Read the excerpt below:
"Discrimination? Why, that is precisely what we propose; that, exactly, is what this Convention was elected for—to discriminate to the very extremity of permissible action under the limitations of the Federal Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every Negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate."
— Carter Glass, Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1901–1902
Based on this excerpt, which of the following best explains how Southern state constitutional conventions during this era achieved the goals described by Glass?
- ABy relying on informal local customs and de facto residential exclusion to discourage voting, rather than enacting formal state laws that could be challenged under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- By establishing facially neutral qualifications, such as literacy tests and property requirements, that were selectively enforced by local registrars.Cevap
- CBy using a loophole in the Fifteenth Amendment that allowed states to temporarily suspend voting rights during periods of economic depression or labor shortages.
- DBy passing state laws that legally barred any individual under a sharecropping contract from participating in primary elections.
Cevap
The correct answer is the option stating that Southern states established facially neutral qualifications, such as literacy tests and property requirements, that were selectively enforced by local registrars.
The correct option identifies how Southern states drafted new state constitutions to bypass the Fifteenth Amendment. By using qualifications that did not mention race (such as literacy, understanding clauses, or property ownership) but were designed to be applied selectively by white registrars, states legally disenfranchised the vast majority of Black voters while maintaining white political supremacy.
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Anahtar Kavram
De jure disenfranchisement and the circumvention of Reconstruction Amendments in the Jim Crow South.