Fifteenth Amendment (Judicial Interpretation)

AuthorWard E. Y. Elliott
Pages1041-1042

Page 1041

The judicial interpretation of the Fifteenth Amendment has been closely intertwined with that of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, largely in a Southern context. Within a year of ratification (1870) Congress passed three FORCE ACTS forbidding both public and private interference with voting on the basis of race or color. Federal officials tried hard at first to enforce these laws, but they were daunted by hostility in the South and growing indifference in Congress and the Supreme Court. Prosecutions dropped sharply in 1874; RECONSTRUCTION ended in 1877; the Jim Crow era of systematic SEGREGATION began around 1890; and the conspiracy provisions of the Force Acts were dropped in 1894.

From Reconstruction to WORLD WAR I the Supreme Court showed more ingenuity in voiding VOTING RIGHTS actions than in upholding them. Although it was willing, under Article I, section 4, to uphold convictions and damage awards for ballot box fraud in federal elections, as in EX PARTE YARBROUGH (1884), it would not allow INDICTMENTS for conspiracy to bribe, even in federal elections as in JAMES V. BOWMAN (1903). It steadfastly refused to uphold convictions for private interference with voting rights in state or local elections in UNITED STATES V. REESE (1875) and UNITED STATES V. CRUIKSHANK (1876), or to uphold civil actions for a state official's refusal to register blacks, in Giles v. Teasley (1904).

The Court did shrug off arguments in Myers v. Anderson (1915) that the Fifteenth Amendment was itself void for diluting the votes of enfranchised whites and thereby depriving their states of equal suffrage in the Senate without their consent. But it did almost nothing to thwart the new franchise restrictions of the Jim Crow era?literacy, property, POLL TAX, residence, character, and understanding tests?designed to cull black and upcountry white voters. (See WILLIAMS V. MISSISSIPPI.) Only in GUINN V. UNITED STATES (1915) did it strike down a GRANDFATHER CLAUSE exempting descendants of 1867 voters from Oklahoma's LITERACY TEST?without, however, striking down the test itself. Guinn had no practical impact on voting registration, but it was important for serving notice that the Fifteenth Amendment bars subtle as well as blatant discrimination.

The Court moved against white PRIMARY ELECTIONS with more deliberation than speed. Party primary elections emerged in response to the regional party monopolies, Republican in the North, Democratic in the...

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