"Serious Obstacles to Suffrage Amendment in Existing State Laws"
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Title
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"Serious Obstacles to Suffrage Amendment in Existing State Laws"
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Description
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Borden Burr States That a Constitutional Convention Is Necessary to Safeguard Anglo-Saxon Supremacy. Burr Favors Woman's Suffrage But Not Susan B. Anthony Amendment
Ratification of the woman suffrage amendment to the state constitution would bring about serious difficulties and embarrassments, and it will be necessary to call a constitutional convention to be convened at the earliest time possible in order to write equal suffrage in the state constitution with proper safeguards for these privileges, is the opinion expressed by Borden Burr, before leaving for Montgomery late yesterday afternoon.
He states that it pepears [sic] to him that under the present constitution not only is no machinery provided for the votes of women, but should it be attempted there would be some danger of upsetting the present Anglo-Saxon supremacy and it would require a change, in our status which would make a new consideration by the United States supreme court of the suffrage laws almost inevitable.
Mr Burr says that he believes a stumbling block will have to be overcome in regards to registration, paying of poll tax, property qualifications and upon educational qualifications which would make a small percentage of the women of the state eligible for the ballot.
DECISIONS OF COURT
Commenting upon the decisions of the federal supreme court, he said that the adoption of the suffrage amendment would be self=executing, and without legislative action would strike from the state constitution the word "Male" wherever it appears therein affecting the right of suffrage. The word "male" would disappear in Sections 177 and 180, and all state laws would be repealed so far as they discriminated in favor of the male. The constitution also provides the machinery for the voting qualifications and Section 180 requires, under the grandfather clause, that for a permanent lifetime registration prior to December 20, 1902.
He stated that registration is a fact the suffrage amendment will not register the women voters. Upon the ratification by a sufficient number of states women will be required to register, and Alabama's constitution being different from most states, lays down the regulations for the registration of voters, therefore, women voters who were not registered prior to 1902 cannot register under Section 180, and will have to register under Section 181 of the constitution, according to Mr. Burr.
QUALIFICATION OF VOTERS
Section 181 authorizes that those who can read and write any article of the federal constitution in English, and who are physically unable to work, and those who can read and write any article in the constitution in the English language and who have been at work or have been regularly engaged in some lawful employment for the greater part of the 12 months preceding the time they offer to register. Second, the owner in good faith in his own right, or the husband of a woman who is the owner in good faith in her own right of 40 acres of land situated in the state, upon which they reside: or the assessed owner of $300 worth of personal property, provided the taxes are paid.
This, he construes, will eliminate thousands of the best white women of state who could qualify under Section 181, and he says: "If we disfranchise white women who neither have property qualifications, nor the educational qualifications, and enchanchise [sic] their more fortunate, but no better sisters, and at the same time continue the suffrage of their uneducated and non-property holding husbands, we have made a triple breach of justice."
POLL TAX QUESTION
The poll tax question comes in, according to Mr. Burr, in that as a prerequisite for voting, requires the payment cumulatively of all poll taxes since 1901, and states further this is not a qualification with which the suffrage amendment has any concern, or over which it would have any control, and he says the state is confronted with the fact that the constitution only imposes the payment of poll tax upon male citizens and the suffrage amendment would not change this clause.
"These considerations, and others, lead me to believe that an early constitutional convention is an absolute necessity for the state of Alabama," said Mr. Burr. "Such a convention , when it meets, is going to have, on account of the new situation, a great many more difficulties to contend with in reference to the negro vote than did the convention of 1901. One can readily see that the present war qualifications, which do not consider the world war, in which negroes in Alabama to the extent of some 40,000 participated, will have a difficult time in running the gauntlet of the constitutional objections on account of the fifteenth amendment.
"Understand that I favor woman suffrage in Alabama and am willing to lend my best efforts both to secure a constitutional convention, and when one is called to see that woman suffrage, with proper safeguards, is written therein. I am opposed to the Anthony amendment, but I want to see my own state prepare its own way in accordance with the usual conditions which seurround [sic] the south before it blindly takes chances on all the evils which might follow from too hasty action."
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Date
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July 8, 1919
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