We call upon the Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental American principles: (1) the right of full and equal political participation;

In other words, Mr. Chairman, the platform of your political party and mine in 1948 stated as the first fundamental principle to which our party was pledged by the platform to protect first the right to full and equal political participation.

Also in the 1952 Democratic platform we find an approval of the removal of the poll tax in the following language:

*** we favor Federal legislation effectively to secure these rights to everyone: *** (3) the right to full and equal participation in the Nation's political life, free from arbitrary restraints.

Mr. Chairman, I have completed my discussion of the historic aspects of this matter, and I shall not further burden the record except to say that the one thing that makes this problem peculiarly difficult is the fact that it is tied with other provisions well known to the chairman which violate the traditions and settled convictions of the people in the Southern States of the Nation so as to make it peculiarly necessary, it seems to me, that any constructive step taken in this matter shall be taken in such a way that there can be no question whatever as to its validity and as to its being the democratic and sound way to proceed. Anything which handles the problem by what would be regarded in the South as unconstitutional and coercive means, will not solve the problem because it will not be solved by the mere passage of a law. The problem is to secure throughout the South and the entire Nation a more wholesome and fulsome participation in the Federal elections by all intelligent citizens who have the qualifications of age, mentality, residence, law observance, et cetera, that may be prescribed by the several States.

A number of the Southern States have already taken action which shows that they think along the same line that the majority of the people of the Nation are thinking. The movement is a progressive one, and it is going ahead. If the Congress is unwilling to submit an amendment, I would say, Mr. Chairman, it is better to do nothing than to start something which only brings on prolonged litigation, extreme ill feeling, and postpones the day when the general recognition of mankind suffrage will be allowed throughout all of our States. Mr. Chairman, there is another question that I hear mentioned which I want to dwell upon briefly, and that is the probability of speedy adoption of this amendment. Those who feel that there would be no ratification of this amendment by the Southern States feel exactly opposite from my very strong belief on the subject. Five Southern States ratified the 17th amendment (including Louisiana which was the 37th State to ratify) and the amendment was ratified so promptly that the complete ratification was accomplished 11 months from the date of the submission. The 17th amendment was proposed on May 13, 1912. Ratification was completed on April 8, 1913, when the 36th State adopted it.

Mr. Chairman, you can't read the debate on the submission of that amendment without realizing that much of the same subject matter which concerns us now and which will come into the general debate on the subject was discussed in full and was evidently troubling the minds of those who were considering that amendment.

I believe that the submission of this amendment will be regarded as just what it is, a good-faith effort to deal finally and without further delay with a very difficult question. When submitted, I believe that this amendment will be promptly adopted and that when adopted it will not only solve the poll-tax question but will also cut off the alternative methods of accomplishing results which are identical with those now accomplished in the poll-tax States. So this amendment appears on its face to be--and I assure you that it is--a bona fide effort to deal in a general and conclusive and final way with this problem, and I strongly hope that this subcommittee will see fit to recommend the favorable reporting of the amendment by the full Committee on the Judiciary and then its submission by Congress to the States for early ratification.

Senator KEFAUVER. Senator Holland, do you deal further with the matter of how soon it will be adopted?

Senator HOLLAND. No, I have completed that.

Senator KEFAUVER. May I ask a question. Do practically all of the legislatures of the States meet next January, or early in the year?

Senator HOLLAND. Yes, the greater number of the States have legislative session in the odd years. I can't state exactly how many, but it appears to me it is either 42 or 44. The Library of Congress can supply that information.

Senator KEFAUVER. This provides here when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States. Some resolutions, I think, have provided when ratified by constitutional conventions in various States. Is it possible or legal or constitutional to put in an alternative method so that in the event a sufficient number of the legislatures do meet that they may have an alternative by constitutional convention?

Senator HOLLAND. I should think, Mr. Chairman, that a constitutional convention could be called only by legislative action, though that I am not certain. But on the first point you have mentioned

Senator KEFAUVER. Of course, it would be just as easy for them to call a special session of the legislature.

Senator HOLLAND. Except in some States the constitution doesn't permit action on this except at a regular session, it can't be acted on at a special session, it has to be submitted at a regular session. And also it can only be acted upon by a legislature elected after the amendment has been submitted. My State has that provision in the constitution. In other words, if you submit this amendment prior to November, the legislature elected in November of this year could pass upon it early next spring. There are some States that have special provisions similar to the State of Florida, not identical. But I am not able to give them.

Senator KEFAUVER. I am going to ask Mr. Smithey to ask the Library of Congress for a rundown of the legislatures that meet in regular session early next year, and also whether there has been any constitutional interpretations of whether there can be an alternative method under article V. It appears under article V that the resolution would have to designate one way or the other. But I don't know if that has been passed on or discussed by the courts or by the Constitution framers.

(The material referred to appears in the appendix.)

Senator HOLLAND. I will be happy for that to be done, Mr. Chairman, because I think that the record of this hearing should give all possible light on this subject.

I may say, also, that I am perfectly willing to have any cutoff date, that may appeal to the wisdom of this committee, put in this amendment. I didn't put in 7 years because I don't think it is necessary. Seven years is customarily provided. I have already stated that the 17th amendment was adopted in less than a year. The 15th amendment, which has to do with the qualification of electors, and forbids discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was adopted in less than a year. It was submitted on February 26, 1869, and the last ratifying State, Iowa, ratified it on February 3, 1870.

However, there is a question there as to whether that was the last State, because New York meantime had tried to withdraw from its previous ratification. So that the Secretary of State did not declare the amendment adopted until after February 17, when the State of Nebraska also ratified it. So that even if Nebraska by its ratification completed the roster, it took less than a year, from February 26, 1869, to February 17, 1870.

In the case of the 19th amendment on women's suffrage, which was predicted to be long drawn out, because many States had not granted equal suffrage to women at the time of submission, the time required for adoption was little more than a year, from June 4, 1919, the date of submission, to August 18, 1920.

I just feel that we would have about as great speed in the adoption of this amendment, if it were submitted, as we have seen in these others that touched this same question-not as vitally as some of these other amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I have here two additional points to make, first, that I have not adopted

Senator DIRKSEN. Before you leave that, Senator Holland, unless you put a cutoff date in there-and this has been in controversy for a long time-unless you put a cutoff date in your amendatory proposal, there is no way, as far as I know, no way under the Constitution of recalling an amendment. It just remains in a state of suspended animation, and it is out there somewhere, with no power to bring it back. Senator HOLLAND. For that reason, I stated to the committee that I am perfectly willing to abide by the judgment of the committee, if they feel that this amendment should be submitted, to determine what cutoff date should be put in. And I leave it to the committee for the reason that there are some who suspect those of us who introduced this amendment of trying to temporize, gain a long period of time during which no efforts would be made to pass a statute. For that reason, I suggested to the last committee, or subcommittee of this able committee, who heard me on it, a 3-year limitation. And I think we would adopt it within 3 years. It might be adopted within a year. But the point is one which I think addresses itself more properly to the judgment of the group of Senators on this committee who come from throughout the country where this question is not such a vital one than to have it predetermined by having that provision included in the amendment as originally introduced.

So, my only reason for excluding it was one of consideration. I thought it was more considerate and fair to let this Judiciary Com

mittee, representing all parts of the Nation, in its wisdom, specify the period of time which would constitute a quicker cutoff date, and yet one sufficiently long to allow almost certain ratification.

Senator KEFAUVER. Do I understand, Senator Holland, whatever cutoff date we should agree upon would be satisfactory with you?

Senator HOLLAND. Completely so. And I want to say for the record that I don't believe that a 7-year period, which has been applied to nearly every amendment, if not every one, that has been submitted since I have been a Member of the Senate, would be necessary. I do not believe it is necessary to take that long a period, and I do not suggest it.

Senator LANGER. It wouldn't do any harm to have a 7-year provi

sion in it.

Senator HOLLAND. It would not, Senator; and if it is put in by you gentlemen, then it is not subject to any feeling by anyone that it is put in there to take a good long period of time in order to defer further effort to handle it in another manner.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I haven't dealt with legal decisions in this case, but I don't want anybody to think that I am forgetting that field. So, in my next paragraph I ask that a very able brief, which was placed in the record by Senator Robertson, of Virginia, some time ago, and which I adopted with his consent, be printed at this point, because it covers all the legal precedents, I think, in a very able manner. Senator KEFAUVER. Without objection, it will be included and printed at this point in the record.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

LEGAL DECISIONS

[From the Congressional Record, August 2, 1948]

COURT DECISIONS

Now, let us see what our courts have had to say about the dividing line between State and Federal powers as applied to voters and elections.

After the adoption of the fourteenth amendment a woman in Missouri, where the right to vote was limited to males, sued the registrar because he refused to 1:ut her name on the list of voters. She contended she was a citizen of the United States under the amendment and that the State could not abridge her right as such a citizen to vote for Presidential electors.

In this case, reported as Minor v. Happersett (21 Wallace 162) and decided in 1875, the Supreme Court denied her claim. The Court held that since she was a citizen, born of citizen parents before the amendment, her status with respect to voting was not changed by it, because the right to vote before the amendment was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship. This was demonstrated by the necessity for the fifteenth amendment, which protected the Negro from being excluded from voting because of his color, but did not affect his wife, who remained debarred on account of sex. It took the later nineteenth amendment to remove that bar.

The fourteenth amendment, the Court said, "does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone."

Another issue raised in this case was whether or not the State, in refusing to allow women to vote, had failed to provide the republican form of government guaranteed by article IV, section 4.

On this point the Court said:

"The guaranty is of a republican form of government. No particular government is designated as republican, neither is the exact form to be guaranteed, in any manner especially designated. Here, as in other parts of the instrument, we are compelled to resort elsewhere to ascertain what was intended. The guaranty necessarily implies a duty on the part of the States themselves to provide such a government. All the States had governments when the Constitution was adopted. In all, the people participated to some extent, through their repre

sentatives selected in the manner specifically provided,. These governments the Constitution did not change. They were accepted precisely as they were, and it is, therefore, to be presumed that they were such as it was the duty of the States to provide.

"Thus we have unmistakable evidence of what was republican in form within the meaning of that term as employed by the Constitution."

That is the language of the Court, Mr. President. I am still quoting from the Court's opinion:

"As has been seen (in the argument that has gone before) all the citizens of the States were not invested with the right of suffrage. In all, save perhaps New Jersey, this right was only bestowed upon men and not upon all of them. Under these circumstances, it is certainly now too late to contend that a government is not republican, within the meaning of this guaranty in the Constitution, because women are not made voters."

While the Court in this instance was considering particularly the limitations in the State governments which prevented women from voting, the opinion delivered by Chief Justice Waite cited other types of limitation as well.

The opinion, at page 172, contained this summary statement:

"When the Federal Constitution was adopted, all the States, with the exception of Rhode Island and Connecticut, had constitutions of their own. These two continued to act under their charters from the Crown. Upon an examination of these constitutions we find that in no State were all citizens permitted to vote. Each State determined for itself who should have that power.

"Thus in New Hampshire, 'every male inhabitant of each town and parish with town privileges, and places unincorporated in the State, of 21 years of age and upwards, excepting paupers and persons excused from paying taxes at their own request,' were its voters; in Massachusetts, 'every male inhabitant of 21 years of age and upward, having a freehold estate within the commonwealth of the annual income of 3 pounds, or any estate of the value of 60 pounds'; in Rhode Island, 'such as are admitted free of the company and society' of the Colony; in Connecticut, such persons as had 'maturity in years, quiet and peaceable behavior, a civil conversation, and 40 shillings freehold or 40 pounds personal estate,' if so certified by the selectmen; in New York, 'every male inhabitant of full age who shall have personally resided within one of the counties of the State for 6 months immediately preceding the day of election *** if during the time aforesaid he shall have been a freeholder possessing a freehold of the value of 20 pounds within the county, or have rented a tenement therein of the yearly value of 40 shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to the State'; in New Jersey, 'all inhabitants *** of full age who are worth 50 pounds; proclamation-money, clear estate in the same, and have resided in the county in which they claim a vote for 12 months immediately preceding the election'; in Pennsylveria, ‘every freeman of the age of 21 years, having resided in the State for 2 years next before the election, and within that time paid a State or county tax which shall have been assessed at least 6 months before the election'; in Delaware and Virginia, 'as exercised by law at present'; in Maryland, ‘all freemen above 21 years of age having a freehold of 50 acres of land in the county in which they offer to vote and residing therein, and all freemen having property in the State above the value of 30 pounds current money, and having resided in the county in which they offer to vote 1 whole year next preceding the election'; in North Carolina, for Senators, 'all freemen of the age of 21 years who have been inhabitants of any one county within the State 12 months immediately preceding the day of election, and possessed of a freehold within the same county of 50 acres of land for 6 months next before and at the day of election,' and for members of the house of commons, 'all freemen of the age of 21 years who have been inhabitants in any one county within the State 12 months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes': in South Carolina, 'every free white man of the age of 21 years, being a citizen of the State and having resided therein 2 years previous to the day of election and who hath a freehold of 50 acres of land, or a town lot of which he hath been legally seized and possessed for at least 6 months before such election, or (not having such freehold or town lot), hath been a resident within the elction district in which he offers to give his vote 6 months before such election, and hath paid a tax the preceding year of three shillings sterling toward the support of the government'; and in Georgia. ‘such citizen and inhabitants of the State as shall have attained to the age of 21 years, and shall have paid tax for the year next preceding the election, and shall have resided 6 months within the county.''