On the Right to Vote Part V

Article V Blog ^ | October 2nd 2017 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

Subtitle: The 15th Amendment. Recall from Parts I & II, and Article I § 2 of the Constitution, the states determine voter qualifications to the US Congress. From Parts III & IV, we saw that the late 1860s Congress differentiated between civil and political rights, and Congress did not regard the franchise as a civil right. Section 2 of the 14th Amendment prescribed the punishment for state discrimination against voting based on race. As opposed to civil rights, which everyone in America (citizen and non-citizen) has from the moment of conception, voting is a political right subject to Federal/State Constitutions and statutes.

Now, northern states were generally as loath as the southern to grant the ballot to African-Americans, both the newly freed and those who had never been slaves. As opposed to today’s Congress, the 39th & 40th Congresses met the nation’s challenges head-on. They didn’t punt difficult issues to an Administrative State or Scotus. In a display of incredible good judgment and concern for the future of our republic, Congress decided against the establishment, perhaps into future centuries, of a large mass of freedmen with civil rights, but lacking the political right to participate in state and federal elections:

The Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
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. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Congress debated, yet declined to recommend abolishing educational and property-holding tests. In consequence, the states could constitutionally limit the political right to vote for state offices through poll taxes, and literacy and property-holding tests.

[PGalt]

Education, history, current events BUMP! Thanks, Jacquerie.

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president?mcubz=3

[Jacquerie]

Thanks PG!

[PGalt]

BUMP!