Under authority of R.S. § 2004, as amended by the Civil Rights
Act of 1957, the Attorney General brought this civil action on
behalf of the United States in a Federal District Court to enjoin
certain public officials of the State of Georgia from
discriminating against Negro citizens who desired to register to
vote in elections in Georgia. The District Court dismissed the
complaint on the ground that subsection (c), which authorizes the
Attorney General to bring such an action, is unconstitutional.
Although the complaint involved only official actions, the Court
construed subsection (c) as authorizing suits to enjoin purely
private actions, and held that this went beyond the permissible
scope of the Fifteenth Amendment, and that the Act must be
considered unconstitutional in all its applications. On direct
appeal to this Court,
held: the judgment is reversed. Pp.
362 U. S.
19-28.
1. The case is properly here on direct appeal under 28 U.S. C.
§1252, since the basis of the decision below was that the Act of
Congress was unconstitutional, no matter what the contentions of
the parties might be as to what its proper basis should have been.
P.
362 U. S.
20.
2. The District Court erred in dismissing the complaint on the
theory that the Act would exceed the permissible limits of the
Fifteenth Amendment if applied to purely private actions by private
persons, since that question was not properly before that Court on
the record in this case. Pp.
362 U. S.
20-24.
(a) One to whom application of a statute is constitutional will
not be heard to attack it on the ground that it might also be taken
as applying to other persons or other situations in which its
application might be unconstitutional. P.
362 U. S.
21.
(b) The delicate power of pronouncing an Act of Congress
unconstitutional is not to be exercised with reference to
hypothetical cases. P.
362 U. S.
22.
(c) In this case, there are no countervailing considerations
sufficient to warrant the District Court's action in considering
the
Page 362 U. S. 18
constitutionality of this Act in applications not presented by
the facts before it. Pp.
362 U. S.
22-24.
(d) To the extent that
United States v. Reese,
92 U. S. 214,
depended on an approach inconsistent with what this Court considers
the better one and the one established by the weightiest of the
subsequent cases, it cannot be followed here. P.
362 U. S.
24.
3. Insofar as it authorizes the Attorney General to bring this
action to enjoin racial discrimination by public officials in the
performance of their official duties pertaining to elections, the
Act is clearly constitutional. Pp.
362 U. S.
24-28.
(a) Whatever precisely may be the reach of the Fifteenth
Amendment, the conduct charged here -- discrimination by state
officials, within the course of their official duties, against the
voting rights of citizens, on grounds of race or color -- is
certainly subject to the ban of that Amendment, and legislation
designed to deal with such discrimination is "appropriate
legislation" under it. P.
362 U. S.
25.
(b) It cannot be said that appellees' action was not "state
action" merely because the aggrieved parties had not exhausted
their administrative or other remedies under state law, since
Congress has power to provide for the correction of the
constitutional violations of every state official, high and low,
without regard to the presence of other authority in the State that
might possibly revise their actions. P.
362 U. S.
25.
(c) Insofar as
Barney v. New York, 193 U.
S. 430, points to a different conclusion, its authority
has been so restricted by later decisions that it might be regarded
as having been worn away by the erosion of time and of contrary
authority. Pp.
362 U. S.
25-26.
(d) It is not beyond the power of Congress to authorize the
United States to bring this action to vindicate the public interest
in the due observance of private constitutional rights. P.
362 U. S.
27.
172 F.
Supp. 552, reversed.
Page 362 U. S. 19
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States brought this action in the United States
District Court for the Middle District of Georgia against the
members of the Board of Registrars and certain Deputy Registrars of
Terrell County, Georgia. Its complaint charged that the defendants
had, through various devices, in the administration of their
offices, discriminated on racial grounds against Negroes who
desired to register to vote in elections conducted in the State.
The complaint sought an injunction against the continuation of
these discriminatory practices, and other relief.
The action was founded upon R.S. § 2004, as amended by § 131 of
the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 71 Stat. 637, 42 U.S.C. § 1971.
Subsections (a) and (c), which are directly involved, provide:
[
Footnote 1]
"(a) All citizens of the United States who are otherwise
qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any
State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school
district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be
entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without
distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any
constitution, law, custom, usage, or regulation of any State or
Territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary
notwithstanding."
"
* * * *"
"(c) Whenever any person has engaged or there are reasonable
grounds to believe that any person is
Page 362 U. S. 20
about to engage in any act or practice which would deprive any
other person of any right or privilege secured by subsection (a) .
. . , the Attorney General may institute for the United States, or
in the name of the United States, a civil action or other proper
proceeding for preventive relief, including an application for a
permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other
order. . . ."
On the defendants' motion, the District Court dismissed the
complaint, holding that subsection (c) was unconstitutional.
172 F.
Supp. 552. The court held that the statutory language quoted
allowed the United States to enjoin purely private action designed
to deprive citizens of the right to vote on account of their race
or color. Although the complaint in question involved only official
action, the court ruled that since, in its opinion, the statute, on
its face, was susceptible of application beyond the scope
permissible under the Fifteenth Amendment, it was to be considered
unconstitutional in all its applications. The Government appealed
directly to this Court, and we postponed the question of
jurisdiction to the hearing of the case on the merits. 360 U.S.
926. Under the terms of 28 U.S.C. § 1252, the case is properly here
on appeal, since the basis of the decision below in fact was that
the Act of Congress was unconstitutional, no matter what the
contentions of the parties might be as to what its proper basis
should have been.
The very foundation of the power of the federal courts to
declare Acts of Congress unconstitutional lies in the power and
duty of those courts to decide cases and controversies properly
before them. This was made patent in the first case here exercising
that power -- "the gravest and most delicate duty that this Court
is called on to perform." [
Footnote
2]
Marbury v.
Madison, 1 Cranch 137,
5 U. S. 177-
Page 362 U. S. 21
180. This Court, as is the case with all federal courts,
"has no jurisdiction to pronounce any statute, either of a state
or of the United States, void, because irreconcilable with the
constitution, except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal
rights of litigants in actual controversies. In the exercise of
that jurisdiction, it is bound by two rules, to which it has
rigidly adhered: one, never to anticipate a question of
constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it; the
other, never to formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than
is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied."
Liverpool, New York & Philadelphia S.S. Co. v.
Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33,
113 U. S. 39.
Kindred to these rules is the rule that one to whom application of
a statute is constitutional will not be heard to attack the statute
on the ground that impliedly it might also be taken as applying to
other persons or other situations in which its application might be
unconstitutional.
United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U.
S. 396;
Heald v. District of Columbia,
259 U. S. 114,
259 U. S. 123;
Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. Co. v. Jackson Vinegar
Co., 226 U. S. 217;
Collins v. Texas, 223 U. S. 288,
223 U. S.
295-296;
New York ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon,
204 U. S. 152,
204 U. S.
160-161.
Cf. Voeller v. Neilston Warehouse Co.,
311 U. S. 531,
311 U. S. 537;
Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U.
S. 495,
301 U. S. 513;
Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation, 300 U.
S. 515,
300 U. S. 558;
Blackmer v. United States, 284 U.
S. 421,
284 U. S. 442;
Roberts & Schaefer Co. v. Emmerson, 271 U. S.
50,
271 U. S. 54-55;
Jeffrey Mfg. Co. v. Blagg, 235 U.
S. 571,
235 U. S. 576;
Tyler v. Judges of the Court of Registration, 179 U.
S. 405;
Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley
Authority, 297 U. S. 288,
297 U. S.
347-348 (concurring opinion). In
Barrows v.
Jackson, 346 U. S. 249,
this Court developed various reasons for this rule. Very
significant is the incontrovertible proposition that it
"would indeed be undesirable for this Court to consider every
conceivable situation which might possibly arise in the application
of complex and comprehensive legislation.
Page 362 U. S. 22
Id. at
346 U. S. 256. The delicate
power of pronouncing an Act of Congress unconstitutional is not to
be exercised with reference to hypothetical cases thus imagined.
The Court further pointed to the fact that a limiting construction
could be given to the statute by the court responsible for its
construction if an application of doubtful constitutionality were
in fact concretely presented. We might add that application of this
rule frees the Court not only from unnecessary pronouncement on
constitutional issues, but also from premature interpretations of
statutes in areas where their constitutional application might be
cloudy."
The District Court relied on, and appellees urge here, certain
cases which are said to be inconsistent with this rule and with its
closely related corollary that a litigant may only assert his own
constitutional rights or immunities. In many of their applications,
these are not principles ordained by the Constitution, but
constitute rather "rule[s] of practice,"
Barrows v. Jackson,
supra, at
346 U. S. 257,
albeit weighty ones; hence some exceptions to them where there are
weighty countervailing policies have been and are recognized. For
example, where, as a result of the very litigation in question, the
constitutional rights of one not a party would be impaired, and
where he has no effective way to preserve them himself, the Court
may consider those rights as before it.
NAACP v. Alabama,
357 U. S. 449,
357 U. S.
459-460;
Barrows v. Jackson, supra. This Court
has indicated that, where the application of these rules would
itself have an inhibitory effect on freedom of speech, they may not
be applied.
See Smith v. California, 361 U.
S. 147,
361 U. S. 151;
Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88,
310 U. S. 97-98.
Perhaps cases can be put where their application to a criminal
statute would necessitate such a revision of its text as to create
a situation in which the statute no longer gave an intelligible
warning of the conduct it prohibited.
See
United States v.
Reese, 92 U.S.
Page 362 U. S. 23
214,
92 U. S.
219-220;
cf. Winters v. New York, 333 U.
S. 507,
333 U. S.
518-520. And the rules' rationale may disappear where
the statute in question has already been declared unconstitutional
in the vast majority of its intended applications, and it can
fairly be said that it was not intended to stand as valid, on the
basis of fortuitous circumstances, only in a fraction of the cases
it was originally designed to cover.
See Butts v. Merchants
& Miners Transportation Co., 230 U.
S. 126. The same situation is presented when a state
statute comes conclusively pronounced by a state court as having an
otherwise valid provision or application inextricably tied up with
an invalid one,
see Dorchy v. Kansas, 264 U.
S. 286,
264 U. S. 290;
[
Footnote 3] or possibly in
that rarest of cases where this Court can justifiably think itself
able confidently to discern that Congress would not have desired
its legislation to stand at all unless it could validly stand in
its every application.
Cf. The Trade-Mark Cases,
100 U. S. 82,
100 U. S. 97-98;
The Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U.
S. 463,
207 U. S. 501.
But we see none of the countervailing considerations suggested by
these examples, or any other countervailing consideration, as
warranting the District Court's action here in considering the
constitutionality of the Act in applications not before it.
[
Footnote 4]
Page 362 U. S. 24
This case is rather the most typical one for application of the
rules we have discussed.
There are, to be sure, cases where this Court has not applied
with perfect consistency these rules for avoiding unnecessary
constitutional determinations, [
Footnote 5] and we do not mean to say that every case we
have cited for various exceptions to their application was
considered to turn on the exception stated, or is perfectly
justified by it. The District Court relied primarily on
United
States v. Reese, supra. As we have indicated, that decision
may have drawn support from the assumption that if the Court had
not passed on the statute's validity
in toto, it would
have left standing a criminal statute incapable of giving fair
warning of its prohibitions. But to the extent
Reese did
depend on an approach inconsistent with what we think the better
one and the one established by the weightiest of the subsequent
cases, we cannot follow it here.
Accordingly, if the complaint here called for an application of
the statute clearly constitutional under the
Page 362 U. S. 25
Fifteenth Amendment, that should have been an end to the
question of constitutionality. And as to the application of the
statute called for by the complaint, whatever precisely may be the
reach of the Fifteenth Amendment, it is enough to say that the
conduct charged -- discrimination by state officials, within the
course of their official duties, against the voting rights of
United States citizens, on grounds of race or color -- is
certainly, as "state action" and the clearest form of it, subject
to the ban of that Amendment, and that legislation designed to deal
with such discrimination is "appropriate legislation" under it. It
makes no difference that the discrimination in question, if state
action, is also violative of state law.
Snowden v. Hughes,
321 U. S. 1,
321 U. S. 11. The
appellees contend that since Congress has provided in subsection
(d) of the statutory provision in question here that the District
Courts shall exercise their jurisdiction "without regard to whether
the party aggrieved shall have exhausted any administrative or
other remedies that may be provided by law," and, since such
remedies were not exhausted here, appellees' action cannot be
ascribed to the State. The argument is that the ultimate voice of
the State has not spoken, since higher echelons of authority in the
State might revise the appellees' action. It is, however,
established as a fundamental proposition that every state official,
high and low, is bound by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1,
358 U. S. 16-19.
We think this Court has already made it clear that it follows from
this that Congress has the power to provide for the correction of
the constitutional violations of every such official without regard
to the presence of other authority in the State that might possibly
revise their actions. The appellees can draw no support from the
expressions in
Barney v.
New
Page 362 U. S. 26
York, 193 U. S. 430, on
which they so much rely. [
Footnote
6] The authority of those expressions has been "so restricted
by our later decisions,"
see Snowden v. Hughes, supra, at
321 U. S. 13,
that
Barney must be regarded as having "been worn away by
the erosion of time,"
Tigner v. Texas, 310 U.
S. 141,
310 U. S. 147,
and of contrary authority.
See Raymond v. Chicago Union
Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20,
207 U. S. 37;
Home Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U.
S. 278,
227 U. S.
283-289,
227 U. S. 294;
Iowa-Des Moines Nat. Bank v. Bennett, 284 U.
S. 239,
284 U. S. 247;
Snowden v. Hughes, supra; Screws v. United States,
325 U. S. 91,
325 U. S.
107-113,
325 U. S. 116.
Cf. United States v. Classic, 313 U.
S. 299,
313 U. S. 326.
It was said of
Barney's doctrine in
Home Tel. &
Tel. Co. v. Los Angeles, supra, at
227 U. S. 284,
by Mr. Chief Justice White:
"[its] enforcement . . . would . . . render impossible the
performance of the duty with which the Federal courts are charged
under the Constitution."
The District Court seems to us to have recognized that the
complaint clearly charged a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment
and of the statute, and that the statute, if applicable only to
this class of cases, would unquestionably be valid legislation
under that Amendment. We think that, under the rules we have
stated, that court should then have gone no further, and should
have upheld the Act as applied in the present action, and that its
dismissal of the complaint was error.
Page 362 U. S. 27
The appellees urge alternative grounds on which they seek to
support the judgment of the District Court dismissing the
complaint. [
Footnote 7] We do
not believe these grounds are well taken. It is urged that it is
beyond the power of Congress to authorize the United States to
bring this action in support of private constitutional rights. But
there is the highest public interest in the due observance of all
the constitutional guarantees, including those that bear the most
directly on private rights, and we think it perfectly competent for
Congress to authorize the United States to be the guardian of that
public interest in a suit for injunctive relief.
See United
Steelworkers v. United States, 361 U. S.
39,
361 U. S. 43,
and cases cited. Appellees raise question as to the scope of the
equitable discretion reserved to the courts in suits under § 2004.
Cf. id. at
361 U. S. 41-42.
We need not define the scope of the discretion of a District Court
in proceedings of this nature, because, exercising a traditional
equity discretion, the court below declined to dismiss the
complaint on that ground, and we do not discern any basis in the
present posture of the case for any contention that it has abused
its discretion. Questions as to the relief sought by the United
States are
Page 362 U. S. 28
posed, but remedial issues are hardly properly presented at this
stage in the litigation.
The parties have engaged in much discussion concerning the
ultimate scope in which Congress intended this legislation to
apply, and concerning its constitutionality under the Fifteen
Amendment in these various applications. We shall not compound the
error we have found in the District Court's judgment by intimating
any views on either matter.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
Subsection (a) was originally § 1 of the Enforcement Act of May
31, 1870, c. 114, 16 Stat. 140, and was brought forward as R.S. §
2004. The remaining subsections were added by the 1957 legislation.
Subsection (b) forbids various forms of intimidation and coercion
in respect of voting for federal elective officers, and the
enforcement provisions of subsection (c) likewise apply to it; but
subsection (b) is not involved in this litigation.
[
Footnote 2]
Holmes, J., in
Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U.
S. 142,
275 U. S.
148.
[
Footnote 3]
Cf. Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U.
S. 219,
243 U. S. 234.
But a State's determination of the class of persons who can invoke
the protection of provisions of the Federal Constitution has been
held not conclusive here.
Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S.
44.
[
Footnote 4]
Certainly it cannot be said that the sort of action proceeded
against here, and validly reachable under the Constitution
(
see pp.
362 U. S. 25-26,
infra), was so small and inessential a part of the evil
Congress was concerned about in the statute that these defendants
should be permitted to make an attack on the statute generally.
Subsection (d) and innumerable items in the legislative history
show Congress' particular concern with the sort of action charged
here.
See, e.g., Hearings before the Subcommittee on
Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United
States Senate, on Proposals to Secure, Protect, and Strengthen
Civil Rights of Persons under the Constitution and Laws of the
United States, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 4-7, 36-37, 77, 81, 189,
205, 293, 300; Hearings before Subcommittee No. 5 of the Committee
on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, on Miscellaneous Bills
Regarding the Civil Rights of Persons within the Jurisdiction of
the United States, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 656, 1220; 103
Cong.Rec. 8705, 12149, 12898, 13126, 13732.
Nor can there be any serious contention that the statute, as a
civil enactment, would fail to give adequate notice of the conduct
it validly proscribed, even if certain applications of it were to
be deemed unconstitutional. Criminal proceedings under the statute
must depend on violation of a restraining order embracing the party
charged.
[
Footnote 5]
Cf., e.g., Illinois Central R. Co. v. McKendree,
203 U. S. 514;
United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253,
198 U. S.
262-263.
[
Footnote 6]
Barney was a property owner's action to enjoin state
officials from construction of a rapid transit tunnel in a
particular place. The suit was brought directly under the
Fourteenth Amendment in federal court, and it was averred that the
proposed action of the state officials was not authorized under
state law. It does not appear that the complainant alleged that
higher state administrative echelons were indisposed to halt the
unauthorized actions or that the State offered no remedy at all to
a property owner threatened with interference with his property by
state officials acting without authority. There was not presented
any specific federal statute expressly authorizing federal judicial
intervention with matters in this posture.
[
Footnote 7]
Many of these contentions are raised by what appellees style a
"cross-appeal." Notice of cross-appeal was filed in the District
Court, but the cross-appeal was not docketed here. However, since
the judgment of the District Court awarded appellees all the relief
they requested (despite rejecting most of their contentions, except
the central one), no cross-appeal was necessary to bring these
contentions before us if they can be considered otherwise. They
would simply be alternative grounds on which the judgment below
could be supported. In view of the broad nature of § 1252, which
seems to indicate a desire of Congress that the whole case come up
(contrast 18 U.S.C. § 3731,
United States v. Borden Co.,
308 U. S. 188,
308 U. S.
193), we have the power to pass on these other
questions, and since the District Court expressed its views on most
of them, we also deem it appropriate to do so.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, with whom MR. JUSTICE HARLAN concurs,
joining in the judgment.
The weighty presumptive validity with which the Civil Rights Act
of 1957, like every enactment of Congress, comes here is not
overborne by any claim urged against it. To deal with legislation
so as to find unconstitutionality is to reverse the duty of courts
to apply a statute so as to save it. Here, this measure is
sustained under familiar principles of constitutional law. Nor is
there any procedural hurdle left to be cleared to sustain the suit
of the United States. Whatever may have been the original force of
Barney v. New York, 193 U. S. 430,
that decision has long ceased to be an obstruction, nor is any
other decision in the way of our result in this case. And so I find
it needless to canvass the multitude of opinions that may generally
touch on, but do not govern, the issues now before us.