South Carolina African Americans – Literacy Tests to Eliminate Black Voters

• Those registered prior to January 1, 1898 had to be able to read any section of the Constitution submitted to them by the registration officer or understand and explain the provision when it was read to them by the official.

• Those registering after January 1, 1898 had to be able to read and write any section of the constitution submitted to them or show that he owned and had paid taxes during the previous year on property in the state valued at $300 or more.

Some have said there is fraud in this understanding clause. Some poisons in small doses are very salutary and valuable medicines. If you put it in here that a man must understand, and you vest the right to judge whether he understands in an officer, it is a constitutional act. That officer is responsible to his conscience and his God, he is responsible to nobody else. There is no particle of fraud or illegality in it. It is just simply showing partiality, perhaps, discriminating.