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Should Voters Be Required to Understand English?

After the Civil War, four million people of African-American descent became free residents of the U.S. Since they were born in the U.S., they were citizens and were allowed to vote in local, state, and federal elections.

But those who had owned slaves did not want former slaves to rise up against them and become members of Congress and officials in statehouses. And since slaves had been systematically denied the opportunity to read and write, they were given improper, unconstitutional tests at the polling place. For example, they may have been required to recite, word for word, the Gettysburg Address. And oftentimes white voters did not have to pass the tests that were given to blacks.

This practice persisted, unchallenged, for one hundred years, until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished what the […]

 

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