Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 20240622 : vimarsana.co

About how the end of the civil war led to that amendment and eventually the 15th amendment that gave africanamerican males the right to vote. The africanamerican civil war and museum hosted this 35 minute event. Frank my name is frank smith and i am the director of the museum. For this purpose this weekend i am the host of the grand review committee, welcoming thousands of marchers and reenactors and descendents to washington, d. C. To talk about the close of the american civil war. At the end of the war, the government celebrated by bringing 200,000 soldiers to washington, d. C. To acknowledge the fact that after four years of a bloody war, it was finally over, the nation had been saved as one nation under god, and the legacy of slavery had ended forever because the union now includes africanamerican soldiers who helped win this war and change the direction of this nation. This afternoon at the museum we are going to have a Panel Discussion including three knowledgeable, informed persons who will talk about one of the legacies of the africanamerican civil war. That is the Voting Rights legacy of the africanamerican civil war. The 14th amendment makes africanamericans citizens of the United States and also hand some a provision about Voting Rights. The 15th amendment takes it a little bit further. We may get into the 15th amendment. I come at this personally because in 1962, i was a civil rights worker with the student nonviolent coordinating committee. I grew up in mississippi as one of about 200 fulltime organizers. I met a man who was a descendent you told me a great story about his grandfather being a soldier in the civil war, fought for his freedom and came home and had a accumulated a couple Hundred Acres of land. It was a great story except for the fact that it did not sound true given the fact the black people could not vote when i got there and had no Voting Rights. You might say we won the rights, lost them and had to win them all over again. By contact with that man got me started. Today, welcome to washington d. C. The thousands of people who will celebrate. I have a group of panelists here today who are going to talk about this, the know more about this because they have written and studied. The first speaker is richard kreitner, special assistant to the nation magazine. They have an article in their, the may issue. The Current Issue is on the stands. He has also contributed to reviewing essays on the american war, vietnam, the new deal, the chelsea hotel, the centennial anthology and other things. He wrote a piece that i read on the 14th amendment. He will talk about his piece and other aspects of the 14th amendment that are not very popular today because it does not get exercised very much. Following richards presentation we will hear from asa gordon who is the head of the United States colored troops descendents association. He also has his own website and his own publication. He has litigated in this area. He has been in the courtroom and other places litigating around the 14th amendment. We are going to start with richard kreitner. Welcome to our program at the africanamerican civil war museum. Lets start off. Give us some background on the 14th amendment and tell us what your article is about. Richard thanks for having me. I am the special assistant to the publisher of nation and the archivist. I was reading an anniversary issue of the magazine, the history written for the 100th edition, made a bleak reference to this provision of the 14th amendment that said any states with disenfranchised voters for any reason will have their congressional representation reduced in proportion to the number that are disenfranchised. That is for any reason. If a state disenfranchised its voters with red hair, they will lose that percentage of numbers that go into a portion of representatives. My ears perked up as soon as i read that because it struck me as almost impossible that there could be such a radical provision in the constitution i had never heard of that would be so applicable today. I started doing some research, and the story i discovered, as asa was showing earlier in his presentation today, the constitution had a 3 5 clause that said while no black people could vote anywhere in the United States, their numbers would count for 3 5 of the population for purposes of representation. They were called slave seats. And so, the complicated story was at the end of the civil war, because there were no more slaves, the entire black population of the United States would count for 5 5 for purposes of representation even though zero could vote. The south would reenter the union with more powers than they had left it with, and would be able to reinstitute slavery in fact if not in name. And so, the republicans in congress, the radical republicans, decided to correct this via legislation, and the first effort to do so would have changed the constitution so that the basis of representation was not the number of persons as it was in the original 3 5 clause but voters. The problem was let even in the north, most blacks could not vote until the 15th amendment. That wouldve jeopardized the norths power and weakened it in relation to the south. The next solution was to say if you disenfranchised voters on the basis of race or color, then you lose that. It was a direct attempt to fix this problem. The republicans realized, many radical republicans realized that the states could disenfranchise black voters for reasons that did not explicitly have to do with race, as they did for nearly a century afterwards, and achieved that and not come into conflict with that version of the 14th amendment. The final version ended up getting passed. If the right to vote is in any way abridged, they would lose the representation in congress. That has never once been enforced. There have been many attempts to do so. Many would think it was rendered irrelevant or no longer necessary by the passage of the Voting Rights act in 1965. As we see now, the Voting Rights act is not as unassailable as one might have hoped great my my article in the nation was about the idea that we should resurrect section two of the 14th amendment. We could talk more about this. It would not be a total solution. It would not be like passing a Voting Rights Amendment Act or passing a right to vote amendments to the constitution. It would actually force some states to choose between getting rid of these new voter id laws sameday registration laws, new laws that are specifically discriminatory in effect and intent, i would argue, and some judges have ruled. It would force them to choose between those laws and losing a representative in congress, as texas actually would if this were enforced. That is the idea. Frank we are going to let asa do his presentation, then we will mix it up a little bit here. Asa, i know you have been specifically litigating in this area for some time now and you have been going around the country talking about this and making speeches on this. You and i have had numerous discussions about it. Why dont you tell the audience . Asa i would like to read to you from a Supreme Court case that summarizes, that the purpose states versus price it says the court provided a contemporary about the drastic measures that can tell what was going into the enforcement pact, and said the purpose must be viewed against the events and passions of the time. Congress said taking control of the entire government process, it had declared the government and 10 on constructed states to be illegal and had set up federal military administration in their place. Congress refused to seek representatives from these states until they had adopted the constitution. The spirit of the 14th amendment has already been applied. The people who passed the 14th amendment preemptively had to apply the concept of the defranchising unless they granted the franchise to those of african descent. The clerk of the house refused to seek representatives in 1865 from being seated from those states that had denied the franchise. Preemptively, before we had the 14th amendment passed, the concept of denying representation to those who denied the Voting Rights of their constituency had been applied in order to get the 14th amendment passed. They had to do that in order to get those enslaved to vote. They voted under the provisions of a military act before the 15th amendment was passed. African americans were allowed to vote. [indiscernible] the constitution is kind of weird. Rights had to be given the right to vote. I also had a think tank called the Douglas Institute of government. Im also chair of the d. C. College task force. In 2000, i filed a civil action to force the second set of the 14th amendment. Gordon vs. Gore. That was joined gore in his capacity as president of sitting of the senate, from presiding over the counts of the full slate of president ial electors from florida. Florida had disenfranchised numbers of the african community. He was not allowed to count the full state minus those based on the black voting population of florida. That was gordon versus gore. That suit was highlighted in an independent study by the Congressional Research service about suits that were filed. The issue there was standing. The unique argument i was making on standing is that as a member of the district, you allow me to vote for the president but i cannot vote for a representative in senate and congress. So i cannot appeal to my congressman to object. You are the court. You have to step in and ask as my senator to enforce this the court is not prepared to let a pro se litigant prevail on something they could have this much of a change. In 2004 i found, gordon versus biden. They joined the Vice President from presiding over the full count of electors. There are two arguments i have been making. There are five, seven states that award their electors on a winner take all basis that does not have in the Election Court winner take all stature. Georgia, South Carolina, north carolina, and alabama. Winner take all is not in the constitution. The default is not to award. My argument in the court is that in the you do not have a winner take all statute, you must award them in proportion of the popular votes split or you must reduce the representation in proportion to those electors that voters have been denied. When the court does not have an answer, the judge there is one way the judge can get all of trying to address the issue. You have standing. Standing is whatever the judge says it is. That is what the state allows when they dont have an answer. What i have been doing is i have been in these suits that are actually correct, the bad history in litigation under the jurisprudence under the 14th amendment. Lawyers have been making confederate arguments over this issue. As pro se, im given leeway. I have been using my briefs to put in history that lawyers practicing would not put in there. Part of that is the legacy, what i tell the court is, the value of the black vote without the black vote, we may not have had lincoln. We would not have had ulysses grant. Without the black vote, we would not have the former Confederate States would not be a part of the United States today. I have also been asked to put a solution. Two things about a solution to the voter id. Before that, you mentioned that some people think the 15th amendment [indiscernible] that is not true. The 1872 census is he stature than forces the 14th amendment. The 1862 stature is after the passage of the 15th amendment. The code to enforce the 14th amendment was adopted after the 15th amendment passed. You do not adopt a statute to enforce the constitutional provision that has been preempted. Frank that gets us pretty deep in the woods. He and i have had this discussion a number of times. In 1964, i was in mississippi in the civil rights movement. We challenge the democratic party, went to the convention, tried to get the convention to throw out the regular partys seat, duly constituted it. We did not get seated. They pass the 65 Voting Rights act a year later. Saying they should reduce the proportions, the number of blacks who were disenfranchised in the state of mississippi. We got nowhere with that lawsuit either. I wonder if either one of you guys ran into this when you all were litigating. This was a suit filed by the aclu on behalf of the people of mississippi. We not only had a court position, we did similar things in congress, trying to get the congress to refuse to seats delegations that we knew were constituted from people who systematically denied africanamericans the right to vote. Did either one of you all run into this while you were doing your research . Asa it has been long ignored. You are still being ignored. What we are doing here the suit is an embarrassment. It is very powerful and strong in anything you have on the books. The only reason i submit we pass the 1965 Voting Rights act is because we did not have the courage or the guts to enforce the provisions under the constitution. What we need is not a Voting Rights act. What we need is a Voting Rights act to enforce the second provision of the 14th amendment. I think you recall that every party should richard the republicans ideally, but i think that is too optimistic. Any democratic president ial candidate wants to be taken seriously should enforce section two. Frank in plessis versus ferguson, the chief judge wrote that congress intended when it wrote the 14th amendment to establish they use the word absolute among these people who were affected by this by the 14th amendment, they use the word absolute. We are going for my time we were chattel slavery, 3 5 of a person, that the congress intended to establish absolute political equality with the 14th amendment. Then they say you can have political equality, separate but equal society. Everybody focuses on separate but equal. They say the court has intended now, that that provision which required the reduction in the correctional representation, has always run up against another consideration which i want you all to engage on. That is that the south basically said, we would rather be underrepresented in congress that live under what they call black rules. They deliberately disenfranchised these people. Why didnt the country say, you are going to be reduced . One of the purposes we are going to talk about in this whole war was to keep this nation united under one flag. He was trying to keep them united. Lincolns debt at this point. The congressional radical republicans try to keep alive his goal of keeping people in the union, at the same time try to reestablish the rights of africanamericans to vote here. Let me bring this up to speed today. When of the reasons why the course i found the provision of the Voting Rights act, the enforcement was because they said the south went and argued that these draconian measures that are keeping people from voting are not just being passed in georgia, alabama they got voter id laws in pennsylvania. They got some of the most draconian laws in the country in indiana. Unless you make it apply throughout the whole country its not going to apply at all. I want to gauge you on two things. Whether you had seen this provision at all, and i know at least until recently, the body politics was trying to find a way to keep these people in the union on an equal footing, at the same time to guarantee the right to vote for africanamericans. Asa one thing in response to that has been to congress, the Voting Rights act of 2014. It violates this provision. It exempts those voter ids in response to that, we are advocating and saying you want voter id, we want and enforcement act that enforces universal and automatic registration. That would be the taxpayer voter id act. The documentation is good enough to take my money, its good enough to take my vote. Everyone who has filed for income tax is automatically registered to vote. Allstate have your 1040 form. You file a state income. You dont have to go anywhere. You make it a default that everyone who files and income tax is automatically registered to vote. The state has to sent to the voter their registration card. This brings up the question of noncitizen voting. Noncitizens file 1040nr nonresident. You know theres no excuse for the state not to find every taxpayer that is sworn under oath, you dont require a photo id to take my money. Richard i completely agree. I did not even realize you were the same person. I saw you when i was doing the research for my article. Youre kind of creative argument for standing reminded me of a case i saw from the 1940s, which was somebody had been called before the House Unamerican Activities Committee and said, i will not attend, and because this representative and this representative come from states where they should lose, not a legitimate representative. As you said, its a very powerful claws, and creative lawsuits like that should be popping up all across the country. Anyone can do it, as you have. A big date would be 2021 because the apportionment of representatives happens the year after every census. In 2021, people watching on cspan, there should be lawsuits all across the country requesting that the cleric not apportion representatives without taking into account section two. Frank gordon versus the house of representatives was over the 2010 census. This year the copout of the court is, i dont have standing. [inaudible] they dont address that. If a judge does not have an answer, they can order a ruling without an opinion because then you have to suppose i dont really have an argument for this. Some argued that should be unconstitutional. It just says blanket, you dont have standing, but it does not address that. Richard if there were enough lawsuits around the country they would have to come up with something for this. By one argument i mean other than the d. C. Version, but a citizen in a state whose government does not have restrictive voting laws such as new york, where i live, as far as i understand it, can sue saying the overrepresentation of indiana, of texas, a wisconsin a virginia dilutes my vote as a new yorker. Frank for the public, this ide