Speech #920215959

J.. in Cardona. post. pp. 676677. which would require a State to show a need greater than mere rational policy to justify classifications in this area. No such duallevel test has ever been articulated by this Court. and I do not believe that any such approach is consistent with the purposes of the Equal Protection Clause. with the overwhelming weight of authority. or with wellestablished principles of federalism which underlie the Equal Protection Clause. Thus for me. applying the basic equal protection standard. the issue in this case is whether New York has shown that its Englishlanguage literacy test is reasonably designed to serve a legitimate state interest. I think that it has. In 1959. in Lassiter v. Northampton Election Bd.. supra. this Court dealt with substantially the same question and resolved it unanimously in favor of the legitimacy of a state literacy qualification. There a North Carolina English literacy test was challenged. We held that there was "wide scope" for State qualifications of this sort. 360 U. S.. at 51. Dealing with literacy tests generally. the Court there held: "The ability to read and write ... has some relation to standards designed to promote intelligent use of the ballot .... Literacy and intelligence are obviously not synonymous. 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. Stone v. Smith. 159 Mass. 413414. 34 N.