Congressional Record 78th Congress First Session Vol 89 Part 4 May 25 1943

PAGE 4843

ANTI-POLL-TAX BILL

The SPEAKER. Pursuant to House Resolution 131, the Chair designates the gentleman
from Texas [Mr. SUMNERS] to control the time in opposition to the bill H.R.7.

Mr. MAGNUSON. Mr. Speaker, I renew my motion that the House resolve itself into the
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill
H. R. 7.

The motion was agreed to.

Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the
state of the Union for the consideration of the bill H. R. 7, with Mr. BULWINKLE in the
chair.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The first reading of the bill was dispensed with.

<a pro-speaker speaks and opposed speakers speak.>

PAGE 4849

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the speakers who have preceded me that this is one of the
most important questions which has come for a long time before this Congress.
Especially is that

PAGE 4850

true when we consider the circumstances under which it comes. The country is at war.
We have had poll-tax requirements for many years. That requirement is rapidly
disappearing by state repeal.

I will say to my good friend who has just left the floor, that for a nation fighting for its
life, which needs the strength that unity gives, this preachment on the part of people
behind this bill that an able-bodied citizen is being abused and disfranchised because
each voter by the action of the legislature of his State, or a provision in its constitution,
is required to pay a dollar or two toward the expenses of his government before
participating in the election of those who are to be its public officials, is a bad thing.
Going over this country trying to arouse in the hearts of patriotic colored people in the
country the notion that they are being abused, being mistreated, because they are
required before voting to do exactly what their white neighbors are required to do,
driving the lines of racial cleavage when every interest of the country requires that we
stand in solidarity, is a bad thing. There may be good reasons for the abandonment of
this tax, but it is not a good service in a democracy to establish the notion among any
class of the able-bodied citizens that they are being abused if they are required to pay a
little part of the expenses of maintaining their government.

There is another thing that makes this an important matter. I wonder if everybody in
this country is not conscious of the danger resulting in this Nation from a concentration
of power in Federal organizations? This is remarkable legislation at this time when we
know that it is an open question in this struggle between democracy and bureaucracy as
to which is to survive. In such a situation as that, without constitutional warrant, are we
willing to take from the States, in which the hope of our democracy to survive is
centered, this fundamental power incident to sovereignty and transfer it to the Federal
Government—that one of the most important rights preserved to the States? Regardless
of what may happen in the Senate or in the Supreme Court such an indication of
willingness on the part of the House of Representatives to make this shift of power; from
the States to Washington would be mighty important now when we are on the pivot with
the possibility of reestablishing democracy on the one side and the certainty of
bureaucratic government on the other if we permit our States to be destroyed as the
sovereign units of general government.

The language of the Constitution is plain. Its construction by those who participated in
its formation is plain. The decisions of the Supreme Court all hold against the
constitutionality of this bill, and yet it is here.

These are the applicable provisions of the Constitution:

Article I, section 2: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen

every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall
have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State
legislature.

Article I, section 4: The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and
Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof, but the
Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places
of choosing Senators.
The time of holding the elections for Members of Congress, the place of holding such
elections, and the manner in which they are to be held Congress may determine. That is
provided by this latter section of the Constitution.

Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton wrote under the common title "Publius.'' In the
Federalist of February 19, 1788, this appears under that title:

Who are to be the electors of the Federal Representatives?

They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the
corresponding branch of the legislature of the State.

On February 8, 1788, in the Federalist, this appears written by either Madison or

Hamilton or both, under their common pen name:

The first view to be taken of this part of the Government relates to the qualifications of
the electors and the elected.

Those of the former are to be the same

Those of the former are to be the same with those of the electors of the most numerous
branch of the State legislature. The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly
regarded all a fundamental article of republican government. It was incumbent on the
convention, therefore, to define and establish this right in the constitution. To have left
it open for the occasional regulation of the Congress would have been improper for the
reasons just mentioned. To have submitted it to the legislative discretion of the States
would have been improper for the same reason, and for the additional reason that I
would have rendered too dependent on the State governments that branch of the federal
Government which out to be dependent on the people alone. To have reduced the
different qualifications in the different States to one uniform rule would probably have
been as dissatisfactory to some of the States as it would have been difficult to the
Convention. The provision made by the Convention appears, therefore,
to be the best that lay within their option. It must be satisfactory to every State, because
it is conformable to the standard already established, or which may be established by the
State itself. It will be safe to the United States because, being fixed by the State
constitutions, it is not alterable by the State governments, and it cannot be feared that
the people of the States will alter this part of their constitutions in such a manner as to
abridge the rights secured to them by the Federal Constitution.

Mr. King, of Massachusetts, served with Hamilton on the Committee on Style and this is
what he says—volume 2, page 51, Elliot's Debates:

The power of control given by this section (art. I, sec. 4), extends to the manner of
election, not to the qualifications of the electors.
The word "manner" is sought in this debate to be twisted into some sort of relationship
to qualification.

Mr. Nicholas, of Virginia, a delegate to that state's convention—volume 3, page 8, Elliot's

Debates—to the same effect says the following, and these were the people who helped to
construct the document and the people who sat in the State conventions and passed on
the question of whether or not it would be approved:

In this plan there is a fixed rule for determining the qualifications of electors, and that
rule the most judicious that could possibly have been devised, because it refers to a
criterion which cannot be changed. A qualification that gives a right to elect
representatives for the State legislatures, gives also, by this Constitution, a right to choose
representatives for the general government. As the qualifications of electors are different
in the different States, no particular qualifications, uniform through the States would have
been politic, as it would have caused a great inequality in the electors, resulting from the
situation and, circumstances of the respective States. Uniformity of qualifications would
greatly affect the yeomanry in the States, as it would either exclude from this inherent
right some who are entitled to it by the laws of some States at present, or be extended so
universally as to defeat the admirable end of the institution of representation.

In the North Carolina convention—volume 4, page 71, Elliot's Debates—Mr. Steele said:

The power over the manner of elections does not include that of saying who shall vote
(that never left State control): the Constitution expressly says that the qualifications (are
those) which entitle a man to vote for a State representative.

Mr. Davie, in the same convention—volume 4, page 61—said:

They may alter the manner of holding the election. • • • They cannot alter the nature of
the elections; for it is established, as fundamental principles, that the electors of the
most numerous branch of the State legislature shall elect the Federal representatives,
• • • power is given to Congress, and extending only to the time of holding the place of
holding, and the manner of holding the elections. Is this not the plain, literal, and
grammatical construction of the clause? Is it possible to put any other construction on lt.
without departing from the natural order, and without deviating from the general
meaning of the words, and every rule of grammatical construction? Twist it, torture it,
as you may, sir, it is impossible to fix a different sense upon it.

The ratification of the seventeenth amendment was the last expression of popular
judgment as to what should be the qualification of electors. It was the identical
arrangement as to the electors of the Members of the House of Representatives
embodied in article I, section 2, of the Constitution. It is as follows:

The electors in each State—

Of Senators—

shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the
State legislatures.

With the clear, uninvolved language of the Constitution squarely against the
construction which the proponents of this bill would have us accept, and with the clear-
cut statements of such contemporaries as Madison and Hamilton, King, Nicholas,
Steele, and Davie, which I have quoted, clearly against its constitutionality, this is a most
remarkable proceeding, remarkable even if there were no pronouncements by the courts
of the land against its constitutionality. Many times the shadow of this question

PAGE 4851

has come within the notice of the courts. Not once insofar as I know has the court
indicated a belief in its constitutionality.

I direct consideration now to a clear-cut decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States against the constitutionality of this bill with the identical question here indicated
squarely before it. I refer to the case of Breedlove v. Suttles (302 U. S. 277), a unanimous
opinion, delivered by Mr. Justice Butler. The case arose in Georgia. I quote from the
opinion:

A Georgia statute provides that there shall be levied and collected each year from every
inhabitant of the State between the ages of 21 and 60 a poll tax of $1, but that the tax
shall not be demanded from the blind or from females who do not register for voting
(Georgia Code, 1933, sec. 92-108). The State constitution declares that to entitle a person
to register and vote at any election he shall have paid all poll taxes that he may have had
opportunity to pay agreeably to law (art. II, sec.1, par. III; Code, sec. 2-603). The form of
oath prescribed to qualify an elector contains a clause declaring compliance with that
requirement (sec. 34-103). Tax collectors may not allow any person to register for voting
unless satisfied that his poll taxes have been paid (sec. 34-114). Appellant brought this
suit in the superior court of Fulton County to have the clause of the constitution and the
statutory provisions above-mentioned declared repugnant to various provisions of the
Federal Constitution and to compel appellee to, allow him to register for voting without
payment of poll taxes. The court dismissed his petition. The State supreme court affirmed
(183 Ga. 189; 188 s. E. 140).
 The pertinent facts alleged in the petition are these: March 16, 1936, appellant, a white
male citizen 28 years old, applied to appellee to register him for voting for Federal and
State officers at primary and general elections. He informed appellee he had neither made
poll-tax returns nor paid any poll taxes and had not registered to vote because a receipt
for poll taxes and an oath that he had paid them are prerequisites to registration. He
demanded that appellee administer the oath, omitting the part declaring payment of poll
taxes, and allow him to register. Appellee refused.

Appellant maintains that the provisions in question are repugnant to the equal protection
clause and the privileges and immunities clause of the fourteenth amendment and to the
nineteenth amendment.

You are all familiar with the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment and
also with the nineteenth amendment, the woman's suffrage amendment:

1. He asserts that the law offends the rule of equality in that it extends only to persons
between the ages of 21 and 60 and to women only if they register for voting and in that it
makes payment a prerequisite to registration. He does not suggest that exemption of the
blind is unreasonable.

Then follows some discussion of the history and nature of the poll tax, which I will omit,
though very interesting and illuminuating and is of weight. I further quote from this
opinion at page 281, as follows:

2. To make is not to deny any privilege or immunity protected by the fourteenth

amendment. 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. Minor v. Happersett (21 Wall. 162, 170 et seq.); Ex parte Yarbrough (110 U.
S. 651, 664-665); McPherson v. Blacker (146 U. S. 1, 37-38): Guinn v. United States
(238 U.S. 347, 362). The privileges and immunities protected are only those that arise
from the Constitution and laws of the United States and not those that spring from other
sources (Hamilton v. Regents (293 U.S. 245, 261) ).

Next the Court makes some analysis of the contention that this Georgia law violates the
nineteenth amendment and holds—bottom page 283:

Its purpose is not to regulate the levy or collection of taxes. The construction for which
appellant contends would make the amendment a limitation upon the power to tax. (Cites
cases.) The payment of poll taxes as a prerequisite to voting is a familiar and reasonable
regulation long enforced in many States and for more than a century in Georgia.

The Supreme Court was then composed of Chief Justice Hughes and Associate
Justices McReynolds, Brandeis, Sutherland, Butler, Stone, Roberts, Cardozo, and Black.

Since that decision this identical question, stripped of every detail which could possibly
aid the most skilled expert in the art of confusing, reached the Supreme Court of the
United States by application for a writ of certiorari. That case is Pirtle v. Brown (118 F.
(2) 218). It was decided March 8, 1941, by the circuit court of appeals. On July 19, 1941,
Senator PEPPER, of Florida, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in
support of S. 1280, "a bill concerning the qualification of voters or electors within the
meaning of section 2, article I, of the Constitution, making unlawful the requirement for
the payment of a poll tax as a prerequisite to voting in a primary or general election for
national offices,'' the same subject matter as the bill here under discussion.

I quote from Senator PEPPER's statement found on page 7 of the Senate hearings:

In the Pirtle case the question was squarely presented as to whether or not the State could
condition the right of a citizen to vote for a Congressman in an election, not the primary,
but a special election called to elect a Member of the House of Representatives, because
that citizen had not complied, or had failed to pay a poll tax, thus allowing him to vote.
Notice that this was not for a State election nor any primary and that it was admitted that
he had done everything to qualify but pay the poll tax.

Now, that is Senator PEPPER'S explanation of the facts.

I continue to quote from Senator PEPPER, page 9, Senate hearing:

Behold the suggestion that the right to vote for a Member of Congress of the United
States, the President of the United States, the Vice President, or the electors, is
conditioned by the State upon such terms as the State wants to impose; that the right "is
conferred by the State and, save as restrained by the fifteenth and nineteenth
amendments" regarding race, color, or previous conditions of servitude and other
provisions of the Federal Constitution, the State may condition suffrage as it deems
appropriate. • • • So that in that case ~he Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, held that
the State still had the right to condition the exercise of the franchise in any way it wanted
to do so.

I continue to quote from the Senate committee hearings; this colloquy took place:

Senator O'MAHONEY. Was there any dissent in that case?

Senator PEPPER. No; it was a unanimous decision of three judges, and now it appears
that there is a writ of certiorari pending before the Supreme Court relative to that case,
and I venture to predict that that petition for certiorari will be granted, and I do not expect
that decision to stand.
On the 13th day of October 1941, the Supreme Court of the United States, with the
application of the writ of certiorari seeking to bring the questions involved in the Pirtle
case before it, refused to grant the writ. It could not do otherwise.

Whatever may be the opinion of members of that Court with regard to the poll-tax
qualification, it is their business to interpret the Constitution as it is written.
As it is written the States cannot deprive a person of the right to vote on account of sex,
because the Constitution has been amended. The Supreme Court so holds, of course.
The States cannot deprive a person of the right to vote because of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude. The Supreme Court so holds. The States cannot deprive a person
of the right to vote for Members of Congress if he is qualified to vote under the laws of
his State for the members of the most numerous branch of the legislature. The Supreme
Court so holds.

By the decision in the Classic Case (313 U.S. 299) it was held that included in the rights
secured by the Constitution are the rights of a qualified voter to have his physical
opportunity to vote undisturbed and to have his vote counted, within the protection of
sections 19 and 20 of the Federal Criminal Code.

The citizen is entitled to Federal protection as to the time of holding elections, the place
of holding elections, and the manner in which elections are conducted, conditioned only
that the voter is qualified to vote for a member of the most numerous branch of his own
State legislature. Now it is contended that even though he may not be qualified to vote
for a member of the most numerous branch of his own State legislature—that standard
of qualification which is set up in the Constitution—Congress can get rid of that
standard by making it unlawful. That seems to be on the theory that its enforcement
would deprive the non-poll-tax payer of a Federal constitutional right which Congress
would have the right to enforce by appropriate legislation.

Deleting from section 20 of the Criminal Code that part thereof made non-applicable by
the decision in the Classic case, it reads as follows:

Section 20 of the Criminal Code (U. S. C., title 28, sec. 52):

"Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully
subjects, or causes to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State, Territory, or District to
the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the

PAGE 4852

Constitution and laws of the United States • • • shall be fined not more than $1,000 or
imprisoned not more-than 1 year, or both.''
In other words, if this bill is constitutional, corrective legislation, from the standpoint of
the proponents of this legislation, is already on the statute books. If a person has a
constitutional right to vote without paying a poll tax, he is protected by existing law.
Whatever constitutional rights the citizen has to vote without complying with the poll-
tax requirement of a State have been protected. Furthermore, existing legislation covers
the whole field of the citizen's constitutional rights.

Each time where in our governmental history before this effort it has been deemed
advisable to establish a new limitation upon the power of States to control election
qualifications it was recognized that it could not be done as here attempted, by act of
Congress, but had to be done by the States themselves.

After the Supreme Court refused to disturb the circuit court's holding in the Pirtle case,
the proponents fell back on the Classic case. But in the Classic case there was not
involved one single question which could arise in a case testing the general
constitutionality of this proposed legislation.

So we have this situation. We have the clear language of the Constitution and we have
the interpretation of the men who helped to fashion the Constitution and the men who
discussed it when the States ratified it. We have the philosophy of democratic
government and we have the clear-cut decision of the Supreme Court holding that this
proposed legislation is unconstitutional.

Now, let me make this observation, and I do this in all earnestness and seriousness. If
you do succeed in breaking through the constitutional barrier, ignoring the
interpretation made by the contemporaries of the Constitution, its practical
interpretation and the decisions of the Supreme Court, and should secure judicial
approval you would then have a situation under which there would be no effective
restraint upon the power of Congress to fix the qualifications of those who vote. The
power to fix it down is the power to fix it up. You would be putting into what is coming
to be a great Federal bureaucracy the power to deny the States the right to control
suffrage. They are the organizations that are close to the people.

This attack is being made upon the Constitution in the name of the poor man. I want to
call to witness the history of the ages, that they are the sort of people who suffer most
when constitutional government is destroyed.

Men and women of America, if we hold our Constitution in disrespect, the Constitution
is doomed. You think it could not happen to us. How can we maintain constitutional
government without a constitution? How can we maintain a constitution unless the
people hold it in reverence and unless those who are charged with the solemn
responsibility of guarding it, protect it? You think you have only a few States to deal with
now. You think you are strong enough to do it now, because you have the might of votes
now, but whenever the constitutional rights of the few are not-respected, the time is not
far distant when those who were strong at the moment will appeal in vain for the
protection of the Constitution that they have destroyed. If the constitutional rights of the
meanest persons are not maintained and protected, the constitutional rights of the best
are not safe.

That is true: The men who fashioned this Constitution and who read deeply into the
mysteries of life knew that there would come a time when the institutions of freedom
would be imperiled. They did the best they could. They required that before we entered
this Chamber we pledge ourselves by our solemn plight that we will defend the
Constitution. Now is the time and this is the hour.

Mr. Chairman, I look over my country. I see the picture in the world today. I recognize
that my country, perhaps, stands as the last great independent constitutional
government in the world. I see a time that has come now in the history of my country
when the Constitution is no longer revered among the people—not much. I wonder, too,
if your Nation and my Nation is to be added to the list of those from which freedom has
departed. It departs with the departure of constitutional government.

I know from all that I have been able to learn that freedom cannot endure among any
people who do not have fundamental laws that hold them true to the course of that
destiny against the pressure of expediency and the—whim of
the moment.

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Texas has expired.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 additional minutes.

Let me call your attention to another thing: The statement that is being made that these
poll-tax laws are a disfranchisement of the colored people of this country I say to you is a
reflection upon the colored people themselves because it is a statement that these
millions of colored people cannot or will not contribute a dollar or two in the course of a
year to the maintenance of their State governments. They say that this requirement that
each person, white or colored, shall pay say a dollar and a half or two dollars to maintain
the free schools of this country, disfranchises them. That is bad talk. That is not true. It
is not calculated to develop self-respect, a sense of responsibility, a pride of citizenship,
a fitness to be a citizen in a great democracy, anxious to pay something, however small,
for the maintenance of his government. A democracy is simply a group of people who
get together to operate a system of self-government, somewhat like a club or a lodge.
There is some expense about it. If we are going to maintain a democracy in this country,
we have to maintain it by people who have some self-respect and willingness to pay
something. I doubt that an individual who is not willing to pay a dollar and a half or two
dollars in the course of a year to maintain the government where his children are
educated, and where he gets police protection, and so forth, is quite fit to be a citizen in
a free democracy, white or black. I know this is not in line with the style of these times
when we have armies of people running around over this country doing their best to
make us a nation of panhandlers. It is not a good thing for any able-bodied person to get
a free governmental ride. Paying a little something is good for him, even if the
Government does not need it.

The States are abolishing this particular tax. There may be good reason why that tax
ought to be abolished, but that reason is not because each citizen, before he may sit in
the council of the Nation, is required to make some contribution to the Government. It
makes a better citizen of him.

It is less difficult for me, and I am not strutting my courage, I do not want to be
offensive, but I have examined our drift in this country. I believe I know what is
happening to our democracy. I am sure we must decentralize governmental powers,
reestablish our States, or be governed by a great Federal bureaucracy. We have a chance
now; none too good a chance, but there seems to be coming up from the body of the
American people that thing which Mr. Wilson said he saw as he examined history.

May I quote what he said:

When I look back on the processes of history, when I survey the genesis of America, I
see this written over every page: That the nations are renewed from the bottom, not from
the top; that the genius which springs up from the ranks of unknown men is the genius
which renews the youth and energy of the people. Everything I know about history, every
bit of experience and observation that has contributed to my thought, has confirmed me
in the conviction that the real wisdom of human life is compounded out of the
experiences of ordinary men. The utility, the vitality, the fruitage of life does not come
from the top to the bottom; it comes, like the natural growth of a great tree, from the soil,
up through the trunk into the branches to the foliage and the fruit. The great struggling
unknown masses of the men who are at the base of everything are the dynamic force that
is lifting the levels of society.

Are we doing our part to help this movement? In which direction does this proposed
legislation move? That is the question that is involved in this matter.

Think of a Member of Congress who comes up from a State, elected by the people of a
State, who want to transfer this power of theirs to a great Federal bureaucracy. We do
not know what is going on in this great Federal Government now. There is not a man or
woman here now who knows what is going on in it. It is too big. There is too much
governmental power here now. This is not just dealing with the poll tax, this is an
attempt to establish a principle and a policy of government under which the Federal
Government takes charge of the qualification of the voters in this country.
Are you willing to do it?
As I see it, we are going the only route which we could go and effect the destruction of
our democracy. I do not mean it is intended, but the operation of the laws of cause and
effect is not controlled by intentions. The conviction that we are moving toward disaster
for our democracy impels me to say these things on

PAGE 4853

this occasion, which I wish I could avoid without the sacrifice of duty.

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Texas has again expired.