by Paul Goldman
Does Bacon’s Rebellion recognize the validity of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? I’m not sure and here’s why.
Had Dick Hall-Sizemore written his response to Jon Baliles’ column, “Bonding With (or Against) the People,” prior to the Civil War, he would have caught Jon with his constitutional pants down. Indeed, the Sizemore doctrine regarding the various rights of cities and counties to issue bonds did have sway among the leaders of Virginia until the famed 1966 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections poll tax decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. At long last the leaders of Virginia had to admit the entire 14th amendment was the law of the land. They had reluctantly accepted a few years before that the due process provision gave Virginia voters first amendment protection. But Harper demanded state government accept the equal protection clause as well.
A bitter blow no doubt — 100 years after the lost cause lost — to lose again to a court dominated by liberals. To be sure, there were three dissenters who said Virginia should be allowed to promote monetary fees as a discrimination against equal voting rights. The poll tax at issue was just $1.50, a small price to pay said Virginia leaders for the right to vote. If someone couldn’t afford $1.50, then the segregationists said that person was not the kind of individual you want voting on important issues.
With this background, it will hopefully be easier to understand my puzzlement as to how Mr. Sizemore could write an article justifying a clear discrimination in the right to vote based only on the state constitution, while never mentioning the federal constitution.
His article is exceptionally well written and researched for a complicated issue. I learned a lot of historical stuff. But again: you can’t write an article about the right to vote in America without discussing the two main provisions of the 14th amendment and how they apply to the state of Virginia. (more…)
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
