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 amendment to the Constitution is presented and adopted as one indivisible plan for the regulation of the suffrage, with the intent and purpose to so connect the different parts, and to make them so dependent upon each other that the whole shall stand or fall together."

MARYLAND AND FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT

In the preceding section it has been assumed that the Fifteenth Amendment is an integral part of the Constitution of the United States. Whether or not this assumption is warranted is brought into question by a recent action of the legislature of Maryland.

As has been said earlier in this chapter, Maryland has made two unsuccessful attempts to amend its suffrage laws in such a way as would disfranchise a large number of the present Negro voters in that State. The letter of the Constitution of Maryland at present restricts suffrage to white male citizens; but it has been taken for granted that the word "white" became inoperative under the Fifteenth Amendment.

Out of the discussion of Negro suffrage in Maryland has arisen the question whether or not the Fifteenth Amendment itself is valid. At the last session of the legislature of that State, that of 1910, the so-called Digges Bills were introduced and passed by both houses. The purpose of these bills was to disfranchise all Negroes who have not owned five hundred dollars' worth of property for two years before their application for registration, upon which all taxes have been paid during those two years. This disfranchisement applied only to State and municipal