Poll taxes in the United States: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Banned taxesTax required to allow people to vote; used to disenfranchise racial minorities and the poor}}

A [[poll tax]] is a [[tax]] of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Although often associated with states of the former [[Confederate States of America]], poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states, including [[California]], [[Connecticut]], [[Maine]], [[Massachusetts]], [[Minnesota]], [[New Hampshire]], [[Ohio]], [[Pennsylvania]], [[Vermont]], [[Rhode Island]], and [[Wisconsin]].<ref>{{cite book |author=State of Maine Special Tax Commission |title=Report of the Special Tax Commission of Maine |oclc=551368287 |publisher=Burleigh & Flynt |date=1890 |location=Maine |pages=39–41 }}</ref> Poll taxes had been a major source of government funding among the colonies which formed the United States. Poll taxes made up from one-third to one-half of the tax revenue of colonial Massachusetts. Various privileges of citizenship, including voter registration or issuance of driving licenses and resident hunting and fishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage the collection of this tax revenue. Property taxes assumed a larger share of tax revenues as land values rose when population increases encouraged settlement of the American West.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bullock |first=Charles J. |year=1916 |title=The Taxation of Property and Income in Massachusetts |journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=1–61 |doi=10.2307/1885988|jstor=1885988 }}</ref> Some western states found no need for poll tax requirements; but poll taxes and payment incentives remained in eastern states,. andPoll sometaxes linksbecame toa votertool registrationof were[[Disfranchisement modifiedafter followingthe Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement]] in the [[AmericanSouthern CivilUnited WarStates|South]] during [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]], following the end of [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]]. This persisted until court action, following the ratification of the [[Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|24th Amendment]] in 1964, ended the practice.

Payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of [[U.S. state|states]] until 1965. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late nineteenth century as part of the [[Jim Crow laws]]. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] to the [[United States Constitution]], a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. The laws often included a [[grandfather clause]], which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. <ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/10/21/239081586/the-racial-history-of-the-grandfather-clause |title=The Racial History Of The 'Grandfather Clause' |date=22 October 2013 |publisher=NPR |work=Code Switch |first=Alan |last=Greenblatt |access-date=8 June 2020}}</ref> These laws, along with unfairly implemented [[literacy tests]] and extra-legal intimidation,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm |title=Civil Rights Movement -– Voting Rights: Are You "Qualified" to Vote? Take a "Literacy Test" to Find Out |website=crmvet.org |access-date=September 21, 2019 }}</ref> such as by the [[Ku Klux Klan]], achieved the desired effect of [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchising]] [[Asian-American]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] voters and [[Poor White|poor whites]] as well, but in particular the poll tax was disproportionately directed at [[African-American]] voters.

Proof of payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to voter registration in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia (1877), North and South Carolina, Virginia (until 1882 and again from 1902 with its new constitution),<ref name="historical">{{cite web|url=http://www.vahistorical.org/onthisday/21601.htm|title=Virginia's Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902|access-date=2006-09-14|publisher=Virginia Historical Society|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061002030244/http://www.vahistorical.org/onthisday/21601.htm|archive-date=October 2, 2006|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name = "Dabney" >{{cite book |last=Dabney|first=Virginius|author-link=Virginius Dabney|title=Virginia, The New Dominion|publisher=University Press of Virginia|year=1971|pages=436–437|isbn=978-0-8139-1015-4}}</ref> and Texas (1902).<ref name=Texas>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080402060131/http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/vce/0503.html |url=http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/vce/0503.html |archive-date=2008-04-02 |title=Historical Barriers to Voting |work=Texas Politics |publisher=University of Texas |access-date=November 4, 2012 }}</ref> The Texas poll tax, "requiredinstituted otherwiseon eligiblepeople voterswho were eligible to payvote in all other respects, was between $1.50 and $1.75 to{{USDCY|1.75|1902}}. registerThis to vote –was "a lot of money at the time, and a big barrier to the working classes and poor."<ref name=Texas /> Georgia created a cumulative poll tax requirement in 1877: men of any race 21 to 60 years of age had to pay a sum of money for every year from the time they had turned 21, or from the time that the law took effect.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040622202115/http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=1 |archive-date=2004-06-22 |title=Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement |work=Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education }}</ref>

The poll tax requirements applied to whites as well as blacks, and also adversely affected poor citizens. The laws that allowed the poll tax did not specify a certain group of people.<ref name=jstor3069935>{{cite journal |last1=Wilkerson-Freeman |first1=Sarah |title=The Second Battle for Woman Suffrage: Alabama White Women, the Poll Tax, and V. O. Key's Master Narrative of Southern Politics |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=68 |issue=2 |year=2002 |pages=333–74333–374 |jstor=3069935 |doi=10.2307/3069935 }}</ref> This meant that anyone, including white women, could also be discriminated against when they went to vote. One example is in Alabama where white women were discriminated against and then organized to secure their right to vote. One group of women that did this was the Women's Joint Legislative Council of Alabama (WJLC).<ref name=jstor3069935/> African American women also organized in groups against being denied voting rights. In 1942, an African American woman named Lottie Polk Gaffney, along with four other women, unsuccessfully sued the South Carolina Cherokee County Registration Board with the help of the [[NAACP]].<ref> Cherisse Jones-Branch. {{cite journal |title="To Speak When and Where I Can": African American Women's Political Activism in South Carolina in the 1940s and 1950s. |journal=The South Carolina Historical Magazine }} Vol. 107, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 204-205204–205 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27570823</ref> Gaffney sued for her right to vote after having been stopped from registering to vote two years earlier. As a result of her suing the county the mailman did not deliver her mail for quite some time.<ref name="Jones-Branch, Cherisse 2006. pp. 204-224">{{cite journal |last1=Jones-Branch |first1=Cherisse |date=July 2006 |title='To Speak When and Where I Can': African American Women's Political Activism in South Carolina in the 1940s and 1950s |journal=The South Carolina Historical Magazine |volume=107 |issue=3 |page=206 |jstor=27570823 }}</ref>

Many states required payment of the tax at a time separate from the election, and then required voters to bring receipts with them to the polls. If they could not locate such receipts, they could not vote. In addition, many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements.<ref name="Andrews">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds5andr |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds5andr/page/28 28] |last=Andrews |first=E. Benjamin |author-link=Elisha Benjamin Andrews |title=History of the United States |publisher =Charles Scribner's Sons |year=1912 |location=New York |isbn=9781449977320 }}</ref> These were particularly difficult for sharecropper and tenant farmers to comply with, as they moved frequently.

The [[Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|24th Amendment]], ratified in 1964, abolished the use of the poll tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition for voting in federal elections,<ref name="Jillson2011">{{cite book|last=Jillson|first=Cal|title=Texas Politics: Governing the Lone Star State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQFZCrbc9mIC&pg=PA38|access-date=January 6, 2013|date=2011-02-22|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9780415890601|pages=38–}}</ref> but made no mention of poll taxes in state elections.

In the 1966 case of ''[[Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections]],'' the Supreme Court reversed its decision in ''Breedlove v. Suttles'' to also include the imposition of poll taxes in state elections as violating the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]] to the United States Constitution.

The ''Harper'' ruling was one of several that relied on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment rather than the more direct provision of the [[FifteenthTwenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th24th Amendment]]. In a two-month period in the spring of 1966, Federal courts declared unconstitutional poll tax laws in the last four states that still had them, starting with [[Texas]] on February 9. Decisions followed for [[Alabama]] (March 3) and [[Virginia]] (March 25). [[Mississippi]]|Mississippi's]] $2.00 poll tax ({{Inflation|US|2|1966|fmt=eq}}) was the last to fall, declared unconstitutional on April 8, 1966, by a federal panel.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Harry |editor1-last=Hansen |year=1966 |title=The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 1966 |publisher=New York World-Telegram |oclc=277006640 |page=68 }}</ref> Virginia attempted to partially abolish its poll tax by requiring a residence certification, but the Supreme Court rejected the arrangement in 1965 in ''[[Harman v. Forssenius]]''.

| Alabama || $1.50 {{USDCY|1.50|1901}}|| 1901<ref name="Williams 1952">{{cite journal | last1=Williams, Jr.| |first1=Frank B. Jr. |title=The Poll Tax as a Suffrage Requirement in the South, 1870-1901 |journal=[[The Journal of Southern History]] |date=November 1952 |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=469–496 |doi=10.2307/2955220 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2955220 |access-date=28 October 2020 |publisher=[[Southern Historical Association]] |location=Athens, Georgia |jstor=2955220 |issn=0022-4642}}</ref>{{Rp|471}}|| 1966<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Federal Judges Strike State's Poll Tax |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62809444/the-anniston-star/ |access-date=8 November 2020 |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=8 April 1966 |newspaper=[[The Anniston Star]] |location=Anniston, Alabama |page=1 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

| Arkansas || $1.00 {{USDCY|1|1891}}|| 1891<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}}{{#tag:ref|Legislation was passed by the House of the Assembly in 1891 and confirmed by voter referendum in 1892.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Branam |first1=Chris M. |title=Another Look at Disfranchisement in Arkansas, 1888—1894 |journal=[[The Arkansas Historical Quarterly]] |date=Autumn 2010 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=245–262 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23046114 |access-date=15 December 2020 |publisher=[[Arkansas Historical Association]] |location=Fayetteville, Arkansas |jstor=23046114 |issn=0004-1823}}</ref>{{Rp|246}}|group="Notes"}} || 1964<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lackey |first1=John |title=The Poll Tax: Its Impact on Racial Suffrage |journal=[[Kentucky Law Journal]] |date=1965 |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=423–432 |url=https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2956&context=klj |access-date=31 October 2020 |publisher=[[University of Kentucky College of Law]] |location=Lexington, Kentucky |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200321085319/https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2956&context=klj |archive-date=21 March 2020 |issn=0023-026X}}</ref>

| Florida || $1.00<ref>{{cite web |title=Poll Tax Receipts |url=https://www.jaxpubliclibrary.org/poll-tax-receipts |website=Jacksonville Public Library |access-date=24 January 2020}}</ref> {{USDCY|1|1885}} || 1885<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}}{{#tag:ref|Though poll tax legislation was approved in 1885, charging the tax as a condition of voting did not occur until 1889.<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}}|group="Notes"}} || 1937<ref>{{cite news |title=Dade Men Hail Teachers' Aid, Poll Tax Death |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/300904695/ |access-date=24 January 2020 |agency=Miami Daily News |publisher=Daily News Bureau |date=6 June 1937}}</ref>

| Georgia || $1.00 {{USDCY|1|1877}} || 1877<ref name="Ogden 1958" >{{cite book |last=Ogden |first=Frederic D. |title=The Poll Tax in the South |url=https://archive.org/details/polltaxinsouth00ogde/page/4/mode/1up |year=1958 |publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]] |location=Birmingham, Alabama |oclc=918357443 |page=4}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|While the Constitution of 1877 allowed collection of poll taxes to fund schools,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gigantino |first1=Jim |title=Constitutional Convention of 1877 |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/constitutional-convention-1877 |website=georgiaencyclopedia.org |publisher=Georgia Humanities |access-date=15 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112223805/https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/constitutional-convention-1877 |archive-date=12 November 2020 |location=Atlanta, Georgia |date=20 August 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> the requirement to pay as a prerequisite to voting was not authorized until 1908.<ref name="Ogden 1958" />|group="Notes"}} || 1945<ref name=jstor3069935 />

| Louisiana || ?$1.00<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-04-08 |title=State Constitution of Louisiana, 1898, Suffrage and Elections |url=https://glc.yale.edu/state-constitution-louisiana-1898-suffrage-and-elections |access-date=2022-07-29 |website=The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition |language=en}}</ref> {{USDCY|1|1898}} || 1898<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}} || 1934<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Podolefsky |first1=Ronnie L. |title=Illusion of Suffrage: Female Voting Rights and the Women's Poll Tax Repeal Movement after the Nineteenth Amendment |journal=[[Notre Dame Law Review]] |date=1998 |volume=73 |issue=3 |url=https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1776&context=ndlr |access-date=28 October 2020 |publisher=[[University of Notre Dame]] |location=Notre Dame, Indiana |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003185904/https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1776&context=ndlr |archive-date=3 October 2020 |issn=0745-3515}}</ref>

| Maine || $3.00 {{USDCY|3|1845}}|| 1845 || 1973<ref>{{cite journal |year=1973 |title=Maine Senate Votes Repeal of Poll Tax on Adult Males |journal=[[New York Times]] |issue=March 13 |pages=35 }}</ref>

| Massachusetts || $3.00<ref>{{cite web |title=Poll Tax Receipts |url=https://www.daileyint.com/mytimes/lkback3.htm |website=My Times with the Sisters |access-date=10 March 2020}}</ref> {{USDCY|3|1865}} || 1865<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|470}} || 1890<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|470}}

| Minnesota || $1.00 {{USDCY|1|1863}} || 1863 || ?

| Mississippi || $2.00 {{USDCY|2|1890}} || 1890<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}} || 1966<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Rule State Poll Tax Is Unconstitutional |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62636893/hattiesburg-american/ |access-date=5 November 2020 |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=8 April 1966 |newspaper=[[Hattiesburg American|The Hattiesburg American]] |location=Hattiesburg, Mississippi |page=1 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

| Oklahoma|| $2.00 {{USDCY|2|1907}} || 1907 || 1986<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ballotpedia.org/Oklahoma_Repeal_Poll_Tax,_State_Question_590_(1986)|title=Oklahoma Repeal Poll Tax, State Question 590 (1986)}}</ref>

| Rhode Island || ?$1.00 || 1865<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|470}} || 1890<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|470}}?

| South Carolina || $1.00 {{USDCY|1|1895}} || 1895<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}} || 1951<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Poll Tax Dropped as S. C. Voting Requirement |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65208417/the-index-journal/ |access-date=December 13, 2020 |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=February 13, 1951 |newspaper=The Index-Journal |location=Greenwood, South Carolina |page=1 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

| Tennessee || $1.00 {{USDCY|1|1870}} || 1870<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}} {{#tag:ref|The State Constitution established a poll tax in 1870, but it remained unimplemented until 1890 when the legislature activated it.<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lester |first1=Connie L. |title=Disfranchising Laws |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/disfranchising-laws/ |website=[[Tennessee Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Tennessee Historical Society]] |access-date=15 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125024813/https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/disfranchising-laws/ |archive-date=25 November 2020 |location=Nashville, Tennessee |date=2002 |url-status=live}}</ref>|group="Notes"}}|| 1953<ref name=jstor3069935 />

| Texas || $1.50- {{USDCY|1.50|1902}} to 1.75<ref name="Alexander, et al. 2015">{{cite web |last1=Alexander |first1=Seth |last2=Blentlinger |first2=Kaitlyn |last3=Hagemann |first3=Amber |last4=Bean |first4=Nathan |title=1963, 1966: Campaigns to Repeal Texas Poll Taxes |url=https://southtexasrabblerousers.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/19631966-campaigns-to-repeal-texas-poll-taxes/ |website=South Texas Rabble Rousers History Project |access-date=31 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160606012957/https://southtexasrabblerousers.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/19631966-campaigns-to-repeal-texas-poll-taxes/ |archive-date=6 June 2016 |location=Corpus Christi, Texas |date=29 April 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> {{USDCY|1.75|1902}}|| 1902<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}} || 1966<ref name="Alexander, et al. 2015"/>

| Virginia || $165.5000 in 2021 || 1902<ref name="Williams 1952" />{{Rp|471}} {{USDCY|1.50|1902}} || 1966<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=High Court Kills Virginia's Poll Tax in 6-to-3 Decision (pt. 1) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62831282/the-danville-register/ |access-date=8 November 2020 |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=25 March 1966 |newspaper=[[The Danville Register]] |location=Danville, Virginia |page=1 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |ref=none |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Court (pt. 2) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62831461/the-danville-register/ |access-date=8 November 2020 |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=25 March 1966 |newspaper=[[The Danville Register]] |location=Danville, Virginia |page=2 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

=='''Further reading=='''

*{{cite journal |last1=Wechsler |first1=Herbert |date=April 1954 |title=The Political Safeguards of Federalism: The Role of the States in the Composition and Selection of the National Government |journal=Columbia Law Review |volume=54 |issue=4 |pages=543–60543–560 |jstor=1119547 |doi=10.2307/1119547 }}