Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from requiring the payment of a poll tax or any other tax to vote in federal elections. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964. Southern states of the former Confederate States of America adopted poll taxes both in their state laws and in their state constitutions throughout the late-19th and early-20th centuries. This became more widespread as the Democratic Party regained control of most levels of government in the South in the decades after Reconstruction. The purpose of poll taxes was to prevent African Americans and poor whites from voting. Use of the poll tax by states was held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1937 case Breedlove v. Suttles. When the 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964, five states still retained a poll tax: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi...

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