View source for Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

{{short description|1964 amendment prohibiting poll taxes}}
{{Use American English|date = March 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date = March 2019}}
{{US Constitution article series}}

The '''Twenty-fourth Amendment''' ('''Amendment XXIV''') of the [[United States Constitution]] prohibits both [[US Congress|Congress]] and the [[US states|states]] from requiring the payment of a [[Poll taxes in the United States|poll tax]] or any other tax to vote in [[US federal election|federal elections]]. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was [[ratified]] by the states on January 23, 1964.

[[Southern United States|Southern states]] of the former [[Confederate States of America]] adopted [[Poll taxes in the United States|poll taxes]] both in their state laws and in their state constitutions throughout the late-19th and early-20th centuries. This became more widespread as the Democratic Party regained control of most levels of government in the South in the decades after [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]]. The purpose of poll taxes was to prevent [[African Americans]] and poor whites from voting. Use of the poll tax by states was held to be constitutional by the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] in the 1937 case ''[[Breedlove v. Suttles]]''.

When the 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964, five states still retained a poll tax: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. The amendment prohibited a poll tax for voters in federal elections; in 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in ''[[Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections]]'' that poll taxes for any level of elections were unconstitutional. It stated that these violated the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]]. Subsequent litigation related to potential discriminatory effects of voter registration requirements has generally been based on application of this clause.

==Text==

{{blockquote|
'''Section 1. '''The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

'''Section 2. '''The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-78/pdf/STATUTE-78-Pg1117.pdf | title =Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the Constitution | publisher =[[United States Government Printing Office]] }}</ref>}}

==Background==

{{Main|Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era}}
[[File:Poll tax history.gif|thumb|right|400px|{{legend|#fea200|Poll tax}}
{{legend|#ff0000|Cumulative poll tax (missed poll taxes from prior years must also be paid to vote)}}
{{legend|#7d7f7c|No poll tax}}
History of the poll tax by state from 1868 to 1966]]

Southern states had adopted the poll tax as a requirement for voting as part of a series of laws in the late 19th century intended to exclude black Americans from politics so far as practicable without violating the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]]. This required that voting not be limited by "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". All voters were required to pay the poll tax, but in practice it most affected the poor. Notably this affected both African Americans and poor white voters, some of whom had voted with [[People's Party (United States)|Populist]] and [[Fusion Party|Fusionist]] candidates in the late 19th century, temporarily disturbing Democratic rule. Proponents of the poll tax downplayed this aspect and assured white voters they would not be affected. Passage of poll taxes began in earnest in the 1890s, as Democrats wanted to prevent another Populist-Republican coalition. Despite election violence and fraud, African Americans were still winning numerous local seats. By 1902, all eleven states of the former [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]] had enacted a poll tax, many within new constitutions that contained other provisions as barriers to voter registration, such as literacy or comprehension tests administered subjectively by white workers. The poll tax was used together with other devices such as [[grandfather clause]]s and the "[[white primary]]" designed to exclude blacks, as well as threats and acts of violence. For example, potential voters had to be "assessed" in Arkansas, and blacks were utterly ignored in the assessment.{{sfn|Ogden|1958|pp=4–13, 170–231}}

From 1900 to 1937, such use of the poll tax was nearly ignored by the federal government. Several state-level initiatives repealed poll taxes during this period for two reasons: firstly that they encouraged corruption since wealthy persons could and would pay other people's poll taxes;<ref>Kneebone, John T.; ''Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920–1944'' p. 142 {{ISBN|0807816604}}</ref><ref>Sullivan, Patricia; ''Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era'', p. 107 {{ISBN|0807822604}}</ref> secondly, because they discouraged white voting more than many populist Southern politicians desired. The poll tax survived a legal challenge in the 1937 Supreme Court case ''[[Breedlove v. Suttles]]'', which unanimously ruled that

{{blockquote|[The] privilege of voting is not derived from the United States, but is conferred by the state and, save as restrained by the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments and other provisions of the Federal Constitution, the state may condition suffrage as it deems appropriate.<ref>[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=302&invol=277 ''Breedlove v. Suttles''], majority opinion.</ref>}}

The issue remained prominent, as most African Americans in the South were disenfranchised. President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] spoke out against the tax. He publicly called it "a remnant of the Revolutionary period" that the country had moved past. However, Roosevelt's favored liberal Democrats in the South lost in the 1938 primaries to the reigning conservative Southern Democrats, and he backed off the issue. He felt that he needed Southern Democratic votes to pass [[New Deal]] programs and did not want to further antagonize them.{{sfn|Lawson|1976|p=57}} Still, efforts at the Congressional level to abolish the poll tax continued. A 1939 bill to abolish the poll tax in federal elections was tied up by the Southern Bloc, lawmakers whose long tenure in office from a one-party region gave them seniority and command of numerous important committee chairmanships. A [[discharge petition]] was able to force the bill to be considered, and the House passed the bill 254–84.{{sfn|Lawson|1976|page=68}} However, the bill was unable to defeat a [[filibuster]] in the Senate by Southern senators and a few Northern allies who valued the support of the powerful and senior Southern seats. This bill would be re-proposed in the next several Congresses. It came closest to passage during World War II, when opponents framed abolition as a means to help overseas soldiers vote. However, after learning that the U.S. Supreme Court decision ''[[Smith v. Allwright]]'' (1944) banned the use of "[[white primary]]", the Southern block refused to approve abolition of the poll tax.{{sfn|Lawson|1976|p=74}}

In 1946, the Senate came close to passing the bill. 24 Democrats and 15 Republicans approved an end to debate, while 7{{nbsp}}non-southern Democrats and 7{{nbsp}}Republicans joined the 19 Southern Democrats in opposition. The result was a 39–33 vote in favor of the bill, but a [[Cloture#History 2|cloture vote]] to end the filibuster required a two-thirds supermajority of 48 votes at the time, and so the bill was not brought to a vote. Those in favor of abolition of the poll tax considered a constitutional amendment after the 1946 defeat, but that idea did not advance either.{{sfn|Lawson|1976|p=80}}

The tenor of the debate changed in the 1940s. Southern politicians tried to re-frame the debate as a constitutional issue, but private correspondence indicates that black disenfranchisement was still the true concern. For instance, Mississippi Senator [[Theodore Bilbo]] declared, "If the poll tax bill passes, the next step will be an effort to remove the registration qualification, the educational qualification of Negroes. If that is done we will have no way of preventing the Negroes from voting."{{sfn|Lawson|1976|p=70}} This fear explains why even Southern Senators from states that had abolished the poll tax still opposed the bill; they did not want to set a precedent that the federal government could interfere in state elections.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

President [[Harry S. Truman]] established the [[President's Committee on Civil Rights]], which among other issues investigated the poll tax. Considering that opposition to federal poll tax regulation in 1948 was claimed as based on the Constitution, the Committee noted that a constitutional amendment might be the best way to proceed. Still, little occurred during the 1950s. Members of the anti-poll tax movement laid low during the anti-Communist frenzy of the period; some of the main proponents of poll tax abolition, such as [[Joseph Gelders]] and [[Vito Marcantonio]], had been committed [[Marxist]]s.{{sfn|Lawson|1976|p=82}}

President [[John F. Kennedy]] returned to this issue. His administration urged Congress to adopt and send such an amendment to the states for ratification. He considered the constitutional amendment the best way to avoid a filibuster, as the claim that federal abolition of the poll tax was unconstitutional would be moot. Still, some liberals opposed Kennedy's action, feeling that an amendment would be too slow compared to legislation.{{sfn|Lawson|1976|p=290}} [[Spessard Holland]], a conservative Democrat from Florida, introduced the amendment to the Senate. Holland had opposed most civil rights legislation during his career,<ref name="nytimes1971">{{cite news |title=Spessard L. Holland Dies at 79; Former Senator From Florida |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/11/07/91311211.pdf |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 7, 1971 |access-date=July 4, 2011}}</ref> and his support helped splinter monolithic Southern opposition to the amendment.  Holland had tried several times earlier in his Senate career to ban the poll tax, but had been unsuccessful.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Ackerman|first1=Bruce|last2=Nou|first2=Jennifer|date=2009|title=Canonizing the Civil Rights Revolution: The People and the Poll Tax|url=https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=8026&context=journal_articles|journal=Chicago Unbound|volume=103|issue=1|pages=78–79|via=University of Chicago Law School}}</ref>  Ratification of the amendment was relatively quick, taking slightly more than a year; it was rapidly ratified by state legislatures across the country from August 1962 to January 1964.

[[Lyndon B. Johnson|President Lyndon B. Johnson]] called the amendment a "triumph of liberty over restriction" and "a verification of people's rights".<ref name="nytimes1964" /> States that had maintained the poll tax were more reserved. Mississippi's attorney general, [[Joseph Turner Patterson]], complained about the complexity of two sets of voters{{snd}}those who had paid their poll tax and could vote in all elections, and those who had not and could vote only in federal elections.<ref name="nytimes1964" /> Additionally, non-payers could still be deterred by such requirements as having to register far in advance of the election and retain records of such registration.<ref name="milwaukeejournal" /> Some states also continued to exercise discrimination in the application of [[literacy test]]s.

==Proposal and ratification==
{{See also|Presidency of John F. Kennedy#Abolition of the poll tax}}
[[File:24th amendment ratification.svg|thumb|upright=1.4|right|{{legend|#2a26ce|Ratified amendment, 1962–1964}}
{{legend|#7df4ff|Ratified amendment post-enactment, 1977, 1989, 2002, 2009}}
{{legend|#ff5e00|Rejected amendment}}
{{legend|#d3d3d3|Did not ratify amendment}}
<small><sup>1</sup>Years are 1977: Virginia; 1989: North Carolina; 2002: Alabama; and 2009: Texas.</small>]]
[[File:24th Amendment Pg1of1 AC.jpg|thumb|upright|The official Joint Resolution of Congress proposing what became the 24th Amendment as contained in the National Archives]]

Congress proposed the Twenty-fourth Amendment on August 27, 1962.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html#Am24|title=Ratification of Constitutional Amendments|access-date=October 11, 2008|last=Mount|first=Steve|date=January 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/37045|title=Historical Highlights: The 24th Amendment|publisher=United States House of Representatives}}</ref> The amendment was submitted to the states on September 24, 1962, after it passed with the requisite two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate.<ref name="nytimes1964">{{cite news |title=24th Amendment, Banning Poll Tax, Has Been Ratified |agency=United Press International |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/01/24/97163589.pdf |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 24, 1964 |access-date=July 4, 2011}}</ref> The final vote in the House was 295–86 (132–15 in the [[House Republican Conference]] and 163–71 in the [[House Democratic Caucus]]) with 54 members voting present or abstaining,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/87-1962/h193|title=S.J. RES. 29. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BAN THE USE OF POLL TAX AS A REQUIREMENT FOR VOTING IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS.|work=GovTrack.us}}</ref> while in the Senate the final vote was 77–16 (30–1 in the [[Senate Republican Conference]] and 47–15 in the [[Senate Democratic Caucus]]) with 7{{nbsp}}members voting present or abstaining.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/87-1962/s226|title=S.J. RES. 29. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION BANNING THE POLL TAX AS PREREQUISITE FOR VOTING IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS.|work=GovTrack.us}}</ref> The following states ratified the amendment:
# Illinois (November 14, 1962)
# New Jersey (December 3, 1962)
# Oregon (January 25, 1963)
# Montana (January 28, 1963)
# West Virginia (February 1, 1963)
# New York (February 4, 1963)
# Maryland (February 6, 1963)
# California (February 7, 1963)
# Alaska (February 11, 1963)
# Rhode Island (February 14, 1963)
# Indiana (February 19, 1963)
# Utah (February 20, 1963)
# Michigan (February 20, 1963)
# Colorado (February 21, 1963)
# Ohio (February 27, 1963)
# Minnesota (February 27, 1963)
# New Mexico (March 5, 1963)
# Hawaii (March 6, 1963)
# North Dakota (March 7, 1963)
# Idaho (March 8, 1963)
# Washington (March 14, 1963)
# Vermont (March 15, 1963)
# Nevada (March 19, 1963)
# Connecticut (March 20, 1963)
# Tennessee (March 21, 1963)
# Pennsylvania (March 25, 1963)
# Wisconsin (March 26, 1963)
# Kansas (March 28, 1963)
# Massachusetts (March 28, 1963)
# Nebraska (April 4, 1963)
# Florida (April 18, 1963)
# Iowa (April 24, 1963)
# Delaware (May 1, 1963)
# Missouri (May 13, 1963)
# New Hampshire (June 12, 1963)
# Kentucky (June 27, 1963)
# Maine (January 16, 1964)
# South Dakota (January 23, 1964)

Ratification was completed on January 23, 1964. The Georgia legislature did make a last-second attempt to be the 38th state to ratify. This was a surprise as "no Southern help could be expected"<ref name="milwaukeejournal">{{cite news |title=End of the Poll Tax |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yVUaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WScEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6550,2128129&hl=en |newspaper=The Milwaukee Journal |date=January 26, 1964 |access-date=July 4, 2011 |archive-date=October 1, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151001040239/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yVUaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WScEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6550,2128129&hl=en |url-status=dead }}</ref> for the amendment. The Georgia Senate quickly and unanimously passed it, but the House did not act in time.<ref name="nytimes1964" /> Georgia's ratification was apparently dropped after South Dakota's ratification.

The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:
{{ordered list|start=39
|Virginia (February 25, 1977)
|North Carolina (May 3, 1989)
|Alabama (April 11, 2002)
|Texas (May 22, 2009)
}}

The following state rejected the amendment:
# Mississippi (December 20, 1962)

The following states have not ratified the amendment:
# Arizona
# Arkansas
# Georgia
# Louisiana
# Oklahoma
# South Carolina
# Wyoming

==Post-ratification law==

Arkansas effectively repealed its poll tax for all elections with Amendment 51 to the Arkansas Constitution<!--rm wikilink; nothing there re either 51 or 85 per se--> at the November 1964 general election, several months after this amendment was ratified. The poll-tax language was not completely stricken from its Constitution until Amendment 85 in 2008.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/arcode/default.asp|title=Arkansas Code – Free Public Access|publisher=LexisNexis}}</ref> Of the five states originally affected by this amendment, Arkansas was the only one to repeal its poll tax; the other four retained their taxes. These were struck down in 1966 by the US Supreme Court decision in ''[[Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections]]'' (1966), which ruled poll taxes unconstitutional even for state elections. Federal district courts in Alabama and Texas, respectively, struck down these states' poll taxes less than two months before the ''Harper'' ruling was issued.

The state of Virginia accommodated the amendment by providing an "escape clause" to the poll tax. In lieu of paying the poll tax, a prospective voter could file paperwork to gain a certificate establishing a place of residence in Virginia. The papers would have to be filed six months in advance of voting, and the voter had to provide a copy of that certificate at the time of voting. This measure was expected to decrease the number of legal voters.<ref name="chadwick">Chadwick, John. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AesxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EuMDAAAAIBAJ&dq=twenty%20fourth%20amendment%20house&pg=6179%2C3847725 Poll Tax Battle Long One], Associated Press.</ref> In the 1965 Supreme Court decision ''[[Harman v. Forssenius]]'', the Court unanimously found such measures unconstitutional. It declared that for federal elections, "the poll tax is abolished absolutely as a prerequisite to voting, and no equivalent or milder substitute may be imposed."<ref>[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=380&invol=528 ''Harman v. Forssenius''], majority opinion.</ref>

While not directly related to the Twenty-fourth Amendment, the ''Harper'' case held that the poll tax was unconstitutional at every level, not just for federal elections. The ''Harper'' decision relied upon the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]], rather than the Twenty-fourth Amendment. As such, issues related to whether burdens on voting are equivalent to poll taxes in discriminatory effect have usually been litigated on Equal Protection grounds since.

==See also==
* [[2018 Florida Amendment 4]]

==References==

{{Reflist|2}}

===Bibliography===

* {{cite book|last1=Lawson|first1=Steven F.|title=Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969|url=https://archive.org/details/blackballotsvoti0000laws|url-access=registration|year=1976|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|isbn=9780231039789}}
* {{cite book|last1=Ogden|first1=Frederic D.|title=The Poll Tax in the South|url=https://archive.org/details/polltaxinsouth00ogde|url-access=registration|year=1958|publisher=University of Alabama Press}}

==External links==
*[https://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/amdt24toc_user.html CRS Annotated Constitution: 24th Amendment]
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1962-pt4/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1962-pt4-9-1.pdf 108 Congressional Record (Bound) - Volume 108, Part 4 (March 16, 1962 to April 2, 1962)], ''[[Congressional Record]]'' Senate March 27 vote roll call p.&nbsp;5105
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1962-pt13/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1962-pt13-7-1.pdf 108 Congressional Record (Bound) - Volume 108, Part 13 (August 20, 1962 to August 30, 1962)], ''Congressional Record'' House August 27 vote roll call p.&nbsp;17670

{{Commons category}}

{{US Constitution}}
{{Voting rights in the United States}}
{{Civil rights movement}}
{{Suffrage}}
{{John F. Kennedy}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:24}}
[[Category:1964 in American politics]]
[[Category:1964 in American law|Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution]]
[[Category:Amendments to the United States Constitution|24]]
[[Category:History of taxation in the United States]]
[[Category:History of voting rights in the United States]]
[[Category:1962 in American law]]
[[Category:1962 in American politics]]
[[Category:Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson]]