary and offensive discrimination more effectively than allowing governments to pick those few upon whom the heavy hand of government will fall and thus escape the political retribution that might meet them at the polls should the majority be truly affected. Courts can take no better step toward preserving our heritage of liberty than to strike down such narrowly discriminatory measures.
Some may argue that on its face the poll tax has an equal and broad field of operation. But no more conclusive refutation of that argument exists than the Journals of the 1901 Constitutional Convention with their demonstration that the measure was carefully drawn to exclude Negroes from voting. It has been argued that while the poll tax was unconstitutional at its inception, subsequent changes have breathed life into its tortured body. Section 178 was amended in December 1953 so as to make the poll tax cumulative for only two years.28 Successive amendments to section 194 have created broad exemptions relieving from payment veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War; those presently serving in the Alabama Naval or National Guard or those who were members for 21 years; and those citizens of Alabama who are blind or deaf.29 While these amendments are ameliorative, they are not curative. The poll tax remains one of the last great pillars of racial discrimination. In effect, the tax still bars a large number of Negroes from the polls.
What legitimate State interest has emerged to render constitutionally valid statutes or constitutional provisions that were invalid at their inception? Has the State become wedded to some policy that could provide a rational nondiscriminatory basis for this tax? The State of Alabama advanced six reasons which it conceived to be legitimate State interests sufficient to overcome the inherently discriminatory effect of the poll tax: 1. It “is a • test of good citizenship.” 2. “It keeps out those unworthy voters who have no interest in public affairs.” 3. It keeps out those “too inert to pay.” 4. “The voters’ interest in protecting the ballot is indicated.” 5. It indicates “concern for public education for which the poll tax is levied.” 6. It “tests a citizen’s interest in the conduct of elections.”
For the sake of argument, let us assume that such interests might be sufficient to save a poll tax from constitutional attack. Can these State interests come now to the rescue of the Alabama poll tax? We think not. There is nothing in the history of the poll tax since 1901 to indicate that the State of Alabama has ever abandoned its original discriminatory purpose.
World War I may well have been largely fought by public-minded volunteers, but subsequent conflicts have found the use of the draft a more reliable means of raising a citizens’ army. The military exemption to the poll tax does not necessarily supply a substitute test for “good *101citizenship” or “interest in public affairs.” Surely it bears no correlation to an interest in education, nor does it demonstrate that a person is not “too inert to pay.” Moreover, the test must be one of current interest in public affairs because the tax is an annual tax. If current interest were not the true test, then merely registering to vote would demonstrate an interest in public affairs. Participation in past wars is no current test of interest in public affairs. A man’s blindness or deafness represents no test of these interests either. What the present exemptions do recognize is the inherently discriminatory nature of the tax. Therefore, we believe that the amendments to the poll tax demonstrate, no intention of surrendering its discriminatory purpose in favor of such abstract purposes as proposed by the State. There are more direct and effective ways to test the six interests outlined by the State. Those alleged interests amount to no more than ingenious afterthought.
More telling is the fact that, from the Constitutional Convention of 1901 to the present, the State of Alabama has consistently devoted its official resources to maintaining white supremacy and a segregated society. Statutes, cases and the statements of its Governors demonstrate that the State’s resistance to the rights of Negroes to equal treatment continued even after the Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States had expressly declared that the State’s action was unconstitutional.30 Such a policy naturally operates to cause white public officials to carry out their duties in a manner which favors white persons, and deters Negroes from acting affirmatively to overcome the special burden imposed by this environment on their exercise of political rights. In this environment the poll tax, uniquely a part of the original package of discriminatory political devices, cannot be administered consistently with the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment.
We find that there are still forty-four sections of the Alabama Code devoted to the maintenance of segregation31 in schools,32 public utilities,33 mental institutions,34 nursing,35 penal and correctional institutions,36 pauper care,37 and the marriage choice.38 Negroes have been excluded from municipal recreational facilities and swimming pools,39 parks,40 libraries and museums,41 and from jury service.42
When Negroes began once more to achieve the right to vote, the State Legislature went so far as to re-draw the boundaries of the municipality of Tuskegee so as to deny Negroes effective par*102ticipation in their local government43 Just last year in an effort to exclude' Negroes from participation in State government, the Legislature passed a racially gerrymandered reapportionment scheme.44
The Supreme Court’s opinion in 1954 that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional 45 was declared “as a matter of right null and void and of no effect” by both houses of the Alabama Legislature in 1956.46 The Legislature, as well as succeeding Governors, continued to publicly denounce the Brown decision with statements of disapproval and determined resistance.47
The declarations of the Legislature itself recognized the racial character of this tax. In 1942, when the Senate of the United States was considering anti-poll tax legislation, both houses of the State of Alabama Legislature passed a strong resolution commending its Senators in the Congress for48 “their magnificent fight against the measure now pending in Congress which is calculated to destroy our Poll Tax Law, upset our methods of holding elections and seriously affect the friendly relations now existing between the races.”
In 1943 both houses by joint resolution urged the State’s Senators to fight vigorously in Congress the anti-poll tax legislation. They resolved as the reason for fighting the proposed legislation:49
“WHEREAS, throughout the years since Reconstruction there has been an amicable and friendly relationship between the two races in the South, and the continuous agitation from outside sources is creating bitterness and hostility, greatly to the detriment of our people, both white and black, creating racial disturbances much to be regretted at any time, but particularly so in time of war, and is preventing the orderly solution of our problems in a manner assuring lasting justice to both races.”
With the coming of large scale Negro voter registration, the State mustered the combined forces of the Governor’s office, the State sovereignty Commission, the State Department of Education, and the Alabama Department of Public Safety to encourage white persons to register to vote and to pay their poll tax.50 Alabama State Troopers distributed 600,-000 brochures entitled “A message from Governor George C. Wallace” 51 to white, but not Negro, schools between January *10317 and January 20, 1966, less than two weeks before the poll tax deadline and while this case was pending before this Court. The brochure is as follows:
WHEN TO PAY POLL TAXES
If you are already registered to vote, you must pay your poll tax by Feb* ruary 1, 1966.
If you register to vote after February 1, you may pay your poll tax up to 45 days prior to an election.
Persons over 45 years of oge and veterans of wartime service may not have to pay the poll tox. Check your Judge of Probate on questions relating to the poll tax.
Register and vote for Freedom's Sake.
4.
A MESSAGE FROM

GOVERNOR GEORGE C. WALLACE
Endorsed by:
Dr. Austin R. Meadows State Superintendent of Education
WHEN TO REGISTER
All County Boards of Registrars — except in Calhoun, Etowah, Jefferson, Madison, Mobile, Morgan and Tuscaloosa counties - will be in session 10 days starting January 10, 1966, and 5 days starting January 24, 1966.
The seven named counties have special schedules. Check your local Board of Registrars for additional dotes on which they will register voters after January.
Register today and vote In 1966a
2.
Governor’s Office Montgomery, Alabama
Dear Student:
It is a great privilege to help protect our nation and our freedoms by voting.
Please ask members of your family 21 years of age or older, if they are registered to vote and if they hove paid their poll tax.
In order to vote this year a citizen must be registered and must have paid his poll tax. Will you please take this message home to your parents.
Sincerely yours,
George C. Wallace Governor
*104The explanations tendered by the State for its failure to distribute the pamphlets at Negro schools are clearly specious. Thus, an unknown number of white citizens of Alabama will be able to vote this year because the State utilized its segregated schools to remind white persons to pay the poll tax. If this Court does not intervene, the State’s failure to distribute the brochures to Negroes would mean that some of them would lose the right to vote in 1966. Even if the poll tax were valid, no injunction limited to such discriminatory administration of the poll tax in the future can aid those Negroes who through inadvertence and failure to receive the Governor’s message failed to pay the poll tax.
In Wilcox County in 1964, when no Negroes had yet become registered voters, the Tax Collector testified that he did not look at the poll tax or the poll tax records, as the Probate Judge said everybody was permitted to vote whether or not the poll tax had been paid. It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that payment of poll taxes became a precondition to voting in Wilcox County. As this Court said in Sims v. Baggett,52 “The long history of the Negroes’ struggle to obtain the right to vote in Alabama has been trumpeted before the Federal Courts of this State in great detail. * * * If this court ignores the long history of racial discrimination in Alabama, it will prove that justice is both blind and deaf.” We would be blind with indifference, not impartiality, and deaf with intentional disregard of the cries for equality of men before the law.
There is nothing in the subsequent history of the poll tax that would indicate sufficient change in its purpose for us to overlook its inherent defects. Nor would an injunction of its present discriminatory application serve to eliminate the inconsistency between any allegedly valid motivation and the present poll tax exemptions.
Even after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act the State of Alabama has continued to administer the poll tax in a discriminatory fashion, further magnifying its injustices. Tax collectors accord many privileges to whites not accorded to Negroes. In some counties acquaintances and friends of the tax collector receive personal notice that their poll tax is due. In other counties, tax collectors accept payment from friends when they see them outside the tax collector’s office, or agree by phone to make out receipts and receive payment the next time they see the person, or permit payment by third persons. Since these practices are restricted to friends of the tax collectors and since the tax collectors are not on intimate terms with the Negro community, these practices place a greater burden on Negroes than on whites.
The Fifteenth Amendment question is whether the Alabama poll tax abridges the right to vote on account of race.53 The evidence in this record compels the conclusion that it does. When the purpose and effect of a state voting requirement is to abridge the right of Negroes to vote on account of their race, the requirement violates the Fifteenth Amendment and cannot stand. Louisiana v. United States, 1965, 380 U.S. 145, 85 S.Ct. 817, 13 L.Ed.2d 709; Guinn v. United States, 1915, 238 U.S. 347, 35 S.Ct. 926, 59 L.Ed. 1340. The injunction will therefore issue as prayed.

. P.L. 89-110 § 10(b),

. P.L. 89-110 § 10(a).

. Paragraphs 3-9 of the Complaint which allege these provisions in general terms are admitted by the defendants. The requirements and procedures for registration and voting in Alabama are contained in Article 8 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, §§ 177-196 and in Title 17 of the Code of Alabama 1940, "§§ 1-426.

. The State of Alabama has been certified by the Attorney General of the United States and the Director of the Census as a state subject to the provisions of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 30 Fed.Reg. 987 (August 7, 1965). Accordingly, literacy tests may not be required as a prerequiste to voting in elections in Alabama.

. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution proscribes the requirement of poll taxes as a prerequisite to voting in federal elections.

. Ala.Const., Art. 8, § 194.

. Ala.Const., Art. 8, § 194; Ala.Code, Tit. 51, § 238.

. Ala.Const., Art. 8, § 194; Ala.Code, Tit. 51, § 243 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Art. 8, § 178 (1953). Section 10(d) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that initial registrants be allowed to vote in elections if they have tendered payment of the poll tax for the current year up to 45 days before the election.

. Ala.Const., Art. 8, § 194.

. Ala.Code, Tit. 51, § 237 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 51, § 273 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 51, § 247 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 17, § 38 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 17, § 40 (1940).

. Ala.Const. of 1867, Art. VII. Excluded from tlie electorate were those who had violated the rules of civilized warfare during the rebellion, idiots and insane persons, those who had been convicted of certain serious crimes, and persons who wore disqualified under federal law. Section 5 of the first Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867 (14 Stat. 429), required as a precondition to readmission to the Union that States adopt constitutions which gave the franchise at least to all males 21 years old, regardless of race and of previous condition of servitude, who had been residents of their States for at least one year.

. Official Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, State of Alabama, May 21, 1901 to Sept. 3, 1901 [hereinafter called Off.Proc.] pp. 2843-4 (Pl.Ex. 42, 44).

. Delegate Heflin’s speech in support of secrecy was reported in the Montgomery Advertiser on July 16, 1901 (Pl.Ex. 47):
“He [Heflin] said he was in favor of discussing the suffrage question in caucus. He thought it would be unwise for the debates on the question to go out to the world by the medium of the stenographic report. He said there was a minority report that would cause considerable debate and he therefore thought the matter should bo settled in caucus. It had been suggested, he said, that if the State Constitution ever went to the United States Supreme Court that tribunal might go through the stenographic report to find a motive by which to reverse the constitution.”
See also comment by Delegate Williams of Marengo County, Off.Proc. p. 3837.

. Comment by Delegate Williams of Ma-rengo County, Off.Proc. p. 3837.

. Ibid.

. Id.

. Comment by Delegate Heflin of Chambers County, Off.Proc. pp. 2843-4 (PI. Ex. 47); See also comment by Delegate Watts, Off.Proc. pp. 2388-9.

. Comment by Delegate AYatts, Off.Proc. pp. 2388-9.

. Off.Proc. pp. 3380-1. See also comments by Delegate Porter, Off.Proc. pp. 3018, 3020; by Delegate Freeman, Off. Proe. p. 2811; and by Delegate Reese, Off.Proc. pp. 3367-8.

. Off.Proc. pp. 3840-7.

. On December 28, 1953, a constitutional amendment was ratified wbieb limited the cumulative feature of the poll tax to the two calendar years next preceding the date of election at which the elector offers to vote, the maximum amount payable being $3.00. Ala.Const, § 178, as amended December 28, 1953.

. Alabama Official and Statistical Register 1907 and 1911; Alabama Official Directory 1903 and 1905.

. Amendment No. 96 which was in pertinent part re-enacted November 1962 in Amendment No. 207.

. By Amendment Nos. 10, 14, 49, 90, 109.

. See infra p. 102.

. These statutes under decisions of the Supreme Court may now be unconstitutional.

. Title 52, §§ 24, 33, 36, 44(1), 45, 49, 52, 61(8), 297, 335, 339, 443, 452, 454, 455, 455(3), 466, 519, 573, 590, 591, 613 (1), 451(8).

. Title 48, § 186 (train stations); §§ 196, 197 (train coaches); § 301 (31a-31e) (bus stations and buses; § 464 (criminal penalty).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 45, § 248 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 46, § 189 (1940).

. Ala.Code, Tit. 45, §§ 52, 121, 122, 123, 183, 248; Tit. 12, § 188.

. Ala.Code, Tit. 44, § 10.

. Ala.Code, Tit. 14, §§ 360-361.

. Faulkner v. City of Gadsden, 9 Race Rel.L.Rep. 876 (1964).

. City of Montgomery, Ala. v. Gilmore, 5 Cir. 1960, 277 F.2d 364.

. Cobb v. Montgomery Library Board, M.D.Ala.1962, 207 F.Supp. 880.

. Norris v. State of Alabama, 1935, 294 U.S. 587, 55 S.Ct. 579, 79 L.Ed. 1074; Patterson v. State of Alabama, 1935, 294 U.S. 600, 55 S.Ct. 575, 79 L.Ed. 1082; Rogers v. State of Alabama, 1903, 192 U.S. 226, 24 S.Ct. 257, 48 L.Ed. 417; Seals v. Wiman, 5 Cir. 1962, 304 F.2d 53; Mitchell v. Johnson, M.D.Ala., 250 F.Supp. 117, decided Jan. 18, 1966: White v. Crook, M.D.Ala., 251 F.Supp. 401, decided Feb. 7, 1966.

. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 1960, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110.

. Sims v. Baggett, M.D.Ala.1965, 247 F.Supp. 96.

. Brown v. Board of Education, 1954, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873.

. Acts of Alabama, Vol. 1, p. 70 (1956).

. Both Houses again condemned the Brown decision in 1957. Act of Alabama No, 514, Vol. 2, p. 1098 (1963), and resolved not “to submit voluntarily to the integration of our schools” in 1963. House Joint Resolution 23, January 9, 1963. Governor Patterson in his last message to the Legislature stated: “There was no integration when I took office and there is none today.” Address to Joint Session, January 8, 1963. Governor Wallace was personally enjoined from interfering with school and university desegregation on two occasions. United States v. Wallace, D.C., 1963, 218 F.Supp. 290; United States v. Wallace, D.C., 1963, 222 F.Supp. 485.

. House Joint Resolution No. 8, adopted November 20, 1942.

. Senate Joint Resolution No. 42, June 3, 1943.

. Stipulation No. 5 in this case.

. Stipulation No. 5 in this case, Attachment D (Statement of Eli Howell).

. 247 F.Supp. 96, at 108-109.

. Significantly, the Fifteenth Amendment uses the term “abridged” as well as “denied.” Websters New International Dictionary defines abridged as:
“To make shorter; to shorten in duration; diminish; curtail; as, to abridge a visit * * *. To deprive; to cut off; —followed by ‘of’, and formerly by from; as, to abridge one of his rights.” Websters New International Dictionary, Second Edition, 1959, p. 7.