Me. Chief Justice Waeren

delivered the opinion of the Court.

By leave of the Court, 382 U. S. 898, South Carolina has filed a bill of complaint, seeking a declaration that selected provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 1 violate the Federal Constitution, and asking for an injunction against enforcement of these provisions by the Attorney General. Original jurisdiction is founded on the presence of a controversy between a State and a citizen of another State under Art. Ill, § 2, of the Constitution. See Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439. Because no issues of fact were raised in the complaint, and because of South Carolina’s desire to obtain a ruling prior to its primary elections in June 1966, we dispensed with appointment of a special master and expedited our hearing of the case.

Recognizing that the questions presented were of urgent concern to the entire country, we invited all of the States to participate in this proceeding as friends of the Court. A majority responded by submitting or joining in briefs on the merits, some supporting South Carolina and others the Attorney General.2 Seven of these States *308also requested and received permission to argue the case orally at our hearing. Without exception, despite the emotional overtones of the proceeding, the briefs and oral arguments were temperate, lawyerlike and constructive. All viewpoints on the issues have been fully developed, and this additional assistance has been most helpful to the Court.

The Voting Rights Act was designed by Congress to banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which has infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century. The Act creates stringent new remedies for voting discrimination where it persists on a pervasive scale, and in addition the statute strengthens existing remedies for pockets of voting discrimination elsewhere in the country. Congress assumed the power to prescribe these remedies from § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, which authorizes the National Legislature to effectuate by “appropriate” measures the constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination in voting. We hold that the sections of the Act which are properly before us are an appropriate means for carrying out Congress’ constitutional responsibilities and are consonant with all other provisions of the Constitution. We therefore deny South Carolina’s request that enforcement of these sections of the Act_be enjoined.

I.

The constitutional propriety of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 must be judged with reference to the historical experience which it reflects. Before enacting the measure, Congress explored with great care the problem of racial discrimination in voting. The House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary each held hearings for nine days and received testimony from a total of 67 wit*309nesses.3 More than three full days were consumed discussing the bill on the floor of the House, while the debate in the Senate covered 26 days in all.4 At the close of these deliberations, the verdict of both chambers was overwhelming. The House approved the bill by a vote of 328-74, and the measure passed the Senate by a margin of 79-18.

Two points emerge vividly from the voluminous legislative history of the Act contained in the committee hearings and floor debates. First: Congress felt itself confronted by an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution. Second: Congress concluded that the unsuccessful rem-ediés which it had prescribed in the past would have to be replaced by sterner and more elaborate measures in order to satisfy the clear commands of the Fifteenth Amendment. We pause here to summarize the majority reports of the House and Senate Committees, which document in considerable detail the factual basis for these reactions by Congress.5 See H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 8-16 (hereinafter cited as House Report); S. Rep. No. 162, pt. 3, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 3-16 (hereinafter cited as Senate Report).

*310The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1870. Promptly thereafter Congress passed the Enforcement Act of 1870,6 which made it a crime for public officers and private persons to obstruct exercise of the right to vote. The statute was amended in the following year7 to provide for detailed federal supervision of the electoral process, from registration to the certification of returns. As the years passed and fervor for racial equality waned, enforcement of the laws became spotty and ineffective, and most of their provisions were repealed in 1894.8 The remnants have had little significance in the recently renewed battle against voting discrimination.

Meanwhile, beginning in 1890, the States of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia enacted tests still in use which were specifically designed to prevent Negroes from voting.9 Typically, they made the ability to read and write *311a registration qualification and also required completion of a registration form. These laws were based on the fact that as of 1890 in each of the named States, more than two-thirds of the adult Negroes were illiterate while less than one-quarter of the adult whites were unable to read or write.10 At the same time, alternate tests were prescribed in all of the named States to assure that white illiterates would not be deprived of the franchise. These included grandfather clauses, property qualifications, “good character” tests, and the requirement that registrants “understand” or “interpret” certain matter.

The course of subsequent Fifteenth Amendment litigation in this Court demonstrates the variety and persistence of these and similar institutions designed to deprive Negroes of the right to vote. Grandfather clauses were invalidated in Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, and Myers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368. Procedural hurdles were struck down in Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268. The white primary was outlawed in Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, and Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461. Improper challenges were nullified in United States v. Thomas, 362 U. S. 58. Racial gerrymandering was forbidden by Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. Finally, discriminatory application of voting tests was condemned in Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933; Alabama *312v. United States, 371 U. S. 37; and Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145.

According to the evidence in recent Justice Department voting suits, the latter stratagem is now the principal method used to bar Negroes from the polls. Discriminatory administration of voting qualifications has been found in all eight Alabama cases, in all nine Louisiana cases, and in all nine Mississippi cases which have gone to final judgment.11 Moreover, in almost all of these cases, the courts have held that the discrimination was pursuant to a widespread “pattern or practice.” White applicants for registration have often been excused altogether from the literacy and understanding tests or have been given easy versions, have received extensive help from voting officials, and have been registered despite serious errors in their answers.12 Negroes, on the other hand, have typically been required to pass difficult versions of all the tests, without any outside assistance and without the slightest error.13 The good-morals require*313ment is so vague and subjective that it has constituted an open invitation to abuse at the hands of voting officials.14 Negroes obliged to obtain vouchers from registered voters have found it virtually impossible to comply in areas where almost no Negroes are on the rolls.15

In recent years, Congress has repeatedly tried to cope with the problem by facilitating case-by-case litigation against voting discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 195716 authorized the Attorney General to seek injunctions against public and private interference with the right to vote on racial grounds. Perfecting amendments in the Civil Rights Act of 1960 17 permitted the joinder of States as parties defendant, gave the Attorney General access to local voting records, and authorized courts to register voters in areas of systematic discrimination.Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 196418 expedited the hearing of voting cases before three-judge courts and outlawed some of the tactics used to disqualify Negroes from voting in federal elections.

Despite the earnest efforts of the Justice Department and of many federal judges, these new laws have done little to cure the problem of voting discrimination. According to estimates by the Attorney General during hearings on the Act, registration of voting-age Negroes in Alabama rose only from 14.2% to 19.4% between 1958 and 1964; in Louisiana it barely inched ahead from 31.7% to 31.8% between 1956 and 1965; and in Mississippi it increased only from 4.4% to 6.4% between 1954 and 1964. In each instance, registration of voting-age whites ran roughly 50 percentage points or more ahead of Negro registration.

*314The previous legislation has proved ineffective for a number of reasons. Voting suits are unusually onerous to prepare, sometimes requiring as many as 6,000 man-hours spent combing through registration records in preparation for trial. Litigation has been exceedingly slow, in part because of the ample opportunities for delay afforded voting officials and others involved in the proceedings. Even when favorable decisions have finally been obtained, some of the States affected have merely switched to discriminatory devices not covered by the federal decrees or have enacted difficult new tests designed to prolong the existing disparity between white and Negro registration.19 Alternatively, certain local officials have defied and evaded court orders or have simply closed their registration offices to freeze the voting rolls.20 The provision of the 1960 law authorizing registration by federal officers has had little impact on local maladministration because of its procedural complexities.

During the hearings and debates on the Act, Selma, Alabama, was repeatedly referred to as the pre-eminent example of the ineffectiveness of existing legislation. In Dallas County, of which Selma is the seat, there were four years of litigation by the Justice Department and two findings by the federal courts of widespread voting discrimination. Yet in those four years, Negro registra*315tion rose only from 156 to 383, although there are approximately 15,000 Negroes of voting age in the county. Any possibility that these figures were attributable to political apathy was dispelled by the protest demonstrations in Selma in the early months of 1965. The House Committee on the Judiciary summed up the reaction of Congress to these developments in the following words:

“The litigation in Dallas County took more than 4 years to open the door to the exercise of constitutional rights conferred almost a century ago. The problem on a national scale is that the difficulties experienced in suits in Dallas County have been encountered over and over again under existing voting laws. Four years is too long. The burden is too heavy — the wrong to our citizens is too serious — the damage to our national conscience is too great not to adopt more effective measures than exist today.

“Such is the essential justification for the pending bill.” House Report 11.

II.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 reflects Congress’ firm intention to rid the country of racial discrimination in voting.21 The heart of the Act is a complex scheme of stringent remedies aimed at areas where voting discrimination has been most flagrant. Section 4 (a)-(d) lays down a formula defining the States and political subdivisions to which these new remedies apply. The first of the remedies, contained in § 4 (a), is the suspension of literacy tests and similar voting qualifications for a period of five years from the last occurrence of substantial voting discrimination. Section 5 prescribes a second *316remedy, the suspension of all new voting regulations pending review by federal authorities to determine whether their use would perpetuate voting discrimination. The third remedy, covered in §§ 6 (b), 7, 9, and 13 (a), is the assignment of federal examiners on certification by the Attorney General to list qualified applicants who are thereafter entitled to vote in all elections.

Other provisions of the Act prescribe subsidiary cures for persistent voting discrimination. Section 8 authorizes the appointment of federal poll-watchers in places to which federal examiners have already been assigned. Section 10 (d) excuses those made eligible to vote in sections of the country covered by § 4 (b) of the Act from paying accumulated past poll taxes for state and local elections. Section 12 (e) provides for balloting by persons denied access to the polls in areas where federal examiners have been appointed.

The remaining remedial portions of the Act are aimed at voting discrimination in any area of the country where it may occur. Section 2 broadly prohibits the use of voting rules to abridge exercise of the franchise on racial grounds. Sections 3, 6 (a), and 13 (b) strengthen existing procedures for attacking voting discrimination by means of litigation. Section 4 (e) excuses citizens educated in American schools conducted in a foreign language from passing English-language literacy tests. Section 10 (a)-(c) facilitates constitutional litigation challenging the imposition of all poll taxes for state and local elections. Sections 11 and 12 (a)-(d) authorize civil and criminal sanctions against interference with the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Act.

At the outset, we emphasize that only some of the many portions of the Act are properly before us. South Carolina has not challenged §§ 2, 3, 4 (e), 6 (a), 8, 10, 12 (d) and (e), 13 (b), and other miscellaneous provisions having nothing to do with this lawsuit. Judicial review of these sections must await subsequent litiga*317tion.22 In addition, we find that South Carolina’s attack on §§ 11 and 12 (a)-(c) is premature. No person has yet been subjected to, or even threatened with, the criminal sanctions which these sections of the Act authorize. See United States v. Baines, 362 U. S. 17, 20-24. Consequently, the only sections of the Act to be reviewed at this time are §§ 4 (a)-(d), 5, 6 (b), 7, 9, 13 (a), and certain procedural portions of § 14, all of which are presently in actual operation in South Carolina. We turn now to a detailed description of these provisions and their present status.

Coverage formula.

The remedial sections of the Act assailed by South Carolina automatically apply to any State; or to any separate political subdivision such as a county or parish, for which two findings have been made: (1) the Attorney General has determined that on November 1, 1964, it maintained a “test or device,” and (2) the Director of the Census has determined that less than 50% of its voting-age residents were registered on November 1,1964, or voted in the presidential election of November 1964. These findings are not reviewable in any court and are final upon publication in the Federal Register. § 4 (b). As used throughout the Act, the phrase “test or device” means any requirement that a registrant or voter must “(1) demonstrate the ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter, (2) demonstrate any educational achievement or his knowledge of any particular subject, (3) possess good moral character, or (4) prove his quali*318fications by the voucher of registered voters or members of any other class.” § 4 (c).

Statutory coverage of a State or political subdivision under § 4 (b) is terminated if the area obtains a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia, determining that tests and devices have not been used during the preceding five years to abridge the franchise on racial grounds. The Attorney General shall consent to entry of the judgment if he has no reason to believe that the facts are otherwise. §4 (a). For the purposes of this section, tests and devices are not deemed to have been used in a forbidden manner if the incidents of discrimination are few in number and have been promptly corrected, if their continuing effects have been abated, and if they are unlikely to recur in the future. § 4 (d). On the other hand, no area may obtain a declaratory judgment for five years after the final decision of a federal court (other than the denial of a judgment under this section of the Act), determining that discrimination through the use of tests or devices has occurred anywhere in the State or political subdivision. These declaratory judgment actions are to be heard by a three-judge panel, with direct appeal to this Court. §4 (a).

South Carolina was brought within the coverage formula of the Act on August 7, 1965, pursuant to appropriate administrative determinations which have not been challenged in this proceeding.23 On the same day, coverage was also extended to Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, 26 counties in North Carolina, and one county in Arizona.24 Two more counties in Arizona, one county in Hawaii, and one county in Idaho were added to the list on November 19, 1965.25 *319Thus far Alaska, the three Arizona counties, and the single county in Idaho have asked the District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a declaratory judgment terminating statutory coverage.26

Suspension of tests.

In a State or political subdivision covered by § 4 (b) of the Act, no person may be denied the right to vote in any election because of his failure to comply with a “test or device.” §4 (a).

On account of this provision, South Carolina is temporarily barred from enforcing the portion of its voting laws which requires every applicant for registration to show that he:

“Can both read and write any section of [the State] Constitution submitted to [him] by the registration officer or can show that he owns, and has paid all taxes collectible during the previous year on, property in this State assessed at three hundred dollars or more.” S. C. Code Ann. §23-62 (4) (1965 Supp.).

The Attorney General has determined that the property qualification is inseparable from the literacy test,27 and South Carolina makes no objection to this finding. Similar tests and devices have been temporarily suspended in the other sections of the country listed above.28

Review of new rules.

In a State or political subdivision covered by § 4 (b) of the Act, no person may be denied the right to vote in any election because of his failure to comply with a voting qualification or procedure different from those in force on *320November 1, 1964. This suspension of new rules is terminated, however, under either of the following circumstances: (1) if the area has submitted the rules to the Attorney General, and he has not interposed an objection within 60 days, or (2) if the area has obtained a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia, determining that the rules will not abridge the franchise on racial grounds. These declaratory judgment actions are to be heard by a three-judge panel, with direct appeal to this Court. § 5.

South Carolina altered its voting laws in 1965 to extend the closing hour at polling places from 6 p. m. to 7 p. m.29 The State has not sought judicial review of this change in the District Court for the District of Columbia, nor has it submitted the new rule to the Attorney General for his scrutiny, although at our hearing the Attorney General announced that he does not challenge the amendment. There are indications in the record that other sections of the country listed above have also altered their voting laws since November 1, 1964.30

Federal examiners.

In any political subdivision covered by § 4 (b) of the Act, the Civil Service Commission shall appoint voting examiners whenever the Attorney General certifies either of the following facts: (1) that he has received meritorious written complaints from at least 20 residents alleging that they have been disenfranchised under color of law because of their race, or (2) that the appointment of examiners is otherwise necessary to effectuate the guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment. In making the latter determination, the Attorney General must consider, among other factors, whether the registration ratio of non-whites to whites seems reasonably attributable to *321racial discrimination, or whether there is substantial evidence of good-faith efforts to comply with the Fifteenth Amendment. §6 (b). These certifications are not reviewable in any court and are effective upon publication in the Federal Register. § 4 (b).

The examiners who have been appointed are to test the voting qualifications of applicants according to regulations of the Civil Service Commission prescribing times, places, procedures, and forms. §§ 7 (a) and 9 (b). Any person who meets the voting requirements of state law, insofar as these have not been suspended by the Act, must promptly be placed on a list of eligible voters. Examiners are to transmit their lists at least once a month to the appropriate state or local officials, who in turn are required to place the listed names on the official voting rolls. Any person listed by an examiner is entitled to vote in all elections held more than 45 days after his name has been transmitted. § 7 (b).

A person shall be removed from the voting list by an examiner if he has lost his eligibility under valid state law, or if he has been successfully challenged through the procedure prescribed in § 9 (a) of the Act. § 7 (d). The challenge must be filed at the office within the State designated by the Civil Service Commission; must be submitted within 10 days after the listing is made available for public inspection; must be supported by the affidavits of at least two people having personal knowledge of the relevant facts; and must be served on the person challenged by mail or at his residence. A hearing officer appointed by the Civil Service Commission shall hear the challenge and render a decision within 15 days after the challenge is filed. A petition for review of the hearing officer's decision must be submitted within an additional 15 days after service of the decision on the person seeking review. The court of appeals for the circuit in which the person challenged resides is to *322hear the petition and affirm the hearing officer’s decision unless it is clearly erroneous. Any person listed by an examiner is entitled to vote pending a final decision of the hearing officer or the court. § 9 (a).

The listing procedures in a political subdivision. are terminated under either of the following circumstances: (1) if the Attorney General informs the Civil Service Commission that all persons listed by examiners have been placed on the official voting rolls, and that there is no longer reasonable cause to fear abridgment of the franchise on racial grounds, or (2) if the political subdivision has obtained a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia, ascertaining the same facts which govern termination by the Attorney General, and the Director of the Census has determined that more than 50% of the non-white residents of voting-age are registered to vote. A political subdivision may petition the Attorney General to terminate listing procedures or to authorize the necessary census, and the District Court itself shall request the census if the Attorney General’s refusal to do so is arbitrary or unreasonable. § 13 (a). The determinations by the Director of the Census are not reviewable in any court and are final upon publication in the Federal Register. § 4 (b).

On October 30, 1965, the Attorney General certified the need for federal examiners in two South Carolina counties,31 and examiners appointed by the Civil Service Commission have been serving there since November 8, 1965. Examiners have also been assigned to 11 counties in Alabama, five parishes in Louisiana, and 19 counties in Mississippi.32 The examiners are listing people found eligible to vote, and the challenge procedure has been *323employed extensively.33 No political subdivision has yet sought to have federal examiners withdrawn through the Attorney General or the District Court for the District of Columbia.

III.

These provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are challenged on the fundamental ground that they exceed the powers of Congress and encroach on an area reserved to the States by the Constitution. South Carolina and certain of the amici curiae also attack specific sections of the Act for more particular reasons. They argue that the coverage formula prescribed in § 4 (a)-(d) violates the principle of the equality of States, denies due process by employing an invalid presumption and by barring judicial review of administrative findings, constitutes a forbidden bill of attainder, and impairs the separation of powers by adjudicating guilt through legislation. They claim that the review of new voting rules required in § 5 infringes Article III by directing the District Court to issue advisory opinions. They contend that the assignment of federal examiners authorized in § 6 (b) abridges due process by precluding judicial review of administrative findings and impairs the separation of powers by giving the Attorney General judicial functions; also that the challenge procedure prescribed in § 9 denies due process on account of its speed. Finally, South Carolina and certain of the amici curiae maintain that §§ 4 (a) and 5, buttressed by § 14 (b) of the Act, abridge due process by limiting litigation to a distant forum.

Some of these contentions may be dismissed at the outset. The word “person” in the context of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment cannot, by any reasonable mode of interpretation, be expanded to encompass the States of the Union, and to our knowledge *324this has never been done by any court. See International Shoe Co. v. Cocreham, 246 La. 244, 266, 164 So. 2d 314, 322, n. 5; cf. United States v. City of Jackson, 318 F. 2d 1, 8 (C. A. 5th Cir.). Likewise, courts have consistently regarded the Bill of Attainder Clause of Article I and the principle of the separation of powers only as protections for individual persons and private groups, those who are peculiarly vulnerable to nonjudicial determinations of guilt. See United States v. Brown, 381 U. S. 437; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333. Nor does a State have standing as the parent of its citizens to invoke these constitutional provisions against the Federal Government, the ultimate parens patriae of every American citizen. Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 485-486; Florida v. Mellon, 273 U. S. 12, 18. The objections to the Act which are raised under these provisions may therefore be considered only as additional aspects of the basic question presented by the case: Has Congress exercised its powers under the Fifteenth Amendment in an appropriate manner with relation to the States?

The ground rules for resolving this question are clear. The language and purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment, the prior decisions construing its several provisions, and the general doctrines of constitutional interpretation, all point to one fundamental principle. As against the reserved powers of the States, Congress may use any rational means to effectuate the constitutional prohibition of racial discrimination in voting. Cf. our rulings last Term, sustaining Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 258-259, 261-262; and Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 303-304. We turn now to a more detailed description of the standards which govern our review of the Act.

*325Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment declares that “[t]he 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.” This declaration has always been treated as self-executing and has repeatedly been construed, without further legislative specification, to invalidate state voting qualifications or procedures which are discriminatory on their face or in practice. See Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347; Myers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368; Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649; Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933; Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461; United States v. Thomas, 362 U. S. 58; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339; Alabama v. United States, 371 U. S. 37; Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145. These decisions have been rendered with full respect for the general rule, reiterated last Term in Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89, 91, that States “have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised.” The gist of the matter is that the Fifteenth Amendment supersedes contrary exertions of state power. “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.” Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S., at 347.

South Carolina contends that the cases cited above are precedents only for the authority of the judiciary to strike down state statutes and procedures — that to allow an exercise of this authority by Congress would be to rob the courts of their rightful constitutional role. On the contrary, § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment expressly declares that “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” By adding this *326authorization, the Framers indicated that Congress was to be chiefly responsible for implementing the rights created in § 1. “It is the power of Congress which has been enlarged. Congress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by appropriate legislation. Some legislation is contemplated to make the [Civil War] amendments fully effective.” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345. Accordingly, in addition to the courts, Congress has full remedial powers to effectuate the constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination in voting.

Congress has repeatedly exercised these powers in the past, and its enactments have repeatedly been upheld. For recent examples, see the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was sustained in United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17; United States v. Thomas, supra; and Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420; and the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which was upheld in Alabama v. United States, supra; Louisiana v. United States, supra; and United States v. Mississippi, 380 U. S. 128. On the rare occasions when the Court has found an unconstitutional exercise of these powers, in its opinion Congress had attacked evils not comprehended by the Fifteenth Amendment. See United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214; James v. Bowman, 190 U. S. 127.

The basic test to be applied in a case involving § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment is the same as in all cases concerning the express powers of Congress with relation to the reserved powers of the States. Chief Justice Marshall laid down the classic formulation, 50 years before the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified:

“Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421.

*327The Court has subsequently echoed his language in describing each of the Civil War Amendments:

“Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power.” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S., at 345-346.

This language was again employed, nearly 50 years later, with reference to Congress’ related authority under § 2 of the Eighteenth Amendment. James Everard’s Breweries v. Day, 265 U. S. 545, 558-559.

We therefore reject South Carolina’s argument that Congress may appropriately do no more than to forbid violations of the Fifteenth Amendment in general terms— that the task of fashioning specific remedies or of applying them to particular localities must necessarily be left entirely to the courts. Congress is not circumscribed by any such artificial rules under § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. In the oft-repeated words of Chief Justice Marshall, referring to another specific legislative authorization in the Constitution, “This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196.

IY.

Congress exercised its authority under the Fifteenth Amendment in an inventive manner when it enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. First: The measure prescribes remedies for voting discrimination which go into *328effect without any need for prior adjudication. This was clearly a legitimate response to the problem, for which there is ample precedent under other constitutional provisions. See Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 302-304; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 120-121. Congress had found that case-by-case litigation was inadequate to combat widespread and persistent discrimination in voting, because of the inordinate amount of time and energy required to overcome the obstructionist tactics invariably encountered in these lawsuits.34 After enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress might well decide to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims. The question remains, of course, whether the specific remedies prescribed in the Act were an appropriate means of combatting the evil, and to this question we shall presently address ourselves.

Second: The Act intentionally confines these remedies to a small number of States and political subdivisions which in most instances were familiar to Congress by name.35 This, too, was a permissible method of dealing with the problem. Congress had learned that substantial voting discrimination presently occurs in certain sections of the country, and it knew no way of accurately forecasting whether the evil might spread elsewhere in the future.36 In acceptable legislative fashion, Congress chose to limit its attention to the geographic areas where immediate action seemed necessary. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 427; Salsburg v. Maryland, 346 U. S. 545, 550-554. The doctrine of the equality of States, invoked by South Carolina, does not bar this approach, for that doctrine applies only to the terms *329upon which States are admitted to the Union, and not to the remedies for local evils which have subsequently appeared. See Coyle v. Smith, 221 U. S. 559, and cases cited therein.

Coverage formula.

We now consider the related question of whether the specific States and political subdivisions within § 4 (b) of the Act were an appropriate target for the new remedies. South Carolina contends that the coverage formula is aw7kwardly designed in a number of respects and that it disregards various local conditions which have nothing to do with racial discrimination. These arguments, however, are largely beside the point.37 Congress began work with reliable evidence of actual voting discrimination in a great majority of the States and political subdivisions affected by the new remedies of the Act. The formula eventually evolved to describe these areas was relevant to the problem of voting discrimination, and Congress was therefore entitled to infer a significant danger of the evil in the few remaining States and political subdivisions covered by § 4 (b) of the Act. No more was required to justify the application to these areas of Congress’ express powers under the Fifteenth Amendment. Cf. North American Co. v. S. E. C., 327 U. S. 686, 710-711; Assigned Car Cases, 274 U. S. 564, 582-583.

To be specific, the new remedies of the Act are imposed on three States — Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi— in which federal courts have repeatedly found substantial voting discrimination.38 Section 4 (b) of the Act also embraces two other States — Georgia and South Carolina — plus large portions of a third State — North Carolina — for which there was more fragmentary evidence of *330recent voting discrimination mainly adduced by the Justice Department and the Civil Rights Commission.39 All of these areas were appropriately subjected to the new remedies. In identifying past evils, Congress obviously may avail itself of information from any probative source. See Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 252-253; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S., at 299-301.

The areas listed above, for which there was evidence of actual voting discrimination, share two characteristics incorporated by Congress into the coverage formula: the use of tests and devices for voter registration, and a voting rate in the 1964 presidential election at least 12 points below the national average. Tests and devices are relevant to voting discrimination because of their long history as a tool for perpetrating the evil; a low voting rate is pertinent for the obvious reason that widespread disenfranchisement must inevitably affect the number of actual voters. Accordingly, the coverage formula is rational in both practice and theory. It was therefore permissible to impose the new remedies on the few remaining States and political subdivisions covered by the formula, at least in the absence of proof that they have been free of substantial voting discrimination in recent years. Congress is clearly not bound by the rules relating to statutory presumptions in criminal cases when it prescribes civil remedies against other organs of government under § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. Compare United States v. Romano, 382 U. S. 136; Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463.

It is irrelevant that the coverage formula excludes certain localities which do not employ voting tests and *331devices but for which there is evidence of voting discrimination by other means. Congress had learned that widespread and persistent discrimination in voting during recent years has typically entailed the misuse of tests and devices, and this was the evil for which the new remedies were specifically designed.40 At the same time, through §§ 3, 6 (a), and 13 (b) of the Act, Congress strengthened existing remedies for voting discrimination in other areas of the country. Legislation need not deal with all phases of a problem in the same way, so long as the distinctions drawn have some basis in practical experience. See Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 488-489; Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U. S. 106. There are no States or political subdivisions exempted from coverage under § 4 (b) in which the record reveals recent racial discrimination involving tests and devices. This fact confirms the rationality of the formula.

Acknowledging the possibility of overbreadth, the Act provides for termination of special statutory coverage at the behest of States and political subdivisions in which the danger of substantial voting discrimination has not materialized during the preceding five years. Despite South Carolina’s argument to the contrary, Congress might appropriately limit litigation under this provision to a single court in the District of Columbia, pursuant to its constitutional power under Art. Ill, § 1, to “ordain and establish” inferior federal tribunals. See Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503, 510-512; Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 427-431; Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182. At the present time, contractual claims against the United States for more than $10,000 must be brought in the Court of Claims, and, until 1962, the District of Columbia was the sole venue of suits against *332federal officers officially residing in the Nation’s Capital.41 We have discovered no suggestion that Congress exceeded constitutional bounds in imposing these limitations on litigation against the Federal Government, and the Act is no less reasonable in this respect.

South Carolina contends that these termination procedures are a nullity because they impose an impossible burden of proof upon States and political subdivisions entitled to relief. As the Attorney General pointed out during hearings on the Act, however, an area need do no more than submit affidavits from voting officials, asserting that they have not been guilty of racial discrimination through the use of tests and devices during the past five years, and then refute whatever evidence to the contrary may be adduced by the Federal Government.42 Section 4 (d) further assures that an area need not disprove each isolated instance of voting discrimination in order to obtain relief in the termination proceedings. The burden of proof is therefore quite bearable, particularly since the relevant facts relating to the conduct of voting officials are peculiarly within the knowledge of the States and political subdivisions themselves. See United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 355 U. S. 253, 256, n. 5; cf. S. E. C. v. Ralston Purina Co., 346 U. S. 119, 126.

The Act bars direct judicial review of the findings by the Attorney General and the Director of the Census which trigger application of the coverage formula. We reject the claim by Alabama as amicus curiae that this provision is invalid because it allows the new remedies of *333the Act to be imposed in an arbitrary way. The Court has already permitted Congress to withdraw judicial review of administrative determinations in numerous cases involving the statutory rights of private parties. For example, see United States v. California Eastern Line, 348 U. S. 351; Switchmen’s Union v. National Mediation Bd., 320 U. S. 297. In this instance, the findings not subject to review consist of objective statistical determinations by the Census Bureau and a routine analysis of state statutes by the Justice Department. These functions are unlikely to arouse any plausible dispute, as South Carolina apparently concedes. In the event that the formula is improperly applied, the area affected can always go into court and obtain termination of coverage under § 4 (b), provided of course that it has not been guilty of voting discrimination in recent years. This procedure serves as a partial substitute for direct judicial review.

Suspension of tests.

We now arrive at consideration of the specific remedies prescribed by the Act for areas included within the coverage formula. South Carolina assails the temporary suspension of existing voting qualifications, reciting the rule laid down by Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U. S. 45, that literacy tests and related devices are not in themselves contrary to the Fifteenth Amendment. In that very case, however, the Court went on to say, "Of course a literacy test, fair on its face, may be employed to perpetuate that discrimination which the Fifteenth Amendment was designed to uproot.” Id., at 53. The record shows that in most of the States covered by the Act, including South Carolina, various tests and devices have been instituted with the purpose of disenfranchising Negroes, have been framed in such a way as to facilitate this aim, and have been ad*334ministered in a discriminatory fashion for many years.43 Under these circumstances, the Fifteenth Amendment has clearly been violated. See Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145; Alabama v. United States, 371 U. S. 37; Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933.

The Act suspends literacy tests and similar devices for a period of five years from the last occurrence of substantial voting discrimination. This was a legitimate response to the problem, for which there is ample precedent in Fifteenth Amendment cases. Ibid. Underlying the response was the feeling that States and political subdivisions which had been allowing white illiterates to vote for years could not sincerely complain about “dilution” of their electorates through the registration of Negro illiterates.44 Congress knew that continuance of the tests and devices in use at the present time, no matter how fairly administered in the future, would freeze the effect of past discrimination in favor of unqualified white registrants.45 Congress permissibly rejected the alternative of requiring a complete re-registration of all voters, believing that this would be too harsh on many whites who had enjoyed the franchise for their entire adult lives.46

Review of new rules.

The Act suspends new voting regulations pending scrutiny by federal authorities to determine whether their use would violate the Fifteenth Amendment. This may have been an uncommon exercise of congressional power, as South Carolina contends, but the Court has recognized that exceptional conditions can justify legislative measures not otherwise appropriate. See Home *335Bldg. & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398; Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332. Congress knew that some of the States covered by § 4 (b) of the Act had resorted to the extraordinary stratagem of contriving new rules of various kinds for the sole purpose of perpetuating voting discrimination in the face of adverse federal court decrees.47 Congress had reason to suppose that these States might try similar maneuvers in the future in order to evade the remedies for voting discrimination contained in the Act itself. Under the compulsion of these unique circumstances, Congress responded in a permissibly decisive manner.

For reasons already stated, there wras nothing inappropriate about limiting litigation under this provision to the District Court for the District of Columbia, and in putting the burden of proof on the areas seeking relief. Nor has Congress authorized the District Court to issue advisory opinions, in violation of the principles of Article .III invoked by Georgia as amicus curiae. The Act automatically suspends the operation of voting regulations enacted after November 1, 1964, and furnishes mechanisms for enforcing the suspension. A State or political subdivision wishing to make use of a recent amendment to its voting laws therefore has a concrete and immediate “controversy” with the Federal Government. Cf. Public Utilities Comm’n v. United States, 355 U. S. 534, 536-539; United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, 24-25. An appropriate remedy is a judicial determination that continued suspension of the new rule is unnecessary to vindicate rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment.

Federal examiners.

The Act authorizes the appointment of federal examiners to list qualified applicants who are thereafter *336entitled to vote, subject to an expeditious challenge procedure. This was clearly an appropriate response to the problem, closely related to remedies authorized in prior cases. See Alabama v. United States, supra; United States v. Thomas, 362 U. S. 58. In many of the political subdivisions covered by § 4 (b) of the Act, voting officials have persistently employed a variety of procedural tactics to deny Negroes the franchise, often in direct defiance or evasion of federal court decrees.48 Congress realized that merely to suspend voting rules which have been misused or are subject to misuse might leave this localized evil undisturbed. As for the briskness of the challenge procedure, Congress knew that in some of the areas affected, challenges had been persistently employed to harass registered Negroes. It chose to forestall this abuse, at the same time providing alternative ways for removing persons listed through error or fraud.49 In addition to the judicial challenge procedure, § 7 (d) allows for the removal of names by the examiner himself, and § 11 (c) makes it a crime to obtain a listing through fraud.

In recognition of the fact that there were political subdivisions covered by § 4.(b) of the Act in which the appointment of federal examiners might be unnecessary, Congress assigned the Attorney General the task of determining the localities to- which examiners should be sent.50 There is no warrant for the claim, asserted by Georgia as amicus curiae, that the Attorney General is free to use this power in an arbitrary fashion, without regard to the purposes of the Act. Section 6 (b) sets adequate standards to guide the exercise of his discretion, by directing him to calculate the registration ratio of nonwhites to whites, and to weigh evidence of good-faith *337efforts to avoid possible voting discrimination. At the same time, the special termination procedures of § 13 (a) provide indirect judicial review for the political subdivisions affected, assuring the withdrawal of federal examiners from areas where they are clearly not needed. Cf. Carlson v. Landon, 342 U. S. 524, 542-544; Mulford v. Smith, 307 U. S. 38, 48-49.

After enduring nearly a century of widespread resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress has mar-shalled an array of potent weapons against the evil, with authority in the Attorney General to employ them effectively. Many of the areas directly affected by this development have indicated their willingness to abide by any restraints legitimately imposed upon them.51 We here hold that the portions of the Voting Rights Act properly before us are a valid means for carrying out the commands of the Fifteeenth Amendment. Hopefully, millions of non-white Americans will now be able to participate for the first time on an equal basis in the government under which they live. We may finally look forward to the day when truly “[t]he 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.”

The bill of complaint is Dismissed.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.

Voting Rights Act of 1965.

AN ACT

To enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress *338assembled, That this Act shall be known as the “Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

Sec. 2. No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.

Sec. 3. (a) Whenever the Attorney General institutes a proceeding under any statute to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment in any State or political subdivision the court shall authorize the appointment of Federal examiners by the United States Civil Service Commission in accordance with section 6 to serve for such period of time and for such political subdivisions as the court shall determine is appropriate to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment (1) as part of any interlocutory order if the court determines that the appointment of such examiners is necessary to enforce such guarantees or (2) as part of any final judgment if the court finds that violations of the fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred in such State or subdivision: Provided, That the court need not authorize the appointment of examiners if any incidents of denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or color (1) have been few in number and have been promptly and effectively corrected by State or local action, (2) the continuing effect of such incidents has been eliminated, and (3) there is no reasonable probability of their recurrence in the future.

(b) If in a proceeding instituted by the Attorney General under any statute to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment in any State or political subdivision the court finds that a test or device has been used for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, it shall suspend the use of *339tests and devices in such State or political subdivisions as the court shall determine is appropriate and for such period as it deems necessary.

(c) If in any proceeding instituted by the Attorney General under any statute to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment in any State or political subdivision the court finds that violations of the fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred within the territory of such State or political subdivision, the court, in addition to such relief as it may grant, shall retain jurisdiction for such period as it may deem appropriate and during such period no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect at the time the proceeding was commenced shall be enforced unless and until the court finds that such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color: Provided, That such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure may be enforced if the qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure has been submitted by the chief legal officer or other appropriate official of such State or subdivision to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has not interposed an objection within sixty days after such submission, except that neither the court’s finding nor the Attorney General’s failure to object shall bar a subsequent action to enjoin enforcement of such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure.

Sec. 4. (a) To assure that the right of citizens of the United States to vote is not denied or abridged on account of race or color, no citizen shall be denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his failure to comply -with any test or device in any State with respect to which the determinations have been *340made under subsection (b) or in any political subdivision with respect to which such determinations have been made as a separate unit, unless the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in an action for a declaratory judgment brought by such State or subdivision against the United States has determined that no such test or device has been used during the five years preceding the filing of the action for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color: Provided, That no such declaratory judgment shall issue with respect to any plaintiff for a period of five years after the entry of a final judgment of any court of the United States, other than the denial of a declaratory judgment under this section, whether entered prior to or after the enactment of this Act, determining that denials or abridgments of the right to vote on account of race or color through the use of such tests or devices have occurred anywhere in the territory of such plaintiff.

An action pursuant to this subsection shall be heard and determined by a court of three judges in accordance with the provisions of section 2284 of title 28 of the United States Code and any appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court. The court shall retain jurisdiction of any action pursuant to this subsection for five years after judgment and shall reopen the action upon motion of the Attorney General alleging that a test or device has been used for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.

If the Attorney General determines that he has no reason to believe that any such test or device has been used during the five years preceding the filing of the action for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, he shall consent to the entry of such judgment.

*341(b) The provisions of subsection (a) shall apply in any State or in any political subdivision of a state which (1) the Attorney General determines maintained on November 1, 1964, any test or device, and with respect to which (2) the Director of the Census determines that less than 50 per centum of the persons of voting age residing therein were registered on November 1, 1964, or that less than 50 per centum of such persons voted in the presidential election of November 1964.

A determination or certification of the Attorney General or of the Director of the Census under this section or under section 6 or section 13 shall not be reviewable in any court and shall be effective upon publication in the Federal Register.

(c) The phrase “test or device” shall mean any requirement that a person as a prerequisite for voting or registration for voting (1) demonstrate the ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter, (2) demonstrate any educational achievement or his knowledge of any particular subject, (3) possess good moral character, or (4) prove his qualifications by the voucher of registered voters or members of any other class.

(d) For purposes of this section no State or political subdivision shall be determined to have engaged in the use of tests or devices for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color if (1) incidents of such use have been few in number and have been promptly and effectively corrected by State or local action, (2) the continuing effect of such incidents has been eliminated, and (3) there is no reasonable probability of their recurrence in the future.

(e)(1) Congress hereby declares that to secure the rights under the fourteenth amendment of persons educated in American-flag schools in which the predominant *342classroom language was other than English, it is necessary to prohibit the States from conditioning the right to vote of such persons on ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language.

(2) No person who demonstrates that he has successfully completed the sixth primary grade in a public school in, or a private school accredited by, any State or territory, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in which the predominant classroom language was other than English, shall be denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his inability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language, except that in States in which State law provides that a different level of education is presumptive of literacy, he shall demonstrate that he has successfully completed an equivalent level of education in a public school in, or a private school accredited by, any State or territory, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in which the predominant classroom language wTas other than English.

Sec. 5. Whenever a State or political subdivision with respect to which the prohibitions set forth in section 4 (a) are in effect shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964, such State or subdivision may institute an action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a declaratory judgment that such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, and unless and until the court enters such judgment no person shall be denied the right to vote for failure to comply with such qualification, prerequisite, standard, prac*343tice, or procedure: Provided, That such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure may be enforced without such proceeding if the qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure has been submitted by the chief legal officer or other appropriate official of such State or subdivision to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has not interposed an objection within sixty days after such submission, except that neither the Attorney General’s failure to object nor a declaratory judgment entered under this section shall bar a subsequent action to enjoin enforcement of such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure. Any action under this section shall be heard and determined by a court of three judges in accordance with the provisions of section 2284 of title 28 of the United States Code and any appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court.

Sec. 6. Whenever (a) a court has authorized the appointment of examiners pursuant to the provisions of section 3 (a), or (b) unless a declaratory judgment has been rendered under section 4 (a), the Attorney General certifies with respect to any political subdivision named in, or included within the scope of, determinations made under section 4 (b) that (1) he has received complaints in writing from twenty or more residents of such political subdivision alleging that they have been denied the right to vote under color of law on account of race or color, and that he believes such complaints to be meritorious, or (2) that in his judgment (considering, among other factors, whether the ratio of nonwhite persons to white persons registered to vote within such subdivision appears to him to be reasonably attributable to violations of the fifteenth amendment or whether substantial evidence exists that bona fide efforts are being made within such subdivision to comply with the fifteenth amendment), the appointment of examiners is otherwise necessary to *344enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment, the Civil Service Commission shall appoint as many examiners for such subdivision as it may deem appropriate to prepare and maintain lists of persons eligible to vote in Federal, State, and local elections. Such examiners, hearing officers provided for in section 9 (a), and other persons deemed necessary by the Commission to carry out the provisions and purposes of this Act shall be appointed, compensated, and separated without regard to the provisions of any statute administered by the Civil Service Commission, and service under this Act shall not be considered employment for the purposes of any statute administered by the Civil Service Commission, except the provisions of section 9 of the Act of August'2, 1939, as amended (5 U. S. C. 118i), prohibiting partisan political activity: Provided, That the Commission is authorized, after consulting the head of the appropriate department or agency, to designate suitable persons in the official service of the United States, with their consent, to serve in these positions. Examiners and hearing officers shall have the power to administer oaths.

Sec. 7. (a) The examiners for each political subdivision shall, at such places as the Civil Service Commission shall by regulation designate, examine applicants concerning their qualifications for voting. An application to an examiner shall be in such form as the Commission may require and shall contain allegations that the applicant is not otherwise registered to vote.

(b) Any person whom the examiner finds, in accordance with instructions received under section 9 (b), to have the qualifications prescribed by State law not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States shall promptly be placed on a list of eligible voters. A challenge to such listing may be made in accordance with section 9 (a) and shall not be the basis for a prosecution under section 12 of this Act. The ex*345aminer shall certify and transmit such list, and any supplements as appropriate, at least once a month, to the offices of the appropriate election officials, with copies to the Attorney General and the attorney general of the State, and any such lists and supplements thereto transmitted during the month shall be available for public inspection on the last business day of the month and in any event not later than the forty-fifth day prior to any election. The appropriate State or local election official shall place such names on the official voting fist. Any person whose name appears on the examiner’s list shall be entitled and allowed to vote in the election district of his residence unless and until the appropriate election officials shall have been notified that such person has been removed from such list in accordance with subsection (d): Provided, That no person shall be entitled to vote in any election by virtue of this Act unless his name shall have been certified and transmitted on such a list to the offices of the appropriate election officials at least forty-five days prior to such election.

(c) The examiner shall issue to each person whose name appears on such a list a certificate evidencing his eligibility to vote.

(d) A person whose name appears on such a list shall be removed therefrom by an examiner if (1) such person has been successfully challenged in accordance with the procedure prescribed in section 9, or (2) he has been determined by an examiner to have lost his eligibility to vote under State law not inconsistent with the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

Sec. 8. Whenever an examiner is serving under this Act in any political subdivision, the Civil Service Commission may assign, at the request of the Attorney General, one or more persons, who may be officers of the United States, (1) to enter and attend at any place for holding an election in such subdivision for the purpose *346of observing whether persons who are entitled to vote are being permitted to vote, and (2) to enter and attend at any place for tabulating the votes cast at any election held in such subdivision for the purpose of. observing whether votes cast by persons entitled to vote are being properly tabulated. Such persons so assigned shall report to an examiner appointed for such political subdivision, to the Attorney General, and if the appointment of examiners has been authorized pursuant to section 3 (a), to the court.

Sec. 9. (a) Any challenge to a listing on an eligibility list prepared by an examiner shall be heard and determined by a hearing officer appointed by and responsible to the Civil Service Commission and under such rules as the Commission shall by regulation prescribe. Such challenge shall be entertained only if filed at such office within the State as the Civil Service Commission shall by regulation designate, and within ten days after the listing of the challenged person is made available for public inspection, and if supported by (1) the affidavits of at least two persons having personal knowledge of the facts constituting grounds for the challenge, and (2) a certification that a copy of the challenge and affidavits have been served by mail or in person upon the person challenged at his place of residence set out in the application. Such challenge shall be determined within fifteen days after it has been filed. A petition for review of the decision of the hearing officer may be filed in the United States court of appeals for the circuit in which the person challenged resides within fifteen days after service of such decision by mail on the person petitioning for review but no decision of a hearing officer shall be reversed unless clearly erroneous. Any person listed shall be entitled and allowed to vote pending final determination by the hearing officer and by the court.

*347(b) The times, places, procedures, and form for application and listing pursuant to this Act and removals from the eligibility lists shall be prescribed by regulations promulgated by the Civil Service Commission and the Com-mision shall, after consultation with the Attorney General, instruct examiners concerning applicable State law not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States with respect to (1) the qualifications required for listing, and (2) loss of eligibility to vote.

(c) Upon the request of the applicant or the challenger or on its own motion the Civil Service Commission shall have the power to require by subpena the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of documentary evidence relating to any matter pending before it under the authority of this section. In case of contumacy or refusal to obey a subpena, any district court of the United States or the United States court of any territory or possession, or the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, within the jurisdiction of which said person guilty of contumacy or refusal to obey is found or resides or is domiciled or transacts business, or has appointed an agent for receipt of service of process, upon application by the Attorney General of the United States shall have jurisdiction to issue to such person an order requiring such person to appear before the Commission or a hearing officer, there to produce pertinent, relevant, and nonprivileged documentary evidence if so ordered, or there to give testimony touching the matter under investigation; and any failure to obey such order of the court may be punished by said court as a contempt thereof.

Sec. 10. (a) The Congress finds that the requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting (i) precludes persons of limited means from voting or imposes unreasonable financial hardship upon such per*348sons as a precondition to their exercise of the franchise, (ii) does not bear a reasonable relationship to any legitimate State interest in the conduct of elections, and (iii) in some areas has the purpose or effect of denying persons the right to vote because of race or color. Upon the basis of these findings, Congress declares that the constitutional right of citizens to vote is denied or abridged in some areas by the requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting.

(b) In the exercise of the powers of Congress under section 5 of the fourteenth amendment and section 2 of the fifteenth amendment, the Attorney General is authorized and directed to institute forthwith in the name of the United States such actions, including actions against States or political subdivisions, for declaratory judgment or injunctive relief against the enforcement of any requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting, or substitute therefor enacted after November 1, 1964, as will be necessary to implement the declaration of subsection (a) and the purposes of this section.

(c) The district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction of such actions which shall be heard and determined by a court of three judges in accordance with the provisions of section 2284 of title 28 of the United States Code and any appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court. It shall be the duty of the judges designated to hear the case to assign the case for hearing at the earliest practicable date, to participate in the hearing and determination thereof, and to cause the case to be in every way expedited.

(d) During the pendency of such actions, and thereafter if the courts, notwithstanding this action by the Congress, should declare the requirement of the payment of a poll tax to be constitutional, no citizen of the United States who is a resident of a State or political *349subdivision with respect to which determinations have been made under subsection 4 (b) and a declaratory-judgment has not been entered under subsection 4 (a), during the first year he becomes otherwise entitled to vote by reason of registration by State or local officials or listing by an examiner, shall be denied the right to vote for failure to pay a poll tax if he tenders payment of such tax for the current year to an examiner or to the appropriate State or local official at least forty-five days prior to election, whether or not such tender would be timely or adequate under State law. An examiner shall have authority to accept such payment from any person authorized by this Act to make an application for listing, and shall issue a receipt for such payment. The examiner shall transmit promptly any such poll tax payment to the office of the State or local official authorized to receive such payment under State law, together with the name and address of the applicant.

Sec. 11. (a) No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote under any provision of this Act or is otherwise qualified to vote, or willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person’s vote.

(b) No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for exercising any powers or duties under section 3 (a), 6, 8, 9, 10, or 12 (e).

(c) Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address, or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another *350individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, or Delegates or Commissioners from the territories or possessions, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

(d) Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of an examiner or hearing officer knowingly and willfully falsifies or conceals a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

Sec. 12. (a) Whoever shall deprive or attempt to deprive any person of any right secured by section 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, or 10 or shall violate section 11 (a) or (b), shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(b) Whoever, within a year following an election in a political subdivision in which an examiner has been appointed (1) destroys, defaces, mutilates, or otherwise alters the marking of a paper ballot which has been cast in such election, or (2) alters any official record of voting in such election tabulated from a voting machine or otherwise, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

*351(c) Whoever conspires to violate the provisions of subsection (a) or (b) of this section, or interferes with any right secured by section 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, or 11 (a) or (b) shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(d) Whenever any person has engaged or there are reasonable grounds to believe that any person is about to engage in any act or practice prohibited by section 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, or subsection (b) of this section, the Attorney General may institute for the United States, or in the name of the United States, an action for preventive relief, including an application for a temporary or permanent injunction, restraining order, or other order, and including an order directed to the State and State or local election officials to require them (1) to permit persons listed under this Act to vote and (2) to count such votes.

(e) Whenever in any political subdivision in which there are examiners appointed pursuant to this Act any persons allege to such an examiner within forty-eight hours after the closing of the polls that notwithstanding (1) their listing under this Act or registration by an appropriate election official and (2) their eligibilty to vote, they have not been permitted to vote in such election, the examiner shall forthwith notify the Attorney General if such allegations in his opinion appear to be well founded. Upon receipt of such notification, the Attorney General may forthwith file with the district court an application for an order providing for the marking, casting, and counting of the ballots of such persons and requiring the inclusion of their votes in the total vote before the results of such election shall be deemed final and any force or effect given thereto. The district court shall hear and determine such matters immediately after the filing of such application. The remedy pro*352vided in this subsection shall not preclude any remedy available under State or Federal law.

(f) The district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction of proceedings instituted pursuant to this section and shall exercise the same without regard to whether a person asserting rights under the provisions of this Act shall have exhausted any administrative or other remedies that may be provided by law.

Sec. 13. Listing procedures shall be terminated in any political subdivision of any State (a) with respect to examiners appointed pursuant to clause (b) of section 6 whenever the Attorney General notifies the Civil Service Commission, or whenever the District Court for the District of Columbia determines in an action for declaratory judgment brought by any political subdivision with respect to which the Director of the Census has determined that more than 50 per centum of the nonwhite persons of voting age residing therein are registered to vote, (1) that all persons listed by an examiner for such subdivision have been placed on the appropriate voting registration roll, and (2) that there is no longer reasonable cause to believe that persons will be deprived of or denied the right to vote on account of race or color in such subdivision, and (b), with respect to examiners appointed pursuant to section 3 (a), upon order of the authorizing court. A political subdivision may petition the Attorney General for the termination of listing procedures under clause (a) of this section, and may petition the Attorney General to request the Director of the Census to take such survey or census as may be appropriate for the making of the determination provided for in this section. The District Court for the District of Columbia shall have jurisdiction to require such survey or census to be made by the Director of the Census and it shall require him to do so if it deems the Attorney *353General’s refusal to request such survey or census to be arbitrary or unreasonable.

Sec. 14. (a) All cases of criminal contempt arising under the provisions of this Act shall be governed by section 151 of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (42 U. S. C. 1995).

(b) No court other than the District Court for the District of Columbia or a court of appeals in any proceeding under section 9 shall have jurisdiction to issue any declaratory judgment pursuant to section 4 or section 5 or any restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction against the execution or enforcement of any provision of this Act or any action of any Federal officer or employee pursuant hereto.

(c) (1) The terms “vote” or “voting” shall include all action necessary to make a vote effective in any primary, special, or general election, including, but not limited to, registration, listing pursuant to this Act, or other action required by law prerequisite to voting, casting a ballot, and having such ballot counted properly and included in the appropriate totals of votes cast with respect to candidates for public or party office and propositions for which votes are received in an election.

(2) The term “political subdivision” shall mean any county or parish, except that where registration for voting is not conducted under the supervision of a county or parish, the term shall include any other subdivision of a State which conducts registration for voting.

(d) In any action for a declaratory judgment brought pursuant to section 4 or section 5 of this Act, subpenas for witnesses who are required to attend the District Court for the District of Columbia may be served in any judicial district of the United States: Provided, That no writ of subpena shall issue for witnesses without the District of Columbia at a greater distance than one hun*354dred miles from the place of holding court without the permission of the District Court for the District of Columbia being first had upon proper application and cause shown.

Sec. 15. Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes (42 U. S. C. 1971), as amended by section 131 of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (71 Stat. 637), and amended by section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (74 Stat. 90), and as further amended by section 101 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (78 Stat. 241), is further amended as follows:

(a) Delete the word “Federal” wherever it appears in subsections (a) and (c);

(b) Repeal subsection (f) and designate the present subsections (g) and (h) as (f) and (g), respectively.

Sec. 16. The Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, jointly, shall make a full and complete study to determine whether, under the laws or practices of any State or States, there are preconditions to voting, which might tend to result in discrimination against citizens serving in the Armed Forces of the United States seeking to vote. Such officials shall, jointly, make a report to the Congress not later than June 30, 1966, containing the results of such study, together with a list of any States in which such preconditions exist, and shall include in such report such recommendations for legislation as they deem advisable to prevent discrimination in voting against citizens serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.

Sec. 17. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to deny, impair, or otherwise adversely affect the right to vote of any person registered to vote under the law of any State or political subdivision.

Sec. 18. There are hereby authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out the provisions of this Act.

*355Sec. 19. If any provision of this Act or the application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the remainder of the Act and the application of the provision to other persons not similarly situated or to other circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Approved August 6, 1965.

Mr. Justice Black,

concurring and dissenting.

I agree with substantially all of the Court's opinion sustaining the power of Congress under § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment to suspend state literacy tests and similar voting qualifications and to authorize the Attorney General to secure the appointment of federal examiners to register qualified voters in various sections of the country. Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment provides, that “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.” In addition to this unequivocal command to the States and the Federal Government that no citizen shall have his right to vote denied or abridged because of race or color, § 2 of the Amendment unmistakably gives Congress specific power to go further and pass appropriate legislation to protect this right to vote against any method of abridgment no matter how subtle. Compare my dissenting opinion in Bell v. Maryland, 378 U. S. 226, 318. I have no doubt whatever as to the power of Congress under § 2 to enact the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 dealing with the suspension of state voting tests that have been used as notorious means to deny and abridge voting rights on racial grounds. This same congressional power necessarily exists to authorize appointment of federal examiners. I also agree with the judgment of the Court upholding § 4 (b) of *356the Act which sets out a formula for determining when and where the major remedial sections of the Act take effect. I reach this conclusion, however, for a somewhat different reason than that stated by the Court, which is that “the coverage formula is rational in both practice and theory.” I do not base my conclusion on the fact that the formula is rational, for it is enough for me that Congress by creating this formula has merely exercised its hitherto unquestioned and undisputed power to decide when, where, and upon what conditions its laws shall go into effect. By stating in specific detail that the major remedial sections of the Act are to be applied in areas where certain conditions exist, and by granting the Attorney General and the Director of the Census unre-viewable power to make the mechanical determination of which areas come within the formula of § 4 (b), I believe that Congress has acted within its established power to set out preconditions upon which the Act is to go into effect. See, e. g., Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19; United States v. Bush & Co., 310 U. S. 371; Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81.

Though, as I have said, I agree with most of the Court’s conclusions, I dissent from its holding that every part of § 5 of the Act is constitutional. Section 4 (a), to which § 5 is linked, suspends for five years all literacy tests and similar devices in those States coming within the formula of §4(b). Section 5 goes on to provide that a State covered by § 4 (b) can in no way amend its constitution or laws relating to voting without first trying to persuade the Attorney General of the United States or the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia that the new proposed laws do not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying the right to vote to citizens on account of their race or color. I think this section is unconstitutional on at least two grounds.

*357(a) The Constitution gives federal courts jurisdiction over cases and controversies only. If it can be said that any case or controversy arises under this section which gives the District Court for the District of Columbia jurisdiction to approve or reject state laws or constitutional amendments, then the case or controversy must be between a State and the United States Government. But it is hard for me to believe that a justiciable controversy can arise in the constitutional sense from a desire by the United States Government or some of its officials to determine in advance what legislative provisions a State may enact or what constitutional amendments it may adopt. If this dispute between the Federal Government and the States amounts to a case or controversy it is a far cry from the traditional constitutional notion of a case or controversy as a dispute over the meaning of enforceable laws or the manner in which they are applied. And if by this section Congress has created a case or controversy, and I do not believe it has, then it seems to me that the most appropriate judicial forum for settling these important questions is this Court acting under its original Art. Ill, § 2, jurisdiction to try cases in which a State is a party.1 At least a trial in this Court would treat the States with the dignity to which they should be entitled as constituent members of our Federal Union.

The form of words and the manipulation of presumptions used in § 5 to create the illusion of a case or controversy should not be allowed to cloud the effect of that section. By requiring a State to ask a federal court to approve the validity of a proposed law which has in no way become operative, Congress has asked the State to *358secure precisely the type of advisory opinion our Constitution forbids. As I have pointed out elsewhere, see my dissenting opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 507, n. 6, pp. 513-515, some of those drafting our Constitution wanted to give the federal courts the power to issue advisory opinions and propose new laws to the legislative body. These suggestions were rejected. We should likewise reject any attempt by Congress to flout constitutional limitations by authorizing federal courts to render advisory opinions when there is no case or controversy before them. Congress has ample power to protect the rights of citizens to vote without resorting to the unnecessarily circuitous, indirect and unconstitutional route it has adopted in this section.

(b) My second and more basic objection to § 5 is that Congress has here exercised its power under § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment through the adoption of means that conflict with the most basic principles of the Constitution. As the Court says the limitations of the power granted under § 2 are the same as the limitations imposed on the exercise of any of the powers expressly granted Congress by the Constitution. The classic formulation of these constitutional limitations was stated by Chief Justice Marshall when he said in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421, “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” (Emphasis added.) Section 5, by providing that some of the States cannot pass state laws or adopt state constitutional amendments without first being compelled to beg federal authorities to approve their policies, so distorts our constitutional structure of government as to render any distinction drawn in the Constitution between state and federal power almost meaningless. One *359of the most basic premises upon which our structure of government was founded was that the Federal Government was to have certain specific and limited powers and no others, and all other power was to be reserved either “to the States respectively, or to the people.” Certainly if all the provisions of our Constitution which limit the power of the Federal Government and reserve other power to the States are to mean anything, they mean at least that the States have power to pass laws and amend their constitutions without first sending their officials hundreds of miles away to beg federal authorities to approve them.2 Moreover, it seems to me that § 5 which gives federal officials power to veto state laws they do not like is in direct conflict with the clear command of our Constitution that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” I cannot help but believe that the inevitable effect of any such law which forces any one of the States to entreat federal authorities in far-away places for approval of local laws before they can become effective is to *360create the impression that the State or States treated in this way are little more than conquered provinces. And if one law concerning voting can make the States plead for this approval by a distant federal court or the United States Attorney General, other laws on different subjects can force the States to seek the advance approval not only of the Attorney General but of the President himself or any other chosen members of his staff. It is inconceivable to me that such a radical degradation of state power was intended in any of the provisions of our Constitution or its Amendments. Of course I do not mean to cast any doubt whatever upon the indisputable power of the Federal Government to invalidate a state law once enacted and operative on the ground that it intrudes into the area of supreme federal power. But the Federal Government has heretofore always been content to exercise this power to protect federal supremacy by authorizing its agents to bring lawsuits against state officials once an operative state law has created an actual case and controversy. A federal law which assumes the power to compel the States to submit in advance any proposed legislation they have for approval by federal agents approaches dangerously near to wiping the States out as useful and effective units in the government of our country. I cannot agree to any constitutional interpretation that leads inevitably to such a result.

I see no reason to read into the Constitution meanings it did not have when it was adopted and which have not been put into it since. The proceedings of the original Constitutional Convention show beyond all doubt that the power to veto or negative state laws was denied Congress. On several occasions proposals were submitted to the convention to grant this power to Congress. These proposals were debated extensively and on every occasion when submitted for vote they were overwhelmingly re*361jected.3 The refusal to give Congress this extraordinary power to veto state laws was based on the belief that if such power resided in Congress the States would be helpless to function as effective governments.4 Since that time neither the Fifteenth Amendment nor any other Amendment to the Constitution has given the slightest indication of a purpose to grant Congress the power to veto state laws either by itself or its agents. Nor does any provision in the Constitution endow the federal courts with power to participate with state legislative bodies in determining what state policies shall be enacted into law. The judicial power to invalidate a law in a case or controversy after the law has become effective is a long way from the power to prevent a State from passing a law. I cannot agree with the Court that Congress — denied a power in itself to veto a state law — can delegate this same power to the Attorney General or the District Court for the District of Columbia. For the effect on the States is the same in both cases — they cannot pass their laws without sending their agents to the City of Washington to plead to federal officials for their advance approval.

In this and other prior Acts Congress has quite properly vested the Attorney General with extremely broad power to protect voting rights of citizens against discrimination on account of race or color. Section 5 viewed in this context is of very minor importance and in my judgment is likely to serve more as an irritant to *362the States than as an aid to the enforcement of the Act. I would hold § 5 invalid for the reasons stated above with full confidence that the Attorney General has ample power to give vigorous, expeditious and effective protection to the voting rights of all citizens.5

Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases concern the constitutionality of § 4 (e)- of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.1 That law, in the respects pertinent in these cases, provides that no person who has successfully completed the sixth primary grade in a public school in, or a private school accredited by, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in which the language of instruction was other than English shall be denied the right to vote in any election because of his inability to read or write English. Appellees, registered voters in New York City, brought this suit to challenge the constitutionality of § 4 (e) insofar as it pro tanto prohibits *644the enforcement of the election laws of New York2 requiring an ability to read and write English as a condition of voting. Under these laws many of the several hundred thousand New York City residents who have migrated there from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico had previously been denied the right to vote, and ap-pellees attack § 4 (e) insofar as it would enable many of *645these citizens to vote.3 Pursuant to § 14 (b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, appellees commenced this proceeding in the District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a declaration that § 4 (e) is invalid and an injunction prohibiting appellants, the Attorney General of the United States and the New York City Board of Elections, from either enforcing or complying with *646§4(e).4 A three-judge district court was designated. 28 U. S. C. §§ 2282, 2284 (1964 ed.). Upon cross motions for summary judgment, that court, one judge dissenting, granted the declaratory and injunctive relief appellees sought. The court held that in enacting § 4 (e) Congress exceeded the powers granted to it by the Constitution and therefore usurped powers reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. 247 F. Supp. 196. Appeals were taken directly to this Court, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1252, 1253 (1964 ed.), and we noted probable jurisdiction. 382 U. S. 1007. We reverse. We hold that, in the application challenged in these cases, § 4 (e) is a proper exercise of the powers granted to Congress by § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment5 and that by force of the *647Supremacy Clause, Article VI, the New York English literacy requirement cannot be enforced to the extent that it is inconsistent with § 4 (e).

Under the distribution of powers effected by the Constitution, the States establish qualifications for voting for state officers, arid the qualifications established by the States for voting for members of the most numerous branch of the state legislature also determine who may vote for United States Representatives and Senators, Art. I, § 2; Seventeenth Amendment; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 663. But, of course, the States have no power to grant or withhold the franchise on conditions that are forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment, or any other provision of the Constitution. Such exercises of state power are no more immune to the limitations of the Fourteenth Amendment than any other state action. The Equal Protection Clause itself has been held to forbid some state laws that restrict the right to vote.6

*648The Attorney General of the State of New York argues that an exercise of congressional power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment that prohibits the enforcement of a state law can only be sustained if the judicial branch determines that the state law is prohibited by the provisions of the Amendment that Congress sought to enforce. More specifically, he urges that § 4 (e) cannot be sustained as appropriate legislation to enforce the Equal Protection Clause unless the judiciary decides — even with the guidance of a congressional judgment — that the application of the English literacy requirement prohibited by § 4 (e) is forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause itself. We disagree. Neither the language nor history of § 5 supports such a construction.7 As was said with regard to § 5 in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345, “It is the power of Congress which has been enlarged. Congress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by appropriate legislation. Some legislation is contemplated to make the amendments fully effective.” A construction of § 5 that would require a judicial determination that the enforcement of the state law precluded by Congress violated the Amendment, as a condition of sustaining the congressional enactment, would depreciate both congressional resourcefulness and congressional responsibility for implementing the Amendment.8 It would confine the legislative power *649in this context to the insignificant role of abrogating only those state laws that the judicial branch was prepared to adjudge unconstitutional, or of merely informing the judgment of the judiciary by particularizing the “majestic generalities” of § 1 of the Amendment. See Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 282-284.

Thus our task in this case is not to determine whether the New York English literacy requirement as applied to deny the right to vote to a person who successfully completed the sixth grade in a Puerto Rican school violates the Equal Protection Clause. Accordingly, our decision in Lassiter v. Northampton Election Bd., 360 U. S. 45, sustaining the North Carolina English literacy requirement as not in all circumstances prohibited by the first sections of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, is inapposite. Compare also Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, 366; Camacho v. Doe, 31 Misc. 2d 692, 221 N. Y. S. 2d 262 (1958), aff’d 7 N. Y. 2d 762, 163 N. E. 2d 140 (1959); Camacho v. Rogers, 199 F. Supp. 155 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1961). Lassiter did not present the question before us here: Without regard to whether the judiciary would find that the Equal Protection Clause itself nullifies New York’s English literacy requirement as so applied, could Congress prohibit the enforcement of the state law by legislating under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment? In answering this question, our task is limited to determining whether such *650legislation is, as required by § 5, appropriate legislation to enforce the Equal Protection Clause.

By including § 5 the draftsmen sought to grant to Congress, by a specific provision applicable to the Fourteenth Amendment, the same broad powers expressed in the Necessary and Proper Clause, Art. I, § 8, cl. 18.9 The classic formulation of the reach of those powers was established by Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421:

“Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”

Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S., at 345-346, decided 12 years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, held that congressional power under § 5 had this same broad scope:

“Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power.”

*651Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 311; Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313, 318. Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment grants Congress a similar power to enforce by “appropriate legislation” the provisions of that amendment; and we recently held in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 326, that “[t)he basic test to be applied in a case involving § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment is the same as in all cases concerning the express powers of Congress with relation to the reserved powers of the States.” That test was identified as the one formulated in McCulloch v. Maryland. See also James Everard’s Breweries v. Day, 265 U. S. 545, 558-559 (Eighteenth Amendment). Thus the McCulloch v. Maryland standard is the measure of what constitutes “appropriate legislation” under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Correctly viewed, § 5 is a positive grant of legislative power authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in determining whether and what legislation is needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.

We therefore proceed to the consideration whether § 4 (e) is “appropriate legislation” to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, that is, under the McCulloch v. Maryland standard, whether § 4 (e) may be regarded as an enactment to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, whether it is “plainly adapted to that end” and whether it is not prohibited by but is consistent with “the letter and spirit of the constitution.” 10

*652There can be no doubt that § 4 (e) may be regarded as an enactment to enforce the Equal Protection Clause. Congress explicitly declared that it enacted § 4 (e) “to secure the rights under the fourteenth amendment of persons educated in American-flag schools in which the predominant classroom language was other than English.” The persons referred to include those who have migrated from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to New York and who have been denied the right to vote because of their inability to read and write English, and the Fourteenth Amendment rights referred to include those emanating from the Equal Protection Clause. More specifically, § 4 (e) may be viewed as a measure to secure for the Puerto Rican community residing in New York nondiscriminatory treatment by government — both in the imposition of voting qualifications and the provision or administration of governmental services, such as public schools, public housing and law enforcement.

Section 4 (e) may be readily seen as “plainly adapted” to furthering these aims of the Equal Protection Clause. The practical effect of § 4 (e) is to prohibit New York from denying the right to vote to large segments of its Puerto Rican community. Congress has thus prohibited the State from denying to that community the right that is “preservative of all rights.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 370. This enhanced political power will be helpful in gaining nondiscriminatory treatment in public services for the entire Puerto Rican community.11 Sec*653tion 4 (e) thereby enables the Puerto Rican minority better to obtain “perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws.” It was well within congressional authority to say that this need of the Puerto Rican minority for the vote warranted federal intrusion upon any state interests served by the English literacy requirement. It was for Congress, as the branch that made this judgment, to assess and weigh the various conflicting considerations — the risk or pervasiveness of the discrimination in governmental services, the effectiveness of eliminating the state restriction on the right to vote as a means of dealing with the evil, the adequacy or availability of alternative remedies, and the nature and significance of the state interests that would be affected by the nullification of the English literacy requirement as' applied to residents who have successfully completed the sixth grade in a Puerto Rican school. It is not for us to review the congressional resolution of these factors. It is enough that we be able to perceive a basis upon which the Congress might resolve the conflict as it did. There plainly was such a basis to support § 4 (e) in the application in question in this case. Any contrary conclusion would require us to be blind to the realities familiar to the legislators.12

The result is no different if we confine our inquiry to the question whether § 4 (e) was merely legislation aimed *654at the elimination of an invidious discrimination in establishing voter qualifications. We are told that New York’s English literacy requirement originated in the desire to provide an incentive for non-English speaking immigrants to learn the English language and in order to assure the intelligent exercise of the franchise. Yet Congress might well have questioned, in light of the many exemptions provided,13 and some evidence suggesting that prejudice played a prominent role in the enactment of the requirement,14 whether these were actually the interests being served. Congress might have also questioned whether denial of a right deemed so precious and fundamental in our society was a necessary or appropriate means of encouraging persons to learn English, or of furthering the goal of an intelligent exercise of the franchise.15 Finally, Congress might well have concluded that *655as a means of furthering the intelligent exercise of the franchise, an ability to read or understand Spanish is as effective as ability to read English for those to whom Spanish-language newspapers and Spanish-language radio and television programs are available to inform them of election issues and governmental affairs.16 Since Congress undertook to legislate so as to preclude the enforcement of the state law, and did so in the context of a general appraisal of literacy requirements for voting, see *656South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, to which it brought a specially informed legislative competence,17 it was Congress’ prerogative to weigh these competing considerations. Here again, it is enough that we perceive a basis upon which Congress might predicate a judgment that the application of New York’s English literacy requirement to deny the right to vote to a person with a sixth grade education in Puerto Rican schools in which the language of instruction was other than English constituted an invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

There remains the question whether the congressional remedies adopted in § 4 (e) constitute means which are not prohibited by, but are consistent “with the letter and spirit of the constitution.” The only respect in which appellees contend that § 4 (e) fails in this regard is that the section itself works an invidious discrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment by prohibiting the enforcement of the English literacy requirement only for those educated in American-flag schools (schools located within United States jurisdiction) in which the language of instruction was other than English, and not for those educated in schools beyond the territorial limits of the United States in which the language of instruction was also other than English. This is not a complaint that Congress, in enacting § 4 (e), has unconstitutionally denied or diluted anyone’s right to vote but rather that Congress violated the Constitution by not extending the *657relief effected in § 4 (e) to those educated in non-American-flag schools. We need not pause to determine whether appellees have a sufficient personal interest to have § 4 (e) invalidated on this ground, see generally United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, since the argument, in our view, falls on the merits.

Section 4 (e) does not restrict or deny the franchise but in effect extends the franchise to persons who otherwise would be denied it by state law. Thus we need not decide whether a state literacy law conditioning the right to vote on achieving a certain level of education in an American-flag school (regardless of the language of instruction) discriminates invidiously against those educated in non-American-flag schools. We need only decide whether the challenged limitation on the relief effected in § 4 (e) was permissible. In deciding that question, the principle that calls for the closest scrutiny of distinctions in laws denying fundamental rights, see n. 15, supra, is inapplicable; for the distinction challenged by appellees is presented only as a limitation on a reform measure aimed at eliminating an existing barrier to the exercise of the franchise. Rather, in deciding the constitutional propriety of the limitations in such a reform measure we are guided by the familiar principles that a “statute is not invalid under the Constitution because it might have gone farther than it did,” Roschen v. Ward, 279 U. S. 337, 339, that a legislature need not “strike at all evils at the same time,” Semler v. Dental Examiners, 294 U. S. 608, 610, and that “reform may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind,” Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489.

Guided by these principles, we are satisfied that ap-pellees’ challenge to this limitation in § 4 (e) is without merit. In the context of the case before us, the congressional choice to limit the relief effected in § 4 (e) may, *658for example, reflect Congress’ greater familiarity with the quality of instruction in American-flag schools,18 a recognition of the unique historic relationship between the Congress and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,19 an awareness of the Federal Government’s acceptance of the desirability of the use of Spanish as the language of instruction in Commonwealth schools,20 and the fact that Congress has fostered policies encouraging migration from the Commonwealth to the States.21 We have no occasion to determine in this case whether such factors would justify a similar distinction embodied in a voting-qualification law that denied the franchise to persons educated in non-American-flag schools. We hold only that the limitation on relief effected in § 4 (e) does not constitute a forbidden discrimination since these factors might well have been the basis for the decision of Congress to go “no farther than it did.”

We therefore conclude that § 4 (e), in the application challenged in this case, is appropriate legislation to enforce the Equal Protection Clause and that the judgment of the District Court must be and hereby is

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Douglas joins the Court’s opinion except for the discussion, at pp. 656-658, of the question whether the congressional remedies adopted in § 4 (e) constitute means which are not prohibited by, but are consistent with “the letter and spirit of the constitution.” On that *659question, he reserves judgment until such time as it is presented by a member of the class against which that particular discrimination is directed.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins,

dissenting.*

Worthy as its purposes may be thought by many, I do not see how § 4 (e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, 42 U. S. C. § 1973b (e) (1964 ed. Supp. I), can be sustained except at the sacrifice of fundamentals in the American constitutional system — the separation between the legislative and judicial function and the boundaries between federal and state political authority. By the same token I think that the validity of New York’s literacy test, a question which the Court considers only in the context of the federal statute, must be upheld. It will conduce to analytical clarity if I discuss the second issue first.

I.

The Cardona Case (No. 673).

This case presents a straightforward Equal Protection problem. Appellant, a resident and citizen of New York, sought to register to vote but was refused registration because she failed to meet the New York English literacy qualification respecting eligibility for the franchise.1 She maintained that although she could not read or write English, she had been born and educated in Puerto Rico and was literate in Spanish. She alleges that New York’s statute requiring satisfaction of an English literacy test is an arbitrary and irrational classification that violates the *660Equal Protection Clause at least as applied to someone who, like herself, is literate in Spanish.

Any analysis of this problem must begin with the established rule of law that the franchise is essentially a matter of state concern, Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162; Lassiter v. Northampton Election Bd., 360 U. S. 45, subject only to the overriding requirements of various federal constitutional provisions dealing with the franchise, e. g., the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-fourth Amendments,2 and, as more recently decided, to the general principles of the Fourteenth Amendment. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533; Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which alone concerns us here, forbids a State from arbitrarily discriminating among different classes of persons. Of course it has always been recognized that nearly all legislation involves some sort of classification, and the equal protection test applied by this Court is a narrow one: a state enactment or practice may be struck down under the clause only if it cannot be justified as founded upon a rational and permissible state policy. See, e. g:, Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678; Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61; Walters v. City of St. Louis, 347 U. S. 231.

It is suggested that a different and broader equal protection standard applies in cases where “fundamental liberties and rights are threatened,” see ante, p. 655, note 15; dissenting opinion of Douglas, J., in Cardona, post, *661pp. 676-677, which would require a State to show a need greater than mere rational policy to justify classifications in this area. No such dual-level test has ever been articulated by this Court, and I do not believe that any such approach is consistent with the purposes of the Equal Protection Clause, with the overwhelming weight of authority, or with well-established principles of federalism which underlie the Equal Protection Clause.

Thus for me, applying the basic equal protection standard, the issue in this case is whether New York has shown that its English-language literacy test is reasonably designed to serve a legitimate state interest. I think that it has.

In 1959, in Lassiter v. Northampton Election Bd., supra, this Court dealt with substantially the same question and resolved it unanimously in favor of the legitimacy of a state literacy qualification. There a North Carolina English literacy test was challenged. We held that there was “wide scope” for State qualifications of this sort. 360 U. S., at 51. Dealing with literacy tests generally, the Court there held:

“The ability to read and write . . . has some relation to standards designed to promote intelligent use of the ballot. . . . Literacy and intelligence are obviously not synonymous. Illiterate people may be intelligent voters. Yet in our society where newspapers, periodicals, books, and other printed matter canvass and debate campaign issues, a State might conclude that only those who are literate should exercise the franchise. ... It was said last century in Massachusetts that a literacy test was designed to insure an ‘independent and intelligent’ exercise of the right of suffrage. Stone v. Smith, 159 Mass. 413-414, 34 N. E. 521. North Carolina agrees. We do not sit in judgment on the wisdom of that *662policy. We cannot say, however, that it is not an allowable one measured by constitutional standards.” 360 U. S, at 51-53.

I believe the same interests recounted in Lassiter indubitably point toward upholding the rationality of the New York voting test. It is true that the issue here is not so simply drawn between literacy per se and illiteracy. Appellant alleges that she is literate in Spanish, and that she studied American history and government in United States Spanish-speaking schools in Puerto Rico. She alleges further that she is “a regular reader of the New York City Spanish-language daily newspapers and other periodicals, which . . . provide proportionately more coverage of government and politics than do most English-language newspapers,” and that she listens to Spanish-language radio broadcasts in New York which provide full treatment of governmental and political news. It is thus maintained that whatever may be the validity of literacy tests per se as a condition of voting, application of such a test to one literate in Spanish, in the context of the large and politically significant Spanish-speaking community in New York, serves no legitimate state interest, and is thus an arbitrary classification that violates the Equal Protection Clause.

Although to be sure there is a difference between a totally illiterate person and one who is literate in a foreign tongue, I do not believe that this added factor vitiates the constitutionality of the New York statute. Accepting appellant’s allegations as true, it is nevertheless also true that the range of material available to a resident of New York literate only in Spanish is much more limited than what is available to an English-speaking resident, that the business of national, state, and local government is conducted in English, and that propositions, amendments, and offices for which candidates are running listed on the ballot are likewise in English. It *663is also true that most candidates, certainly those campaigning on a national or statewide level, make their speeches in English. New York may justifiably want its voters to be able to understand candidates directly, rather than through possibly imprecise translations or summaries reported in a limited number of Spanish news media. It is noteworthy that the Federal Government requires literacy in English as a prerequisite to naturalization, 66 Stat. 239, 8 U. S. C. § 1423 (1964 ed.), attesting to the national view of its importance as a prerequisite to full integration into the American political community. Relevant too is the fact that the New York English test is not complex,3 that it is fairly adminis*664tered,4 and that New York maintains free adult education classes which appellant and members of her class are encouraged to attend.5 Given the State’s legitimate concern with promoting and safeguarding the intelligent use of the ballot, and given also New York’s long experience with the process of integrating non-English-speaking residents into the mainstream of American life, I do not see how it can be said that this qualification for suffrage is unconstitutional. I would uphold the validity of the New York statute, unless the federal statute prevents that result, the question to which I now turn.

*665II.

The Morgan Cases (Nos. 847 and 877).

These cases involve the same New York suffrage restriction discussed above, but the challenge here comes not in the form of a suit to enjoin enforcement of the state statute, but in a test of the constitutionality of a federal enactment which declares that “to secure the rights under the fourteenth amendment of persons educated in American-flag schools in which the predominant classroom language was other than English, it is necessary to prohibit the States from conditioning the right to vote of such persons on ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language.” Section 4 (e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 4 (e) declares that anyone who has successfully completed six grades of schooling in an “American-flag” school, in which the primary language is not English, shall not be denied the right to vote because of an inability to satisfy an English literacy test.6 Although the statute is framed in general terms, so far as has been shown it applies in actual effect only to citizens of Puerto Rican background, and the Court so treats it.

The pivotal question in this instance is what effect the added factor of a congressional enactment has on the straight equal protection argument dealt with above. The Court declares that since § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment7 gives to the Congress power to “enforce” *666the prohibitions of the Amendment by “appropriate” legislation, the test for judicial review of any congressional determination in this area is simply one of rationality; that is, in effect, was Congress acting rationally in declaring that the New York statute is irrational? Although § 5 most certainly does give to the Congress wide powers in the field of devising remedial legislation to effectuate the Amendment’s prohibition on arbitrary state action, Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, I believe the Court has confused the issue of how much enforcement power Congress possesses under § 5 with the distinct issue of what questions are appropriate for congressional determination and what questions are essentially judicial in nature.

When recognized state violations of federal constitutional standards have occurred, Congress is of course empowered by § 5 to take appropriate remedial measures to redress and prevent the wrongs. See Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 310. But it is a judicial question whether the condition with which Congress has thus sought to deal is in truth an infringement of the Constitution, something that is the necessary prerequisite to bringing the § 5 power into play at all. Thus, in Ex parte Virginia, supra, involving a federal statute making it a federal crime to disqualify anyone from jury service because of race, the Court first held as a matter of constitutional law that “the Fourteenth Amendment secures, among other civil rights, to colored men, when charged with criminal offences against a State, an impartial jury trial, by jurors indifferently selected or chosen without discrimination against such jurors because of their color.” 100 U. S., at 345. Only then did the Court hold that to enforce this prohibition upon state discrimination, Congress could enact a criminal statute of the type under consideration. See also Clyatt v. United States, 197 U. S. 207, sustaining the constitutionality of the anti-*667peonage laws, 14 Stat. 546, now 42 U. S. C. § 1994 (1964 ed.), under the Enforcement Clause of the Thirteenth Amendment.

A more recent Fifteenth Amendment case also serves to illustrate this distinction. In South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, decided earlier this Term, we held certain remedial sections of this Voting Rights Act of 1965 constitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment, which is directed against deprivations of the right to vote on account of race. In enacting those sections of the Voting Rights Act the Congress made a detailed investigation of various state practices that had been used to deprive Negroes of the franchise. See 383 U. S., at 308-315. In passing upon the remedial provisions, we reviewed first the “voluminous legislative history” as well as judicial precedents supporting the basic congressional finding that the clear commands of the Fifteenth Amendment had been infringed by various state subterfuges. See 383 U. S., at 309, 329-330, 333-334. Given the existence of the evil, we held the remedial steps taken by the legislature under the Enforcement Clause of the Fifteenth Amendment to be a justifiable exercise of congressional initiative.

Section 4 (e), however, presents a significantly different type of congressional enactment. The question here is not whether the statute is appropriate remedial legislation to cure an established violation of a constitutional command, but whether there has in fact been an infringement of that constitutional command, that is, whether a particular state practice or, as here, a statute is so arbitrary or irrational as to offend the command of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That question is one for the judicial branch ultimately to determine. Were the rule otherwise, Congress would be able to qualify this Court’s constitutional decisions under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, *668let alone those under other provisions of the Constitution, by resorting to congressional power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. In view of this Court's holding in Lassiter, supra, that an English literacy test is a permissible exercise of state supervision over its franchise, I do not think it is open to Congress to limit the effect of that decision as it has undertaken to do by § 4 (e). In effect the Court reads § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment as giving Congress the power to define the substantive scope of the Amendment. If that indeed be the true reach of § 5, then J do not see why Congress should not be able as well to exercise its § 5 “discretion” by enacting statutes so as in effect to dilute equal protection and due process decisions of this Court. In all such cases there is room for reasonable men to differ as to whether or not a denial of equal protection or due process has occurred, and the final decision is one of judgment. Until today this judgment has always been one for the judiciary to resolve.

I do not mean to suggest in what has been said that a legislative judgment of the type incorporated in § 4 (e) is without any force whatsoever. Decisions on questions of equal protection and due process are based not on abstract logic, but on empirical foundations. To the extent “legislative facts” are relevant to a judicial determination, Congress is well equipped to investigate them, and such determinations are of course entitled to due respect.8 In South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, such legislative findings were made to show that racial discrimination in voting was actually occurring. Similarly, in Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, and Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, this Court upheld *669Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under the Commerce Clause. There again the congressional determination that racial discrimination in a clearly defined group of public accommodations did effectively impede interstate commerce was based on “voluminous testimony,” 379 U. S., at 253, which had been put before the Congress and in the context of which it passed remedial legislation.

But no such factual data provide a legislative record supporting §4(e)9 by way of showing that Spanish-speaking citizens are fully as capable of making informed decisions in a New York election as are English-speaking citizens. Nor was there any showing whatever to support the Court's alternative argument that § 4 (e) should be viewed as but a remedial measure designed to cure or assure against unconstitutional discrimination of other varieties, e. g., in “public schools, public housing and law enforcement,” ante, p. 652, to which Puerto Rican minorities might be subject in such communities as New York. There is simply no legislative record supporting such hypothesized discrimination of the sort we have hitherto insisted upon when congressional power is brought to bear on constitutionally reserved state concerns. See Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra; South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra.

Thus, we have here not a matter of giving deference to a congressional estimate, based on its determination of legislative facts, bearing upon the validity vel non of a statute, but rather what can at most be called a legislative announcement that Congress believes a state law to entail an unconstitutional deprivation of equal protection. Although this kind of declaration is of course *670entitled to the most respectful consideration, coming as it does from a concurrent branch and one that is knowledgeable in matters of popular political participation, I do not believe it lessens our responsibility to decide the fundamental issue of whether in fact the state enactment violates federal constitutional rights.

In assessing the deference we should give to this kind of congressional expression of policy, it is relevant that the judiciary has always given to congressional enactments a presumption of validity. The Propeller Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 How. 443, 457-458. However, it is also a canon of judicial review that state statutes are given a similar presumption, Butler v. Commonwealth, 10 How. 402, 415. Whichever way this case is decided, one statute will be rendered inoperative in whole or in part, and although it has been suggested that this Court should give somewhat more deference to Congress than to a state legislature,10 such a simple weighing of presumptions is hardly a satisfying way of resolving a matter that touches the distribution of state and federal power in an area so sensitive as that of the regulation of the franchise. Rather it should be recognized that while the Fourteenth Amendment is a “brooding omnipresence” over all state legislation, the substantive matters which it touches are all within the primary legislative competence of the States. Federal authority, legislative no less than judicial, does not intrude unless there has been a denial by state action of Fourteenth Amendment limitations, in this instance a denial of equal protection. At least in the area of primary state concern a state statute that passes constitutional muster under the judicial standard of rationality should not be permitted to be set at naught by a mere contrary con*671gressional pronouncement unsupported by a legislative record justifying that conclusion.

To deny the effectiveness of this congressional enactment is not of course to disparage Congress’ exertion of authority in the field of civil rights; it is simply to recognize that the Legislative Branch like the other branches of federal authority is subject to the governmental boundaries set by the Constitution. To hold, on this record, that § 4 (e) overrides the New York literacy requirement seems to me tantamount to allowing the Fourteenth Amendment to swallow the State’s constitutionally ordained primary authority in this field. For if Congress by what, as here, amounts to mere ipse dixit can set that otherwise permissible requirement partially at naught I see no reason why it could not also substitute its judgment for that of the States in other fields of their exclusive primary competence as well.

I would affirm the judgments in each of these cases.11

*511Justice Kennedy

delivered the opinion of the Court.*

A decision by local zoning authorities to deny a church a building permit was challenged under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA or Act), 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U. S. C. § 2000bb et seq. The case calls into question the authority of Congress to enact RFRA. We conclude the statute exceeds Congress’ power.

I

Situated on a hill in the city of Boerne, Texas, some 28 miles northwest of San Antonio, is St. Peter Catholic Church. Built in 1923, the church’s structure replicates the mission *512style of the region’s earlier history. The church seats about 230 worshippers, a number too small for its growing parish. Some 40 to 60 parishioners cannot be accommodated at some Sunday masses. In order to meet the needs of the congregation the Archbishop of San Antonio gave permission to the parish to plan alterations to enlarge the building.

A few months later, the Boerne City Council passed an ordinance authorizing the city’s Historic Landmark Commission to prepare a preservation plan with proposed historic landmarks and districts. Under the ordinance, the commission must preapprove construction affecting historic landmarks or buildings in a historic district.

Soon afterwards, the Archbishop applied for a building permit so construction to enlarge the church could proceed. City authorities, relying on the ordinance and the designation of a historic district (which, they argued, included the church), denied the application. The Archbishop brought this suit challenging the permit denial in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. 877 F. Supp. 355 (1995).

The complaint contained various claims, but to this point the litigation has centered on RFRA and the question of its constitutionality. The Archbishop relied upon RFRA as one basis for relief from the refusal to issue the permit. The District Court concluded that by enacting RFRA Congress exceeded the scope of its enforcement power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court certified its order for interlocutory appeal and the Fifth Circuit reversed, finding RFRA to be constitutional. 73 F. 3d 1352 (1996). We granted certiorari, 519 U. S. 926 (1996), and now reverse.

II

Congress enacted RFRA in direct response to the Court s decision in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). There we considered a Free Exercise Clause claim brought by members of the *513Native American Church who were denied unemployment benefits when they lost their jobs because they had used peyote. Their practice was to ingest peyote for sacramental purposes, and they challenged an Oregon statute of general applicability which made use of the drug criminal. In evaluating the claim, we declined to apply the balancing test set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), under which we would have asked whether Oregon’s prohibition substantially burdened a religious practice and, if it did, whether the burden was justified by a compelling government interest. We stated:

“[Gjovernment’s ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct . . . cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector’s spiritual development. To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State’s interest is ‘compelling’ ... contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.” 494 U. S., at 885 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

The application of the Sherbert test, the Smith decision explained, would have produced an anomaly in the law, a constitutional right to ignore neutral laws of general applicability. The anomaly would have been accentuated, the Court reasoned, by the difficulty of determining whether a particular practice was central to an individual’s religion. We explained, moreover, that it “is not within the judicial ken to question the centrality of particular beliefs or practices to a faith, or the validity of particular litigants’ interpretations of those creeds.” 494 U. S., at 887 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

The only instances where a neutral, generally applicable law had failed to pass constitutional muster, the Smith Court *514noted, were cases in which other constitutional protections were at stake. Id., at 881-882. In Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972), for example, we invalidated Wisconsin’s mandatory school-attendance law as applied to Amish parents who refused on religious grounds to send their children to school. That case implicated not only the right to the free exercise of religion but also the right of parents to control their children’s education.

The Smith decision acknowledged the Court had employed the Sherbert test in considering free exercise challenges to state unemployment compensation rules on three occasions where the balance had tipped in favor of the individual. See Sherbert, supra; Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981); Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136 (1987). Those cases, the Court explained, stand for “the proposition that where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of religious hardship without compelling reason.” 494 U. S., at 884 (internal quotation marks omitted). By contrast, where a general prohibition, such as Oregon’s, is at issue, “the sounder approach, and the approach in accord with the vast majority of our precedents, is to hold the test inapplicable to [free exercise] challenges.” Id., at 885. Smith held that neutral, generally applicable laws may be applied to religious practices even when not supported by a compelling governmental interest.

Four Members of the Court disagreed. They argued the law placed a substantial burden on the Native American Church members so that it could be upheld only if the law served a compelling state interest and was narrowly tailored to achieve that end. Id., at 894. Justice O’Connor concluded Oregon had satisfied the test, while Justice Blackmun, joined by Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall, could see no compelling interest justifying the law’s application to the members.

*515These points of constitutional interpretation were debated by Members of Congress in hearings and floor debates. Many criticized the Court’s reasoning, and this disagreement resulted in the passage of RFRA. Congress announced:

“(1) [T]he framers of the Constitution, recognizing free exercise of religion as an unalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution; “(2) laws 'neutral’ toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise;

“(3) governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification;

“(4) in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), the Supreme Court virtually eliminated the requirement that the government justify burdens on religious exercise imposed by laws neutral toward religion; and

“(5) the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000bb(a).

The Act’s stated purposes are:

“(1) to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972) and to guarantee its application in all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened; and

“(2) to provide a claim or defense to persons whose religious exercise is substantially burdened by government.” §2000bb(b).

RFRA prohibits “[government” from “substantially bur-denting]” a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability unless the government can demonstrate the burden “(1) is in furtherance of *516a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” §2000bb-l. The Act’s mandate applies to any “branch, department, agency, instrumentality, and official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States,” as well as to any “State, or . . . subdivision of a State.” § 2000bb-2(l). ' The Act’s universal coverage is confirmed in § 2000bb-3(a), under which RFRA “applies to all Federal and State law, and the implementation of that law, whether statutory or otherwise, and whether adopted before or after [RFRA’s enactment].” In accordance with RFRA’s usage of the term, we shall use “state law” to include local and municipal ordinances.

III

A

Under our Constitution, the Federal Government is one of enumerated powers. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405 (1819); see also The Federalist No. 45, p. 292 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). The judicial authority to determine the constitutionality of laws, in cases and controversies, is based on the premise that the “powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176 (1803).

Congress relied on its Fourteenth Amendment enforcement power in enacting the most far-reaching and substantial of RFRA’s provisions, those which impose its requirements on the States. See Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, S. Rep. No. 103-111, pp. 13-14 (1993) (Senate Report); H. R. Rep. No. 103-88, p. 9 (1993) (House Report). The Fourteenth Amendment provides, in relevant part:

“Section 1. ... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due proc*517ess of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

“Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

The parties disagree over whether RFRA is a proper exercise of Congress’ §5 power “to enforce” by “appropriate legislation” the constitutional guarantee that no State shall deprive any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” nor deny any person “equal protection of the laws.”

In defense of the Act, respondent the Archbishop contends, with support from the United States, that RFRA is permissible enforcement legislation. Congress, it is said, is only protecting by legislation one of the liberties guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the free exercise of religion, beyond what is necessary under Smith. It is said the congressional decision to dispense with proof of deliberate or overt discrimination and instead concentrate on a law’s effects accords with the settled understanding that § 5 includes the power to enact legislation designed to prevent, as well as remedy, constitutional violations. It is further contended that Congress’ § 5 power is not limited to remedial or preventive legislation.

All must acknowledge that § 5 is “a positive grant of legislative power” to Congress, Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 651 (1966). In Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345-346 (1880), we explained the scope of Congress’ § 5 power in the following broad terms:

“Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not *518prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power.”

Legislation which deters or remedies constitutional violations can fall within the sweep of Congress’ enforcement power even if in the process it prohibits conduct which is not itself unconstitutional and intrudes into “legislative spheres of autonomy previously reserved to the States.” Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445, 455 (1976). For example, the Court upheld a suspension of literacy tests and similar voting requirements under Congress’ parallel power to enforce the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment, see U. S. Const., Amdt. 15, §2, as a measure to combat racial discrimination in voting, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 308 (1966), despite the facial constitutionality of the tests under Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U. S. 45 (1959). We have also concluded that other measures protecting voting rights are within Congress’ power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, despite the burdens those measures placed on the States. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra (upholding several provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965); Katzenbach v. Morgan, supra (upholding ban on literacy tests that prohibited certain people schooled in Puerto Rico from voting); Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970) (upholding 5-year nationwide ban on literacy tests and similar voting requirements for registering to vote); City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 161 (1980) (upholding 7-year extension of the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that certain jurisdictions preclear any change to a “ ‘standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting’ ”); see also James Everard’s Breweries v. Day, 265 U. S. 545 (1924) (upholding ban on medical prescription of intoxicating malt liquors as appropriate to enforce Eighteenth Amendment ban on manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes).

It is also true, however, that “[a]s broad as the congressional enforcement power is, it is not unlimited.” Oregon v. *519Mitchell, supra, at 128 (opinion of Black, J.). In assessing the breadth of § 5’s enforcement power, we begin with its text. Congress has been given the power “to enforce” the “provisions of this article.” We agree with respondent, of course, that Congress can enact legislation under § 5 enforcing the constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. The “provisions of this article,” to which §5 refers, include the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress’ power to enforce the Free Exercise Clause follows from our holding in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940), that the “fundamental concept of liberty embodied in [the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause] embraces the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment.” See also United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 789 (1966) (there is “no doubt of the power of Congress to enforce by appropriate criminal sanction every right guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).

Congress’ power under § 5, however, extends only to “enforcing]” the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has described this power as “remedial,” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, at 326. The design of the Amendment and the text of § 5 are inconsistent with the suggestion that Congress has the power to decree the substance of the Fourteenth Amendment’s restrictions on the States. Legislation which alters the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause cannot be said to be enforcing the Clause. Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is. It has been given the power “to enforce,” not the power to determine what constitutes a constitutional violation. Were it not so, what Congress would be enforcing would no longer be, in any meaningful sense, the “provisions of [the Fourteenth Amendment].”

While the line between measures that remedy or prevent unconstitutional actions and measures that make a substantive change in the governing law is not easy to discern, and *520Congress must have wide latitude in determining where it lies, the distinction exists and must be observed. There must-be a congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end. Lacking such a connection, legislation may become substantive in operation and effect. History and our case law support drawing the distinction, one apparent from the text of the Amendment.

1

The Fourteenth Amendment’s history confirms the remedial, rather than substantive, nature of the Enforcement Clause. The Joint Committee on Reconstruction of the 39th Congress began drafting what would become the Fourteenth Amendment in January 1866. The objections to the Committee’s first draft of the Amendment, and the rejection of the draft, have a direct bearing on the central issue of defining Congress’ enforcement power. In February, Republican Representative John Bingham of Ohio reported the following draft Amendment to the House of Representatives on behalf of the Joint Committee:

“The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 1034 (1866).

The proposal encountered immediate opposition, which continued through three days of debate. Members of Congress from across the political spectrum criticized the Amendment, and the criticisms had a common theme: The proposed Amendment gave Congress too much legislative power at the expense of the existing constitutional structure. E. g., id., at 1063-1065 (statement of Rep. Hale); id., at 1082 *521(statement of Sen. Stewart); id., at 1095 (statement of Rep. Hotchkiss); id., at App. 133-135 (statement of Rep. Rogers). Democrats and conservative Republicans argued that the proposed Amendment would give Congress a power to intrude into traditional areas of state responsibility, a power inconsistent with the federal design central to the Constitution. Typifying these views, Republican Representative Robert Hale of New York labeled the Amendment “an utter departure from every principle ever dreamed of by the men who framed our Constitution,” id., at 1063, and warned that under it “all State legislation, in its codes of civil and criminal jurisprudence and procedure . . . may be overridden, may be repealed or abolished, and the law of Congress established instead.” Ibid. Senator William Stewart of Nevada likewise stated the Amendment would permit “Congress to legislate fully upon all subjects affecting life, liberty, and property,” such that “there would not be much left for the State Legislatures,” and would thereby “work an entire change in our form of government.” Id., at 1082; accord, id., at 1087 (statement of Rep. Davis); id., at App. 133 (statement of Rep. Rogers). Some radicals, like their brethren “unwilling that Congress shall have any such power ... to establish uniform laws throughout the United States upon . . . the protection of life, liberty, and property,” id., at 1095 (statement of Rep. Hotchkiss), also objected that giving Congress primary responsibility for enforcing legal equality would place power in the hands of changing congressional majorities, ibid. See generally Bickel, The Original Understanding and the Segregation Decision, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 57 (1955); Graham, Our “Declaratory” Fourteenth Amendment, 7 Stan. L. Rev. 3, 21 (1954).

As a result of these objections having been expressed from so many different quarters, the House voted to table the proposal until April. See, e. g., B. Kendrick, Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction 215, 217 (1914); Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 115 (1871) (statement *522of Rep. Farnsworth). The congressional action was seen as marking the defeat of the proposal. See The Nation, Mar. 8, 1866, p. 291 (“The postponement of the amendment... is conclusive against the passage of [it]”); New York Times, Mar. 1, 1866, p. 4 (“It is doubtful if this ever comes before the House again . . .”); see also Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., at App. 115 (statement of Rep. Farnsworth) (The Amendment was “given its quietus by a postponement for two months, where it slept the sleep that knows no waking”). The measure was defeated “chiefly because many members of the legal profession s[aw] in [it]... a dangerous centralization of power,” The Nation, supra, at 291, and “many leading Republicans of th[e] House [of Representatives] would not consent to so radical a change in the Constitution,” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., at App. 151 (statement of Rep. Garfield). The Amendment in its early form was not again considered. Instead, the Joint Committee began drafting a new article of Amendment, which it reported to Congress on April 30, 1866.

Section 1 of the new draft Amendment imposed self-executing limits on the States. Section 5 prescribed that “[t]he Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” See Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 2286. Under the revised Amendment, Congress’ power was no longer plenary but remedial. Congress was granted the power to make the substantive constitutional prohibitions against the States effective. Representative Bingham said the new draft would give Congress “the power ... to protect by national law the privileges and immunities of all the citizens of the Republic . . . whenever the same shall be abridged or denied by the unconstitutional acts of any State.” Id., at 2542. Representative Stevens described the new draft Amendment as “allowing] Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States.” Id., at 2459. See also id., at 2768 (statement of Sen. Howard) (§5 “enables Congress, in case the States shall enact *523laws in conflict with the principles of the amendment, to correct that legislation by a formal congressional enactment”). See generally H. Brannon, The Rights and Privileges Guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 387 (1901) (Congress’ “powers are only prohibitive, corrective, vetoing, aimed only at undue process of law”); id., at 420, 452-455 (same); T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 294, n. 1 (2d ed. 1871) (“This amendment of the Constitution does not concentrate power in the general government for any purpose of police government within the States; its object is to preclude legislation by any State which shall ‘abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ ”). The revised Amendment proposal did not raise the concerns expressed earlier regarding broad congressional power to prescribe uniform national laws with respect to life, liberty, and property. See, e. g., Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., at App. 151 (statement of Rep. Garfield) (“The [Fourteenth Amendment] limited but did not oust the jurisdiction of the State[s]”). After revisions not relevant here, the new measure passed both Houses and was ratified in July 1868 as the Fourteenth Amendment.

The significance of the defeat of the Bingham proposal was apparent even then. During the debates over the Ku Klux Klan Act only a few years after the Amendment’s ratification, Representative James Garfield argued there were limits on Congress’ enforcement power, saying “unless we ignore both the history and the language of these clauses we cannot, by any reasonable interpretation, give to [§ 5]... the force and effect of the rejected [Bingham] clause.” Ibid.; see also id., at App. 115-116 (statement of Rep. Farnsworth). Scholars of successive generations have agreed with this assessment. See H. Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment 64 (1908); Bickel, The Voting Rights Cases, 1966 S. Ct. Rev. 79, 97.

The design of the Fourteenth Amendment has proved significant also in maintaining the traditional separation of pow*524ers between Congress and the Judiciary. The first eight Amendments to the Constitution set forth self-executing prohibitions on governmental action, and this Court has had primary authority to interpret those prohibitions. The Bing-ham draft, some thought, departed from that tradition by vesting in Congress primary power to interpret and elaborate on the-meaning of the new Amendment through legislation. Under it, “Congress, and not the courts, was to judge whether or not any of the privileges or immunities were not secured to citizens in the several States.” Flack, supra, at 64. While this separation-of-powers aspect did not occasion the widespread resistance which was caused by the proposal’s threat to the federal balance, it nonetheless attracted the attention of various Members. See Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 1064 (statement of Rep. Hale) (noting that Bill of Rights, unlike the Bingham proposal, “provided] safeguards to be enforced by the courts, and not to be exercised by the Legislature”); id., at App. 133 (statement of Rep. Rogers) (prior to Bingham proposal it “was left entirely for the courts ... to enforce the privileges and immunities of the citizens”). As enacted, the Fourteenth Amendment confers substantive rights against the States which, like the provisions of the Bill of Rights, are self-executing. Cf. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 325 (discussing Fifteenth Amendment). The power to interpret the Constitution in a case or controversy remains in the Judiciary.

2

The remedial and preventive nature of Congress’ enforcement power, and the limitation inherent in the power, were confirmed in our earliest cases on the Fourteenth Amendment. In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), the Court invalidated sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which prescribed criminal penalties for denying to any person “the full enjoyment of” public accommodations and conveyances, on the grounds that it exceeded Congress’ power *525by seeking to regulate private conduct. The Enforcement Clause, the Court said, did not authorize Congress to pass “general legislation upon the rights of the citizen, but corrective legislation, that is, such as may be necessary and proper for counteracting such laws as the States may adopt or enforce, and which, by the amendment, they are prohibited from making or enforcing . . . Id., at 13-14. The power to “legislate generally upon” life, liberty, and property, as opposed to the “power to provide modes of redress” against offensive state action, was “repugnant” to the Constitution. Id., at 15. See also United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 218 (1876); United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 639 (1883); James v. Bowman, 190 U. S. 127, 139 (1903). Although the specific holdings of these early cases might have been superseded or modified, see, e. g., Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241 (1964); United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745 (1966), their treatment of Congress’ § 5 power as corrective or preventive, not definitional, has not been questioned.

Recent cases have continued to revolve around the question whether §5 legislation can be considered remedial. In South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, we emphasized that “[t]he constitutional propriety of [legislation adopted under the Enforcement Clause] must be judged with reference to the historical experience ... it reflects.” 383 U. S., at 308. There we upheld various provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, finding them to be “remedies aimed at areas where voting discrimination has been most flagrant,” id., at 315, and necessary to “banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which has infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century,” id., at 308. We noted evidence in the record reflecting the subsisting and pervasive discriminatory — and therefore unconstitutional — use of literacy tests. Id., at 333-334. The Act’s new remedies, which used the administrative resources of the Federal Government, included the suspension of both literacy tests and, *526pending federal review, all new voting regulations in covered jurisdictions, as well as the assignment of federal examiners to list qualified applicants enabling those listed to vote. The new, unprecedented remedies were deemed necessary given the ineffectiveness of the existing voting rights laws, see id., at 313-315, and the slow, costly character of case-by-case litigation, id., at 328.

After South Carolina v. Katzenbach, the Court continued to acknowledge the necessity of using strong remedial and preventive measures to respond to the widespread and persisting deprivation of constitutional rights resulting from this country’s history of racial discrimination. See Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S., at 132 (“In enacting the literacy test ban . . . Congress had before it a long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disfranchise voters on account of their race”) (opinion of Black, J.); id., at 147 (Literacy tests “have been used at times as a discriminatory weapon against some minorities, not only Negroes but Americans of Mexican ancestry, and American Indians”) (opinion of Douglas, J.); id., at 216 (“Congress could have determined that racial prejudice is prevalent throughout the Nation, and that literacy tests unduly lend themselves to discriminatory application, either conscious or unconscious”) (opinion of Harlan, J.); id., at 235 (“[T]here is no question but that Congress could legitimately have concluded that the use of literacy tests anywhere within the United States has the inevitable effect of denying the vote to members of racial minorities whose inability to pass such tests is the direct consequence of previous governmental discrimination in education”) (opinion of Brennan, J.); id., at 284 (“[Nationwide [suspension of literacy tests] may be reasonably thought appropriate when Congress acts against an evil such as racial discrimination which in varying degrees manifests itself in every part of the country”) (opinion of Stewart, J.); City of Rome, 446 U. S., at 182 (“Congress’ considered determination that at least another 7 years of statutory remedies were necessary to counter the *527perpetuation of 95 years of pervasive voting discrimination is both unsurprising and unassailable”); Morgan, 384 U. S., at 656 (Congress had a factual basis to conclude that New York’s literacy requirement “constituted an invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause”).

3

Any suggestion that Congress has a substantive, non-remedial power under the Fourteenth Amendment is not supported by our case law. In Oregon v. Mitchell, supra, at 112, a majority of the Court concluded Congress had exceeded its enforcement powers by enacting legislation lowering the minimum age of voters from 21 to 18 in state and local elections. The five Members of the Court who reached this conclusion explained that the legislation intruded into an area reserved by the Constitution to the States. See 400 U. S., at 125 (concluding that the legislation was unconstitutional because the Constitution “reserves to the States the power to set voter qualifications in state and local elections”) (opinion of Black, J.); id., at 154 (explaining that the “Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to restrict the authority of the States to allocate their political power as they see fit”) (opinion of Harlan, J.); id., at 294 (concluding that States, not Congress, have the power “to establish a qualification for voting based on age”) (opinion of Stewart, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Blackmun, J.). Four of these five were explicit in rejecting the position that § 5 endowed Congress with the power to establish the meaning of constitutional provisions. See id., at 209 (opinion of Harlan, J.); id., at 296 (opinion of Stewart, J.). Justice Black’s rejection of this position might be inferred from his disagreement with Congress’ interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause. See id., at 125.

There is language in our opinion in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641 (1966), which could be interpreted as acknowledging a power in Congress to enact legislation that expands *528the rights contained in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is not a necessary interpretation, however, or even the best one. In Morgan, the Court considered the constitutionality of §4(e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided that no person who had successfully completed the sixth primary grade in a public school in, or a private school accredited by, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in which the language of instruction was other than English could be denied the right to vote because of an inability to read or write English. New York’s Constitution, on the other hand, required voters to be able to read and write English. The Court provided two related rationales for its conclusion that § 4(e) could “be viewed as a measure to secure for the Puerto Rican community residing in New York nondiscriminatory treatment by government.” Id., at 652. Under the first rationale, Congress could prohibit New York from denying the right to vote to large segments of its Puerto Rican community, in order to give Puerto Ricans “enhanced political power” that would be “helpful in gaining nondiscriminatory treatment in public services for the entire Puerto Rican community.” Ibid. Section 4(e) thus could be justified as a remedial measure to deal with “discrimination in governmental services.” Id., at 653. The second rationale, an alternative holding, did not address discrimination in the provision of public services but “discrimination in establishing voter qualifications.” Id., at 654. The Court perceived a factual basis on which Congress could have concluded that New York’s literacy requirement “constituted an invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.” Id., at 656. Both rationales for upholding § 4(e) rested on unconstitutional discrimination by New York and Congress’ reasonable attempt to combat it. As Justice Stewart explained in Oregon v. Mitchell, supra, at 296, interpreting Morgan to give Congress the power to interpret the Constitution “would require an enormous extension of that decision’s rationale.”

*529If Congress could define its own powers by altering the Fourteenth Amendment’s meaning, no longer would the Constitution be “superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means.” It would be “on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, . . . alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, at 177. Under this approach, it is difficult to conceive of a principle that would limit congressional power. See Van Alstyne, The Failure of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, 46 Duke L. J. 291, 292-303 (1996). Shifting legislative majorities could change the Constitution and effectively circumvent the difficult and detailed amendment process contained in Article V.

We now turn to consider whether RFRA can be considered enforcement legislation under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

B

Respondent contends that RFRA is a proper exercise of Congress’ remedial or preventive power. The Act, it is said, is a reasonable means of protecting the free exercise of religion as defined by Smith. It prevents and remedies laws which are enacted with the unconstitutional object of targeting religious beliefs and practices. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 533 (1993) (“[A] law targeting religious beliefs as such is never permissible”). To avoid the difficulty of proving such violations, it is said, Congress can simply invalidate any law which imposes a substantial burden on a religious practice unless it is justified by a compelling interest and is the least restrictive means of accomplishing that interest. If Congress can prohibit laws with discriminatory effects in order to prevent racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, see Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 477 (1980) (plurality opinion); City of Rome, 446 U. S., at 177, then it can do the same, respondent argues, to promote religious liberty.

*530While preventive rules are sometimes appropriate remedial measures, there must be a congruence between the means used and the ends to be achieved. The appropriateness of remedial measures must be considered in light of the evil presented. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 308. Strong measures appropriate to address one harm may be an unwarranted response to another, lesser one. Id., at 334.

A comparison between RFRA and the Voting Rights Act is instructive. In contrast to the record which confronted Congress and the Judiciary in the voting rights cases, RFRA’s legislative record lacks examples of modern instances of generally applicable laws passed because of religious bigotry. The history of persecution in this country detailed in the hearings mentions no episodes occurring in the past 40 years. See, e. g., Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1991, Hearings on H. R. 2797 before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., 331-334 (1993) (statement of Douglas Laycock) (House Hearings); The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Hearing on S. 2969 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., 30-31 (1993) (statement of Dallin H. Oaks) (Senate Hearing); id., at 68-76 (statement of Douglas Laycock); Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1990, Hearing on H. R. 5377 before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., 49 (1991) (statement of John H. Buchanan, Jr.) (1990 House Hearing). The absence of more recent episodes stems from the fact that, as one witness testified, “deliberate persecution is not the usual problem in this country.” House Hearings 334 (statement of Douglas Laycock). See also House Report 2 (“[L]aws directly targeting religious practices have become increasingly rare”). Rather, the emphasis of the hearings was on laws of general applicability which place incidental burdens on religion. Much of the discussion cen*531tered upon anecdotal evidence of autopsies performed on Jewish individuals and Hmong immigrants in violation of their religious beliefs, see, e. g., House Hearings 81 (statement of Nadine Strossen); id., at 107-110 (statement of William Yang); id., at 118 (statement of Rep. Stephen J. Solarz); id., at 336 (statement of Douglas Laycock); Senate Hearing 5-6, 14-26 (statement of William Yang); id., at 27-28 (statement of Hmong-Lao Unity Assn., Inc.); id., at 50 (statement of Baptist Joint Committee); see also Senate Report 8; House Report 5-6, and n. 14, and on zoning regulations and historic preservation laws (like the one at issue here), which, as an incident of their normal operation, have adverse effects on churches and synagogues. See, e. g., House Hearings 17, 57' (statement of Robert P. Dugan, Jr.); id., at 81 (statement of Nadine Strossen); id., at 122-123 (statement of Rep. Stephen J. Solarz); id., at 157 (statement of Edward M. Gaffney, Jr.); id., at 327 (statement of Douglas Laycock); Senate Hearing 143-144 (statement of Forest D. Montgomery); 1990 House Hearing 39 (statement of Robert P. Dugan, Jr.); see also Senate Report 8; House Report 5-6, and n. 14. It is difficult to. main tain that they are examples of legislation enacted or enforced due to animus or hostility to the burdened religious practices or that they indicate some widespread pattern of religious discrimination in this country. Congress’ concern was with the incidental burdens imposed, not the object or purpose of the legislation. See House Report 2; Senate Report 4-5; House Hearings 64 (statement of Nadine Strossen); id., at 117-118 (statement of Rep. Stephen J. Solarz); 1990 House Hearing 14 (statement of Rep. Stephen J. Solarz). This lack of support in the legislative record, however, is not RFRA’s most serious shortcoming. Judicial deference, in most cases, is based not on the state of the legislative record Congress compiles but “on due regard for the decision of the body constitutionally appointed to decide.” Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S., at 207 (opinion of Harlan, J.). As a gen*532eral matter, it is for Congress to determine the method by which it will reach a decision.

Regardless of the state of the legislative record, RFRA cannot be considered remedial, preventive legislation, if those terms are to have any meaning. RFRA is so out of proportion to a supposed remedial or preventive object that it cannot be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior. It appears, instead, to attempt a substantive change in constitutional protections. Preventive measures prohibiting certain types of laws may be appropriate when there is reason to believe that many of the laws affected by the congressional enactment have a significant likelihood of being unconstitutional. See City of Rome, 446 U. S., at 177 (since “jurisdictions with a demonstrable history of intentional racial discrimination . . . create the risk of purposeful discrimination,” Congress could “prohibit changes that have a discriminatory impact” in those jurisdictions). Remedial legislation under § 5 “should be adapted to the mischief and wrong which the [Fourteenth] [AJmendment was intended to provide against.” Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S., at 13.

RFRA is not so confined. Sweeping coverage ensures its intrusion at every level of government, displacing laws and prohibiting official actions of almost every description and regardless of subject matter. RFRA’s restrictions apply to every agency and official of the Federal, State, and local Governments. 42 U. S. C. § 2000bb-2(1). RFRA applies to all federal and state law, statutory or otherwise, whether adopted before or after its enactment. § 2000bb-3(a). RFRA has no termination date or termination mechanism. Any law is subject to challenge at any time by any individual who alleges a substantial burden on his or her free exercise of religion.

The reach and scope of RFRA distinguish it from other measures passed under Congress’ enforcement power, even in the area of voting rights. In South Carolina v. Katzenbach, the challenged provisions were confined to those re*533gions of the country where voting discrimination had been most flagrant, see 383 U. S., at 315, and affected a discrete class of state laws, i. e., state voting laws. Furthermore, to ensure that the reach of the Voting Rights Act was limited to those cases in which constitutional violations were most likely (in order to reduce the possibility of overbreadth), the coverage under the Act would terminate “at the behest of States and political subdivisions in which the danger of substantial voting discrimination has not materialized during the preceding five years.” Id., at 331. The provisions restricting and banning literacy tests, upheld in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641 (1966), and Oregon v. Mitchell, supra, attacked a particular type of voting qualification, one with a long history as a “notorious means to deny and abridge voting rights on racial grounds.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 355 (Black, J., concurring and dissenting). In City of Rome, supra, the Court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of a Voting Rights Act provision which required certain jurisdictions to submit changes in electoral practices to the Department of Justice for preimplementation review. The requirement was placed only on jurisdictions with a history of intentional racial discrimination in voting. Id., at 177. Like the provisions at issue in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, this provision permitted a covered jurisdiction to avoid preclearance requirements under certain conditions and, moreover, lapsed in seven years. This is not to say, of course, that § 5 legislation requires termination dates, geographic restrictions, or egregious predicates. Where, however, a congressional enactment pervasively prohibits constitutional state action in an effort to remedy or to prevent unconstitutional state action, limitations of this kind tend to ensure Congress’ means are proportionate to ends legitimate under § 5.

The stringent test RFRA demands of state laws reflects a lack of proportionality or congruence between the means adopted and the legitimate end to be achieved. If an objector can show a substantial burden on his free exercise, the *534State must demonstrate a compelling governmental interest and show that the law is the least restrictive means of furthering its interest. Claims that a law substantially burdens someone’s exercise of religion will often be difficult to contest. See Smith, 494 U. S., at 887 (“What principle of law or logic can be brought to bear to contradict a believer’s assertion that a particular act¡ is ‘central’ to his personal faith?”); id., at 907 (“The distinction between questions of centrality and questions of sincerity and burden is admittedly fine ...”) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). Requiring a State to demonstrate a compelling interest and show that it has adopted the least restrictive means of achieving that interest is the most demanding test known to constitutional law. If “ ‘compelling interest’ really means what it says . . ., many laws will not meet the test. . . . [The test] would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious. exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind.” Id., at 888. Laws valid under Smith would fall under RFRA without regard to whether they had the object of stifling or punishing free exercise. We make these observations not to reargue the position of the majority in Smith but to illustrate the substantive alteration of its holding attempted by RFRA. Even assuming RFRA would be interpreted in effect to mandate some lesser test, say, one equivalent to intermediate scrutiny, the statute nevertheless would require searching judicial scrutiny of state law with the attendant likelihood of invalidation. This is a considerable congressional intrusion into the States’ traditional prerogatives and general authority to regulate for the health and welfare of their citizens.

The substantial costs RFRA exacts, both in practical terms of imposing a heavy litigation burden on the States and in terms of curtailing their traditional general regulatory power, far exceed any pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct under the Free Exercise Clause as interpreted in Smith. Simply put, RFRA is not designed to identify and counteract state laws likely to be unconstitutional because of *535their treatment of religion. In most cases, the state laws to which RFRA applies are not ones which will have been motivated by religious bigotry. If a state law disproportionately burdened a particular class of religious observers, this circumstance might be evidence of an impermissible legislative motive. Cf. Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 241 (1976). RFRA’s substantial-burden test, however, is not even a discriminatory-effects or disparate-impact test. It is a reality of the modern regulatory state that numerous state laws, such as the zoning regulations at issue here, impose a substantial burden on a large class of individuals. When the exercise of religion has been burdened in an incidental way by a law of general application, it does not follow that the persons affected have been burdened any more than other citizens, let alone burdened because of their religious beliefs. In addition, the Act imposes in every case a least restrictive means requirement — a requirement that was not used in the pre-Smit/i jurisprudence RFRA purported to codify — which also indicates that the legislation is broader than is appropriate if the goal is to prevent and remedy constitutional violations.

When Congress acts within its sphere of power and responsibilities, it has not just the right but the duty to make its own informed judgment on the meaning and force of the Constitution. This has been clear from the early days of the Republic. In 1789, when a Member of the House of Representatives objected to a debate on the constitutionality of legislation based on the theory that “it would be officious” to consider the constitutionality of a measure that did not affect the House, James Madison explained that “it is incontrovertibly of as much importance to this branch of the Government as to any other, that the constitution should be preserved entire. It is our duty.” 1 Annals of Congress 500 (1789). Were it otherwise, we would not afford Congress the presumption of validity its enactments now enjoy.

Our national experience teaches that the Constitution is preserved best when each part of the Government respects *536both the Constitution and the proper actions and determinations of the other branches. When the Court has interpreted the Constitution, it has acted within the province of the Judicial Branch, which embraces the duty to say what the law is. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, at 177. When the political branches of the Government act against the background of a judicial interpretation of the Constitution already issued, it must be understood that in later cases and controversies the Court will treat its precedents with the respect due them under settled principles, including stare decisis, and contrary expectations must be disappointed. RFRA was designed to control cases and controversies, such as the one before us; but as the provisions of the federal statute here invoked are beyond congressional authority, it is this Court’s precedent, not RFRA, which must control.

* * *

It is for Congress in the first instance to “determin[e] whether and what legislation is needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment,” and its conclusions are entitled to much deference. Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S., at 651. Congress’ discretion is not unlimited, however, and the courts retain the power, as they have since Marbury v. Madison, to determine if Congress has exceeded its authority under the Constitution. Broad as the power of Congress is under the Enforcement Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, RFRA contradicts vital principles necessary to maintain separation of powers and the federal balance. The judgment of the Court of Appeals sustaining the Act’s constitutionality is reversed.

It is so ordered.

. Justice Stevens,

concurring.

In my opinion, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) is a “law respecting an establishment of religion” that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution.

*537If the historic landmark on the hill in Boerne happened to be a museum or an art gallery owned by an atheist, it would not be eligible for an exemption from the city ordinances that forbid an enlargement of the structure. Because the landmark is owned by the Catholic Church, it is claimed that RFRA gives its owner a federal statutory entitlement to an exemption from a generally applicable, neutral civil law. Whether the Church would actually prevail under the statute or not, the statute has provided the Church with a legal weapon that no atheist or agnostic can obtain. This governmental preference for religion, as opposed to irreligión, is forbidden by the First Amendment. Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 52-55 (1985).

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Stevens joins, concurring in part.

I write to respond briefly to the claim of Justice O’Con-nor’s dissent (hereinafter the dissent) that historical materials support a result contrary to the one reached in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). See post, p. 544 (dissenting opinion). We held in Smith that the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause “does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’” 494 U. S., at 879 (quoting United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 263, n. 3 (1982) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)). The material that the dissent claims is at odds with Smith either has little to say about the issue or is in fact more consistent with Smith than with the dissent’s interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. The dissent’s extravagant claim that the historical record shows Smith to have been wrong should be compared with the assessment of the most prominent scholarly critic of Smith, who, after an extensive review of the historical record, was willing to venture no more than that “constitu*538tionally compelled exemptions [from generally applicable laws regulating conduct] were within the contemplation of the framers and ratifiers as a possible interpretation of the free exercise clause.” McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409, 1415 (1990) (emphasis added); see also Hamburger, A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, 60 Geo. Wash. Law Rev. 915 (1992) (arguing that historical evidence supports Smith’s interpretation of free exercise).

The dissent first claims that Smith’s interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause departs from the understanding reflected in various statutory and constitutional protections of religion enacted by Colonies, States, and Territories in the period leading up to the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Post, at 550-557. But the protections afforded by those enactments are in fact more consistent with Smith’s interpretation of free exercise than with the dissent’s understanding of it. The Free Exercise Clause, the dissent claims, "is best understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious practices and conduct without impermissible governmental interference, even when such conduct conflicts with a neutral, generally applicable law”; thus, even neutral laws of general application may be invalid if they burden religiously motivated conduct. Post, at 546. However, the early “free exercise” enactments cited by the dissent protect only against action that is taken “for” or “in respect of” religion, post, at 551-553 (Maryland Act Concerning Religion of 1649, Rhode Island Charter of 1663, and New Hampshire Constitution); or action taken “on account of” religion, post, at 553-554 (Maryland Declaration of Rights of 1776 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787); or “discriminat[ory]” action, post, at 553 (New York Constitution); or, finally (and unhelpfully for purposes of interpreting “free exercise” in the Federal Constitution), action that interferes with the “free exercise” of religion, post, at 551, 554 (Maryland Act *539Concerning Religion of 1649 and Georgia Constitution). It is eminently arguable that application of neutral, generally applicable laws of the sort the dissent refers to — such as zoning laws, post, at 547 — would not constitute action taken “for,” “in respect of,” or “on account of” one’s religion, or “discriminatory” action.

Assuming, however, that the affirmative protection of religion accorded by the early “free exercise” enactments sweeps as broadly as the dissent’s theory would require, those enactments do not support the dissent’s view, since they contain “provisos” that significantly qualify the affirmative protection they grant. According to the dissent, the “provisos” support its view because they would have been “superfluous” if “the Court was correct in Smith that generally applicable laws are enforceable regardless of religious conscience.” Post, at 554-555. I disagree. In fact, the most plausible reading of the “free exercise” enactments (if their affirmative provisions are read broadly, as the dissent’s view requires) is a virtual restatement of Smith: Religious exercise shall be permitted so long as it does not violate general laws governing conduct. The “provisos” in the enactments negate a license to act in a manner “unfaithfull to the Lord Proprietary” (Maryland Act Concerning Religion of 1649), or “behavfe]” in other than a “peaceabl[e] and quie[t]” manner (Rhode Island Charter of 1663), or “disturb the public peace” (New Hampshire Constitution), or interfere with the “peace [and] safety of th[e] State” (New York, Maryland, and Georgia Constitutions), or “demea[n]” oneself in other than a “peaceable and orderly manner” (Northwest Ordinance of 1787). See post, at 551-554. At the time these provisos were enacted, keeping “peace” and “order” seems to have meant, precisely, obeying the laws. “[E]very breach of a law is against the peace.” Queen v. Lane, 6 Mod. 128, 87 Eng. Rep. 884, 885 (Q. B. 1704). Even as late as 1828, when Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language, he gave as one of the meanings of “peace”: “8. Public *540tranquility; that quiet, order and security which is guaranteed by the laws; as, to keep the peace; to break the peace.” 2 An American Dictionary of the English Language 31 (1828).1 This limitation upon the scope of religious exercise would have been in accord with the background political philosophy of the age (associated most prominently with John Locke), which regarded freedom as the right “to do only what was not lawfully prohibited,” West, The Case Against a Right to Religion-Based Exemptions, 4 Notre Dame J. L., Ethics & Pub. Pol’y 591, 624 (1990). “Thus, the disturb-the-peace caveats apparently permitted government to deny religious freedom, not merely in the event of violence or force, but, more generally, upon the occurrence of illegal actions.” Hamburger, supra, at 918-919.2 And while, under this interpretation, these early “free exercise” enactments support the Court’s judgment in Smith, I see no sensible interpretation that could cause them to support what I understand to be the position of Justice O’Connor, or any of Smith’s other critics. No one in that camp, to my knowledge, contends that their favored “compelling state interest” test conforms to any possible interpretation of “breach of peace and order” — i. e., that only violence or force, or any other category of action (more limited than “violation of law”) which can possibly be conveyed by the phrase “peace and order,” justifies state prohibition of religiously motivated conduct.

*541Apart from the early “free exercise” enactments of Colonies, States, and Territories, the dissent calls attention to those bodies’, and the Continental Congress’s, legislative accommodation of religious practices prior to ratification of the Bill of Rights. Post, at 557-560. This accommodation — which took place both before and after enactment of the state constitutional protections of religious liberty — suggests (according to the dissent) that “the drafters and ratifiers of the First Amendment... assumed courts would apply the Free Exercise Clause similarly.” Post, at 560. But that legislatures sometimes (though not always)3 found it “appropriate,” post, at 559, to accommodate religious practices does not establish that accommodation was understood to be constitutionally mandated by the Free Exercise Clause. As we explained in Smith, “to say that a nondiscriminatory religious-practice exemption is permitted, or even that it is desirable, is not to say that it is constitutionally required.” 494 U. S., at 890. “Values that are protected against government interference through enshrinement in the Bill of Rights are not thereby banished from the political process.” Ibid.

The dissent’s final source of claimed historical support consists of statements of certain of the Framers in the context of debates about proposed legislative enactments or debates over general principles (not in connection with the drafting of State or Federal Constitutions). Those statements are subject to the same objection as was the evidence about legislative accommodation: There is no reason to think they were meant to describe what was constitutionally required (and judicially enforceable), as opposed to what was thought to be legislatively or even morally desirable. Thus, for example, the pamphlet written by James Madison opposing Virginia’s proposed general assessment for support of reli*542gion, post, at 560-561, does not argue that the assessment would violate the “free exercise” provision in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, although that provision had been enacted into law only eight years earlier, post, at 556; rather the pamphlet argues that the assessment wrongly placed civil society ahead of personal religious belief and, thus, should not be approved by the legislators, post, at 560-561. Likewise, the letter from George Washington to the Quakers, post, at 562, by its own terms refers to Washington’s “wish and desire” that religion be accommodated, not his belief that existing constitutional provisions required accommodation. These and other examples offered by the dissent reflect the speakers’ views of the “proper” relationship between government and religion, post, at 563, but not their views (at least insofar as the content or context of the material suggests) of the constitutionally required relationship. The one exception is the statement by Thomas Jefferson that he considered “the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises,” post, at 562 (internal quotation marks omitted); but it is quite clear that Jefferson did not in fact espouse the broad principle of affirmative accommodation advocated by the dissent, see McConnell, 103 Harv. L. Rev., at 1449-1452.

It seems to me that the most telling point made by the dissent is to be found, not in what it says, but in what it fails to say. Had the understanding in the period surrounding the ratification of the Bill of Rights been that the various forms of accommodation discussed by the dissent were constitutionally required (either by State Constitutions or by the Federal Constitution), it would be surprising not to find a single state or federal case refusing to enforce a generally applicable statute because of its failure to make accommodation. Yet the dissent cites none — and to my knowledge, and to the knowledge of the academic defenders of the dissent’s position, see, e. g., id., at 1504, 1506-1511 (discussing early *543cases), none exists. The closest one can come in the period prior to 1850 is the decision of a New York City municipal court in 1813, holding that the New York Constitution of 1777, quoted post, at 553, required acknowledgment of a priest-penitent privilege, to protect a Catholic priest from being compelled to testify as to the contents of a confession. People v. Phillips, Court of General Sessions, City of New York (June 14, 1813), excerpted in Privileged Communications to Clergymen, 1 Cath. Law. 199 (1955). Even this lone case is weak authority, not only because it comes from a minor court,4 but also because it did not involve a statute, and the same result might possibly have been achieved (without invoking constitutional entitlement) by the court’s simply modifying the common-law rules of evidence to recognize such a privilege. On the other side of the ledger, moreover, there are two cases, from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, flatly rejecting the dissent’s view. In Simon’s Executors v. Gratz, 2 Pen. & W. 412 (Pa. 1831), the court held that a litigant was not entitled to a continuance of trial on the ground that appearing on his Sabbath would violate his religious principles. And in Stansbury v. Marks, 2 Dall. 213 (Pa. 1793), decided just two years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the court imposed a fine on a witness who “refused to be sworn, because it was his Sabbath.”5

-I have limited this response to the new items of “historical evidence” brought forward by today’s dissent. (The dis*544sent’s claim that “[bjefore Smith, our free exercise cases were generally in keeping” with the dissent’s view, post, at 546, is adequately answered in Smith itself.) The historical evidence marshalled by the dissent cannot fairly be said to demonstrate the correctness of Smith; but it is more supportive of that conclusion than destructive of it. And, to return to a point I made earlier, that evidence is not compatible with any theory I am familiar with that has been proposed as an alternative to Smith. The dissent’s approach has, of course, great popular attraction. Who can possibly be against the abstract proposition that government should not, even in its general, nondiscriminatory laws, place unreasonable burdens upon religious practice? Unfortunately, however, that abstract proposition must ultimately be reduced to concrete cases. The issue presented by Smith is, quite simply, whether the people, through their elected representatives, or rather this Court, shall control the outcome of those concrete cases. For example, shall it be the determination of this Court, or rather of the people, whether (as the dissent apparently believes, post, at 547) church construction will be exempt from zoning laws? The historical evidence put forward by the dissent does nothing to undermine the conclusion we reached in Smith: It shall be the people.

Justice O’Connor,

with whom Justice Breyer joins except as to the first paragraph of Part I, dissenting.

I dissent from the Court’s disposition of this case. I agree with the Court that the issue before us is whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) is a proper exercise of Congress’ power to enforce § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But as a yardstick for measuring the constitutionality of RFRA, the Court uses its holding in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), the decision that prompted Congress to enact RFRA as a means of more rigorously enforcing the Free Exercise Clause. I remain of the view that Smith was *545wrongly decided, and I would use this case to reexamine the Court’s holding there. Therefore, I would direct the parties to brief the question whether Smith represents the correct understanding of the Free Exercise Clause and set the case for reargument. If the Court were to correct the misinterpretation of the Free Exercise Clause set forth in Smith, it would simultaneously put our First Amendment jurisprudence back on course and allay the legitimate concerns of a majority in Congress who believed that Smith improperly restricted religious liberty. We would then be in a position to review RFRA in light of a proper interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause.

I

I agree with much of the reasoning set forth in Part III-A of the Court’s opinion. Indeed, if I agreed with the Court’s standard in Smith, I would join the opinion. As the Court’s careful and thorough historical analysis shows, Congress lacks the “power to decree the substance of the Fourteenth Amendment’s restrictions on the States.” Ante, at 519 (emphasis added). Rather, its power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment extends only to enforcing the Amendment’s provisions. In short, Congress lacks the ability independently to define or expand the scope of constitutional rights by statute. Accordingly, whether Congress has exceeded its § 5 powers turns on whether there is a “congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.” Ante, at 520. This recognition does not, of course, in any way diminish Congress’ obligation to draw its own conclusions regarding the Constitution’s meaning. Congress, no less than this Court, is called upon to consider the requirements of the Constitution and to act in accordance with its dictates. But when it enacts legislation in furtherance of its delegated powers, Congress must make its judgments consistent with this Court’s exposition of the Constitution and with the lim*546its placed on its legislative authority by provisions such as the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court’s analysis of whether RFRA is a constitutional exercise of Congress’ §5 power, set forth in Part III-B of its opinion, is premised on the assumption that Smith correctly interprets the Free Exercise Clause. This is an assumption that I do not accept. I continue to believe that Smith adopted an improper standard for deciding free exercise claims. In Smith, five Members of this Court — without briefing or argument on the issue — interpreted the Free Exercise Clause to permit the government to prohibit, without justification, conduct mandated by an individual’s religious beliefs, so long as the prohibition is generally applicable. Contrary to the Court’s holding in that case, however, the Free Exercise Clause is not simply an antidiscrimination principle that protects only against those laws that single out religious practice for unfavorable treatment. See Smith, supra, at 892-903 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). Rather, the Clause is best understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious practices and conduct without impermissible governmental interference, even when such conduct conflicts with a neutral, generally applicable law. Before Smith, our free exercise cases were generally in keeping with this idea: where a law substantially burdened religiously motivated conduct— regardless whether it was specifically targeted at religion or applied generally — we required government to justify that law with a compelling state interest and to use means narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. See 494 U. S., at 894 (citing Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U. S. 680, 699 (1989); Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 141 (1987); United States v. Lee, 465 U. S. 252, 257-258 (1982); McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618, 626-629 (1978); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 215 (1972); Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 462 (1971); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 403 (1963)).

*547The Court’s rejection of this principle in Smith is supported neither by precedent nor, as discussed below, by history. The decision has harmed religious liberty. For example, a Federal District Court, in reliance on Smith, ruled that the Free Exercise Clause was not implicated where Hmong natives objected on religious grounds to their son’s autopsy, conducted pursuant to a generally applicable state law. Yang v. Sturner, 750 F. Supp. 558, 559 (RI 1990). The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that application of a city’s zoning laws to prevent a church from conducting services in an area zoned for commercial uses raised no free exercise concerns, even though the city permitted secular not-for-profit organizations in that area. Cornerstone Bible Church v. Hastings, 948 F. 2d 464 (1991); see also Rector of St. Bartholomew’s Church v. New York, 914 F. 2d 348, 355 (CA2 1990) (no free exercise claim where city’s application of facially neutral landmark designation law “drastically restricted the Church’s ability to raise revenue to carry out its various charitable and ministerial programs”), cert. denied, 499 U. S. 905 (1991); State v. Hershberger, 462 N. W. 2d 393 (Minn. 1990) (Free Exercise Clause provided no basis for exempting an Amish farmer from displaying a bright orange triangle on his buggy, to which the farmer objected on religious grounds, even though the evidence showed that some other material would have served the State’s purpose equally well). These cases demonstrate that lower courts applying Smith no longer find necessary a searching judicial inquiry into the possibility of reasonably accommodating religious practice.

Stare decisis concerns should not prevent us from revisiting our holding in Smith. ‘“[S]tare decisis is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision, however recent and questionable, when such adherence involves collision with a prior doctrine more embracing in its scope, intrinsically sounder, and verified by experience.’ ” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. *548200, 231 (1995) (quoting Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 119 (1940)). This principle is particularly true in constitutional cases, where — as this case so plainly illustrates — “correction through legislative action is practically impossible.” Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 63 (1996) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). I believe that, in light of both our precedent and our Nation’s tradition of religious liberty, Smith is demonstrably wrong. Moreover, it is a recent decision. As such, it has not engendered the kind of reliance on its continued application that would militate against overruling it. Cf. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 855-856 (1992).

Accordingly, I believe that we should reexamine our holding in Smith, and do so in this very case. In its place, I would return to a rule that requires government to justify any substantial burden on religiously motivated conduct by a compelling state interest and to impose that burden only by means narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.

II

I shall not restate what has been said in other opinions, which have demonstrated that Smith is gravely at odds with our earlier free exercise precedents. See Church of Lukumi Bdbalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 570-571 (1993) (Souter, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (stating that it is “difficult to escape the conclusion that, whatever Smith’s virtues, they do not include a comfortable fit with settled law”); Smith, 494 U. S., at 894-901 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment); see also McConnell, Free Exercise Revisionism and the Smith Decision, 57 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1109, 1120-1127 (1990). Rather, I examine here the early American tradition of religious free exercise to gain insight into the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause — an inquiry the Court in Smith did not undertake. We have previously recognized the importance of interpreting the Religion Clauses in light of their history. Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 673 (1984) (“The Court’s *549interpretation of the Establishment Clause has comported with what history reveals was the contemporaneous understanding of its guarantees”); School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 212-214 (1963).

The historical evidence casts doubt on the Court’s current interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. The record instead reveals that its drafters and ratifiers more likely viewed the Free Exercise Clause as a guarantee that government may not unnecessarily hinder believers from freely practicing their religion, a position consistent with our pre-Smith jurisprudence.

A

The original Constitution, drafted in 1787 and ratified by the States in 1788, had no provisions safeguarding individual liberties, such as freedom of speech or religion. Federalists, the chief supporters of the new Constitution, took the view that amending the Constitution to explicitly protect individual freedoms was superfluous, since the rights that the amendments would protect were already completely secure. See, e. g., 1 Annals of Congress 440, 443-444, 448-459 (Gales and Seaton ed. 1834) (remarks of James Madison, June 8, 1789). Moreover, they feared that guaranteeing certain civil liberties might backfire, since the express mention of some freedoms might imply that others were not protected. According to Alexander Hamilton, a Bill of Rights would even be dangerous, in that by specifying “various exceptions to powers” not granted, it “would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.” The Federalist No. 84, p. 513 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Anti-Federalists, however, insisted on more definite guarantees. Apprehensive that the newly established Federal Government would overwhelm the rights of States and individuals, they wanted explicit assurances that the Federal Government had no power in matters of personal liberty. T. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment 194 (1986). Additionally, Baptists and other Protestant dissenters feared for their religious liberty under *550the new Federal Government and called for an amendment guaranteeing religious freedom. Id., at 198.

In the end, legislators acceded to these demands. By December 1791, the Bill of Rights had been added to the Constitution. With respect to religious liberty, the First Amendment provided: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 1. Neither the First Congress nor the ratifying state legislatures debated the question of religious freedom in much detail, nor did they directly consider the scope of the First Amendment’s free exercise protection. It would be disingenuous to say that the Framers neglected to define precisely the scope of the Free Exercise Clause because the words “free exercise” had a precise meaning. L. Levy, Essays on American Constitutional History 173 (1972). As is the case for a number of the terms used in the Bill of Rights, it is not exactly clear what the Framers thought the phrase signified. Ibid. (“[I]t is astonishing to discover that the debate on a Bill of Rights was conducted on a level of abstraction so vague as to convey the impression that Americans of 1787-1788 had only the most nebulous conception of the meanings of the particular rights they sought to insure”). But a variety of sources supplement the legislative history and shed light on the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause. These materials suggest that — contrary to Smith — the Framers did not intend simply to prevent the government from adopting laws that discriminated against religion. Although the Framers may not have asked precisely the questions about religious liberty that we do today, the historical record indicates that they believed that the Constitution affirmatively protects religious free exercise and that it limits the government’s ability to intrude on religious practice.

B

The principle of religious “free exercise” and the notion that religious liberty deserved legal protection were by no *551means new concepts in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified. To the contrary, these principles were first articulated in this country in the Colonies of Maryland, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Carolina, in the mid-1600’s. These Colonies, though established as sanctuaries for particular groups of religious dissenters, extended freedom of religion to groups — although often limited to Christian groups — beyond their own. Thus, they encountered early on the conflicts that may arise in a society made up of a plurality of faiths.

The term “free exercise” appeared in an American legal document as early as 1648, when Lord Baltimore extracted from the new Protestant Governor of Maryland and his councilors a promise not to disturb Christians, particularly Roman Catholics, in the “free exercise” of their religion. McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409, 1425 (1990) (hereinafter Origins of Free Exercise). Soon after, in 1649, the Maryland Assembly enacted the first free exercise clause by passing the Act Concerning Religion: “[N]oe person . . . professing to beleive in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies troubled, Molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof . . . nor any way [be] compelled to the beleife or exercise of any other Religion against his or her consent, soe as they be not unfaithfull to the Lord Proprietary, or molest or conspire against the civill Governemt.” Act Concerning Religion of 1649, reprinted in 5 The Founders’ Constitution 49, 50 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987) (hereinafter Founders’ Constitution). Rhode Island’s Charter of 1663 used the analogous term “liberty of conscience.” It protected residents from being in any ways “molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione, in matters of religion, and doe' not actually disturb the civil peace of our sayd colony.” The Charter further provided that residents may “freely, and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgments, and conscience in matters of religious *552concernments .. .; they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness; nor to the civil injury, or outward disturbance of others.” Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1663, in 8 W. Swindler, Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions 363 (1979) (hereinafter Swindler). Various agreements between prospective settlers and the proprietors of Carolina, New York, and New Jersey similarly guaranteed religious freedom, using language that paralleled that of the Rhode Island Charter of 1663. See New York Act Declaring Rights & Priviledges (1691); Concession and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesarea, or New-Jersey (1664); Laws of West New-Jersey, Art. X (1681); Fundamental Constitutions for East New-Jersey, Art. XVI (1683); First Charter of Carolina, Art. XVIII (1663). N. Cogan, The Complete Bill of Rights 23-27 (Galley 1997).

These documents suggest that, early in our country’s history, several Colonies acknowledged that freedom to pursue one’s chosen religious beliefs was an essential liberty. Moreover, these Colonies appeared to recognize that government should interfere in religious matters only when necessary to protect the civil peace or to prevent “licentiousness.” In other words, when religious beliefs conflicted with civil law, religion prevailed unless important state interests militated otherwise. Such notions parallel the ideas expressed in our pre-Smith cases — that government may not hinder believers from freely exercising their religion, unless necessary to further a significant state interest.

C

The principles expounded in these early charters reemerged over a century later in state constitutions that were adopted in the flurry of constitution drafting that followed the American Revolution. By 1789, every State but Connecticut had incorporated some version of a free exercise *553clause into its constitution. Origins of Free Exercise 1455. These state provisions, which were typically longer and more detailed than the Federal Free Exercise Clause, are perhaps the best evidence of the original understanding of the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty. After all, it is reasonable to think that the States that ratified the First Amendment assumed that the meaning of the federal free exercise provision corresponded to that of their existing state clauses. The precise language of these state precursors to the Free Exercise Clause varied, but most guaranteed free exercise of religion or liberty of conscience, limited by particular, defined state interests. For example, the New York Constitution of 1777 provided:

“[T]he free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discriminatiqn or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed, within this State, to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience, hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify 'practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this State.” N. Y. Const., Art. XXXVIII, in 7 Swindler 178 (emphasis added).

Similarly, the New Hampshire Constitution of 1784 declared:

“Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship GOD according to the dictates of his own conscience, and reason; and no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained in his person, liberty or estate for worshipping GOD, in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience,. . . provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or disturb others, in their religious worship.” N. H. Const., Art. I, §5, in 6 Swindler 345 (emphasis added).

The Maryland Declaration of Rights of 1776 read:

“[N]o person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate on account of his religious persuasion *554or profession, or for his religious practice; unless, under colour of religion, any man shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others, in their natural, civil, or religious rights.” Md. Const., Declaration of Rights, Art. XXXIII in 4 Swindler 374 (emphasis added).

The religious liberty clause of the Georgia Constitution of 1777 stated:

“All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion; provided it be not repugnant to the peace and safety of the State.” Ga. Const., Art. LVI, in 2 Swindler 449 (emphasis added).

In addition to these state provisions, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 — which was enacted contemporaneously with the drafting of the Constitution and reenacted by the First Congress — established a bill of rights for a territory that included what is now Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. Article I of the Ordinance declared:

“No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory.” Northwest Territory Ordinance of 1787, Art. I, 1 Stat. 52 (emphasis added).

The language used in these state constitutional provisions and the Northwest Ordinance strongly suggests that, around the time of the drafting of the Bill of Rights, it was generally accepted that the right to “free exercise” required, where possible, accommodation of religious practice. If not — and if the Court was correct in Smith that generally applicable laws are enforceable regardless of religious conscience— there would have been no need for these documents to specify, as the New York Constitution did, that rights of conscience should not be “construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of [the] State.” Such a proviso would have been su*555perfluous. Instead, these documents make sense only if the right to free exercise was viewed as generally superior to ordinary legislation, to be overridden only when necessary to secure important government purposes.

The Virginia Legislature may have debated the issue most fully. In May 1776, the Virginia Constitutional Convention wrote a constitution containing a Declaration of Rights with a clause on religious liberty. The initial drafter of the clause, George Mason, proposed the following:

“That religion, or the duty which we owe to our CREATOR, and the manner of discharging it, can be (directed) only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless, under colour of religion, any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society. And that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.” Committee Draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1 Papers of George Mason 284-285 (R. Rutland ed. 1970) (emphasis added).

Mason’s proposal did not go far enough for a 26-year-old James Madison, who had recently completed his studies at the Presbyterian College of Princeton. He objected first to Mason’s use of the term “toleration,” contending that the word implied that the right to practice one’s religion was a governmental favor, rather than an inalienable liberty. Second, Madison thought Mason’s proposal countenanced too much state interference in religious matters, since the “exercise of religion” would have yielded whenever it was deemed inimical to “the peace, happiness, or safety of society.” Madison suggested the provision read instead:

“ ‘That religion, or the duty we owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, being under the direction *556of reason and conviction only, not of violence or compulsion, all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise of it, according to the dictates of conscience; and therefore that no man or class of men ought on account of religion to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privileges, nor subjected to any penalties or disabilities, unless under color of religion the preservation of equal liberty, and the existence of the State be manifestly endangered.”’ G. Hunt, James Madison and Religious Liberty, in 1 Annual Report of the American Historical Association, H. R. Doc. No. 702, 57th Cong., 1st Sess., 163, 166-167 (1901) (emphasis added).

Thus, Madison wished to shift Mason’s language of “toleration” to the language of rights. See S. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America 492 (1902) (reprint 1970) (noting that Madison objected to the word “toleration” as belonging to “a system where was an established Church, and where a certain liberty of worship was granted, not of right, but of grace”). Additionally, under Madison’s proposal, the State could interfere in a believer’s religious exercise only if the State would otherwise “be manifestly endangered.” In the end, neither Mason’s nor Madison’s language regarding the extent to which state interests could limit religious exercise made it into the Virginia Constitution’s religious liberty clause. Like the Federal Free Exercise Clause, the Virginia religious liberty clause was simply silent on the subject, providing only that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.” Virginia Declaration of Rights, Art. XVI (1776), in 10 Swindler 50. For our purposes, however, it is telling that both Mason’s and Madison’s formulations envisioned that, when there was a conflict, a person’s interest in freely practicing his religion was to be balanced against state interests. Although Madison endorsed a more limited state interest exception than did Mason, the debate would have been irrelevant if either had thought the right to free exercise did not *557include a right to be exempt from certain generally applicable laws. Presumably, the Virginia Legislature intended the scope of its free exercise provision to strike some middle ground between Mason’s narrower and Madison’s broader notions of the right to religious freedom.

D

The practice of the Colonies and early States bears out the conclusion that, at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified, it was accepted that government should, when possible, accommodate religious practice. Unsurprisingly, of course, even in the American Colonies inhabited by people of religious persuasions, religious conscience and civil law rarely conflicted. Most 17th and 18th century Americans belonged to denominations of Protestant Christianity whose religious practices were generally harmonious with colonial law. Curry, The First Freedoms, at 219 (“The vast majority of Americans assumed that theirs was a Christian, i. e. Protestant, country, and they automatically expected that government would uphold the commonly agreed on Protestant ethos and morality”). Moreover, governments then were far smaller and less intrusive than they are today, which made conflict between civil law and religion unusual.

Nevertheless, tension between religious conscience and generally applicable laws, though rare, was not unknown in preconstitutional America. Most commonly, such conflicts arose from oath requirements, military conscription, and religious assessments. Origins of Free Exercise 1466. The ways in which these conflicts were resolved suggest that Americans in the Colonies and early States thought that, if an individual’s religious scruples prevented him from complying with a generally applicable law, the government should, if possible, excuse the person from the law’s coverage. For example, Quakers and certain other Protestant sects refused on Biblical grounds to subscribe to oaths or “swear” allegiance to civil authority. A. Adams & C. Em-*558merich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty: The Constitutional Heritage of the Religion Clauses 14 (1990) (hereinafter Adams & Emmerich). Without accommodation, their beliefs would have prevented them from participating in civic activities involving oaths, including testifying in court. Colonial governments created alternatives to the oath requirement for these individuals. In early decisions, for example, the Carolina proprietors applied the religious liberty provision of the Carolina Charter of 1665 to permit Quakers to enter pledges in a book. Curry, The First Freedoms, at 56. Similarly, in 1691, New York enacted a law allowing Quakers to testify by affirmation, and in 1734, it permitted Quakers to qualify to vote by affirmation. Id., at 64. By 1789, virtually all of the States had enacted oath exemptions. See Adams & Emmerich 62.

Early conflicts between religious beliefs and generally applicable laws also occurred because of military conscription requirements. Quakers and Mennonites, as well as a few smaller denominations, refused on religious grounds to carry arms. Members of these denominations asserted that liberty of conscience should exempt them from military conscription. Obviously, excusing such objectors from military service had a high public cost, given the importance of the military to the defense of society. Nevertheless, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Maryland exempted Quakers from military service in the late 1600’s. New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Hampshire followed suit in the mid-1700’s. Origins of Free Exercise 1468. The Continental Congress likewise granted exemption from conscription:

“As there are some people, who, from religious principles, cannot bear arms in any case, this Congress intend no violence to their consciences, but earnestly recommend it to them, to contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren in the several colonies, and to do all other services to their oppressed Country, which they can consist*559ently with their religious principles.” Resolution of July 18, 1775, reprinted in 2 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, pp. 187,189 (W. Ford ed. 1905).

Again, this practice of excusing religious pacifists from military service demonstrates that, long before the First Amendment was ratified, legislative accommodations were a common response to conflicts between religious practice and civil obligation. Notably, the Continental Congress exempted objectors from conscription to avoid “violence to their consciences,” explicitly recognizing that civil laws must sometimes give way to freedom of conscience. Origins of Free Exercise 1468.

States and Colonies with established churches encountered a further religious accommodation problem. Typically, these governments required citizens to pay tithes to support either the government-established church or the church to which the tithepayer belonged. But Baptists and Quakers, as well as others, opposed all government-compelled tithes on religious grounds. Id., at 1469. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Virginia responded by exempting such objectors from religious assessments. Ibid. There are additional examples of early conflicts between civil laws and religious practice that were similarly settled through accommodation of religious exercise. Both North Carolina and Maryland excused Quakers from the requirement of removing their hats in court; Rhode Island exempted Jews from the requirements of the state marriage laws; and Georgia allowed groups of European immigrants to organize whole towns according to their own faith. Id., at 1471.

To be sure, legislatures, not courts, granted these early accommodations. But these were the days before there was a. Constitution to protect civil liberties — judicial review did not yet exist. These legislatures apparently believed that the appropriate response to conflicts between civil law and religious scruples was, where possible, accommodation of re*560ligious conduct. It is reasonable to presume that the drafters and ratifiers of the First Amendment — many of whom served in state legislatures — assumed courts would apply the Free Exercise Clause similarly, so that religious liberty was safeguarded.

E

The writings of the early leaders who helped to shape our Nation provide a final source of insight into the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause. The thoughts of James Madison — one of the principal architects of the Bill of Rights — as revealed by the controversy surrounding Virginia’s General Assessment Bill of 1784, are particularly illuminating. Virginia’s debate over religious issues did not end with its adoption of a constitutional free exercise provision. Although Virginia had disestablished the Church of England in 1776, it left open the question whether religion might be supported on a nonpreferential basis by a so-called “general assessment.” Levy, Essays on American Constitutional History, at 200. In the years between 1776 and 1784, the issue how to support religion in Virginia — either by general assessment or voluntarily — was widely debated. Curry, The First Freedoms, at 136.

By 1784, supporters of a general assessment, led by Patrick Henry, had gained a slight majority in the Virginia Assembly. M. Malbin, Religion and Politics: The Intentions of the Authors of the First Amendment 23 (1978); Levy, supra, at 200. They introduced “A Bill Establishing a Provision for the Teachers of the Christian Religion,” which proposed that citizens be taxed in order to support the Christian denomination of their choice, with those taxes not designated for any specific denomination to go to a public fund to aid seminaries. Levy, supra, at 200-201; Curry, supra, at 140-141; Malbin, supra, at 23. Madison viewed religious assessment as a dangerous infringement of religious liberty and led the opposition to the bill. He took the case against religious assessment to the people of Virginia in his now-famous “Me*561morial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments.” Levy, supra, at 201. This pamphlet led thousands of Virginians to oppose the bill and to submit petitions expressing their views to the legislature. Malbin, supra, at 24. The bill eventually died in committee, and Virginia instead enacted a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which Thomas Jefferson had drafted in 1779. Malbin, supra, at 24.

The “Memorial and Remonstrance” begins with the recognition that “[t]he Religion ... of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” 2 Writings of James Madison 184 (G. Hunt ed. 1901). By its very nature, Madison wrote, the right to free exercise is “unalienable,” both because a person’s opinion “cannot follow the dictates of other[s],” and because it entails “a duty towards the Creator.” Ibid. Madison continued:

“This duty [owed the Creator] is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.... [E]very man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, [must] do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society, and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.” Id., at 184-185.

To Madison, then, duties to God were superior to duties to civil authorities — the ultimate loyalty was owed to God above all. Madison did not say that duties to the Creator are precedent only to those laws specifically directed at religion, nor did he strive simply to prevent deliberate acts of persecution or discrimination. The idea that civil obligations are subordinate to religious duty is consonant with the notion that government must accommodate, where possible, those religious practices that conflict with civil law.

*562Other early leaders expressed similar views regarding religious liberty. Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of Virginia’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, wrote in that document that civil government could interfere in religious exercise only “when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.” In 1808, he indicated that he considered “ ‘the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.’” 11 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 428-429 (A. Lipscomb ed. 1904) (quoted in Office of Legal Policy, U. S. Dept. of Justice, Report to the Attorney General, Religious Liberty under the Free Exercise Clause 7 (1986)). Moreover, Jefferson believed that “ ‘[e]very religious society has a right to determine for itself the time of these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.’ ” Ibid.

George Washington expressly stated that he believed that government should do its utmost to accommodate religious scruples, writing in a letter to a group of Quakers:

“[I]n my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be as extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit.” Letter from George Washington to the Religious Society Called Quakers (Oct. 1789), in George Washington on Religious Liberty and Mutual Understanding 11 (E. Humphrey ed. 1932).

Oliver Ellsworth, a Framer of the First Amendment and later Chief Justice of the United States, expressed the similar view that government could interfere in religious matters only when necessary “to prohibit and punish gross immorali*563ties and impieties; because the open practice of these is of evil example and detriment.” Oliver Ellsworth, Landholder, No. 7 (Dec. 17,1787), reprinted in 4 Founders’ Constitution 640. Isaac Backus, a Baptist minister who was a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention of 1788, declared that “ ‘every person has an unalienable right to act in all religious affairs according to the full persuasion of his own mind, where others are not injured thereby.’ ” Backus, A Declaration of Rights, of the Inhabitants of the State of Massachusetts-Bay, in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism 487 (W. McLoughlin ed. 1968).

These are but a few examples of various perspectives regarding the proper relationship between church and government that existed during the time the First Amendment was drafted and ratified. Obviously, since these thinkers approached the issue of religious freedom somewhat differently, see Adams & Emmerich 21-31, it is not possible to distill their thoughts into one tidy formula. Nevertheless, a few general principles may be discerned. Foremost, these early leaders accorded religious exercise a special constitutional status. The right to free exercise was a substantive guarantee of individual liberty, no less important than the right to free speech or the right to just compensation for the taking of property. See R Kauper, Religion and the Constitution 17 (1964) (“[0]ur whole constitutional history ... supports the conclusion that religious liberty is an independent liberty, that its recognition may either require or permit preferential treatment on religious grounds in some instances . . . ”). As Madison put it in the concluding argument of his “Memorial and Remonstrance”:

“ ‘[T]he equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of [his] conscience’ is held by the same tenure with all our other rights.... [I]t is equally the gift of nature;... it cannot be less dear to us;... it is enumerated with equal solem*564nity, or rather studied emphasis.” 2 Writings of James Madison, at 190.

Second, all agreed that government interference in religious practice was not to be lightly countenanced. Adams & Emmerich 31. Finally, all shared the conviction that “ ‘true religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.’” Curry, The First Freedoms, at 219 (quoting Continental Congress); see Adams & Emmerich 72 (“The Founders ... acknowledged that the republic rested largely on moral principles derived from religion”). To give meaning to these ideas — particularly in a society characterized by. religious pluralism and pervasive regulation — there will be times when the Constitution requires government to accommodate the needs of those citizens whose religious practices conflict with generally applicable law.

Ill

The Religion Clauses of the Constitution represent a profound commitment to religious liberty. Our Nation’s Founders conceived of a Republic receptive to voluntary religious expression, not of a secular society in which religious expression is tolerated only when it does not conflict with a generally applicable law. As the historical sources discussed above show, the Free Exercise Clause is properly understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious activities without impermissible governmental interference, even where a believer’s conduct is in tension with a law of general application. Certainly, it is in no way anomalous to accord heightened protection to a right identified in the text of the First Amendment. For example, it has long been the Court’s position that freedom of speech — a right enumerated only a few words after the right to free exercise — has special constitutional status. Given the centrality of freedom of speech and religion to the American concept of personal liberty, it is altogether reasonable to conclude *565that both should be treated with the highest degree of respect.

Although it may provide a bright line, the rule the Court declared in Smith does not faithfully serve the purpose of the Constitution. Accordingly, I believe that it is essential for the Court to reconsider its holding in Smith — and to do so in this very case. I would therefore direct the parties to brief this issue and set the case for reargument.

I respectfully dissent from the Court’s disposition of this case.

Justice Souter,

dissenting.

To decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress sufficient power to enact the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, the Court measures the legislation against the free-exercise standard of Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). For the reasons stated in my opinion in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 564-577 (1993) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), I have serious doubts about the precedential value of the Smith rule and its entitlement to adherence. These doubts are intensified today by the historical arguments going to the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause presented in Justice O’Connor’s dissent, ante, at 548-564, which raises very substantial issues about the soundness of the Smith rule. See also ante, p. 537 (Justice Scalia, concurring in part) (addressing historical arguments). But without briefing and argument on the merits of that rule (which this Court has never had in any case, including Smith itself, see Lukumi, 508 U. S., at 571-572), I am not now prepared to join Justice O’Connor in rejecting it or the majority in assuming it to be correct. In order to provide full adversarial consideration, this case should be set down for reargument permitting plenary reexamination of the issue. Since the Court declines to follow that course, our free-exercise *566law remains marked by an “intolerable tension,” id., at 574, and the constitutionality of the Act of Congress to enforce the free-exercise right cannot now be soundly decided. I would therefore dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, and I accordingly dissent from the Court’s disposition of this case.

Justice Breyer,

dissenting.

I agree with Justice O’Connor that the Court should direct the parties to brief the question whether Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), was correctly decided, and set this case for re-argument. I do not, however, find it necessary to consider the question whether, assuming Smith is correct, § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment would authorize Congress to enact the legislation before us. Thus, while I agree with some of the views expressed in the first paragraph of Part I of Justice O’Connor’s dissent, I do not necessarily agree with all of them. I therefore join Justice O’Connor’s dissent, with the exception of the first paragraph of Part I.