EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS 6 1 



(a) Persons physically unable to read; 



(b) Voters in 1889. 



Constitution of 1889, Art. 6, § 9. 

 A proposed constitutional amendment concerning the suffrage was 

 rejected in Maryland November 7, 1905. It prescribed the following 

 qualifications for voters: 



Maryland : 



Must read constitution or give reasonable explanation, or understand same 

 when read to him and give reasonable explanation. Following 

 classes exempt: 



(a) Voters January i, 1869; 



(b) Lineal male descendants of such voters 21 years of age in 1906. 



Laws of Maryland, 1904, Chapter 96. 



The constitution of North Dakota says that the legislature shall 

 require an educational qualification of voters, but as yet the legislature 

 has not seen fit to comply with this provision of the constitution. 



In the above requirements, the curious proviso which allows the 

 suffrage without restriction to the lineal male descendants of persons 

 quahfied to vote during the years immediately following the Civil War 

 is popularly known as the " grandfather clause." It prevails in Louisi- 

 ana, North Carohna and Virginia. It is calculated to exempt the 

 white voters from educational and other restrictions which effectively 

 bar the negroes. 



From the above compilation it appears that real educational quali- 

 fications for voters exist only in Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, 

 New Hampshire, Connecticut, California, Washington and Wyoming. 

 In Delaware, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, practically every voter 

 must read English. In the other states having educational qualifica- 

 tions, voters at the time the requirement was adopted have been ex- 

 empted from its provisions. This was the case with voters in Cali- 

 fornia, Maine, New Hampshire and Wyoming in 1894, 1893, 1904 and 

 1889 respectively. Massachusetts also exempted voters in 1857, the 

 year the amendment was adopted, but few of such voters are now living. 



The ability to read English as a qualification for voters is a recent 

 development in United States constitutional law. Notwithstanding 



