Frank Guinn v. United States

• Decision Date: 21 June 1915
• Docket Number: No. 96,96
• Citation: 238 U.S. 347,35 S.Ct. 926,59 L.Ed. 1340
• Parties: FRANK GUINN and J. J. Beal v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

238 U.S. 347

35 S.Ct. 926

59 L.Ed. 1340

FRANK GUINN and J. J. Beal

v UNITED STATES.

No. 96.

Argued October 17, 1913.

Decided June 21, 1915.

Messrs. Joseph W. Bailey, C. B. Stuart, A. C. Cruce, W. A. Ledbetter, Norman Haskell, and C. G. Hornor for Frank Guinn and J. J. Beal.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 348-349 intentionally omitted] Solicitor General Davis for the United States.

Messrs. John H. Burford and John Embry by permission of the Attorney General in support of the government's position.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 350-352 intentionally omitted] Mr. Moorfield Storey for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Mr. J. H. Adriaans as amicus curioe.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

This case is before us on a certificate drawn by the court below as the basis of two questions which are submitted for our solution in order to enable the court correctly to decide issues in a case which it has under consideration. Those issues arose from an indictment and conviction of certain election officers of the state of Oklahoma (the plaintiffs in error) of the crime of having conspired unlawfully, wilfully, and fraudulently to deprive certain negro citizens, on account of their race and color, of a right to vote at a general election held in that state in 1910, they being entitled to vote under the state law, and which right was secured to them by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The prosecution was directly concerned with § 5508, Revised Statutes, now § 19 of the Penal Code [35 Stat. at L. 1092, chap. 321, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 10183], which is as follows:

'If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured, they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than ten years, and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office, or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States.'

We concentrate and state from the certificate only matters which we deem essential to dispose of the questions asked.

Suffrage in Oklahoma was regulated by § 4a, article 3, of the Constitution under which the state was admitted into the Union. Shortly after the admission there was submitted an amendment to the Constitution making a radical change in that article, which was adopted prior to November 8, 1910. At an election for members of Congress which followed the adoption of this amendment, certain election officers, in enforcing its provisions, refused to allow certain negro citizens to vote who were clearly entitled to vote under the provision of the Constitution under which the state was admitted; that is, before the amendment; and who, it is equally clear, were not entitled to vote under the provision of the suffrage amendment if that amendment governed. The persons so excluded based their claim of right to vote upon the original Constitution and upon the assertion that the suffrage amendment was void because in conflict with the prohibitions of the 15th Amendment, and therefore afforded no basis for denying them the right guaranteed and protected by that Amendment. And upon the assumption that this claim was justified and that the election officers had violated the 15th Amendment in denying the right to vote, this prosecution, as we have said, was commenced. At the trial the court instructed that by the 15th Amendment the states were prohibited from discriminating as to suffrage because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and that Congress, in pursuance of the authority which was conferred upon it by the very terms of the Amendment, to enforce its provisions had enacted the following (Rev. Stat. § 2004, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 3966):

'All citizens of the United States who are otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any state, territory, district, . . . municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any constitution, law, custom, or usage, or regulation of any state or territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary notwithstanding.'

It then instructed as follows:

'The state amendment which imposes the test of reading and writing any section of the state Constitution as a condition to voting to persons not, on or prior to January 1, 1866, entitled to vote under some form of government, or then residents in some foreign nation, or a lineal descendant of such person, is not valid, but you may consider it in so far as it was in good faith relied and acted upon by the defendants in ascertaining their intent and motive. If you believe from the evidence that the defendants formed a common design and cooperated in denying the colored voters of Union township precinct, or any of them, entitled to vote, the privilege of voting, but this was due to a mistaken belief sincerely entertained by the defendants as to the qualifications of the voters,—that is, if the motive actuating the defendants was honest, and they simply erred in the conception of their duty,—then the criminal intent requisite to their guilt is wanting and they cannot be convicted. On the other hand, if they knew or believed these colored persons were entitled to vote, and their purpose was to unfairly and fraudulently deny the right of suffrage to them, or any of them entitled thereto, on account of their race and color, then their purpose was a corrupt one, and they cannot be shielded by their official positions.'

The questions which the court below asks are these:

'1. Was the amendment to the Constitution of Oklahoma, heretofore set forth, valid?

'2. Was that amendment void in so far as it attempted to debar from the right or privilege of voting for a qualified candidate for a member of Congress in Oklahoma unless they were able to read and write any section of the Constitution of Oklahoma, negro citizens of the United States who were otherwise qualified to vote for a qualified candidate for a member of Congress in that state, but who were not, and none of whose lineal ancesters was, entitled to vote under any form of government on January 1, 1866, or at any time prior thereto, because they were then slaves?'

As these questions obviously relate to the provisions concerning suffrage in the original Constitution and the amendment to those provisions which form the basis of the controversy, we state the text of both. The original clause, so far as material, was this:

'The qualified electors of the state shall be male citizens of the United States, male citizens of the state, and male persons of Indian descent native of the United States, who are over the age of twenty-one years, who have resided in the state one year, in the county six months, and in the election precinct thirty days, next preceding the election at which any such elector offers to vote.'

And this is the amendment:

'No person shall be registered as an elector of this state or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma; but no person who was, on January 1st, 1866, or any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal descendant of such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote because of his inability to so read and write sections of such Constitution. Precinct election inspectors having in charge the registration of electors shall enforce the provisions of this section at the time of registration, provided registration be required. Should registration be dispensed with, the provisions of this section shall be enforced by the precinct election officers when electors apply for ballots to vote.'

Considering the questions in the light of the text of the suffrage amendment if is apparent that they are twofold because of the twofold character of the provisions as to suffrage which the amendment contains. The first question is concerned with that provision of the amendment which fixes a standard by which the right to vote is given upon conditions existing on January 1, 1866, and relieves those coming within that standard from the standard based on a literacy test which is established by the other provision of the amendment. The second question asks as to the validity of the literacy test and how far, if intrinsically valid, it would continue to exist and be operative in the event the standard based upon January 1, 1866, should be held to be illegal as violative of the 15th Amendment.

To avoid tht which is unnecessary let us at once consider and sift the propositions of the United States on the one hand, and of the plaintiffs in error, on the other, in order to reach with precision the real and final question to be considered. The united States insists that the provision of the amendment which fixes a standard based upon January 1, 1866, is repugnant to the prohibitions of th 15th Amendment because in substance and effect that provision, if not an express, is certainly an open, repudiation of the 15th Amendment, and hence the provision in question was stricken with nullity in its inception by the self-operative force of the Amendment, and, as the result of the same power, was at tll subsequent times devoid of any vitality whatever.

For the plaintiffs in error, on the other hand, it is said the states have the power to fix standards for suffrage, and that power was not taken...