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I would guess that poll taxes made more sense before the government adopted income taxes but because poll taxes could be abused (and were being abused) the nation used the 24th Amendment to end the practice of poll taxes and to make failure to pay taxes insufficient reason to deny the right to vote.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Notice that this is the fourth amendment that was at least partially aimed at leveling the field for civic participation of minorities (specifically blacks). Imagine what Congress could have done with “Comprehensive Slavery Reform” rather than the iterative approach we took – we’d probably be even worse off than we are now.
4 replies on “Constitutional Amendment 24”
It is interesting to note this amendment was only passed back in 1964 so we are not that far removed from the issues that drove the amendment into existence. It is interesting to consider that the Constitution needed to be amended related to this specific type of abuse of the poll tax to protect against disenfranchisement. In effect, this was an amendment to protect against morally wrong behaviors by some citizens to restrict suffrage.
I’m not sure we still are not in the process of some form of “Comprehensive Slavery Reform” as there still seems to be occasional suggestions to provide reparations related to slavery.
It’s true that we are not far removed from the issues that drove this amendment. We are still dealing with a related issue regarding what identification is requisite to a trustworthy election.
As for “Comprehensive Slavery Reform” – what I meant when I threw it out there was one massive omnibus piece of legislation to conquer the whole problem – like we’re trying to do with health care – as opposed to the piecemeal approach of one small bill or amendment at a time to chip away at the problem. If what you mean is a comprehensive solution – the piecemeal approach gets us there eventually (which is fine) but I doubt that we will ever stoop to reparations (which would have made sense back in the 19th century, but no longer make sense 3 or more generations later).
I understood your point on reform!! I believe that if we had the current Congresssional gang in place back in 1865, they would’ve mucked it up beyond all recognition of the original idea. I agree that, generally, a comprehensive, omnibus bill will create more problems than it solves. If only they could think and work through issues like you have to do in a business or even a scientific environment. Identify problems, test the hypothesis of what is causing it, step back and evaluate, remove as many variables as possible and truly solve the problem. But that would require an ability to think and evaluate rather than speak rhetoric and scare others and it would keep your name off of legislation, statues, elementary schools and such a representative would no longer be valuable for the 10-second spot each night on CNN.
Reparations is, in my opinion, a completely self-serving, money making scheme for those who propose it, yet occasionally, I still hear someone talking about it.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a congressman who was more worried about doing his job than making the nightly news?