''Myers v. Anderson'', 238 U.S. 368 (1915), was a
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision that held Maryland state officials liable for civil damages for enforcing a
grandfather clause
A grandfather clause, also known as 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. Those exempt from t ...
. Grandfather clauses exempted voters from requirements such as
poll taxes
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...
and
literacy tests if their grandfathers had been registered voters, and were largely designed to exempt white voters from restrictions intended to disenfranchise former black slaves and their descendants.
Despite striking down the Maryland law as discriminatory, the court noted that economic discrimination in the form of property requirements should be presumed to be "free from constitutional objection."
''Myers'' was a companion case to ''
Guinn v. United States'' (1915),
[.] which struck down an Oklahoma grandfather clause that effectively exempted white voters from a literacy test, finding it to be discriminatory and a violation of the
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
References
External links
*{{caselaw source
, case=''Myers v. Anderson'', {{ussc, 238, 368, 1915, el=no
, courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/98517/charles-e-myers-and-a-claude-kalmey-plffs-in-err-v-john-b-anderson/
, findlaw=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/238/368.html
, googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9379683009642462592
, justia=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/238/368/
, openjurist =https://openjurist.org/238/us/368
, loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep238/usrep238368/usrep238368.pdf
1915 in United States case law
African-American history of Maryland
History of voting rights in the United States
Legal history of Maryland
United States Fifteenth Amendment case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the White Court
Maryland elections