Race Distinctions in American LawStephenson, Gilbert Thomas
History
Race Distinctions in American Law
Stephenson, Gilbert Thomas
African Americans -- Politics and government; Law -- United States -- History; United States -- Race relations
Certain classes of persons are excluded from the franchise because they
are considered incapable or unfit to take a hand in governmental
matters. The classes excluded are practically the same in all the
States, and there is slight evidence of any race distinction in such
cases. The following States do not allow paupers to vote: Delaware,
Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South
Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Other States, including
Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, exclude the
inmates of public institutions of charity, Louisiana and Oklahoma making
an exception of Soldiers’ Homes. Practically all the States exclude
idiots and insane persons from the suffrage. Other classes, though not
excluded from the suffrage, are not allowed to get the required
residence to become electors. Thus, in a number of States, students in
schools, unless self-supporting, do not get the required residence by
living at the school. In a great majority of the States, soldiers and
sailors in service do not gain an electoral residence in a State,
county, or precinct by being stationed therein. California, Idaho,
Nevada, and Oregon exclude all but American-born Chinese. Where the
Chinese, because of the Federal naturalization laws, are incapable of
becoming citizens, they cannot be electors, because all the States
require the electors to be either citizens or persons who have formally
declared their intention to become citizens. Idaho, Maine, Michigan,
Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington, and
Wisconsin exclude tribal Indians, or, what is perhaps the same, Indians
not taxed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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