I am still quoting from the decision of Mr. Justice Story. The Court said : "In this condition of the law in respect to suffrage in the several States it cannot for a moment be doubted that if it had been intended to make all citizens of the United States voters the framers of the Constitution would not have left it to implication. So important a change in the condition of citizenship as it actually existed, if intended, would have been expressly declared."

That is the first case of the United States Supreme Court on this point. The decisions go right down the line, saying that if there had been anything anywhere in the Constitution that even looked in the direction of the Federal Government's having any control over qualifications in so vital a matter, as my distinguished colleague from Mississippi [Mr. Stennis] said last Thursday--and I have quoted from a judge who said the same thing-in so tender a matter to the States as is the question of who shall vote, the first case said that the framers of the Constitution would not have left it to implication or guesswork; it would have been expressly written in. It was not written in, and, therefore, the first case says that it is not in there.

I ask the Senators to listen to the other cases, because I shall go down the line from the first case to the case cited by the Senator from Mississippi, which was decided in 1941, 6 months after the case was decided upon which some Members of the Senate are relying. The Supreme Court has never deviated, as I propose to show, from the first case right down to 1941, in holding in clear, express, and explicit terms, that the States have exclusive jurisdiction over fixing the qualifications of voters, and that there is nothing anywhere in the Constitution, by indirection, by implication, or in any other way, that can give this proposed power to the Federal Government.

The Court also noted that the Constitution of Rhode Island, which was adopted in 1843, contained qualifications for voting, including a property-ownership requirement.

I call attention to the fact that aside from the various property qualifications of the several States, the list of restrictions as cited in this Court opinion included New Hampshire's denial of the vote to "persons excused from paying taxes at their own request"; New York's alternate requirement that voters who did not possess property must have "been rated and actually paid taxes to the State"; Pennsylvania's requirement that voters must pay a tax "assessed at least 6 months before the election" and the tax payment provisions of North Carolina, South Carolina, and of Georgia.

I hope the distinguished Senators from Connecticut will note, too, that at the time the Federal Constitution was adopted the right to vote in their State could be denied to anyone whom the selectmen refused to certify as having "quiet and peaceable behavior and civil conversation."

A little later on, Mr. President, I shall quote from the constitution of one of the great western States. It is not so far west as California, but it is near the Pacific coast. The constitution of that State provides that if anyone believes in polygamy or in anything which resembles what the Mormons used to believe in, he can never vote in that State. That provision is still in the constitution of that State. I have not heard anyone say that Idaho did not have the right to say who can vote in that State. No one has ever challenged that. I never heard anyone challenge the constitution of Connecticut of 1803, providing that, in addition to paying taxes and residing in Connecticut, the selectmen-and I suppose that means the town council, or some such body—would have to certify that a man was quiet and peaceful in his behavior, and civil in his conversation. Yet, after pointing out all these restrictions, Mr. Chief Justice Waite concluded that they were acceptable features of a republican form of government and were so recognized by the framers of our Constitution.

The decision of the Court in the case of Minor against Happersett, insofar as applicability of the fourteenth amendment to voting privileges was concerned, was influenced, of course, by the important slaughterhouse cases, which had been decided just 2 years earlier, in 1872.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE CASES

It was these cases which drew a clear line between national citizenship and State citizenship and established that the privileges adhering to one did not necessarily apply to the other.

The State of Louisiana had passed a law to regulate slaughterhouses near New Orleans and suit was brought on the ground that this law discriminated against certain citizens who had previously engaged in business, and that it therefore violated the fourteenth amendment.

More than a hundred pages in the reports-16 Wallace 36-were occupied by the Court's exhaustive analysis of the fourteenth amendment.

In its opinion, the Court said:

"The first section of the fourteenth amendment, to which our attention is more specially invited, opens with a definition of citizenship-not only citizenship of the United States, but citizenship of the States. No such definition was previously found in the Constitution, nor had any attempt been made to define it by act of Congress. It had been the occasion of much discussion in the courts, by the executive departments, and in the public journals. It has been said by eminent judges that no man was a citizen of the United States except as he was a citizen of one of the States composing the Union. Those, therefore, who had been born and resided always in the District of Columbia or in the Territories, though within the United States, were not citizens. Whether this proposition was sound or not had never been judicially decided. But it had been held by this Court, in the celebrated Dred Scott case, only a few years before the out break of the Civil War, that a man of African descent, whether a slave or not, was not and could not be a citizen of a State or of the United States. This decision, while it met condemnation of some of the ablest statesmen and constitutional lawyers of the country, had never been overruled; and if it was to be accepted as a constitutional limitation of the right of citizenship, then all the Negro race who has recently been made freemen were still not only not citizens but were incapable of becoming so by anything short of an amendment to the Constitution.

"To remove this difficulty primarily, and to establish a clear and comprehensive definition of citizenship which should declare what should constitute citizenship of the United States and also citizenship of a State, the first clause of the first section was framed."

That clause is the one reading-

"All persons born and naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

The Court continued:

"The first observation we have to make on this clause is, that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been subject to differences of opinion. It declares that persons may be citizens of the United States without regard to their citizenship of a particular State, and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States. That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the Negro there can be no doubt. The phrase 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuis, and citizens or subjects of foreign states born within the United States. "The next observation is more important in view of the arguments of counsel in the present case. It is, that the distinction between citizenship of the United States and citizenship of a State is clearly recognized and established. Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a State, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it, but it is only necessary that he should be born or naturalized in the United States to be a citizen of the Union.

"It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual.

"We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section, which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those of citizens of the several States. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same, and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same.

The language is: 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.'

"It is a little remarkable, if this clause was intended as a protection to the citizens of a State against the legislative power of his own State, that the words 'citizen of the State' should be left out when it is so carefully used, and used in contra-distinction to citizens of the United States, in the very sentence which precedes it. It is too clear for argument that the change of phraseology was adopted understandingly and with a purpose.

"Of the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the United States, and of the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the State, and what they respectively

are, we will presently consider; but we wish to state here that it is only the former which are placed by this clause under the protection of the Federal Constitution and that the latter, whatever they may be, are not intended to have any additional protection by this paragraph of the amendment.

"If, then, there is a difference between the privileges and immunities belonging to a citizen of the United States as such, and those belonging to the citizen of the State as such, the latter must rest for their security and protection where they have heretofore rested; for they are not embraced by this paragraph of the amendment.

"The first occurrence of the words 'privileges and immunities' in our constitutional history is to be found in the fourth of the articles of the old Confederation. "It declares 'that the better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendships and intercourse among the people of the different States of this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all the privileg s and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively.'

"In the Constitution of the United States, which superseded the Articles of Confederation, the corresponding provision is found in section 2 of the fourth article, in the following words: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.'

"There can be but little question that the purpose of both these provisions is the same, and that the privileges and immunities intended are the same in each. In the article of the Confederation we have some of these specifically mentioned and enough perhaps to give some general idea of the class of civil rights meant by the phrase.

"Fortunately, we are not without judicial instruction on this clause of the Constitution. The first and the leading case on the subject is that of Corfield against Coryell, decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823.

""The inquiry,' he says, 'is, What are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the seve al States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are fundamental-which belong of right to the citizens of all free governments, and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose the Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are, it would be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may all, however, be comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the Government with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind and torrs" end obřain happiness and s fety, subject, nevertheless, to such restraints as the Government may prescribe for the general good of the whole.'

"This definition of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States is adopted in the main by this Court in the recent case of Ward against the State of Maryland, while it declines to undertake an authoritative definition beyond what was necessary to that decision. The description, when taken to include others not named but which are of the same general character, embraces nearly every civil right for the establishment and protection of which organized government is instituted. They are, in the language of Judge Washington, those rights which are fundamental. Throughout his opinion they are spoken of as rights belonging to the individual as a citizen of a State. They are so spoken of in the constitutional provision which he was construing. And they have always been held to be the ass of rights which the State governments were created to establish and secure."

Please notice that last phrase used by the Court:

"They have always been held to be the class of rights which the State governments were created to establish and secure."

To continue quoting from the Court's opinion in the slaughterhouse cases: "In the case of Paul against Virginia, the Court, in expounding this clause of the Constitution, says that the privileges and immunities secured to citizens of each State in the several States by the provision in question are those privileges and immunities which are common to the citizens of the latter States under their constitutions and laws by virtue of their being citizens.

"The constitutional provision there alluded to did not create those rights, which it calls privileges and immunities of citizens of the States. It threw around them in that clause no security for the citizen of the State in which they

were claimed or exercised. Nor did it profess to control the power of the State governments over the rights of its own citizens."

Note well that last statement of the Supreme Court:

"Nor did it profess to control the power of the State governments over the rights of its own citizens."

But that is what the legislation now under consideration proposes to do.
Continuing with our citation of the Court's opinion:

"Its sole purpose was to declare to the several States that whatever those rights, as you grant or establish them to your own citizens, as you limit or qualify, or impose restrictions on their exercise, the same, neither more no less, shall be the measure of the rights of citizens of other States within your jurisdiction.

"It would be the vainest show of learning to attempt to prove by citations of authority that up to the adoption of the recent amendments (that is, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth) no claim or pretense was set up that those rights depended on the Federal Government for their existence or protection beyond the very few express limitations which the Federal Constitution imposed upon the States-such, for instance, as the prohibition against ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts. But with the exception of these and a few other restrictions, the entire domain of the privileges and immunties of citizens of the States, as above defined, lay within the constitutional and legislative power of the States, and without that of the Federal Government.

"Was it the purpose of the fourteenth amendment, by the simple declaration that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunties of the citizens of the United States to transfer the security and protection of rights which we have mentioned to the Federal Government? And where it declared that Congress shall have the power to enforce that article, was it intended to bring within the power of Congress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the States?

"All this and more must follow if the proposition of the plaintiff is sound. "For not only are these right subject to the control of Congress whenever in its discretion any of them are supposed to be abridged by State legislation but that body may also pass laws in advance limiting and restricting the exercise of power by the States in their most ordinary and usual functions, as in its judgment it may think proper on all such subjects and still further such construction would constitute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to nullify such as it did not approve, as consistent with those rights as existed at the time of the adoption of this amendment. The argument, we admit, is not always the most conclusive which is drawn from the consequences urged against the adoption of a particular construction of an instrument. But when, as in the case before us, those consequences are so serious, so far reaching and pervading, so great a departure from the structure and spirit of our institutions, when the effect is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character, when in fact it radically changes the whole theory of the relations of the State and Federal Governments to each other and of both these governments to the people, the argument has a force that is irresistible in the absence of language which expresses such a purpose too clearly to admit of doubt."

Then, after pointing out that the Federal Government does unquestionably have responsibility for protecting the privileges and immunities of citizens under certain circumstances, such as when they are on the high seas or within the jurisdiction of a foreign government, the court said it did not see in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments "any purpose to destroy the main features of the general system" of our Government.

The opinion concluded:

"Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the war, our statesmen have still believed that the existence of the States with powers for domestic and local government including the regulation of civil rights, the rights of person and of property was essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government, though they have thought proper to impose additional limitations on the States and to confer additional power on that of the Nation. "But whatever fluctuations may be seen in the history of public opinion on this subject during the period of our national existence we think it will be found that this court, so far as its functions required, has always held with a steady and an even hand the balance between State and Federal power, and we trust that such may continue to be the history of its relation to that subject so long

as it shall have duties to perform which demand of it a construction of the Constitution or of any of its parts."

UNITED STATES v. CRUICKSHANK

In 1876, the year after the case of Minor against Happersett was decided, Chief Justice Waite again emphasized the right as well as the obligation of the States to protect the privileges of their citizens.

In giving the Court's opinion in the case of United States v. Cruickshank (92 U. S. 542) he said:

"The fourteenth amendment prohibits a State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or from denying to any person equal protection of the law, but this provision does not add anything to the rights of one citizen as against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any encroachment by the State upon the fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society.

"The duty of protecting all its citizens in the enjoyment of an equality of rights was originally assumed by the States, and it remains there. The only obligation resting upon the United States is to see that the States do not deny the right. This the amendment guarantees and no more. The power of the National Government is limited to this guaranty."

The only question, then, would seem to be whether the right of voting without paying a poll tax, when the State requires such payment, is such a fundamental right as the Court referred to.

UNITED STATES V. REESE

The Court removed any doubt on this point in another opinion handed down in 1876, following the Cruickshank case. to which I have referred. In the case of United States v. Reese (92 U. S. 214) the Court said:

"The fifteenth amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone. It prevents the States, or the United States, however, from giving preference in this particular to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Before its adoption this could be done. It was as much within the power of a State to exclude citizens of the United States from voting on account of race, and so forth, as it was on account of age, property, or education. Now it is not."

Please notice closely the last part of that statement. The Court said that before adoption of the fifteenth amendment a State had as much right to exclude a citizen from voting on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, as it had and still has since passage of the amendment-to exclude on account of age, property, or education.

Plainly if the tax payment qualification is to be removed, it must be done as the color qualification was, by amending the Constitution.

I digress at that point to make another comment on the laws of New York State, where there is no poll tax, but where one must register before every election. We have permanent registration in Virginia. Once a voter is registered he remains registered so long as he remains a citizen of the State. However, I am told that in New York State a person is not permitted to vote unless he registers before every election. I am also told that more people are denied the privilege of suffrage in New York City alone because of this registration requirement than are denied the right of suffrage because of the poll-tax requirement in any one of the Southern States.

I am also told that in order to register in New York one must pass a literacy test which is equivalent to a seventh-grade education. Suppose we were to apply that New York test to Virginia, Mississippi, and Florida. I do not like to make public confession of this, because in the district which I formerly represented in the House, known as the Shenandoah Valley, there are a great many elementary schools, high schools, preparatory schools, and colleges. As farming areas go, it is a rather prosperous section, and as people go, the people of that section are fine people, and I am very proud of them. The chief recruiting officer in that area told me 2 years ago, when I complained of the fact that the Army was taking so few boys from Virginia, that in that district 42 percent of those who volunteered were rejected because they did not have the equivalent of a seventh-grade education. I said, "then your tests must be too exacting, and your standards must be too high. Those boys have plenty of common sense and courage. They know how to shoot, and they would make fine soldiers. The tests must be too severe." He replied, "No, the modern army has a great many newfangled scientific devices, and if the boys are not educated we cannot use them."