In the county of Montgomery, where there are more than 5000 qualified
Negro electors, only 47 were allowed to register. And in the whole State
of Alabama, with about two hundred thousand qualified Negro electors,
only about two thousand five hundred were allowed to register; while all
the white men in the state who applied—183,234—were given certificates of
qualification for life.
Mr. Knox is also in error when he says that the Negroes of Alabama
disqualify themselves by failing to pay their capitation tax, which is a
prerequisite for voting.
The payment of the poll tax without also being registered does not
give the right to vote in Alabama; and the payment of this tax is not a
prerequisite for registration. The truth is, the boards of registrars
refuse to register qualified Negroes, no matter what their qualification,
or what property they own, or what taxes they have paid, except in such
cases as seem to suit their whims. The qualified Negro thus refused is
wholly remediless.
The Alabama Constitution provides that any person to whom registration
is denied shall have the right of appeal to the Circuit Court. At the
trial the solicitor for the state shall appear and defend against the
petitioner on behalf of the state. The judge shall charge the jury only as
to what constitutes the qualifications to entitle the applicant to become
an elector at the time he applied for registration, and the jury shall
determine the weight and effect of the evidence and return a verdict. From
the judgment rendered an appeal lies to the Supreme Court in favor of the
petitioner.
This law, we submit, is an absolute farce. It provides for an appeal from
a partisan board to a partisan jury, composed exclusively of white men
with the state solicitor, a partisan officer, appearing for the state
against the elector. The hands of the trial judge are tied, so that he
can only charge the jury as to what constitutes qualifications. The jury
are thus made the sole judges of the case, and their decision is final,
because nothing but an issue of fact can arise at the trial. Every lawyer
knows that an appellate court cannot disturb the verdict of a jury on
any disputed issue of fact, and hence on appeal to the Supreme Court the
appeal was dismissed, the Court would avail nothing.
The case of the state vs. Crenshaw, 138 Alabama, 506, from Limestone
county, referred to by Mr. Knox, in no way supports his contention,
and really decides nothing. It has been ascertained that this case was
specially made up to induce Negroes to abandon the Federal Courts and seek
the State Courts. As arranged, the jury in the Circuit Court reversed the
registrars, but on appeal to the Supreme Court the appeal was dismissed,
the Court holding that the Constitution gave the right of appeal only to
the person refused registration and not to the registrars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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