The 24th Amendment- The Final Guarantee for the Citizen’s Right to Vote

“We do not have a government by the majority.  We have government by the majority who participate.”

Thomas Jefferson

For those seeking to determine the course of elections throughout history, this has been a critical fact to understand.  As a democratic republic, the USA holds elections to determine its leaders.  At risk of sounding repetitive, this means that it is the votes that determine who win the elections. 

While this may seem obvious, there is a critical point here: for a vote to be cast, that individual must participate.  The overwhelming majority of the nation could be on your side, but if they do not participate in the political process, then their opinion is meaningless.

Politicians have understood that ever since elections first existed.  And unfortunately, many politicians try and have tried to keep some people who wouldn’t support them from voting.  This has taken many different forms. 

In ancient Rome, only the wealthy elites could vote.  Thus, any of those who were not in that elite class were not allowed a say in their government. 

In US history, slaves and women were not allowed to vote.  Black people were also not allowed to vote for much of US history, even after slavery ended. Eventually, those laws were struck down. 

In all these instances, politicians, and likely the majority of citizens at the time, feared what would happen if those people were allowed to vote.  Slaves and black people, once freed, would obviously no longer support those who enslaved them.  This would mean that those people would lose much of their power.  And to many, women were viewed as too incompetent to give opinions in politics.

All of the above are instances where people feared what would happen when other’s opinions suddenly had a say in the government.  Eventually, all the above restrictions would be removed. 

But there was still another tactic remaining: a poll tax.  This poll tax required voters to pay a fee in order to cast their vote.  Consequently, those poll tax laws hurt the poor. People eventually realized this, and so the 24^th Amendment was born.

The 24th amendment states:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.”

With this new Amendment, all eligible citizens were finally guaranteed the right to vote because now, not only were race and gender no longer restrictions on voting, but now the poor were guaranteed the right to vote as well.

Thomas Jefferson recognized the importance of people participating in voting.  He recognized that, politically, a person’s opinion didn’t matter if they didn’t vote.  With that understanding, politicians throughout history have attempted to block certain groups from voting through a variety of tactics. 

Despite this, there have been many others throughout US history that have fought to preserve our right to vote through Amendments, including the 24^th.

What can we learn from this?  Knowing this history, we can better understand the weight of importance of voting, something we often take for granted. 

We can further understand that without a vote, we have no say in those who govern us.  As Jefferson said, “We do not have a government by the majority.  We have government by the majority who participate.” 

So, participate! Or you are doing just what those who disagree with you want.