In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in Harper v.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act had provisions to protect voter registration and access to elections, with federal enforcement and supervision where necessary. Ratification in 1964 of the prohibited the use of poll taxes in federal elections, but some states continued to use them in state elections. As decades passed, Southern states tended to expand the franchise for poor whites, but most blacks could not vote until after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Without the grandfather clauses, tens of thousands of poor Southern whites were disenfranchised in the early 20th century. United States (1915), states were forced to stop using the grandfather clauses to provide exemption to literacy tests. Supreme Court found such provisions unconstitutional in Guinn v. 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 States or of the Confederate States during a time of war.Īfter the U.S. The term grandfather clause arose from the fact that the laws tied the then-current generation's voting rights to those of their grandfathers. An exemption to such requirements was made for all persons allowed to vote before the American Civil War, and any of their descendants. Examples included imposition of poll taxes and residency and literacy tests. White Democrats developed statutes and passed new constitutions creating restrictive voter registration rules.
To prevent such coalitions in the future, the Democrats wanted to exclude freedmen and other blacks from voting in some states they also restricted poor whites to avoid biracial coalitions. Nonetheless, a coalition of Populists and Republicans in fusion tickets in the 1880s and 1890s gained some seats and won some governor positions. Paramilitary groups such as the White League, Red Shirts, and rifle clubs had intimidated blacks or barred them from the polls in numerous elections before what they called the Redemption (restoration of white supremacy).
Racial restrictions on voting in place before 1870 were nullified by the Fifteenth Amendment.Īfter Democrats took control of state legislatures again before and after the Compromise of 1877, they began to work to restrict the ability of blacks to vote. They restricted voter registration, effectively preventing African Americans from voting. The original grandfather clauses were contained in new state constitutions and Jim Crow laws passed between 18 by white-dominated state legislatures including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Although these original grandfather clauses were eventually ruled unconstitutional, the terms grandfather clause and grandfather have been adapted to other uses. The intent and effect of such rules was to prevent African-American former slaves and their descendants from voting, but without denying poor and illiterate whites the right to vote. States in some cases exempted those whose ancestors ( grandfathers) had the right to vote before the American Civil War, or as of a particular date, from such requirements. Southern states, which created new requirements for literacy tests, payment of poll taxes, and/or residency and property restrictions to register to vote. The term originated in late nineteenth-century legislation and constitutional amendments passed by a number of U.S. This extends the idea of a rule not being retroactively applied.
Often, such a provision is used as a compromise or out of practicality, to allow new rules to be enacted without upsetting a well-established logistical or political situation. For example, a grandfathered power plant might be exempt from new, more restrictive pollution laws, but the exception may be revoked and the new rules would apply if the plant were expanded. Frequently, the exemption is limited it may extend for a set time, or it may be lost under certain circumstances. Those exempt from the new rule are said to have grandfather rights or acquired rights, or to have been grandfathered in.
For the TV series, see Grandfathered (TV series).Ī grandfather clause (or grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in) 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.