poll tax definition us history

poll tax definition us history

The Significance of Poll Taxes in U.S. History: A Comprehensive Analysis

1. Introduction to Poll Taxes

Ironically, wealthy taxpayers, who were subject to substantial per capita or head taxes during the 18th and early 19th centuries, played an influential role in poll tax relief during the mid-19th century. They tied their voting tax payments to voting mechanisms that were linked to land productivity and income taxes, such as property-based suffrage requirements and the secret ballot. This paper reviews the historical evidence on these developments and provides a comprehensive statistical composite on the poll tax.

Critics of the poll tax tended to object to a fixed tax burden placed on the poorest people. The middle-income and wealthy individuals found the flat tax relatively trivial regardless of the tax size. And once property requirements related to voting were removed, the opponents of polling taxes were sometimes anti-poll tax for political rather than tax equity reasons.

In colonial and early American history, a poll was a head or an individual person. A head tax was assessed against each person. Originally, these poll taxes were both direct taxes and a part of the land taxes. By the mid-19th century, many states enacted poll tax laws which imposed a fixed and often substantial tax on all adult males, meaning the tax worked as a per capita tax. The poll tax was often levied in connection with the privilege of voting, serving in the militia, and the possession of a dog.

2. Historical Development of Poll Taxes in the United States

The term “poll tax” forms, may be the most neutral way to describe two different taxes by a single label. More of the income of the state treasuries in some years and places was provided by these taxes and other property taxes combined. Clearly, the question of their efficacy as well as the manner in which many political institutions were designed is reasonably important. If these two poll taxes were used as substitutes or additions for other Southern state and local funding sources, it seems reasonable that the link between tax finance and the political activities financed is relevant. Their pejorative name, the “general revenue tax,” is more informative than more “politicized” names.

Poll taxes in the United States typically refer to two taxes. In the pre-“reconstruction” South, two versions of the tax were imposed, although one could say that four different iterations of the tax are relevant to a complete analysis. The term “poll tax” usually refers to one or both of these taxes in the period from the end of reconstruction to about 1937 when they were ruled to be an unconstitutional voting tax for federal elections. Most voters should be aware that these taxes played a substantial economic, social, and political role in developing U.S. history, much more than the simple activities that the namesake suggests. Correlating democracy, voting taxes, and other social, economic, and political activities in a society seems far beyond capturing in a few words. However, economic and historical events are often very difficult to afford confined systems of thought to the observer, so it is not the purpose of this brief camera exposure to undertake any deep historical analysis.

3. Impact of Poll Taxes on Voting Rights and Democracy

Interfering in the process of electing our federal representatives strikes at the heart of the democratic enterprise, as it makes holders of a public trust beholden to the private influence of a powerful party or faction. Legislators bear the responsibility of defending the integrity of their institutions. As the sponsors of the Voting Act of 1870 declared, “the elective franchise is placed on an imperishable basis and is clothed with all the sanctions of a constitutional enactment.” They were wrong. The nearly imperishable basis was the poll tax, as the one device that worked to deny political power to those who were not “one of us.” As a device to raise local revenue, the poll tax surely failed, though, and its impediment to democracy eventually became evident. Once we recognize the flaws of the poll tax for dependency and dependence reasons, the desire for this form of tax and its deep roots become more exaggerated rather than better explained.

4. Abolition of Poll Taxes and their Legacy

The decision meant the repeal of poll taxes in states that still had them. After the 24th Amendment was adopted, 5 more states and part of a 6th repealed their poll tax laws. In 1973, Virginia repealed its state poll tax law, and the Alabama legislature voted to abolish the poll tax as a requirement for voting in state elections.

The presidential commission on registration and voting participation, created through the Civil Rights Act of 1957, recommended in a final report to Congress that Congress eliminate the poll tax as a “requisite” for voting in federal elections. President Lyndon B. Johnson expressed strong support for abolishing the poll tax. The poll tax issue reached the Supreme Court in United States v. State of Texas (1966), in which the Court upheld the certification of the 24th Amendment. The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution removed poll taxes as requirements for voting in federal elections. The explanation in the Court’s opinion stated, “a state law conditioning suffrage on the payment of a fee or tax is, under the circumstances of this case, a denial of equal protection of the law to those citizens.”

Abolishing the Poll Tax