Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

“ However, the Supreme Court declined to sustain Congress when, under the guise of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation, it enacted a statute which was not limited to take effect only in case a State should abridge the privileges of United States citizens, but applied no matter how well the State might have performed its duty, and would subject to punishment private individuals who conspired to deprive anyone of the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ It ought not to require argument to reject the notion that due process of law meant one thing in the Fifth Amendment and another in the Fourteenth. The Fifth Amendment specifically prohibits prosecution of an 'infamous crime' except upon indictment; it forbids double jeopardy; it bars compelling a person to be a witness against himself in any criminal case; it precludes deprivation of 'life, liberty, or property, without due process of law * * *' Are Madison and his contemporaries in the framing of the Bill of Rights to be charged with writing into it a meaningless clause? ”

“ It cannot be safely conjectured what the Supreme Court will say when it squarely faces the suffrage laws of the South in their relation to the Fifteenth Amendment. Until then, each is entitled to his opinion. That the citizenship, age, sex, and residence qualifications are in perfect conformity to the Amendment there is no doubt. The qualifications of tax payment, property, and education existed long before the Fifteenth Amendment in the States of the men most active in securing the adoption of that Amendment. ”

“ Second, even if the Fifth Amendment applied to enemy combatants in wartime, it is clear that that the Fifth Amendment .does not operate outside the United States to regulate the Executive's conduct toward ,aliens. The Supreme Court has squarely held that the Fifth Amendment provides no rights to non-citizens who have no established connection to the country and who are held outside sovereign United States territory. ”

“ To reassure those who still feared that local rights might be invaded by the federal government, the tenth amendment expressly provided that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. ”

“ The opinion of the Court should not be interpreted to hold that the only, or even the principal, constraints on the exercise of congressional power are the Constitution's express prohibitions. The Court's discussion of the Tenth Amendment invites the inference that restrictions flowing from the federal system are of no import when defining the limits of the National Government's power, as it proceeds by first asking whether the power is within the National Government's reach, and if so it discards federalism concerns entirely. ”

“ In the ensuing decades, a strong constitutional norm against any measure that might be deemed “Court packing” developed, leading some commentators today to describe Court expansion as a “third rail in American politics.” [54] Members of Congress sought in the 1950s to amend the Constitution to fix the size of the Supreme Court at nine members. [55] (The proposed amendment would also have prevented Congress from restricting the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over constitutional claims.) ”

“ Again, may I be asked, why the mode pointed out in the constitution for its amendment, may not be a sufficient security against its imperfections, without now arresting it in its progress? My answers are—1. That it is better to amend, while we have the constitution in our power, while the passions of designing men are not yet enlisted, and while a bare majority of the States may amend than to wait for the uncertain assent of three fourths of the States. 2. That a bad feature in government, becomes more and more fixed every day. ”

“ But even if the 5th Amendment were read as contemporaneous with the original Constitution, the power given in the commerce clause would not be taken to override it so far as the 5th Amendment protects fundamental personal rights. It is only on the ground that the right to combine at will is a fundamental personal right that it can be held to be protected by the 14th Amendment, from any abridgment by the states. ”

“ Counsel urged that the power of amendment is limited to the correction of errors in the framing of the Constitution; that it does not comprehend the adoption of additional or supplementary provisions. They contended further that ordinary legislation cannot [Pg 712] be embodied in a constitutional amendment and that Congress cannot constitutionally propose any amendment which involves the exercise or relinquishment of the sovereign powers of a State. ”

“ The proposal to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment is utterly impracticable and should be relegated to the limbo of forgotten issues. It is very certain that any party founded on the proposition would utterly fail in a national canvass. What we are considering is something practical, something that means attainable progress. ”

“ I think it is better to do nothing than to do that which will not have the proper effect. To do that which will not accomplish the purpose would be worse than doing nothing at all. That the United States Government has the right to go into the States and enforce the fourteenth and the fifteenth amendments is, in my judgment, perfectly clear, by appropriate legislation that shall bear upon individuals. ”

“ 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 away by the Fifteenth Amendment, but only limited to the extent of the prohibitions which that Amendment established. ”

“ The great body of the Southern people are law-abiding, with the single exception that they do not propose to respect the Fifteenth Amendment. They are committed against this. They deprecate lawlessness. ”

“ Though still in the minority, there is hope; for with a radical truth one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight; and ere very long, before another convention, I trust many more will see with us that the Fifteenth Amendment, without the Sixteenth, is a compromise worse by far for the nation than any other ever passed. ”