Guinn v. United States

rdf:langString Guinn v. United States

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Frank Guinn and J. J. Beal v. United States

rdf:langString McKenna, Holmes, Day, Hughes, Van Devanter, Lamar, Pitney

rdf:langString Certificate from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

rdf:langString Guinn v. United States,

rdf:langString Frank Guinn and J. J. Beal v. United States

rdf:langString A state statute drafted in such a way as to serve no rational purpose other than to disadvantage the right of African-American citizens to vote violated the 15th Amendment.

rdf:langString Guinn v. United States

rdf:langString White

rdf:langString Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court decision that found certain grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests for voting rights to be unconstitutional. Though these grandfather clauses were superficially race-neutral, they were designed to protect the voting rights of illiterate white voters while disenfranchising black voters. The 1870 ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred each state from denying the right to vote on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". In response, several Southern states, including Oklahoma, established constitutional provisions designed to effectively disenfranchise African-American voters without explicitly violating the Fifteenth Amendment. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Edward Douglass White held that Oklahoma's grandfather clause was "repugnant to the Fifteenth Amendment and therefore null and void". The decision had little immediate impact, as Southern legislatures found other methods to disenfranchise blacks.

rdf:langString McReynolds