CONSTITUTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF SOUTH CAROLINA AS ADOPTED IN STATE CONVENTION AT COLUMBIA, S.C., MAY 15, 1912 by [White Primary in South Carolina] - 1912

[Columbia, S.C.?, 1912. 4pp. Folded to 8vo. Caption title as issued. Light wear, Good+. South Carolina sought diligently to evade the Constitution's Reconstruction Amendments, which required States and their instrumentalities to enfranchise Negroes and treat them equally with other citizens. The Democratic Party's Constitution succeeded for decades: It transformed the Democratic Party into a private "club." Only "Democratic white voters" were eligible for membership, plus "such negroes as voted the Democratic ticket in 1876, and as have voted the Democratic ticket continuously since, to be shown by the certificate of ten white Democratic voters..." In 1946 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sued to end the 'White Primary'. The federal trial judge found that, since 1900, virtually every elected South Carolina official had been the nominee of the State Democratic Party. Federal courts finally ruled the obvious: the Democratic Party in South Carolina was the main vehicle through which the people exercised their sovereign power. Such a pivotal decision-maker could never be a genuine private "club." Not in Turnbull. Not located on OCLC as of September 2014.