Grandfather clause and the Supreme Court
The "grandfather clause" refers to a legal provision that allowed individuals to bypass certain voting requirements if their ancestors had the right to vote before a specified date, effectively disenfranchising many African American voters in the post-Civil War United States. This clause emerged in the context of the Fifteenth Amendment, which was adopted in 1870 to protect citizens from being denied the right to vote based on race. Southern states implemented grandfather clauses alongside literacy tests and poll taxes, creating barriers that primarily affected Black voters.
The Supreme Court addressed these discriminatory practices in landmark cases such as Guinn v. United States (1915), where the Court deemed the Oklahoma grandfather clause unconstitutional, recognizing it as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court's ruling highlighted that the provision, while not explicitly racially defined, disproportionately impacted African Americans, as most white voters could easily demonstrate their eligibility. Additionally, in Lance v. Wilson (1939), the Court ruled that literacy tests were also unconstitutional. Overall, these legal battles reflect the ongoing struggle for voting rights and the efforts to combat systemic racism in the electoral process in the United States.
Grandfather clause and the Supreme Court
Description: Legal provision enacted in some southern states after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment that exempted men who could vote before 1866 and their descendants from suffrage restrictions such as literacy tests and poll taxes.
Significance: Until the Supreme Court struck down grandfather clauses as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, states used this as a method to disenfranchise blacks and allow illiterate white men to vote.
The Fifteenth Amendment, adopted in 1870, guaranteed that citizens of the United States could not be denied their right to vote by the federal or state government on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. However, many southern states passed laws, including grandfather clauses, designed to disenfranchise African Americans through literacy tests or poll taxes.
Guinn v. United States (1915) involved an Oklahoma law that required all voters to prove that they or a direct ancestor could vote before 1866 or to pass a literacy test. The Supreme Court found the grandfather clause to be an unconstitutional evasion of the Fifteenth Amendment. Although the Oklahoma provision did not directly cite race, most white men could prove that an ancestor could vote. Therefore, it was mostly people of color who were forced to take the literacy test. In Lance v. Wilson (1939), the Court ruled that literacy tests were also unconstitutional.