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A grandfather clause (or grandfather policy or grandfathering) is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from the new rule are said to have grandfather rights or acquired rights, or to have been grandfathered in. Frequently, the exemption is ...
The term grandfather clause arose from the fact that the laws tied the then-current generation's voting rights to those of their grandfathers. According to Black's Law Dictionary , some Southern states adopted constitutional provisions exempting from the literacy requirements descendants of those who fought in the army or navy of the United ...
United States (1915), [55] a unanimous Court struck down an Oklahoma grandfather clause that effectively exempted white voters from a literacy test, finding it to be discriminatory. The Court ruled in the related case Myers v. Anderson (1915), that the officials who enforced such a clause were liable for civil damages. [56] [57]
A grandfather clause exempted from the poll tax those entitled to vote on January 1, 1867. [30] The legislature also passed Jim Crow laws establishing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation. The effect in North Carolina was the complete elimination of black voters from voter rolls by 1904.
The poll tax was used together with other devices such as grandfather clauses and the "white primary" designed to exclude blacks, as well as threats and acts of violence. For example, potential voters had to be "assessed" in Arkansas, and blacks were utterly ignored in the assessment.
Anderson, 238 U.S. 368 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held Maryland state officials liable for civil damages for enforcing a grandfather clause. Grandfather clauses exempted voters from requirements such as poll taxes and literacy tests if their grandfathers had been registered voters, and were largely designed to ...
Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statutes that set requirements for voter registration, including poll tax, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and the requirement that only registered voters could serve on juries.
Grandfather clauses were first instituted as a means of allowing whites to vote while simultaneously disenfranchising blacks. [2] The grandfather clause in Guinn v. United States involved requirement that a citizen must pass a literacy test in order to register to vote. At the time, many poor whites in the South were illiterate and would lose ...