Negro citizens sued in a Federal District Court in Alabama for a
declaratory judgment that an Act of the State Legislature changing
the boundaries of the City of Tuskegee is unconstitutional and for
an injunction against its enforcement. They alleged that the Act
alters the shape of Tuskegee from a square to an irregular 28-sided
figure; that it would eliminate from the City all but four or five
of its 400 Negro voters without eliminating any white voter; and
that its effect was to deprive Negroes of their right to vote in
Tuskegee elections on account of their race. The District Court
dismissed the complaint on the ground that it had no authority to
declare the Act invalid or to change any boundaries of municipal
corporations fixed by the State Legislature.
Held: It erred in doing so, since the allegations, if
proven, would establish that the inevitable effect of the Act would
be to deprive Negroes of their right to vote on account of their
race, contrary to the Fifteenth Amendment. Pp.
364 U. S.
340-348.
(a) Even the broad power of a State to fix the boundaries of its
municipalities is limited by the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbids
a State to deprive any citizen of the right to vote because of his
race.
Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U.
S. 161, and related cases distinguished. Pp.
364 U. S.
342-345.
(b) A state statute which is alleged to have the inevitable
effect of depriving Negroes of their right to vote in Tuskegee
because of their race is not immune to attack simply because the
mechanism employed by the Legislature is a "political" redefinition
of municipal boundaries.
Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.
S. 549, distinguished. Pp.
364 U. S.
346-348.
270 F.2d 594, reversed.
Page 364 U. S. 340
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation challenges the validity, under the United States
Constitution, of Local Act No. 140, passed by the Legislature of
Alabama in 1957, redefining the boundaries of the City of Tuskegee.
Petitioners, Negro citizens of Alabama who were, at the time of
this redistricting measure, residents of the City of Tuskegee,
brought an action in the United States District Court for the
Middle District of Alabama for a declaratory judgment that Act 140
is unconstitutional, and for an injunction to restrain the Mayor
and officers of Tuskegee and the officials of Macon County,
Alabama, from enforcing the Act against them and other Negroes
similarly situated. Petitioners' claim is that enforcement of the
statute, which alters the shape of Tuskegee from a square to an
uncouth twenty-eight-sided figure, will constitute a discrimination
against them in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection
Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and will
deny them the right to vote in defiance of the Fifteenth
Amendment.
The respondents moved for dismissal of the action for failure to
state a claim upon which relief could be granted and for lack of
jurisdiction of the District Court. The court granted the motion,
stating,
"This Court has no control over, no supervision over, and no
power to change any boundaries of municipal corporations fixed by a
duly
Page 364 U. S. 341
convened and elected legislative body, acting for the people in
the State of Alabama."
167 F.
Supp. 405, 410. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit, affirmed the judgment, one judge dissenting. 270 F.2d 594.
We brought the case here, since serious questions were raised
concerning the power of a State over its municipalities in relation
to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. 362 U.S. 916.
At this stage of the litigation, we are not concerned with the
truth of the allegations, that is, the ability of petitioners to
sustain their allegations by proof. The sole question is whether
the allegations entitle them to make good on their claim that they
are being denied rights under the United States Constitution. The
complaint, charging that Act 140 is a device to disenfranchise
Negro citizens, alleges the following facts: prior to Act 140, the
City of Tuskegee was square in shape; the Act transformed it into a
strangely irregular twenty-eight-sided figure as indicated in the
364
U.S. 339app|>diagram appended to this opinion. The essential
inevitable effect of this redefinition of Tuskegee's boundaries is
to remove from the city all save four or five of its 400 Negro
voters while not removing a single white voter or resident. The
result of the Act is to deprive the Negro petitioners
discriminatorily of the benefits of residence in Tuskegee,
including,
inter alia, the right to vote in municipal
elections.
These allegations, if proven, would abundantly establish that
Act 140 was not an ordinary geographic redistricting measure, even
within familiar abuses of gerrymandering. If these allegations,
upon a trial, remained uncontradicted or unqualified, the
conclusion would be irresistible, tantamount for all practical
purposes to a mathematical demonstration, that the legislation is
solely concerned with segregating white and colored voters by
fencing Negro citizens out of town so as to deprive them of their
pre-existing municipal vote.
Page 364 U. S. 342
It is difficult to appreciate what stands in the way of
adjudging a statute having this inevitable effect invalid in light
of the principles by which this Court must judge, and uniformly has
judged, statutes that, howsoever speciously defined, obviously
discriminate against colored citizens. "The [Fifteenth] Amendment
nullifies sophisticated as well as simple-minded modes of
discrimination."
Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.
S. 268,
307 U. S.
275.
The complaint amply alleges a claim of racial discrimination.
Against this claim the respondents have never suggested, either in
their brief or in oral argument, any countervailing municipal
function which Act 140 is designed to serve. The respondents invoke
generalities expressing the State's unrestricted power --
unlimited, that is, by the United States Constitution -- to
establish, destroy, or reorganize by contraction or expansion its
political subdivisions, to-wit, cities, counties, and other local
units. We freely recognize the breadth and importance of this
aspect of the State's political power. To exalt this power into an
absolute is to misconceive the reach and rule of this Court's
decisions in the leading case of
Hunter v. Pittsburgh,
207 U. S. 161, and
related cases relied upon by respondents.
The
Hunter case involved a claim by citizens of
Allegheny, Pennsylvania, that the General Assembly of that State
could not direct a consolidation of their city and Pittsburgh over
the objection of a majority of the Allegheny voters. It was alleged
that, while Allegheny already had made numerous civic improvements,
Pittsburgh was only then planning to undertake such improvements,
and that the annexation would therefore greatly increase the tax
burden on Allegheny residents. All that the case held was (1) that
there is no implied contract between a city and its residents that
their taxes will be spent solely for the benefit of that city, and
(2) that a citizen of one municipality is not deprived
Page 364 U. S. 343
of property without due process of law by being subjected to
increased tax burdens as a result of the consolidation of his city
with another. Related cases upon which the respondents also rely,
such as
Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.
S. 182;
Pawhuska v. Pawhuska Oil & Gas Co.,
250 U. S. 394, and
Laramie County v. Albany County, 92 U. S.
307, are far off the mark. They are authority only for
the principle that no constitutionally protected contractual
obligation arises between a State and its subordinate governmental
entities solely as a result of their relationship.
In short, the cases that have come before this Court regarding
legislation by States dealing with their political subdivisions
fall into two classes: (1) those in which it is claimed that the
State, by virtue of the prohibition against impairment of the
obligation of contract (Art. I, ยง 10) and of the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment, is without power to extinguish, or
alter the boundaries of, an existing municipality; and (2) in which
it is claimed that the State has no power to change the identity of
a municipality whereby citizens of a preexisting municipality
suffer serious economic disadvantage.
Neither of these claims is supported by such a specific
limitation upon State power as confines the States under the
Fifteenth Amendment. As to the first category, it is obvious that
the creation of municipalities -- clearly a political act -- does
not come within the conception of a contract under the
Dartmouth College
Case, 4 Wheat. 518. As to the second, if one
principle clearly emerges from the numerous decisions of this Court
dealing with taxation, it is that the Due Process Clause affords no
immunity against mere inequalities in tax burdens, nor does it
afford protection against their increase as an indirect consequence
of a State's exercise of its political powers.
Particularly in dealing with claims under broad provisions of
the Constitution, which derive content by an
Page 364 U. S. 344
interpretive process of inclusion and exclusion, it is
imperative that generalizations, based on and qualified by the
concrete situations that gave rise to them, must not be applied out
of context in disregard of variant controlling facts. Thus, a
correct reading of the seemingly unconfined dicta of
Hunter and kindred cases is not that the State has plenary
power to manipulate in every conceivable way, for every conceivable
purpose, the affairs of its municipal corporations, but rather that
the State's authority is unrestrained by the particular
prohibitions of the Constitution considered in those cases.
The
Hunter opinion itself intimates that a state
legislature may not be omnipotent even as to the disposition of
some types of property owned by municipal corporations, 207 U.S. at
207 U. S.
178-181. Further, other cases in this Court have refused
to allow a State to abolish a municipality, or alter its
boundaries, or merge it with another city, without preserving to
the creditors of the old city some effective recourse for the
collection of debts owed them.
Shapleigh v. San Angelo,
167 U. S. 646;
Mobile v. Watson, 116 U. S. 289;
Mount Pleasant v. Beckwith, 100 U.
S. 514;
Broughton v. Pensacola, 93 U. S.
266. For example, in
Mobile v. Watson, the
Court said:
"Where the resource for the payment of the bonds of a municipal
corporation is the power of taxation existing when the bonds were
issued, any law which withdraws or limits the taxing power, and
leaves no adequate means for the payment of the bonds, is forbidden
by the constitution of the United States, and is null and
void."
Mobile v. Watson, supra, at
116 U. S.
305.
This line of authority conclusively shows that the Court has
never acknowledged that the States have power to do as they will
with municipal corporations regardless of consequences. Legislative
control of municipalities, no less than other state power, lies
within the scope of relevant
Page 364 U. S. 345
limitations imposed by the United States Constitution. The
observation in
Graham v. Folsom, 200 U.
S. 248,
200 U. S. 253,
becomes relevant: "The power of the state to alter or destroy its
corporations is not greater than the power of the state to repeal
its legislation." In that case, which involved the attempt by state
officials to evade the collection of taxes to discharge the
obligations of an extinguished township, Mr. Justice McKenna,
writing for the Court, went on to point out, with reference to the
Mount Pleasant and
Mobile cases:
"It was argued in those cases, as it is argued in this, that
such alteration or destruction of the subordinate governmental
divisions was a proper exercise of legislative power, to which
creditors had to submit. The argument did not prevail. It was
answered, as we now answer it, that such power, extensive though it
is, is met and overcome by the provision of the Constitution of the
United States which forbids a state from passing any law impairing
the obligation of contracts. . . ."
200 U.S. at
200 U. S.
253-254.
If all this is so in regard to the constitutional protection of
contracts, it should be equally true that, to paraphrase, such
power, extensive though it is, is met and overcome by the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a
State from passing any law which deprives a citizen of his vote
because of his race. The opposite conclusion, urged upon us by
respondents, would sanction the achievement by a State of any
impairment of voting rights whatever, so long as it was cloaked in
the garb of the realignment of political subdivisions. "It is
inconceivable that guaranties embedded in the Constitution of the
United States may thus be manipulated out of existence."
Frost
& Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Commission of California,
271 U. S. 583,
271 U. S.
594.
Page 364 U. S. 346
The respondents find another barrier to the trial of this case
in
Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549. In
that case, the Court passed on an Illinois law governing the
arrangement of congressional districts within that State. The
complaint rested upon the disparity of population between the
different districts which rendered the effectiveness of each
individual's vote in some districts far less than in others. This
disparity came to pass solely through shifts in population between
1901, when Illinois organized its congressional districts, and
1946, when the complaint was lodged. During this entire period,
elections were held under the districting scheme devised in 1901.
The Court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint on the ground
that it presented a subject not meet for adjudication.
* The decisive
facts in this case, which at this stage must be taken as proved,
are wholly different from the considerations found controlling in
Colegrove.
That case involved a complaint of discriminatory apportionment
of congressional districts. The appellants in
Colegrove
complained only of a dilution of the strength of their votes as a
result of legislative inaction over a course of many years. The
petitioners here complain that affirmative legislative action
deprives them of their votes and the consequent advantages that the
ballot affords. When a legislature thus singles out a readily
isolated segment of a racial minority for special discriminatory
treatment, it violates the Fifteenth Amendment. In no case
involving unequal weight in voting distribution that has come
before the Court did the decision sanction a differentiation on
racial lines whereby approval was given to unequivocal withdrawal
of the vote solely from colored citizens. Apart from all else,
these considerations lift this
Page 364 U. S. 347
controversy out of the so-called "political" arena and into the
conventional sphere of constitutional litigation.
In sum, as Mr. Justice Holmes remarked when dealing with a
related situation in
Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.
S. 536,
273 U. S. 540,
"Of course the petition concerns political action," but "[t]he
objection that the subject matter of the suit is political is
little more than a play upon words." A statute which is alleged to
have worked unconstitutional deprivations of petitioners' rights is
not immune to attack simply because the mechanism employed by the
legislature is a redefinition of municipal boundaries. According to
the allegations here made, the Alabama Legislature has not merely
redrawn the Tuskegee city limits with incidental inconvenience to
the petitioners; it is more accurate to say that it has deprived
the petitioners of the municipal franchise and consequent rights,
and, to that end, it has incidentally changed the city's
boundaries. While in form this is merely an act redefining metes
and bounds, if the allegations are established, the inescapable
human effect of this essay in geometry and geography is to despoil
colored citizens, and only colored citizens, of their theretofore
enjoyed voting rights. That was no
Colegrove v. Green.
When a State exercises power wholly within the domain of state
interest, it is insulated from federal judicial review. But such
insulation is not carried over when state power is used as an
instrument for circumventing a federally protected right. This
principle has had many applications. It has long been recognized in
cases which have prohibited a State from exploiting a power
acknowledged to be absolute in an isolated context to justify the
imposition of an "unconstitutional condition." What the Court has
said in those cases is equally applicable here,
viz.,
that
"Acts generally lawful may become unlawful when done to
accomplish an unlawful end,
United States v. Reading Co.,
226 U. S.
324,
226 U. S. 357, and a
constitutional power cannot be used by way of condition to attain
an
Page 364 U. S. 348
unconstitutional result."
Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Foster, 247 U.
S. 105,
247 U. S. 114.
The petitioners are entitled to prove their allegations at
trial.
For these reasons, the principal conclusions of the District
Court and the Court of Appeals are clearly erroneous, and the
decision below must be reversed.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, while joining the opinion of the Court,
adheres to the dissents in
Colegrove v. Green,
328 U. S. 549, and
South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276.
* Soon after the decision in the
Colegrove case,
Governor Dwight H. Green of Illinois, in his 1947 biennial message
to the legislature, recommended a reapportionment. The legislature
immediately responded, Ill.Sess.Laws 1947, p. 879, and, in 1951,
redistricted again. Ill.Sess.Laws 1951, p. 1924.
|
364
U.S. 339app|
Page 364 U. S. 349
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
CHART SHOWING TUSKEGGEE, ALABAMA,
BEFORE AND AFTER ACT 140
image:a
(The entire area of the square comprised of the City prior to
Act 140. The irregular black-bordered figure within the square
represents the post-enactment city.)
MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER, concurring.
I concur in the Court's judgment, but not in the whole of its
opinion. It seems to me that the decision should be rested not on
the Fifteenth Amendment, but rather on the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. I am doubtful that
the averments of the complaint, taken for present purposes to be
true, show a purpose by Act No. 140 to abridge petitioners' "right
. . . to vote" in the Fifteenth Amendment sense. It seems to me
that the "right . . . to vote" that is guaranteed by the Fifteenth
Amendment is but the same right to vote as is enjoyed by all others
within the same election precinct, ward or other political
division. And, inasmuch as no one has the right to vote in a
political division, or in a local election concerning only an area
in which he does not reside, it would seem to follow that one's
right to vote in Division A is not abridged by a redistricting that
places his residence in Division B if he there enjoys the same
voting privileges as all others in that Division, even though the
redistricting was done by the State for the purpose of placing a
racial group of citizens in Division B, rather than A.
But it does seem clear to me that accomplishment of a State's
purpose -- to use the Court's phrase -- of "fencing Negro citizens
out of" Division A and into Division B is an unlawful segregation
of races of citizens, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment,
Brown v. Board of Education,
347 U. S. 483;
Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, and, as
stated, I would think the decision should be rested on that ground
-- which, incidentally, clearly would not involve, just as the
cited cases did not involve, the
Colegrove problem.