If the “Grandfather Clause” should be declared unconstitutional on the ground just suggested or on any other ground, the next question would be whether that would nullify the other sections of the suffrage laws, such as the educational and property tests. This depends upon whether the different sections of the laws are separable, whether the legislature or the people would have adopted the educational and property tests, etc., if they had thought the “Grandfather Clause” unenforceable.[728] North Carolina prepared for just such a contingency by inserting the following section in its Suffrage Amendment: “That this amendment to the Constitution is presented and adopted as one indivisible plan for the regulation of the suffrage, with the intent and purpose to so connect the different parts, and to make them so dependent upon each other that the whole shall stand or fall together.” MARYLAND AND FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT In the preceding section it has been assumed that the Fifteenth Amendment is an integral part of the Constitution of the United States. Whether or not this assumption is warranted is brought into question by a recent action of the legislature of Maryland. As has been said earlier in this chapter, Maryland has made two unsuccessful attempts to amend its suffrage laws in such a way as would disfranchise a large number of the present Negro voters in that State. The letter of the Constitution of Maryland at present restricts suffrage to _white_ male citizens; but it has been taken for granted that the word “white” became inoperative under the Fifteenth Amendment. Out of the discussion of Negro suffrage in Maryland has arisen the question whether or not the Fifteenth Amendment itself is valid. At the last session of the legislature of that State, that of 1910, the so-called Digges Bills were introduced and passed by both houses. The purpose of these bills was to disfranchise all Negroes who have not owned five hundred dollars’ worth of property for two years before their application for registration, upon which all taxes have been paid during those two years. This disfranchisement applied only to State and municipal elections. The bills failed to become laws only because they were vetoed by the Governor of the State. Upon the failure of the Digges Bills to be passed, a constitutional amendment[729] was drafted and approved by the required three-fifths of all the members of both houses of the legislature, which embodied the same features as the Digges Bills. This amendment is to be voted upon by the people at the general election in November, 1911. This amendment provides for the Australian ballot and for uniform election laws throughout the State. In the event of the amendment being declared unconstitutional, the laws now in force in Maryland are to be revived automatically.