Digges Amendment

All other men had to prove ownership and taxes on a minimum of $500 worth of property for two previous consecutive years.

The power of black men at the ballot box and economically helped them resist this disfranchising effort.

Digges and Frere, both from the Republican stronghold of Charles County, argued that the amendment provisions did not apply at the state level.

The Digges plan was opposed by Southern leaders, who were concerned that such extreme and blatant challenge to the Fifteen Amendment would undermine their own legal attempts underway to circumvent the enfranchisement of black votes.

Beginning with Mississippi in 1890, most Southern states had passed new constitutions and other laws that made voter registration more difficult and effectively disenfranchised most blacks.