Illiterate people may be Intelligent voters. Yet in our society where newspapers. periodicals. books. and other printed matter canvass and debate campaign issues. a State might conclude that only those who are literate should exercise the franchise * * *. It was said last century in Massachusetts that a literacy test was designed to insure an "independent and intelligent" exercise of the right of suffrage * * *. North Carolina agrees. We do not sit in Judgment on the wisdom of that policy. We cannot say. however. that it is not an allowable one measured by constitutional standards. * * * * * The present requirement. applicable to members of all races. is that the prospective voter "be able to read and write any section of the constitution of North Carolina in the English language." That seems to us to be one fair way of determining whether a person is literate. not a calculated scheme to lay springes for the citizen. Certainly we cannot condemn it on its face as a device unrelated to the desire of North Carolina to raise the standards for people of all races who cast the ballot. That is what the Supreme Court said in sustaining the literacy test which I am asking. by my amendment. to have remain in full force and effect after the passing of the bill and to be administered in an impartial manner regardless of whether the provisions of the bill are administered by State election officials or Federal examiners appointed by the Civil Service Commission at the demand of the Attorney General. I submit that all of the decisions make it manifest that Congress has no authority to nullify or suspend the power of the States to establish and use literacy tests.
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