Amendment XV.
SECTION 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
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15A which was passed in the wake of the wake of the Southern War Of Rebellion And Aggression For The Explicit Right To Keep And Retain Slavery, was passed during a very small window when the United States started to consider all men as being equal (but not women). Even after spending gallons upon gallons upon gallons for blood which is the coin of the battlefield, the racist elements of society which never went away, still actually feared the power of the ballot box because whomever could control legislatures can change the rules and take away their privilege and advantage. They did not want that then; they do not want that now.
Even after the passage of 15A, racist cussjacks found other methods to disenfranchise people whom they hated, almost immediately. Since race, colour, and servitude was no longer on the cards, other measures such as Voter ID, or literacy tests, or arcane enrollment procedures, et cetera, could be used and still are today.
Herein lies one of the central problems with the way that the United States Constitution works. As it consistently refuses to assign rights to the people, or the states, or the congress, in the positive sense, it immediately undermines itself by including exceptions and get out clauses. This is utterly putrid in terms of how you design legislation.
For a nation which is supposedly "a nation of laws" as John Adams said, the conception and framing of what people think are rights, is incredibly bad. The right of citizens to do a thing (a right is the legal ability to do a thing, own a thing, or have an interest in a thing at law) which "shall not be denied or abridged" on account of X, Y, and Z, can and will be denied or abridged by self-interested and knavish cussjacks on other accounts including P, Q, and R.
The right to vote, which isn't explicitly granted in the positive sense here, is also not explicitly granted in the positive sense later on in other places like 19A either. Even here in 1870, right to vote could be denied on the grounds of sex (and was), or failure to pay a poll tax, or failure to have correct Voter ID, et cetera. Two of those reasons have been explicitly ruled out as grounds to deny the vote by other amendments; with the other currently being actively pursued as a means to disenfranchise people. Other means are being explored, as evidenced with rumours and inklings in the upcoming presidential election, where the means to disenfranchise people by ignoring the ballot box entirely is being explored.
If legislation was properly designed, the right to vote would simply be granted but it isn't; therefore 15A and what follows, is still bad.
SECTION 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
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As with 13A, this section of 15A is functionally pointless. Remember, Article I, Section 8 already granted Congress the power to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to execute the powers contained within the Constitution; an amendment to the Constitution after being ratified by the states, is in fact contained within the Constitution.
Amendment XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
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The note given is that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution was modified by the 16A. Quite frankly I think that the whole existence of 16A is itself redundant as Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution already gave the Congress the "Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises". Income Tax is a tax.
Actually to make the general sematic case, as Taxation is ultimately derived from the Latin "Taxo" which mean "I Pay", then of course the "Power To lay and collect Taxes" is obvious; since taxation is just the process of destroying the dollars which have already been issued for the payment and provision of government provided goods and services in the first place.
The reason why 16A needed to be passed all, was because SCOTUS in Pollock v Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895) ruled that in principle federal income tax was not unconstitutional, but that income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were direct taxes and thus had to be apportioned among the states on the basis of population; per Art 1, Section 9:
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
- Art 1, Section 9 (repealed with 16A)
I think that 16A is redundant because of Art 1, Sec 8. SCOTUS who stole for itself the power to say what the law is in Marbury v Madison (1803) saw this; then made a really really stupid ruling which took 14 years to work its way through Congress and then a further 4 years to rattle its way through the ratification process, to undo what really should have never been done in the first place.
If the mechanics of operation of the Constitution is so incredibly awful that it takes a whole generation at minimum to lance legislative cancer, then this is bad law. When you have things like the Equal Rights Amendment which has never made it through the ratification process still languishing in limbo, then what's the point? There is a symbiotic relationship between law and culture, wherein law shapes culture and culture shapes law; and where you have the Constitution itself being so monumentally stupid that it takes literally a generation to do even the most basic things like taxation administration, then it is little wonder that the country went to war with itself. So much of US Law depends on the opinions of SCOTUS; which right from the get go was and still is a set of political appointments which act as a weapon. That's awful.
Amendment XVII.
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
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17A finally got around to changing the Constitution so that the Senators from each State, were elected by the people thereof. What a novel idea.
At this point readers might be wondering why such a thing is even necessary because the very notion of representative democracy itself must my inference require the election of people sent to represent electorate/community/state/body politic at large. However this assumes that the thing in question is a representative democracy. The United States as envisaged, was not.
The original text of Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution before 17A read: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof".
This means that until 1913 not only did the people not vote for the President (and they still do not because the Electors in the Electoral College do that) but also the people not vote for the Senators as well (who then went into the calculation of the numbers to decide the Electors in the Electoral College.
This harkens back to the fact that the United States was not only started because of agitations by rich land owners who owned other people as chattel goods to get common folk to fight a war for them, but that the second attempt at a Constitution for National Government was intended to be anti-democratic. In this respect, the United States' Senate was intended to be as anti-democratic as the British House of Lords; which to this day still is not elected but appointed on the basis of semi-open corrupt patronage. This is not exactly something unknown to where I live as the New South Wales Legislative Council (the upper house) did not have open elections until 1984.
When you further consider that the various Judges of the Supreme Court Of The United States are appointed by the President "and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate" then until 1913 you had a nominally unelected body, making up the numbers to overlay a layer of abstraction from the electorate, to then appoint the judiciary. As designed, the system is a pus filled horrorshow and 17A only sets about correcting one aspect of it.
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When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
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It makes sense that you should hold an election to replace someone who has either resigned, died, or been expelled. What doesn't really make sense is that the right to appoint, even on a temporary basis is handed to the various state legislatures. In practice this usually means appointment by the State Governor with the 'advice and consent' of the State Senate but it is still a poor practice. 17A Clause 2 is still the Constitution trying to retain the remnants of rule by diktat even though the world had moved on and direct election was already on the march. I of course say this with complete knowledge that where I live in NSW, we didn't even have elections of the Legislative Council (the Upper House) until 1978; which is very very classic tory in nature.
One thing that 17A doesn't address because none of the United States Constitution ever wants to even look at this, is that owing to the almost religious belief that the states have a 'republican form of government' despite never actually defining what that is, it means that there are so very many provisions of law where the several states either remain responsible or have asserted responsibility for the various administrative functions of government. Consequently it is the states that conduct elections and it is the states who asset administrative control over them. 17A by operation merely confirms this principle and even when there are vacancies in the Senate, the states very much asset control and power over the elections of those Senators.
Where I live in Australia, the Australian Electoral Commission conducts elections for our House and Senate with free and fierce independence; to the point that it is highly respected and is nobody's fool. The consequence of the operation of 17A in the United States is that just about every single election is run as if it was Amateur Hour at the local Service's Legion Club, and not only are they all conducted badly but they are likely open to corruption and public confidence in them is not great.
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This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
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While this grandfather clause sounds like it could in theory produce a case where someone would just hang around like a whiffy pongy spectre at a banquet, other provisions of the Constitution meant that in the worst possible scenario this would all become redundant within eight years. After such time, there would be no Senator who would still be there who was chosen before this was passed.
