The American Constitutionalist Episode 14 – August 17, 2020

The American Constitutionalist Episode 14 – August 17, 2020The American Constitutionalist Podcast team -  Jeff Tokar, Cliff DeCamp, “Cousin” David Gibbs and Lonny Wilder take on the 15th and 16th Amendments. The 15th amendment to the United States Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.The 16th Amendment to the Constitution allows that the Congress shall have power to lay and  collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.The ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment was the direct consequence of the Court's 1895 decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. holding unconstitutional Congress's attempt of the previous year to tax incomes uniformly throughout the United States.The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, played a central role in building up the powerful American federal government of the twentieth century by making it possible to enact a modern, nationwide income tax. Before long, the income tax would become by far the federal government's largest source of revenue.