Nixon v. Herndon

273 U.S. 536 (1927), argued 4 Jan. 1927, decided 7 Mar. 1927 by vote of 9 to 0, Holmes for the Court. The collapse of the Republican Party in the South after Reconstruction, and then, in 1896, of the Populist Party, led to one‐party government by the Democratic Party in the region. This cut off Southern blacks from the one election that counted: the Democratic primary. In the 1920s, Texas blacks sought to register and vote as Democrats. Texas countered with a law barring blacks from voting in the Democratic primary. Dr. L. A. Nixon, a black man from El Paso, attacked the law as a violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Though both sides had primarily argued the Fifteenth Amendment, the Court found it unnecessary to consider that issue because it found the Texas law a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Whether, in fact, the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment is a harder question than one might have guessed from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's brisk, epigrammatic opinion. None of the Fourteenth Amendment's sponsors thought it protected the right to vote; neither had the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875).

Nixon did not end the blacks' exclusion but merely induced Texas to shift that task to the Democratic Party. Only in Smith v. Allwright (1944) did the Court rely on the Fifteenth Amendment to outlaw white primaries altogether and finally permit the integration of blacks into Southern politics.

— Ward E.Y. Elliott

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1927

After the Civil War, Southern states sought by various means to evade the requirements of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed African Americans the right to vote. One common device was to exclude African Americans from the Democratic Party primary elections on the grounds that the primary was a party and hence a private affair. In the one-party South, this was tantamount to exclusion from the election itself. In Nixon v. Herndon, which had come to the Supreme Court on a writ of error, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., ruled that the exclusion of African Americans from party primaries violated not only the Fifteenth but also the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbade states to deprive citizens of their rights without "due process of law." Holmes's opinion, handed down on March 7, 1927, is reprinted here in part.

This is an action against the judges of elections for refusing to permit the plaintiff to vote at a primary election in Texas. It lays the damages at $5,000. The petition alleges that the plaintiff is a Negro, a citizen of the United States and of Texas and a resident of El Paso, and in every way qualified to vote, as set forth in detail, except that the statute to be mentioned interferes with his right; that on July 26, 1924, a primary election was held at El Paso for the nomination of candidates for a senator and representatives in Congress and state and other offices, upon the Democratic ticket; that the plaintiff, being a member of the Democratic Party, sought to vote but was denied the right by defendants; that the denial was based upon a statute of Texas enacted in May 1923, and designated Article 3039a, by the words of which "in no event shall a Negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic Party primary election held in the state of Texas," etc., and that this statute is contrary to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

The defendants moved to dismiss upon the ground that the subject matter of the suit was political and not within the jurisdiction of the court and that no violation of the amendments was shown. The suit was dismissed, and a writ of error was taken directly to this court. Here no argument was made on behalf of the defendants, but a brief was allowed to be filed by the attorney general of the state.

The objection that the subject matter of the suit is political is little more than a play upon words. Of course, the petition concerns political action, but it alleges and seeks to recover for private damage. That private damage may be caused by such political action and may be recovered for in a suit at law hardly has been doubted for over 200 years. ...

If the defendants' conduct was a wrong to the plaintiff, the same reasons that allow a recovery for denying the plaintiff a vote at a final election allow it for denying a vote at the primary election that may determine the final result.

The important question is whether the statute can be sustained. But although we state it as a question, the answer does not seem to us open to a doubt. We find it unnecessary to consider the Fifteenth Amendment because it seems to us hard to imagine a more direct and obvious infringement of the Fourteenth. That amendment, while it applies to all, was passed, as we know, with a special intent to protect the blacks from discrimination against them. (Slaughter House Cases. ...) That amendment

not only gave citizenship and the privileges of citizenship to persons of color, but it denied to any state the power to withhold from them the equal protection of the laws. ... What is this but declaring that the law in the states shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the states, and, in regard to the colored race, for whose protection the amendment was primarily designed, that no discrimination shall be made against them by law because of their color? ...

The statute of Texas in the teeth of the prohibitions referred to assumes to forbid Negroes to take part in a primary election, the importance of which we have indicated, discriminating against them by the distinction of color alone. States may do a good deal of classifying that it is difficult to believe rational, but there are limits, and it is too clear for extended argument that color cannot be made the basis of a statutory classification affecting the right set up in this case.

Judgment reversed.

Nixon v. Herndon
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 4, 1927 Decided March 7, 1927
Full case name	L.A. Nixon v. C.C. Herndon and another, Judges of Elections
Citations	273 U.S. 536 (more) 47 S.Ct. 446, 71 L.Ed. 759
Prior history	Error to the District Court of the United States for Western District of Texas
Holding
A Texas law prohibiting blacks from voting in the Texas Democratic Party primary violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice William H. Taft Associate Justices Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. · Willis Van Devanter James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis George Sutherland · Pierce Butler Edward T. Sandford · Harlan F. Stone
Case opinions
Majority	Holmes, joined by Taft, Van Devanter, McReynolds, Brandeis, Sutherland, Butler, Sanford, Stone
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 (1927), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court struck down a Texas law which forbade blacks from voting in the Texas Democratic primary. Because Texas was a one-party state, the Democratic Party primary was the only competitive process and chance to choose among candidates. This was one of four cases brought to challenge the Texas Democratic Party's all-white primary, all of which were supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Contents 1 Fact 2 Issue 3 Ruling 4 Dissent 5 Aftermath 6 References

Fact

Dr. L.A. Nixon, a black physician in El Paso, sought to vote in the Democratic Party primary of 1924 in El Paso, Texas.^[1] The defendants, who were magistrates in charge of elections, prevented him from doing so on the basis of a Texas statute which provided that "in no event shall a negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic party primary election held in the State of Texas." Nixon sought an injunction against the statute in federal district court. The district court dismissed the suit, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court.

Issue

Nixon argued that the statute violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The defendants argued that the Court lacked jurisdiction over the issue, as it was a political question.

Ruling

The unanimous Court, speaking through Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, rejected the argument that the political question doctrine barred the Court from deciding the case. The argument, said the Court, was "little more than a play upon words." While the injury which the plaintiff alleged "involved political action," his suit "allege[d] and s[ought] to recover for private damage."

The Court then turned to the merits of the suit. It stated that it was unnecessary to discuss whether the statute violated the Fifteenth Amendment, "because it seems to us hard to imagine a more direct and obvious infringement of the Fourteenth." The Court continued:

“

The [Fourteenth Amendment] ... was passed, as we know, with a special intent to protect the blacks from discrimination against them. ... The statute of Texas ... assumes to forbid negroes to take part in a primary election the importance of which we have indicated, discriminating against them by the distinction of color alone. States may do a good deal of classifying that it is difficult to believe rational, but there are limits, and it is too clear for extended argument that color cannot be made the basis of a statutory classification affecting the right set up in this case.

”

The Court reversed the district court's dismissal of the suit.

Dissent

None.

Aftermath

Texas quickly enacted a new provision to continue restrictions on voter participation, granting authority to political parties to determine who should vote in their primaries. Within four months the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party passed a resolution that "all white Democrats ... and none other" be allowed to participate in the approaching primary of 1927.^[2]

Five years later, Dr. Nixon reappeared before the Supreme Court in another suit against the all-white primary. See Nixon v. Condon (1932).

References

1. ^ Jim Crow Supreme Court Cases: Texas, accessed 21 Mar 2008
2. ^ "Nixon v. Condon. Disfranchisement of the Negro in Texas", The Yale Law Journal, Vol.41, No.8, June 1932, p. 1212, accessed 21 Mar 2008

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