Cases relating to this question are presented and discussed under article V.
Effect of Amendment
Although owning that the Nineteenth Amendment "applies to men and women alike and by its own force supersedes inconsistent measures, whether federal or State," the Court was unable to concede that a Georgia statute levying on inhabitants of the State a poll tax payment of which is made a prerequisite for voting but exempting females who do not register for voting, in any way abridged the right of male citizens to vote on account of their sex. To accept the appellant's contention, the Court urged, would make the Nineteenth Amendment a limitation on the taxing power.[1]
Notes
[1] Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277, 283-284 (1937). Although other interpretive decisions of federal courts are unavailable, many State courts, taking their cue from pronouncements of the Supreme Court as to the operative effect of the similarly phrased Fifteenth Amendment, have proclaimed that the Nineteenth Amendment did not confer upon women the right to vote but only prohibits discrimination against them in the drafting and administration of laws relating to suffrage qualifications and the conduct of elections. Like the Fifteenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment, according to these State tribunals, is self-executing and by its own force and effect legally expunged the word, "male," and the masculine pronoun from State constitutions and laws defining voting qualifications and the right to vote to the end that such provisions now apply to both sexes.—See State v. Mittle, 120 S.C. 526 (1922); writ of error dismissed, 260 U.S. 705 (1922); Graves v. Eubank, 205 Ala. 174 (1921); in re Cavellier, 159 Misc. (N.Y.) 212; 287 N.Y.S. 739 (1936).