1946 Alabama Amendment 4, also known as the Boswell Amendment, was an amendment to the Alabama Constitution that appeared on the general election ballot on November 5, 1946, in Alabama. First proposed by E. C. "Bud" Boswell, state representative from Geneva County, in 1945, the amendment as it passed required residents who desired to vote to be able to "explain and understand" any part of the U.S. Constitution, and repealed a provision that allowed any resident with $300.00 of taxable property to vote regardless of their literacy.[1] This amendment was proposed after the United States Supreme Court ruled against Texas's white primary in 1944's Smith v. Allwright, in order to keep Black Americans from registering to vote, with Boswell stating the amendment's purpose was to "maintain white supremacy".[2] The amendment passed with 53.71% of the popular vote.
State representative from Geneva County E. C. "Bud" Boswell was the namesake of and introduced the constitutional amendment.
On April 3, 1944, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 8–1 against Texas's white primary in the case Smith v. Allwright. President pro tempore of the Alabama Senate James A. Simpson described the ruling as "the gravest threat to white supremacy since Reconstruction".[3] Chair of the State Democratic Executive Committee Gessner T. McCorvey pledged to "maintain white supremacy in Alabama" and to "conduct a white primary in May and we will find a way to continue our way of allowing the white people of Alabama in their own way — Somehow."[4] The 1945 Alabama legislative session began in May, and McCorvey sent an open letter to state legislators, urging them to keep the poll tax and to further restrict voter registration.[5]
In June of the 1945 legislative session, state representative E. C. "Bud" Boswell from Geneva County proposed an amendment, dubbed the Boswell Amendment, that would have restricted voter registration. It would repeal a provision that allowed anyone regardless of their literacy to register to vote provided they had $300.00 in taxable property. That figure was set by the 1901 Alabama Constitution, and by 1945 could be easily satisfied, as according to McCorvey, "every Tom, Dick and Harry has an automobile and this safeguard is no longer effective."[5] It would also require voter registrants to be able read and write any part of the United States Constitution, and to "understand such article" to the satisfaction of the county board of registrars. The clause requiring registrants to understand the Constitution would have, according to McCorvey, "enable [the county board of registrars] to prevent from registering those elements in our community which have not yet fitted themselves for self-government."[6]
Boswell stated that the purpose of the amendment was to "maintain white supremacy" at state polls in Alabama.[7] The proposal received unanimous support in the Alabama House of Representatives, with eighty representatives voting in favor and zero against. In the Alabama Senate, twenty-seven senators voted in favor, and three senators opposed.[2] The amendment was placed on the November 1946 general election ballot.
"Shall Section 181 of the Constitution of Alabama be amended to read as follows?"
"Section 181. After the first day of January, nineteen hundred and three, the following persons, and no others, who, if their place of residence shall remain unchanged, will have, at the date of the next general election, the qualifications as to residence prescribed in section 178 of this article, shall be qualified to register as electors provided they shall not be disqualified under section 182 of this constitution: those who can read and write, understand and explain any article of the Constitution of the United States in the English language and who are physically unable to work and those who can read and write, understand and explain any article of the Constitution of the United States in the English language and who have worked or been regularly engaged in some lawful employment, business, or occupation, trade, or calling for the greater part of the twelve months next preceding the time they offer to register, including those who are unable to read and write if such inability is due solely to physical disability; provided, however, no persons shall be entitled to register as electors except those who are of good character and who understand the duties and obligations of good citizenship under a republican form of government."
The referendum passed by 12,320 votes, or 7.42 percent. Turnout for the 1946 general election was 11 percent of the voting-age population, and 35 percent of registered voters.[22]
Proposed Amendment No. 4
Choice
Votes
%
Yes
89,163
53.71
No
76,843
46.29
Total votes
166,006
100.00
By county
Black Belt counties voted overwhelmingly for the amendment, with the industrial Jefferson County narrowly voting in favor. Urban counties Mobile and Montgomery voted against the amendment, as well as much of North Alabama.[23] The cities of Huntsville, Anniston, and Gadsden also opposed the measure.[24]
The proposal received unanimous support in the Alabama House of Representatives, with eighty representatives voting in favor and zero against. In the Alabama Senate, twenty-seven senators voted in favor, and three senators opposed.[2]
Attempts to nullify the amendment started soon after its enactment, with E. D. Nixon, president of the Montgomery, Alabama branch of the NAACP announcing a plan of "an all out attack on the amendment" in October 1947.[27] Ten Black Americans from Mobile County, Alabama made a legal complaint against the law, claiming it discriminated against them based on their race. The three members of the county's board of registrars were the case's defendants, and a federal tribunal heard their case in December 1948. The tribunal, which had also refused to dismiss a similar case from Birmingham, was made up of judges Leon Clarence McCord, John McDuffie, and Clarence H. Mullins.[28] The three judges unanimously chose to invalidate the Boswell Amendment on January 7, 1949, on the grounds that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[29]
The decision led to a surge in Black voter registration in Mobile County. By January 19, less than two weeks after the decision, approximately four hundred Blacks registered to vote, bringing the county total to around 1,300. Only 104 Blacks successfully registered to vote in the fourteen months preceding the verdict.[30] In March of that year, Attorney General of AlabamaAlbert A. Carmichael, on behalf of the Mobile County board, appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court.[26] On March 28, 1949, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling in an unsigned opinion. Only Justice Stanley Forman Reed dissented, not on the decision itself, but on the fact that the Supreme Court did not hear any arguments before issuing its ruling.[31]
Substitute laws
1951 Alabama Amendment 5 results by county:
For (60,357 votes, 50.15%)
50–60%
60–70%
70–80%
80–90%
90–100%
Against (59,988 votes, 49.85%)
50–60%
60–70%
70–80%
During the 1949 legislative session, the Alabama Legislature attempted to create a new amendment which would have similarly stifled votes, resulting in a bill that passed the Alabama House of Representatives. On the last day of the session, state senators Rankin Fite, Guy Hardwick, Broughton Lamberth, Joseph N. Langan, C. B. Harvey, and Fuller Kimbrell, who were allied with Governor Jim Folsom, led a 23-hour filibuster and prevented its passage.[32] The proposed amendment would have required prospective voters to have "good moral character," to "embrace the duties and responsibilities of citizenship," be able to read or write any section of the Constitution, "satisfactorily answer a questionnaire prepared by the State Supreme Court," and must take an anti-Communist oath. It would give county boards of registrars broad powers to determine if people met these requirements. In the 1950 special session, the bill passed the Alabama Senate, but died in the House after it failed to get the three-fifths supermajority vote required to pass a constitutional amendment.[33][34]
During the 1951 legislative session, the bill finally passed through both houses and was scheduled to be voted on December 11, 1951 as Proposed Amendment No. 5. Opponents argued that the new law would have achieved the same effects of the Boswell Amendment.[35] There was not much campaigning on the proposal, as the main focus of the December election was a $25 million road bond amendment, a total of 24 amendments were up to public approval.[36] The new amendment passed with an even narrower margin than the original amendment, with 60,357 Alabamians voting in favor of the amendment and 59,988 against.[37] 45,661 fewer Alabamians voted on the measure compared to the Boswell Amendment. Voter intimidation continued to plague the state, and the new amendment stood in place until the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
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