Speech #890087361

The Congress could justifiably base a finding that the poll tax was conceived in discrimination in Ratliffe v. Beale. 74 Miss. 247 (1896). in which the Mississippi supreme court frankly admitted that the poll tax was purposefully dedicated to restricting Negro suffrage. The -Congress could reasonably find that the poll tax is by its very nature discriminatory. For just as literacy tests discriminate against the victims of a segregated educational system. so poll taxes discriminate against the victims of a segregated economic system. I share with Mr. Justice Black the belief that "no right is more precious than the right to vote." and that "other rights are illusory if the right to vote is undermined" Wesberry v.