GILES v. HARRIS.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA.

No. 493.

Submitted February, 24, 1903.

Decided April 27, 1903.

A Circuit Court of the United States in Alabama has not jurisdiction of an action in equity brought by a colored' man, resident in Alabama, on behalf of himself and other negroes to compel the board of registrars to enroll their names upon the voting lists of the county in which they reside under a constitution alleged to be contrary to the Constitution of the United States.'

The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Wilford H. Smith for appellant.

As the facts alleged in the bill of complaint have been admitted by the demurrer, the only question presented for the court’s consideration is, does the bill contain sufficient allegations of matters of fact to raise a Federal question, and, if so, whether the trial court under the law had the power and authority to grant the relief prayed for. The suffrage provisions of the constitution of Alabama are not only unconstitutional and void, but a more high-handed and flagrant case of the nullification of' the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and repudiation of their solemn guarantees to the negroes of America can never be presented to the courts of the country.

If the suffrage provisions of the constitution of Alabama bore equally upon the whites and blacks alike, no matter what the standard of property or education required might be, no cause of complaint -would be urged here against them ; but they sought to restrict the suffrage of the blacks without depriving a single white man of his right to vote.

While the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments do not confer the right of suffrage upon the negro, they contain a solemn guarantee of this nation that no State shall give any *476preference in this particular to the white citizens over the blacks, or deny the negroes the right to vote, or hinder them in the exercise of the same, because of their race and color and previous condition of servitude, ■ and it is clearly within the equity jurisdiction of the courts of the United States to enforce this solemn guarantee.

I. Sec. 1979, Rev. Stat., brought forward from the act of April 20, 1871, provides “ that every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof, to the deprivation of ¡any rights, privileges, or the immunities secured by.the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress,” and manifestly confers jurisdiction upon courts of equity to grant relief against the threatened deprivation of rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Sec. 629, Rev. Stat. cl. 16. Holt v. Indiana Manufacturing Co., 176 U. S. 68.

II. This is not a suit brought to enforce a political right, but a civil right guaranteed by'the Constitution of the United States. Nor is it sought in this action to control the exercise of any political functions of the State of Alabama, since no State has the right*, nor have its officers the right, to deprive any person of the equal protection of the law, or of his right to vote, on account of his race and color or previous condition of servitude. ’ United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214; Mills v. Green, 69 Fed. Rep. 852; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542.

III. The courts of law are without power to give that efficacious and specific redress in the matter of the enforcement and protection of the rights guaranteed under the Fifteenth .Amendment, because it would be absurd to argue that any money damage, however large, could in the least degree compensate a negro in Alabama for the deprivation of his right to vote on account of his race and color. A court of equity, exercising its remedial principles of specific redress, with its ability to look through forms at the substance and its power to detect and *477expose fraud and conspiracy and cunning and chicanery, can alone grant that relief without which there would be no relief in a case like this. Equity alone has the power to anticipate and prevent a threatened injury where the damage would be insufficient or the wrong irreparable. Ex parte Lennon, 166 U. S. 548 ; Vicksburg Water Works Co. v. Vicksburg, 185 U. S. 65.

IY. The Circuit Courts of the United States, sitting in equity, have jurisdiction to enforce and protect the civil rights of a citizen guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and this court is not confined to the decision of the question of jurisdiction alone, but should also decide the further question of whether or not the suffrage provisions of the constitution of Alabama are in contravention of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

The act of March 3, 1891, section 5, while it gives the Circuit Court the right to certify the jurisdiction alone to the Supreme Court, does not give the Circuit Court the right by such certification to cut the Supreme Court off from considering other questions which could properly come up on appeal from the Circuit Court. McLish v. Roff, 141 U. S. 661; Horner v. United States, 143 U. S. 578 ; Holder v. Aultman, Miller & Co., 169 U. S. 81; Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 58; Penn. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Austin, 168 U. S. 685 ; Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231.

V. Conceding that this court is confined to the question of jurisdiction alone, and is without the power, on this appeal, of considering any other questions involved in the record, it is wholly impossible for the court to separate the question of jurisdiction in this case from the question of whether or not the suffrage provisions of the constitution of Alabama are in contravention of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Indeed, the two questions are one and inseparable.

YI. Sec. 180 of art. 8 of the constitution of Alabama, known and administered as the temporary plan, contravenes the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, in its purpose, in its language and meaning, and *478in the way and manner in which .it has been carried out. and administered by the authorities in the State of Alabama.

The speeches in the convention cited in the record show that the purpose the convention had in view in framing the provisions on suffrage and elections was to invent a scheme by which to disfranchise the negroes without disfranchising a single white man in Alabama.

Subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 180, fixing qualifications upon persons who served in the war of 1812, and in the war with Mexico and with the Indians, and in the land or naval forces of the Confederate States, and their descendants, discriminate against the negroes of Alabama, for the reason that it was impossible, owing to their previous condition of servitude, for them to attain.to such qualifications.

Subdivision 3 is too general, and really describes ño qualifications, but simply invests the registrars with unlimited arid arbitrary power.

If our contention is wrong as to the language and meaning of these subdivisions, still we insist that the administration of said section by all the boards of registrars in the State of Alabama, as shown in the bill arid admitted by the demurrer, makes this section unconstitutional and void, because the registrars refused to register qualified negroes for no other reason than their race and color, and required the negroes to produce the testimony of white men as to their qualifications and character, and refused to accept the testimony of colored men, while all white men were registered upon their application without further proof of qualifications than the oath of the applicant. Ah Kow v. Neunan, 5 Sawyer, 560; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Davies v. McKeeby, 5 Nevada, 369.

VII. Section 181 of the constitution of‘ Alabáma, known as the permanent plan, contravenes the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, in its purpose and object and in its language and meaning, and therefore should be declared null and void and should not be allowed to be enforced.

But, conceding that the foregoing argument is untenable as to the section, it is clearly made unconstitutional and void in *479the manner of the administration of the temporary plan by the registrars in allowing all white men in the State of Alabama to qualify under the temporary plan, and at the same time refusing to allow nearly all negroes to qualify under the same for no other reason than their race and color, and telling them to come back after the 1st of January, 1903, which is admitted by the demurrer. The State of Alabama, through the registrars, has thus compelled the negroes to look to the permanent plan alone for their qualifications to become electors, which makes the law special class legislation from its inception intended to operate against the negroes of Alabama alone. Jew Ho v. Williamson, 103 Fed. Rep. 10 ; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356.

VIII. 'Section 186 of the suffrage article of the new constitution of Alabama is obnoxious and repugnant to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in that the boards of registrars are given absolute and unlimited po\yer and are clothed with the discretion of judicial officers solely for the purpose of placing the said boards' beyond the process of the courts, and of more effectually denying, abridging, and hindering the orator in his right to qualify as an elector, and to vote in the State of Alabama, on the ground of his race and color and previous condition of servitude, and said section is also a part of the scheme to deny and abridge his right to vote in the State of Alabama and the right of his race to vote on account of their race and color and previous condition of servitude. Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442; Ah Kow v. Neunan, 5 Sawyer, 560; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356.

Mr. William A: Gmter for appellees.

■ Besides the motion to dismiss, argued below, two questions arise in this appeal, both involving the jurisdictipn pf the court: (1) "Whether the constitution of the court admits of the cognizance of cases of this class, involving “ the assertion and protection of political rights;” (2) whether, conceding the first question, such a case is made out as authorizes the exercise of equitable jurisdiction. It is important, for obvious reasons, *480that the latter question, if possible, be authoritatively settled, and therefore, we discuss it in the first instance.

I. The duty and responsibility of prescribing the qualification of state electors, who must select the incumbents of political offices, rests entirely with the state government, with the exception of the restraints imposed by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. That provision does not pretend to extend any right, or give any privilege, but by negation provides that the right 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.” United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214. It is thus plain that the State is at perfect liberty to deny or abridge the right to vote ad libitum, provided it touches no question of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Looking at the provisions of the constitution of Alabama brought into question on this appeal, they can and do challenge the closest scrutiny.

It is thus seen that the State gave the right to register as an elector prior to January, 1903, to three classes of male citizens of the State and United States having a certain age and qualification as to residence, viz.: First, soldiers and sailors; second, their descendants; third, all citizens of good character understanding the duties and obligations of citizenship. It cannot be said, that giving the privilege to soldiers and sailors and their descendants was a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of color, race or previous condition of servitude.

These provisions might, and did, in fact, include many citizens of dark color, many of the negro race, and many who had been slaves. The objection, then, if any can be made, must rest on the third provision extending the privilege to all persons of good character understanding the duties and obligations of citizenship. It is evident that there can be no valid objection to the terms of this clause. It is clear that persons of the negro race may have in the highest degree good characters, and understand the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican government, and thus. that they are not excluded. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that white persons are liable to be excluded as not possessing these qualifications. *481Therefore, the clause is unobjectionable in its terms. Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U. S. 213; Ratcliffe v. Beal, 20 So. Rep. 865.

The constitution of Alabama applies, it is admitted, a, test which will exclude with many whites, the mass of the negro population from the privilege of voting. Certainly the Constitution of the United States cannot be construed into denying the right of a State to prohibit criminals and ignorant persons of bad character from electing its officers and legislators.

It is insisted, however, that this law was passed with the intent to exclude the negro only, and the speeches of members of the Convention are referred to, to give color to the act.

The intent of a legislative act can only be gathered from its language. The Convention is responsible only for its collective acts embodied in laws, and not at all for the views of individual members. Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87; Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 371; United States v. Des Moines, 142 U. S. 545; 1 Notes to U. S. Rep. 305.

II. A court of equity has no jurisdiction of the subject matter involved in this case. The object of this suit is to restrain the operations of the state government for the assertion and vindication of a political right to be an elector.. This is not within the province of equity jurisprudence. Green v. Mills, 69 Fed. Rep. 852 ; Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475 ; In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200 ; Fletcher v. Tuttle, 151 Illinois, 41.

It is plain that the right to be admitted to registration as an elector, which is sought to be enforced in this case, is purely political and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of a court of equity.

If there is such a right in any particular case which is denied, it is supposed that the remedies at law are ample for redress, and, certainly, it is wholly beyond the province of a court of equity by its decrees to interfere with the ordinary operations of government as is here proposed.

III. The appeal should be dismissed because it is impossible for the appellate court, if it should decide the case in favor of the plaintiff, to grant him any effectual relief. Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651.

*482Mk. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a bill in equity brought by a colored man, on behalf of himself “ and on behalf of more than five thousand negroes, citizens of the county of Montgomery, Alabama, similarly situated and circumstanced as himself,” against the board of registrars of that county. The prayer of the bill is in substance that' the defendants may be required to enroll upon the voting lists the name of the plaintiff and of all other qualified members of his race who applied for registration before August 1, 1902, and were refused, and that, certain sections of the constitution of Alabama, viz., sections 180, 181, 183, 184, 185,186, 187 and 188 of article 8, may be declared contrary to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States, and void.

The allegations of the bill may be summed up as follows. The plaintiff is subject to none of the disqualifications set forth in the constitution of Alabama and is entitled to vote — entitled, as the bill plainly means, under the constitution as it is. He applied in March, 1902, for registration as a voter, and was refused arbitrarily on the ground of his color, together with large numbers of other duly qualified negroes, while all white men were registered. The same thing was done all over the State. Under section 187 of article 8 of the Alabama constitution persons registered before January 1, 1903, remain electors for life unless they become disqualified by certain crimes, etc., while after that date severer tests come intó play which would exclude, perhaps, a large part of the black race. Therefore, by the refusal, the plaintiff and the other negroes excluded were deprived not only of their vote at an election which has taken place since the bill was filed, but of the permanent advantage incident to registration before 1903. The white men generally are registered for good under the easy test and the black men are likely to be kept out in the future as in the past. This refusal to register the blacks was part of a general scheme to disfranchise them, to which the defendants and the State itself, according to the bill, were parties. The defendants accepted their office for the purpose of carrying out the scheme. The *483part taken by the State, that is, by the white population which framed the constitution, consisted in shaping that instrument so as to give opportunity and effect, to the wholesale fraud which has been practised.

The bill sets forth the material sections of the state constitution, the general plan of which,.leaving out details, is as follows : By § 178 of article 8, to entitle a person to vote he must have resided in the'State at least two years, in the county one year and in the precinct or ward three months, immediately preceding the election, have paid his poll taxes and have been duly registered as an elector. By § 182, idiots, insane persons and those convicted of certain crimes are disqualified. Subject to the foregoing, by § 180, before 1903 the following male citizens of the State, who are citizens of the United States, were entitled to register, viz.: First. All who had served honorably in the enumerated wars of the United States, including- those on either side in the “ war between the States.” Second. All lawful descendants of persons who served honorably in the enumerated wars or in the war of the Revolution. Third. “ All persons who are of good character and who understand the duties and. obligations of citizenship under a republican form of government.” As we have said, according to the allegations of the bill this part of the constitution, as practically administered and as intended to be administered, let in all whites and kept out a large part, if not all, of the blacks, and those who were let in retained their right to vote after 1903, when tests which might be too severe for many of the whites as well as the blacks went into effect. By § 181, after January 1, 1903, only the following persons are entitled to register : First. Those who can read and write any article of the Constitution of the United States in the English language, and who either are physically unable to work or have been regularly engaged in some lawful business for the greater part of the last twelve months, and those who are unable to read and write solely because physically disabled. Second. Owners or husbands of owners of forty acres of land in the State, upon which they reside, and owners or husbands of owners of real or personal estate in the State assessed for taxation at three *484hundred dollars or more, if the taxes have been paid unless under contest. By § 183, only persons qualified as electors can take part in any method of party action. By § 184, persons not registered are disqualified from voting. By § 185, an elector whose vote is challenged shall be required to swear that the matter of the challenge is untrue before his vote shall be received. By § 186, the legislature is to provide for registration after January 1, 1903, the qualifications and oath of the registrars are prescribed, the duties of registrars before that date are laid down, and an appeal is given to the county court and Supreme Court if registration is denied. There are further executive details in § 187,' together with the above mentioned continuance of the effect of registration before January 1, 1903. By § 188, after the last mentioned date applicants for registration may be examined under oath as to where they have lived for the last five years, the names by which they have been known, and the names of their employers. This, in brief, is the system which the plaintiff asks to have declared void.

. Perhaps it should be added to the foregoing statement that the bill, was filed in September, 1902, and alleged the plaintiff’s desire to vote at an election coming off in November. This election has gone by, so that, it is impossible to give specific relief with regard to that. But we are not prepared to dismiss the bill or the appeal on that ground, because to be enabled to cast a y°te in that election is not, as in Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651, 657, the whole object of the bill. It is not even the principal object of the relief sought by the plaintiff. The principal object of that is to obtain the permanent advantages of registration as of a date before 1903.

The certificate of the circuit judge raises the single question of the jurisdiction of the court. The plaintiff contends that this jurisdiction is given expressly by Rev. Stat. § 629, cl.. 16, coupled with Rev. Stat. § 1979, which provides that every person who, under color of a state “statute, ordinance, regular tion, custom, or usage,” “subject's, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of .any rights, privileges, *485or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other 'proper proceeding for redress.”

We assume, as was assumed in Holt v. Indiana Manufacturing Co., 176 U. S. 68, 72, that § 1979 has not been repealed, and that jurisdiction to enforce its provisions has not been taken away by any later act. . But it is suggested that the Circuit Court was right in its ruling that it had no jurisdiction as a court of the United States, because the bill did not aver threatened damage to an amount ■ exceeding two thousand dollars. It is true that by the act of August 13, 1888, c. 866, § 1, 25 Stat. 433, 434, the Circuit Courts are given cognizance of suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, in which the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of two thousand dollars. We have recognized, too, that the deprivation of a man’s political and social rights properly may be alleged to involve damage to that amount, capable of estimation in money. Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 58; Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487. But, assuming that the allegation should have been made in a case like this, the objection to its omission was not raised in the -Circuit Court, and as it could have been remedied by amendment, we think it unavailing. The certificate was made alio intuitu. There is no pecuniary limit on appeals to this court under section 5 of the act of 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, 828, The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677, 683, and we do not feel called upon to send the case back to the Circuit Court in order that it might permit the amendment. In Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651; S. C., 69 Fed. Rep. 852, no notice was taken of the absence of an allegation of value in a case like this.

We assume further, for the purposes of decision, that § 1979 extends to a deprivation of rights under color of a state constitution, although it might be argued with some force that the enumeration of “ statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage,” purposely is confined to inferior sources of law. On these assumptions we are not prepared to say that an action at law could not be maintained on the facts alleged in the bill. Therefore we are not prepared to say that the decree should be affirmed *486on the ground that the subject matter is wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. Smith v. McKay, 161 U. S. 355, 358, 359.

Although the certificate relates only to the jurisdiction of ,that court as a court of the United States, yet, as the ground of the bill is that the constitution of Alabama is in contravention of the Constitution of the United States, the appeal opens the whole case under the act of 1891, c. 517, § 5, 26 Stat. 827. The plaintiff had the right to appeal directly to this court. The certificate was unnecessary to found the jurisdiction of this court, and could not narrow it. As the case properly is here we proceed to consider the substance of the complaint.

It seems to us impossible to grant the equitable relief which is asked. It will be observed in the first place that the language of § 1979 does not extend the sphere of equitable jurisdiction in respect of what shall be held an appropriate subject matter for that kind of relief. The words are “ shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.” They allow a suit in equity only when that is the proper proceeding for redress, and they refer to existing standards to determine what is a proper pro-' ceéding. The traditional limits of proceedings in equity have not .embraced a remedy for political wrongs. Green v. Mills, 69 Fed. Rep. 852. But we cannot forget that we are dealing with a new and extraordinary situation, and we are unwilling to stop short of the final considerations which seems to ug to dispose of the case.

The difficulties which we cannot overcome are two, and the first is this: The plaintiff alleges that the whole registration scheme of the Alabama constitution is a fraud upon the Constitution of the United States, and asks us to declare it void. But of course he could not maintain a bill for a mere declaration m the air. He does not try to do so, but asks to be. registered as a party qualified under the void instrument. If then we accept the conclusion which it is the chief purpose of the bill to maintain, how can we make the court a party to the unlawful scheme by accepting it and adding, another voter to its fraudulent lists ? If a white man came here on the same gen*487eral allegations, admitting his sympathy with the plan, but alleging some special prejudice that had kept him off the list, we hardly should think it necessary to meet him with a reasoned answer. But the relief cannot be varied because we think that in the future the particular plaintiff is likely to try to overthrow the scheme. If we accept the plaintiff’s allegations for the purposes of his case, he cannot complain. We must accept or reject them. It is impossible simply to shut our eyes, put the plaintiff on the lists, be they honest or fraudulent, and leave the determination of the fundamental question for the future. If we have an opinion that the bill is right on its face, or if we are undecided, _ we are not at liberty to assume it to be wrong for the purposes of decision. It seems to us that unless we are prepared to say. that it is wrong, that all its principal allegations are immaterial and that the registration plan of the Alabama constitution is valid, we cannot order the plaintiff’s name to be registered. It is not an answér to say that if all the blacks who are qualified according to the letter of the instrument, were registered, the fraud would be cured. In the first place, there is no probability that any way now is open by which more than a few could be registered, but if all could be the difficulty would not be overcome. If the. sections of the constitution concerning registration were illegal in their inception, it would be a new doctrine in constitutional law that the original invalidity could be cured by an administration which defeated their intent. We express no opinion as to the alleged fact of their unconstitutionality beyond saying that we are not willing to assume that they are valid, in the face of the allegations and main object of the bill, for the purpose of granting the relief which it was necessary to pray in order that that object should be secured.

The other difficulty is of a different sort, and strikingly reinforces the argument that equity cannot undertake now, any more than it has in the past, to enforce political rights, and also the suggestion that state constitutions were not left unmentioned in § 1979 by accident. In determining whether a court of equity can take jurisdiction, one of the first questions is what it can do to enforce any order that it may make. This is al*488leged to be the conspiracy of a State, although the State is not and could not be made a party to the bill. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1. The Circuit Court has no constitutional power to control its action by any direct means. And if we leave the State out of consideration, the court has as little practical power .to deal with the people of the- State in a body. The bill imports that the great mass of the white population intends to keep the blacks from voting. To meet such an intent something more than ordering the plaintiff’s- name to be inscribed upon the lists of 1902 will be needed. If the conspiracy and the intent exist, a name on a piece of paper will not defeat them. Unless-we are prepared to supervise the voting in that State by officers of the court, it seems to us that all that the plaintiff could get from equity would be an empty form. Apart from damages to the individual, relief from a great political wrong, if done, as alleged, by the people of a State and the State itself, must be given by them or by the legislative and political department of the government of the United States.

Decree affirmed.

Mr. Justice Brewer

dissenting.

I am unable to poneur in either the opinion or judgment in this case. The single question is whether the Circuit Court of the United States had jurisdiction. Accepting the statement of facts in the opinion of the majority as sufficiently full, it appears that the plaintiff was entitled to a place on the permanent registry and was denied it by the-defendants, the board of registrars in the county iif which .he lived. No one was allowed to vote who was not' registered. He desired to vote'at the coming election for .representative in Congress. He was deprived of that right by the action of the defendants. Has the Circuit Court jurisdiction to redress such wrong ? It is conceded that because, pf the permanence of the registry the appeal cannot be "dismissed mnder Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 561, for if registered on the permanent registry the plaintiff can vote at all future elections.

Whether the plaintiff’s remedy was at law or in equity, can*489not be considered on this appeal. It was so decided in Smith v. McKay, 161 U. S. 355, the authority of which is not in terms denied in the opinion of the majority, although by the decision it is practically disregarded. The certificate of the trial judge stated that “the only question considered and decided by the court in dismissing the bill of complaint was, whether upon the bill and demurrer thereto a case is presented, of which'this court has jurisdiction under the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

The act of Congress authorizing appeals directly from the Circuit Courts to this court, 26 Stat. 827, provides that;

“ In any case in which the jurisdiction of the court is in issue»; in such cases the question of jurisdiction alone shall be certified to the Supreme Court from the court below for decision.”

In Smith v. McKay, we said (p. 358):

“ When the requisite citizenship of the parties appears, and the subject matter is such that the Circuit Court is competent to deal with it, the jurisdiction of that court attaches, and whether the court -should sustain the complainant’s prayer for equitable relief, or should dismiss the bill with leave to bring an action at law, either would be a valid exercise of jurisdiction. If any error were committed in the exercise of such jurisdiction, it could' only be remedied by an appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeáls.”

- See also Tucker v. McKay, 164 U. S. 701; Murphy v. Colorado Pacing Company, 166 U. S. 719 ; Shepard v. Adams, 168 U. S. 618, 622;. Building o& Loan Association v. Price, 169 U. S. 45, in which we said:

“ The complainant appealed to this court, which appeal was allowed and granted solely upon the question of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, and that question alone has been certified. Whether the bill show’s facts sufficient to invoke the consideration of a court of equity is not such a question of jurisdiction .as is referred to in the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, and we have therefore no concern with that question.” Blythe Company v. Bhythe, 172 U. S. 644; Blythe v. Hinckley, 173 U. S. 501, 506, from w’hich I quote: “ Appeals or writs of error may be taken directly from the Circuit Courts to this court in *490cases in which the jurisdiction of those courts is in issue, that is, their jurisdiction as Federal courts, the question alone of jurisdiction being certified to this court. The Circuit Court held that the remedy was at law and not in equity. That conclusion was not a decision that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction as a dourt of the United States. ”

A still more significant case is Huntington v. Laidley, 176 U. S. 668. In that case proceedings had been had in the courts of the State resulting in a final determination of the controversy. Subsequently this action was commenced in the Federal court, and the final decision of the state courts was pleaded as res judicata. The Circuit Court dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction, and certified the question to this court. I thought it • was sacrificing substance to form to reverse the judgment of dismissal when it was apparent that the controversy had been settled by the decisions in the state court, and, therefore, could not rightfully be relitigated in the Federal court. But this court held that the only question to be considered was that of jurisdiction, saying (p, 679):

“ Under the circumstances of this case, the question whether the proceedings in any or all of the suits, at law or in equity, in the state court, afforded a defence — either by way of res adjudícala, or because of any control acquired by the state court over the subject matter — to this bill in the Circuit Court of the United States, was not a question affecting the jurisdiction of that court, but was a question affecting the merits of the cause, and as such to be tried and determined by that court in the exercise of its jurisdiction. The Circuit Court of the United States cannot, by treating a question of merits as a question of jurisdiction, enable this court, upon a direct appeal, on the question of jurisdiction only, to decide the question of merits, except in so far as it bears upon the question whether the court below had or 'had not jurisdiction of the case. In any aspect of the case, the decree of the Circuit Court of the United States, dismissing the suit for want of jurisdiction, must be reversed, and the cause remanded to that court for further proceedings therein.”

Although the statute and these decisions thus expressly limit the range of inquiry on a certificate of jurisdiction to the ques*491tion of jurisdiction, is is held that because there is a constitutional question shown in the pleadings, the certificate may be ignored and the entire case presented to this court for consideration.' In other words, although the plaintiff, by his method of appeal, following the provisions of the statute, limited the inquiry to the matter of jurisdiction, this court will ignore such limit and treat the case as coming here on a general appeal, which he did not take. This conclusion seems to me to practically destroy the statute and overrule the prior decisions, for the jurisdiction of Federal courts primarily rests on the Constitution of the United States and the extent of their jurisdiction is determined by its provisions. Hence every case coming up on a certificate of jurisdiction may be held to present a constitutional question and be open for full inquiry in respect to all matters involved.

Neither can I assent to the proposition that the case presented by the plaintiff’s bill is not strictly a legal one and entitling a party to a judicial hearing and decision. He alleges that he is a citizen of Alabama, entitled to vote ; that he desired to vote at an election for representative in Congress; that without registration he could not vote, and that registration was wrongfully denied him by the defendants. That many others. were similarly treated does not destroy his rights or deprive him of relief in the courts. That such relief will be given has been again and again affirmed in both National and state courts.

That the United States Circuit Court has jurisdiction of an action like this seems to me to result inevitably from prior decisions of this court. Without stopping to notice in detail the cases of Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, and In re Coy, 127 U. S. 731, in which the general jurisdiction of Federal courts over matters involved in the election of national officers is affirmed, I refer to two recent cases which bear directly upon the present question. Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 58, was an action brought in the Circuit Court of the United States by the plaintiff to recover damages of an election board for wilfully rejecting his vote for a member of the House of Representatives. We held that the court had jurisdiction, and said (p. 64):

*492“This action is brought against election officers to recover, damages for their rejection of the plaintiff’s vote for a member of the House of Representatives of the United States. The complaint, by alleging that the plaintiff was at the time, under the constitution and laws of the State of Soüth Carolina and the Constitution and laws of the United States, a duly qualified elector of the State, shows that the action is brought under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The damages are laid at the sum of $2500. What amount of damages the plaintiff shall recover in such .an action is peculiarly appropriate for the determination of a jury, and no opinion of the court upon that subject can justify it in holding that the amount in controversy was insufficient to support the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 550 ; Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 58, 89; Vance v. W. A. Vandercook Co., 170 U. 468, 472; North American Co. v. Morrison, 178 U. S. 262, 267. The Circuit Court therefore clearly had jurisdiction of this action, and we are brought to the consideration of the other objections presented by the demurrer to the complaint.”

Again, in Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487, which, like the former, case, was one brought in the Circuit Court of the United States to recover damages for the alleged wrongful refusal by the defendants as election officers to permit the plaintiff to vote at a national election for a member of the House of Representatives, it was held that the court had jurisdiction. Here, too, we said, after referring to Wiley v. Sinkler (p. 492) :

“ It is manifest from the context of the opinion in the case just referred to that the conclusion that the cause was one arising under the Constitution of the United States was predicated on the conception that the action sought the vindication or protection of the right to vote for a member of Congress, a right, as declared in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 655, 664, ‘ fundamentally based upon the Constitution of the United States, which created the office of member of Congress, and declared that it should be elective, and pointed out the means of ascertaining who should be electors.’ That is to say, the ruling was that the case was equally one arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, whether the illegal act complained *493of arose from a charged violation of some specific provision of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or from the violation of a state law which affected the exercise of the right to vote for a member of Congress, since the Constitution of the United States had adopted, as the qualifications of electors for members of Congress, those prescribed by the State for electors of the most numerous branch of the legislature of the State. .It results from what has just been said that the court erreh in dismissing the action for want of jurisdiction; since the right which it was claimed had been unlawfully invaded was one in the very nature of things arising under the Constitution and laws.-of the United States, and that this inhered in the very substance of the claim. It is obvious from an inspection of the certificate that the court, in dismissing for want of jurisdiction, was controlled by what it deemed to be the want of merit in the averments which were made in the .complaint as to the violation- of the Federal right. But as the very nature of the controversy was Federal, and, therefore, jurisdiction existed, whilst the opinion of the court as to the want of merit in the causé of action might have furnished ground for dismissing for that reason, .it afforded no sufficient ground for deciding that the action was. not one arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

It seems to me nothing need be added to these decisions, and unless they are to be considered as overruled they are decisive of this case.

Mr. Justice Brown also dissents.

Mr. Justice Harlan

dissenting.

By the final judgment in the Circuit Court the bill in this case was dismissed for want qf jurisdiction to entertain it and for want of equity; and from that judgment the plaintiffs prayed and were alloAved an appeal.

Subsequently an order was made by the Circuit Court certifying that the only' question-considered and decided was whether upon the bill and demurrei a case was presented of *494which it had jurisdiction under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Although the case involves questions of considerable importance, it was submitted here without oral argument. .

Could the Circuit Court take cognizance of this cause consistently with the act of Congress regulating its jurisdiction 1 This is naturally the fundamental, if not the only, question in the case. ' An answer t© the question requires a reference to several acts of' Congress^ including the Judiciary Act of August 13, 1888, corfecting that of March 3, 1887. 25 Stat. 433.

Section 629 of the Eevised Statutes enumerates in subdivisions the cases of ¡which the Circuit Courts of the United States may take original(cognizance.

In subdivision one of that section the Circuit Courts are given original cognizance “ of all suite of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute, exclusive of .costs, exceeds the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and an alien is a party, or the suit is between a citizen of the State where it is brought and a citizen of another State; ”, and in subdivision two, “of all suits in equity, where the matter, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and the United States are petitioners.” Eev. Stat'. § 629, sub-div. 1 and 2.

By the sixteenth subdivision of that section it is declared that the Circuit Courts shall have original cognizance “ of all suits authorized by law to be brought by any person to redress the deprivation, under color of any law, - statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, of any right, privilege, or immunity, secured by the Constitution of the United States, or of any right secured by any law providing for equal rights of citizens of the United States, or of all. persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.” The matter in dispute in such suite was not expressly required by the Eevised Statutes to have any money value.

By section 1979 of the Eevised Statutes, Title 24, “ Civil Eights,” it is provided that “ every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjécted, any citi*495zen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.” It has been said that this section as well as subdivision 16 of section 629 were based upon the first section of the act of April 20, 1871, 17 Stat. 13, c. 22, entitled “ An act to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.” Holt v. Indiana Manuf. Co., 176 U. S. 68, 70.

Next came the act of March 3, 1875', which provided that “ The Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority, or in which the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States or a controversy between citizens of the same State claiming'lands under grants of different States, or a controversy between citizens of a State and foreign States, citizens, or subjects; and shall have exclusive cognizance of all crimes and offences cognizable under, the authority of the United States, except as otherwise provided by law, and concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts of the crimes and offences cognizable therein,” 18 Stat. 470, c. 137. That act expressly repealed previous statutes in conflict with its provisions.

Then came the act of 1888, correcting that of 1887, and' which provides “That the Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts Of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of two thousand dollars, and arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their author*496ity, or in which controversy the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States, in which the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the- sum or value aforesaid, or a controversy between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, or ■ a controversy between citizens of a State and foreign • States, citizens, or stibjects, in which the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive .of interest and costs, the sum or value aforesaid.” By that act the conflicting provisions of previous acts were repealed, except in certain particulars, among which were the provisions relating to “any jurisdiction. or right mentioned ... in Title twenty-four of the Revised Statutes,” Civil Rights, under which Title § 1979 is found.

It is clear that under the act of 1888 a Circuit Court could not take original cognizance of a suit simply because it was one arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States. The value of the matter in dispute in such a case must exceed $2000, exclusive of interest and costs.

The bill makes no allegation whatever as to the value of the matter in dispute, although, this court, speaking by the. Chief Justice, in Holt v. Indiana Manufacturing Company, above cited, after, referring to the first section of the Judiciary Act of 1888, said: “This” [the question of the value in dispute in cases arising under the Constitution, or laws of the United States] “ was carefully considered in United States v. Sayward, 160 U. S. 493, and it was held that the sum or value named was jurisdictional, and that the Circuit Court could not, under the statute, take original cognizance of a case arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States unless the sum or value of the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs and interest, exceeded two thousand dollars. That decision was reaffirmed in Fishback v. Western Union Telegraph Company, 161 U. S. 96, 99.” It was added—contrary to the intimation given in the opinion in the present case — that “ the conclusion reached is not affected by the fact that the operation of the act of March 3, 1891, was to do away with any pecuniary limitation on appeals directly from the Circuit Courts to this court. The Paquete *497Habana, 175 U. S. 677.” Of course, it was not meant by that language that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts, so far as the value of the matter in dispute is concerned, Was changed as to the cases embraced by the fifth section of the act of 1891. The act of 1891 left the original jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts as established by the act of 1888.

1. It cannot be disputed that the present suit is one arising -under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and it is clear that the value of the matter in dispute is made by the statute an essential element in the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in such a case. But it has been suggested that this §.uit is .also embraced by subdivision 16 of § 629 and § 1979 of the Bevised Statutes — which provisions this court assumed, in Holt v. Manufacturing Co., and now assumes, were not repealed by any subsequent statute, and, therefore, that the value of the matter in dispute is of no consequence. But this suggestion overlooks the declaration of the court in that case to the effect that although the above provisions must be assumed to be still (1899) in force, they refer “to civil rights only.” 176 U. S. 72. In this view, subdivision 16 of § 629 and § 1979 of the Bevised Statutes have no bearing upon the present case, if the rights for the protection of which the present suit was brought are political rights, and not civil rights within the meaning of the statutes relating to “ Civil Bights.” Consequently the saving clause in the act of 1888 in respect of any jurisdiction ór right mentioned in Title 21 of the Bevised Statutes, Civil Bights, becomes immaterial in the present case. Whether this be so or not, the court refrains from declaring that the plaintiff could proceed under subdivision 16 of section 629 or section 1979 of the Bevised Statutes, without regard to the value of the matter in dispute. If this court thinks that this suit could be maintained under subdivision 16 of § 629 or under § 1979, or under both, without regard to the value of the matter in dispute^! submit that it should have been so adjudged.

2. Beferring to the suggestion that the act of 1888 gives the Circuit Court jurisdiction in all suits at law or equity, in which the matter in dispute is the sum or value of $2000 and arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, and con*498ceding that this court in Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 57, and Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487, recognized that the deprivation of a man’s political rights (those cases had reference to the elective franchise) may properly be alleged to have the required value in money, the court says : “ Assuming that the allegation [of value] should have been made in a case like this, the objection to its omission was not raised in the Circuit Court, and as it could have been remedied by amendment, we think it unavailing. The certificate was made alio intuitu. There is no pecuniary limit on appeals in this court under section 5 of the act of 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, 828 ; The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677, 683, and we do not feel called upon to send the case back to the Circuit Court that it might permit the amendment.”

It seems to me that this question as to the value of the matter in dispute was sufficiently raised in the Circuit Court; for the demurrer to the bill was, in part, on the ground that the facts stated did not make a case “ within the jurisdiction of the court.” But, passing that view, I come to a more serious matter. In cases of which a Circuit Court may take original cognizance, the value of the matter in dispute — which is mentioned in the statute in advance of any reference to the nature of the subject of the action — is as essential to jurisdiction as is the nature of the subject of such dispute. And yet the court says that an objection that the record from the Circuit Court does not show an allegation as to value is unavailing here, even if such allegation ought to have been made. That is a new, and I take leave to say a startling, doctrine. Must not this court upon its own motion decline' to pass upon, indeed, has this court, strictly speaking, jurisdiction to consider and determine, the merits of a case coming from the Circuit Court, unless it affirm atively appears from the record that the case is one of which that court could take cognizance ? Is not a suit presumably without the jurisdiction of a Circuit Court, unless the record shows it to be one of which that court may take cognizance ? Is it of any consequence that the parties did not raise the question of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court? If the record shows nothing more than that the case *499arises under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and if it does not affirmatively appear, in some appropriate way, that the value of the matter in dispute is up to the required amount, has this court jurisdiction to consider and determine the merits of the case ?

Let us look at some of the adjudged cases upon the general subject of the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, and see. what the duty of this court is when its own jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear from the record, pv when it does not appear that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction.

In Sizer v. Many, 16 How. 97, 103, which was an action for the infringement of letters patent: “ The sum taxed being less than $2000 no writ of error will lie under the act' of 1789. This act gives no jurisdiction to this court over the judgment of a Circuit Court, where the judgment is for less than that sum.- . . . The writ of error must therefore be dismissed for want-of jurisdiction.” In Brown v. Shannon, 20 How. 55, 58, which was an action to enforce the specific execution of a contract in relation to the use of a patent right: “ The sum mentioned in the bill . . . being less than $2000, whatever errors may be apparent in the proceedings and decree of the court below, we have yet no power under the act of Congress to-revise and correct them, and the appeal must be dismissed.” In Richmond v. City of Milwaukee, 21 How. 80, 82, which was an action to prohibit the conveyance of certain lots : “ There is nothing in the allegations of the partiés or in the evidence to show that the value of the lots in question exceeded $2000, nor anything from which it can be inferred. The appeal must therefore, be dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this courts In Pratt v. Fitzhugh, 1 Black, 271, 273, which was a cause in admiralty: “Without the fact of value being shown on the record, or by evidence aliunde, the court has no jurisdictions In Walker v. United States, 4 Wall. 163, 165, which was an action on a judgment for money: “This court has no appellate jurisdiction, except such as is defined by Congress. The act of Congress limits this jurisdiction to cases where the matter in dispute exceeds $2000. We can no more take jurisdiction where the matter does not exceed than we can where it is less *500than that sum. The amount in controversy in the case before us, ascertained in conformity with the settled principles of the court, does not exceed two thousand dollars. We have, therefore, no jurisdiction of the writ of error, and it must be dismissed.” In The Grace Girdler, 6 Wall. 441, which was an appeal in admiralty : “ While it is true that the greater part of the loss fell upon Lockwood as owner of the Ariel, and her belongings, there is nothing in the record which shows that the damage sustained exceeded $2000: And this is essential to jurisdiction.” In Ayers v. Watson, 113 Ú. S. 595, 598, which was an action of trespass to try title to land : “ Diverse state citizenship of the parties, or some other jurisdictional fact prescribed by the second section, is absolutely essential, and cannot be waived, and the want of it will be error at any stage of the cause, even though assigned by the party at whose instance it was committed.”

These cases relate to the jurisdiction of this court under statutes prescribing a certain amount as essential, upon writ of error or appeal, for the review of judgments rendered.in the Circuit Court.

• Looking now at cases in which the want of jurisdiction, in the Circuit Court has been held to preclude this court from going into the merits of the case adjudged, we find in King Bridge Co. v. Otoe County, 120 U. S. 226, which was an action upon county warrants, this language : “ It does not appear that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction of the action. Unless the contrary appears affirmatively from the record, the presumption, upon writ of error or appeal, is that the court below was without jurisdiction.” In Metcalf v. Watertown, 128 U. S. 587, which was an action upon a judgment, and in which case the question was whether an action upon a certain judgment was barred by limitation, this court said : “We are not, however, ■ _t liberty to express any opinion upon the question of limitaron, if the court, whose judgment has been brought here for i 3view, does not appear, from the record, to have had jurisdiction of the case. And whether that court had or had not jurisüction, is a question which we must examine and determine, even if the parties forbear to make it, or consent .that the case be *501considered upon its merits.” In Chapman v. Barney, 129 U. S. 677, 681, which, was an action for trover : “ We are confronted with the question of jurisdiction, which, although not ’raised by either party in the court below or in this court, is presented by the record, and under repeated decisions of this court must be considered.” In Parker v. Ormsby, 141 U. S. 83: “ Did the court below have jurisdiction of this case? If jurisdiction did not affirmatively appear, upon the record, it was error to have rendered a decree, whether the question of jurisdiction was raised or not in the court below. In the exercise of its power, this court, of its own motion, must deny the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, in all cases coming before it, upon writ of error or appeal, where such jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear in the' record on which it is called to act.” In Mattingly v. Northwestern Virginia Railroad, 158 U. S. 53, 57, which was an action to set aside certain conveyances and to foreclose a mortgage: “ Although it does not appear that the question of jurisdiction was raised in the court below by any plea or motion, yet as the record failed to affirmatively show jurisdiction, this court must take notice of the defect.”

According to the adjudged cases, the first inquiry which this court should make as to any case before it from an inferior Federal court is as to its own jurisdiction. If jurisdiction does not appear from the record then the writ of error or appeal should be dismissed.. If it is found to have jurisdiction for any purpose, then its next duty is to inquire as to the jurisdiction of the court below. When the latter court does not appear upon the record to have jurisdiction, then the duty of this court is to reverse the judgment and remand the case to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. I say “appear upon the record to have jurisdiction,” because, as we have seen, the presumption is that a cause is without the jurisdiction of a Federal court, unless the contrary affirmatively appears. Turner v. Bank of North America, 4 Dall. 8 ; Brown v. Keene, 8 Pet. 115; Ex parte Smith, 94 U. S. 455 ; Robertson v. Cease, 97 U. S. 646. In Brown v. Keene, Chief Justice Marshall said: “ The decisions of this court require that the averment of jurisdiction shall be positive; that the declaration shall state expressly the fact on which jurisdic*502tion depends. It is not sufficient' that jurisdiction may be inferred argumentatively from its averments.”

To these cases I will add that of M. C. & L. M. Railway v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382, in which this court said: “It is true that the plaintiffs below, against whose objection the error was committed, do not complain of being prejudiced by it; and it seems to be an anomaly and a hardship that the party at whose instance it was committed should be permitted to derive an advantage from it; but the rule, springing from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the United States, is inflexible and without exception, which requires this court, of its own motion, to deny its own jurisdiction, and, in the exercise of its appellate power, that of all other courts of the United States, in all cases where such jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear in the record on which, in the exercise of that power, it is called to act. On every writ of error or appeal,' the first and fundamental question, is that of jurisdiction, first, of this court, and then of the court from which the record comes. This question the court is bound to ask and answer for itself, even when not otherwise suggested, and without respect to the relation of the parties to it.”

In the above case of Holt v Manufacturing Co., 176 U. S. 68, which involved a question of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, this court said: “ In this, as in all cases, if it appears that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction, it is the duty of this court to so declare, and enter judgment accordingly.”

These principles have been expressly affirmed by this court in many other cases. And yet, according to the opinion in this case, if objection is not made in the Circuit Court to its jurisdiction, it will be unavailing to raise that question in this court, and we may proceed to determine the merits of the case. Such a doctrine, I repeat, is a new departure. The court, in effect says, that although it may know that the record fails to show a case within the original cognizance of the Circuit Court, it may close its eyes to that fact, and review the case on its merits. In view of the adjudged cases, I cannot agree that the failure of parties to raise a question of jurisdiction will relieve this court of its duty to raise it upon its own motion. The con*503trary view cannot be justified. This court may not assume jurisdiction to do that which it has no authority to do.

It will be appropriate to observe that the Circuit Court in effect propounds thé question whether it had jurisdiction of this case upon the record before it. That question necessarily involves the inquiry whether subdivision 16 of § 629 and § 1979 of the Revised Statutes were repealed by later acts. But that. point is left undecided, the court only assuming that those statutory provisions are still in force, but it does not say whether the suit could be maintained under those sections or under either of them without allegation or proof as to the value of the matter in dispute. Nor does the couri distinctly adjudge whether the case is embraced by the act of 1887-8; but simply assuming that the allegation of value should have been made in the bill, it proceeds to consider the case upon its merits. The question of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court under the acts of Congress, the one certified, is thus left in the air, and the case is examined and disposed of upon its merits just as if jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appeared upon the record. There is no claim that the essential fact of value appears anywhere in the record, either in the bill or otherwise. Consequently, as already said, this court is without power to consider the merits.

The court says that the plaintiff had the right to appeal directly to this court under section 5 of the act of 1891, and that the certificate was unnecessary to found the jurisdiction of this court and could not narrow it. But it does not follow that this court can review the merits of the case, if the Circuit Court does not appear'to have had jurisdiction to determine the rights of the parties.

My views may be summed up as follows: 1. This case is embraced by that clause of the act of 1887-8, which provides that the Circuit Court shall have original cognizance “ of all suits of a civil nature, . . . where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of two thousand dollars, and arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 2. That the sum or value of the matter in dispute in such cases is jurisdictional under the statute. 3. That as it did. not appear from the record, in any way, that the matter *504in dispute exceeded in value the jurisdictional amount, the Circuit Court could not take cognizance of the case or dispose of it upon its merits. 4. That least of all does this court have jurisdiction to determine the merits of this case. 5. That when a case comes here upon a certificate as to the jurisdiction of a Circuit Court, this court may not forbear to decide that question, and determine the merits of the case upon a record which does not show' jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.

As these are my views as to the jurisdiction of this court, upon this record, I will not formulate and discuss my views upon the merits of this case. But to avoid misapprehension, I may add that my conviction is that upon the facts alleged in the bill (if the record showed a sufficient value of the matter in dispute) the plaintiff is entitled to relief in respect of his right to "be registered as a voter. I agree with Mr. Justice Brewer that it is competent for the courts to give relief in such cases as this.

Sena v. United States.

No. 40. Petition for modification of judgment and for rehearing. June 1, 1903.

The opinion of the court in this case is reported ante, p. 233.

Mr. Justice Brown : It is ordered T>y the court that the decree of affirmance in this case be amended by adding the following words: “ so far as such decree orders that the petition be dismissed, but without prejudice to such further proceedings as petitioner may be advised to take.”

WOOD, SECRETARY OF STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, et al. v. BROOM.

No. 424.

Argued October 13, 1932.

Decided October 18, 1932.

*2Messrs. J. A. Lauderdale and Wm. H. Watkins, Assistant Attorneys General of Mississippi, with whom Mr. Greek L. Rice, Attorney General, was on the brief, for appellants.

*3Messrs. Hugh V. Wall and Cleon K. Calvert, with whom Messrs. J. H. Price, J. O. S. Sanders, and S. B. Laub were on the briefs, for appellee.

*4Messrs. John R. Saunders, Attorney General, Edwin H. Gibson and Collins Denny, Jr., Assistant Attorneys General, and Albert V. Bryan, by leave of Court, filed a brief on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as amicus curiae.

Me. Chief Justice Hughes

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under the reapportionment pursuant to the Act of June 18, 1929 (c. 28, 46 Stat. 21, 26, 27), Mississippi is entitled to seven representatives in Congress, instead of eight as theretofore. The Legislature of Mississippi, by an act known as House Bill No. 197, Regular Session 1932, divided the State into seven congressional districts. The complainant, alleging that he was a citizen of Mississippi, a qualified elector under its laws, and also qualified to be a candidate for election as representative in Congress, brought this suit to have the redistricting act of 1932 declared invalid and to restrain the defendants, state officers, from taking proceedings for an election under its provisions. The alleged grounds of invalidity were that the act violated Art. I, § 4, and the Fourteenth Amendment, of the Constitution of the United States, and § 3 of the Act of Congress of August 8, 1911 (c. 5, 37 Stat. 13). Defendants moved to dismiss the bill (1) for want of equity, (2) for lack of equitable jurisdiction to grant the relief asked, (3) because on the facts alleged the complainant was not entitled to have his name placed upon *5the election ballot as a candidate from the State at large, and (4) because the decree of the court would be inefficacious. The District Court, of three judges, granted an interlocutory injunction, and after answer, which admitted the material facts alleged in the bill and set up the same grounds of defense as the motion to dismiss together with a denial of the unconstitutionality of the challenged act, the court on final hearing, on bill and answer, entered a final decree making the injunction permanent as prayed. Defendants appeal to this Court. U. S. C., Tit. 28, § 380.

The District Court held that the new districts, created by the redistricting act, were not composed of compact and contiguous territory, having as nearly as practicable the same number of inhabitants, and hence failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of § 3 of the Act of August 8, 1911. Sections 3 and 4 of that Act are as follows:

“ Sec. 3. That in each State entitled under this apportionment to more than one Representative, the Representatives to the Sixty-third and each subsequent Congress shall be elected by districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory, and containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants. The said districts shall be equal to the number of Representatives to which such State may be entitled in Congress, no district electing more than one Representative.

“ Sec. 4. That in case of an increase in the number of Representatives in any State under this apportionment such additional Representative or Representatives shall be elected by the State at large and the other Representatives by the districts now prescribed by law until such State shall be redistricted in the manner provided by the laws thereof and in accordance with the rules enumerated in section three of this Act; and if there be no change in the number of Representatives from a State, the Representatives thereof shall be elected from the districts now *6prescribed by law until such State shall be redistricted as herein prescribed.”

The Act of August 8, 1911, as its title states, was an act “ For the apportionment of Representatives in Congress among the several States under the Thirteenth Census,” that is, the census of 1910. The first section of the act fixed the number of the House of Representatives and apportioned that number among the several States. Its second section related to the allotment of representatives to the territories of Arizona and New Mexico. The third and fourth sections expressly applied to the election of representatives to which the State was entitled “ under this apportionment,” that is, under the apportionment under the Act of 1911 pursuant to the census of 1910. Substantially the same provisions are found in prior reapportionments acts, the requirements as to compactness, contiguity, and equality in population in the new districts in which representatives were to be elected under the new apportionment being addressed in each case to the election of representatives “under this apportionment,” that is, the apportionment made by the particular act. Act of June 25, 1842, c. 47, § 2, 5 Stat. 491; Act of February 2, 1872, c. 11, § 2, 17 Stat. 28; Act of February 25, 1882, c. 20, § 3, 22 Stat. 5, 6; Act of February 7, 1891, c. 116, §§ 3, 4, 26 Stat. 735, 736; Act of January 16, 1901, c. 93, §§ 3, 4, 31 Stat. 733, 734.

The Act of June 18, 1929, however, in providing for the reapportionment under the Fifteenth Census (none having been made under the Fourteenth Census) omitted the requirements as to the compactness, contiguity, and equality in population, of new districts to be created under that apportionment. It did not carry forward those requirements as previous apportionment acts had done. There was, it is true, no express repeal of §§ 3 and 4 of the Act of 1911 and, as the Act of 1929 did not deal with the subject, it contained no provision inconsistent with *7the requirements of the Act of 1911. Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, 373. No repeal was necessary. The requirements of §§ 3 and 4 of the Act of 1911 expired by their own limitation. They fell with the apportionment to which they expressly related. The inquiry is simply whether the Act of 1929 carried forward the requirements which otherwise lapsed. The Act of 1929 contains no provision to that effect. It was manifestly the intention of the Congress not to re-enact the provision as to compactness, contiguity, and equality in population with respect to the districts to be created pursuant to the reapportionment under the Act of 1929.

This appears from the terms of the act, and its legislative history shows that the omission was deliberate. The question was up, and considered. The bill which finally became the Act of 1929 was introduced in the first session of the 70th Congress and contained provisions similar to those of §§ 3 and 4 of the Act of 1911. H. R. 11,725; Cong. Rec., 70th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 69, p. 4054. At the second session of the 70th Congress, the House of Representatives, after debate, struck out these provisions. Cong. Rec., 70th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 70, pp. 1496, 1499, 1584, 1602, 1604. The bill passed in the House of Representatives in that form (id p. 1605) and, although reported favorably to the Senate without amendment (id. 1711), did not pass at that session. The measure as to reapportionment was reintroduced in the Senate in the first session of the 71st Congress in the form in which it had passed the House of Representatives, and had been favorably reported to the Senate in the preceding Congress, that is, without the requirements as to compactness, contiguity, and equality in population, which had been deleted in that Congress. S. 312, 71st Cong., 1st sess., Cong. Rec. vol. 71, pp. 254, 2450. And when, after the passage of this bill in the Senate, it was before the House of Representatives, and an effort was made to amend *8the bill so as to make applicable the requirements of § 3 of the Act of 1911 with respect to the districts to be created under the new apportionment, the amendment failed. The point of order was sustained that, as the pending bill did not relate to redistricting of the States by their legislatures, the amendment was not germane. Cong. Rec., 71st Cong., 1st sess., vol. 71, pp. 2279, 2280, 2363, 2364, 2444, 2445. The bill was then passed without the requirements in question. Cong. Rec., 71st Cong., 1st sess., vol. 71, p. 2458.

There is thus no ground for the conclusion that the Act of 1929 re-enacted or made applicable to new districts the requirements of the Act of 1911. That act in this respect was left as it had stood, and the requirements it had contained as to the compactness, contiguity and equality in population of districts, did not outlast the apportionment to which they related.

In this view, it is unnecessary to consider the questions raised as to the right of the complainant to relief in equity upon the allegations of the bill of complaint, or as to the justiciability of the controversy, if it were assumed that the requirements invoked by the complainant are still in effect. See Ex parte Bakelite Corporation, 279 U. S. 438, 448. Upon these questions the Court expresses no opinion.

The decree is reversed and the cause is remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the bill of complaint.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Brandeis, Mr. Justice Stone, Mr. Justice Roberts, and Mr. Justice Cardozo

are of opinion that the decree should be reversed and the bill dismissed for want of equity, without passing upon the question whether § 3 of the Act of August 8, 1911, is applicable. That question was not presented by the *9pleadings or discussed in either of the opinions delivered in the District Court. 1 F. Supp. 134. It was not mentioned in the Jurisdictional Statement filed under Rule 12 or in the briefs of the parties filed here. So far as appears, all the members of the lower court and both parties have assumed that § 3 is controlling.

COLEGROVE et al. v. GREEN et al.

No. 804.

Argued March 7, 8, 1946.

Decided June 10, 1946.

*550Urban A. Lavery argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief was Edwin Borchard.

William C. Wines, Assistant Attorney General of Illinois, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was George F. Barrett, Attorney General.

Abraham W. Brussell filed a brief for the Better Government Association, as amicus curiae, in support of appellants.

Me. Justice Frankfurter

announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton concur.

This case is appropriately here, under § 266 of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 380, on direct review of a judgment of the District Court of the Northern District of Illinois, composed of three judges, dismissing the complaint of the appellants. These are three qualified voters in Illinois districts which have much larger populations than other Illinois Congressional districts. They brought this suit against the Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Auditor of the State of Illinois, as members ex officio of the Illinois Primary Certifying Board, to restrain them, in effect, from taking proceedings for an election in November 1946, under the provisions of Illinois law governing Congressional districts. Illinois Laws of 1901, p. 3. Formally, the appellants asked for a decree, with its incidental relief, § 274 (d) Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 400, declaring these provisions to be invalid because they violated various provisions of the United States Constitution and § 3 of the Reapportionment Act of August 8, 1911, 37 Stat. 13, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 2a, in that by reason of subsequent changes in population the Congressional districts for the election of Representatives in the Congress created by the Illinois Laws of 1901 (111. Rev. Stat. Ch. 46 (1945) §§ 154-56) lacked compactness of terri*551tory and approximate equality of population. The District Court, feeling bound by this Court’s opinion in Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, dismissed the complaint. 64 F. Supp. 632.

The District Court was clearly right in deeming itself bound by Wood v. Broom, supra, and we could also dispose of this case on the authority of Wood v. Broom. The legal merits of this controversy were settled in that case, inasmuch as it held that the Reapportionment Act of June 18, 1929, 46 Stat. 21, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 2 (a), has no requirements “as to the compactness, contiguity and equality in population of districts.” 287 U. S. at 8. The Act of 1929 still governs the districting for the election of Representatives. It must be remembered that not only was the legislative history of the matter fully considered in Wood v. Broom, but the question had been elaborately before the Court in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375, and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, argued a few months before Wood v. Broom was decided. Nothing has now been adduced to lead us to overrule what this Court found to be the requirements under the Act of 1929, the more so since seven Congressional elections have been held under the Act of 1929 as construed by this Court. No manifestation has been shown by Congress even to question the correctness of that which seemed compelling to this Court in enforcing the will of Congress in Wood v. Broom.

But we also agree with the four Justices (Brandéis, Stone, Roberts, and Cardozo, JJ.) who were of opinion that the bill in Wood v. Broom, supra, should be “dismissed for want of equity.” To be sure, the present complaint, unlike the bill in Wood v. Broom, was brought under the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act which, not having been enacted until 1934, was not available at the time of Wood v. Broom. But that Act merely gave the federal courts competence to make a declaration of rights even though *552no decree of enforcement be immediately asked. It merely permitted a freer movement of the federal courts within the recognized confines of the scope of equity. The Declaratory Judgment Act “only provided a new form of procedure for the adjudication of rights in conformity” with “established equitable principles.” Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293, 300. And so, the test for determining whether a federal court has authority to make a declaration such as is here asked, is whether the controversy “would be justiciable in this Court if presented in a suit for injunction . . .” Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249, 262.

We are of opinion that the appellants ask of this Court what is beyond its competence to grant. This is one of those demands on judicial power which cannot be met by verbal fencing about “jurisdiction.” It must be resolved by considerations on the basis of which this Court, from time to time, has refused to intervene in controversies. It has refused to do so because due regard for the effective working of our Government revealed this issue to be of a peculiarly political nature and therefore not meet for judicial determination.

This is not an action to recover for damage because of the discriminatory exclusion of a plaintiff from rights enjoyed by other citizens. The basis for the suit is not a private wrong, but a wrong suffered by Illinois as a polity. Compare Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536 and Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, with Giles v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475. In effect this is an appeal to the federal courts to reconstruct the electoral process of Illinois in order that it may be adequately represented in the councils of the Nation. Because the Illinois legislature has failed to revise its Congressional Representative districts in order to reflect great changes, during more than a generation, in the distribution of its population, we are asked to do this, as it were, for Illinois.

*553Of course no court can affirmatively re-map the Illinois districts so as to bring them more in conformity with the standards of fairness for a representative system. At best we could only declare the existing electoral system invalid. The result would be to leave Illinois undistricted and to bring into operation, if the Illinois legislature chose not to act, the choice of members for the House of Representatives on a state-wide ticket. The last stage may be worse than the first. The upshot of judicial action may defeat the vital political principle which led Congress, more than a hundred years ago, to require districting. This requirement, in the language of Chancellor Kent, “was recommended by the wisdom and justice of giving, as far as possible, to the local subdivisions of the people of each state, a due influence in the choice of representatives, so as not to leave the aggregate minority of the people in a state, though approaching perhaps to a majority, to be wholly overpowered by the combined action of the numerical majority, without any voice whatever in the national councils.” 1 Kent, Commentaries (12th ed., 1873) *230-31, n. (c). Assuming acquiescence on the part of the authorities of Illinois in the selection of its Representatives by a mode that defies the direction of Congress for selection by districts, the House of Representatives may not acquiesce. In the exercise of its power to judge the qualifications of its own members, the House may reject a delegation of Representatives-at-large. Article I, § 5, Cl. 1. For the detailed system by which Congress supervises the election of its members, see e. S. C. §§ 201-226; Bartlett, Contested Elections in the House of Representatives (2 vols.); Alexander, History and Procedure of the House of Representatives (1916) c. XVI. Nothing is clearer than that this controversy concerns matters that bring courts into immediate and active relations with party contests. From the determination of such issues this Court has traditionally held aloof. It is hostile to *554a democratic system to involve the judiciary in the politics of the people. And it is not less pernicious if such judicial intervention in an essentially political contest be dressed up in the abstract phrases of the law.

The appellants urge with great zeal that the conditions of which they complain are grave evils and offend public morality. The Constitution of the United States gives ample power to provide against these evils. But due regard for the Constitution as a viable system precludes judicial correction. Authority for dealing with such problems resides elsewhere. Article I, § 4 of the Constitution provides that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for . . . Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, . . .” The short of it is that the Constitution has conferred upon Congress exclusive authority to secure fair representation by the States in the popular House and left to that House determination whether States have fulfilled their responsibility. If Congress failed in exercising its powers, whereby standards of fairness are offended, the remedy ultimately lies with' the people. Whether Congress faithfully discharges its duty or not, the subject has been committed to the exclusive control of Congress. An aspect of government from which the judiciary, in view of what is involved, has been excluded by the clear intention of the Constitution cannot be entered by the federal courts because Congress may have been in default in exacting from States obedience to its mandate.

The one stark fact that emerges from a study of the history of Congressional apportionment is its embroilment in politics, in the sense of party contests and party interests. The Constitution enjoins upon Congress the duty of apportioning Representatives “among the several States . . . according to their respective Numbers, . . .” *555Article I, § 2. Yet, Congress has at times been heedless of this command and not apportioned according to the requirements of the Census. It never occurred to anyone that this Court could issue mandamus to compel Congress to perform its mandatory duty to apportion. “What might not be done directly by mandamus, could not be attained indirectly by injunction.” Chafee, Congressional Reapportionment (1929) 42 Harv. L. Rev. 1015, 1019. Until 1842 there was the greatest diversity among the States in the manner of choosing Representatives because Congress had made no requirement for districting. 5 Stat. 491. Congress then provided for the electioA of Representatives by districts. Strangely enough, the power to do so was seriously questioned; it was still doubted by a Committee of Congress as late as 1901. See e. g., Speech of Mr. (afterwards Mr. Justice) Clifford, Cong. Globe, April 28, 1842, 27th Cong., 2d Sess., App., p. 347; 1 Bartlett, Contested Elections in the House of Representatives (1865) 47, 276; H. R. Rep. No. 3000, 56th Cong., 2d Sess. (1901); H. R. Doc. No. 2052, 64th Cong., 2d Sess. (1917) 43; United States v. Gradwell, 243 U. S. 476, 482, 483. In 1850 Congress dropped the requirement. 9 Stat. 428, 432-33. The Reapportionment Act of 1862 required that the districts be of contiguous territory. 12 Stat. 572. In 1872 Congress added the requirement of substantial equality of inhabitants. 17 Stat. 28. This was reinforced in 1911. 37 Stat. 13, 14. But the 1929 Act, as we have seen, dropped these requirements. 46 Stat. 21. Throughout our history, whatever may have been the controlling Apportionment Act, the most glaring disparities have prevailed as to the contours and the population of districts. Appendix I summarizes recent disparities in the various Congressional Representative districts throughout the country and Appendix II gives fair samples of prevailing gerrymanders. For other illustrations of glaring inequalities, see 71 Cong. Rec. *5562278-79, 2480 et seq.; 86 Cong. Rec. 4369, 4370-71, 76th Cong., 2d Sess. (1940); H. R. Rep. No. 1695, 61st Cong., 2d Sess. (1910); (1920) 24 Law Notes 124; (October 30, 1902) 75 The Nation 343; and see, generally, Schmeckebier, Congressional Apportionment (1941); and on gerrymandering, see Griffith, The Rise and Development of the Gerrymander (1907).

To sustain this action would cut very deep into the very being of Congress. Courts ought not to enter this political thicket. The remedy for unfairness in districting is to secure State legislatures that will apportion properly, or to invoke the ample powers of Congress. The Constitution has many commands that are not enforceable by courts because they clearly fall outside the conditions and purposes that circumscribe judicial action. Thus, “on Demand of the executive Authority,” Art. IV, § 2, of a State it is the duty of a sister State to deliver up a fugitive from justice. But the fulfilment of this duty cannot be judicially enforced. Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66. The duty to see to it that the laws are faithfully executed cannot be brought under legal compulsion, Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475. Violation of the great guaranty of a republican form of government in States cannot be challenged in the courts. Pacific Telephone Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118. The Constitution has left the performance of many duties in our governmental scheme to depend on the fidelity of the executive and legislative action and, ultimately, on the vigilance of the people in exercising their political rights.

Dismissal of the complaint is affirmed.

Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

For opinions of Rutledge and Black, JJ., see post, pages 564, 566.

*557APPENDIX I.

*558

*559

*560APPENDIX II.

*561APPENDIX II.

*562APPENDIX II.

*563APPENDIX II.

*

These years were chosen at random.

*564Mr. Justice Rutledge.

I concur in the result. But for the ruling in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, I should have supposed that the provisions of the Constitution, Art. I, § 4, that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for . . . Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations . . .”; Art. I, § 2, vesting in Congress the duty of apportionment of representatives among the several states “according to their respective Numbers”; and Art. I, § 5, making each House the sole judge of the qualifications of its own members, would remove the issues in this case from justiciable cognizance. But, in my judgment, the Smiley case rules squarely to the contrary, save only in the matter of degree.

Moreover, we have but recently been admonished again that it is the very essence of our duty to avoid decision upon grave constitutional questions, especially when this may bring our function into clash with the political departments of the Government, if any tenable alternative ground for disposition of the controversy is presented.1

I was unable to find such an alternative in that instance. There is one, however, in this case. And I think the gravity of the constitutional questions raised so great, together with the possibilities for collision above mentioned, that the admonition is appropriate to be followed here. Other reasons support this view, including the fact *565that, in my opinion, the basic ruling and less important ones in Smiley v. Holm, supra, would otherwise be brought into question.

Assuming that that decision is to stand, I think, with Mr. Justice Black, that its effect is to rule that this Court has power to afford relief in a case of this type as against the objection that the issues are not justiciable.

In the later case of Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, the Court disposed of the cause on the ground that the 1929 Reapportionment Act, 46 Stat. 21, did not carry forward the requirements of the 1911 Act, 37 Stat. 13, and declined to decide whether there was equity in the bill. 287 U. S. 1, 8. But, as the Court’s opinion notes, four justices thought the bill should be dismissed for want of equity.2

In my judgment this complaint should be dismissed for the same reason, iissuming that the controversy is justiciable, I think the cause is of so delicate a character, in view of the considerations above noted, that the jurisdiction should be exercised only in the most compelling circumstances.

As a matter of legislative attention, whether by Congress or the General Assembly, the case made by the complaint is strong. But the relief it seeks pitches this Court into delicate relation to the functions of state officials and Congress, compelling them to take action which heretofore they have declined to take voluntarily or to accept the alternative of electing representatives from Illinois at large in the forthcoming elections.

The shortness of the time remaining makes it doubtful whether action could, or would, be taken in time to secure for petitioners the effective relief they seek. To force *566them to share in an election at large might bring greater equality of voting right. It would also deprive them and all other Illinois citizens of representation by districts which the prevailing policy of Congress commands. 46 Stat. 26, as amended; 2 U. S. C. § 2a.

If the constitutional provisions on which appellants rely give them the substantive rights they urge, other provisions qualify those rights in important ways by vesting large measures of control in the political subdivisions of the Government and the state. There is not, and could not be except abstractly, a right of absolute equality in voting. At best there could be only a rough approximation. And there is obviously considerable latitude for the bodies vested with those powers to exercise their judgment concerning how best to attain this, in full consistency with the Constitution.

The right here is not absolute. And the cure sought may be worse than the disease.

I think, therefore, the case is one in which the Court may properly, and should, decline to exercise its jurisdiction.3 Accordingly, the judgment should be affirmed and I join in that disposition of the cause.

1

United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303, concurring opinion at 320: “But the most fundamental principle of constitutional adjudication is not to face constitutional questions but to avoid them, if at all possible. And so the ‘Court developed, for its own governance in the cases confessedly within its jurisdiction, a series of rules under which it has avoided passing upon a large part of all the constitutional questions pressed upon it for decision/ ”

2

Want of equity jurisdiction does not go to the power of a court in the same manner as want of jurisdiction over the subject matter. Thus, want of equity jurisdiction may be waived. Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521, 524-525 and cases cited.

3

“The power of a court of equity to act is a discretionary one. . . . Where a federal court of equity is asked to interfere with the enforcement of state laws, it should do so only ‘to prevent irreparable injury which is clear and imminent.’ ” American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582, 593, and cases cited.

Mr. Justice Black,

dissenting.

The complaint alleges the following facts essential to the position I take: Appellants, citizens and voters of Illinois, live in congressional election districts, the respective populations of which range from 612,000 to 914,000. Twenty other congressional election districts have populations that range from 112,116 to 385,207. In seven of *567these districts the population is below 200,000. The Illinois Legislature established these districts in 1901 on the basis of the Census of 1900. The Federal Census of 1910, of 1920, of 1930, and of 1940, each showed a growth of population in Illinois and a substantial shift in the distribution of population among the districts established in 1901. But up to date, attempts to have the State Legislature reapportion congressional election districts so as more nearly to equalize their population have been unsuccessful. A contributing cause of this situation, according to appellants, is the fact that the State Legislature is chosen on the basis of state election districts inequitably apportioned in a way similar to that of the 1901 congressional election districts. The implication is that the issues of state and congressional apportionment are thus so interdependent that it is to the interest of state legislators to perpetuate the inequitable apportionment of both state and congressional election districts. Prior to this proceeding a series of suits had been brought in the state courts challenging the State’s local and federal apportionment system. In all these cases the Supreme Court of the State had denied effective relief.1

In the present suit the complaint attacked the 1901 State Apportionment Act on the ground that it among other things violates Article I and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Appellants claim that since they live in the heavily populated districts their vote is much less effective than the vote of those living in a district which under the 1901 Act is also allowed to choose one Congressman, though its population is sometimes *568only one-ninth that of the heavily populated districts. Appellants contend that this reduction of the effectiveness of their vote is the result of a wilful legislative discrimination against them and thus amounts to a denial of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. They further assert that this reduction of the effectiveness of their vote also violates the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in abridging their privilege as citizens of the United States to vote for Congressmen, a privilege guaranteed by Article I of the Constitution. They further contend that the State Apportionment Act directly violates Article I which guarantees that each citizen eligible to vote has a right to vote for Congressmen and to have his vote counted. The assertion here is that the right to have their vote counted is abridged unless that vote is given approximately equal weight to that of other citizens. It is my judgment that the District Court had jurisdiction;2 that the complaint presented a justiciable case and controversy; 3 and that appellants had standing to sue, since the facts alleged show that they have been injured as individuals.4 Unless previous decisions of this Court are to be overruled, the suit is not one against the State but against state officials as individuals.5 The complaint attacked the 1901 Apportionment Act as unconstitutional and alleged facts indicating that the Act denied appellants the full right to vote and the equal protection of the laws. *569These allegations have not been denied. Under these circumstances, and since there is no adequate legal remedy for depriving a citizen of his right to vote, equity can and should grant relief.

It is difficult for me to see why the 1901 State Apportionment Act does not deny appellants equal protection of the laws. The failure of the Legislature to reapportion the congressional election districts for forty years, despite census figures indicating great changes in the distribution of the population, has resulted in election districts the populations of which range from 112,000 to 900,000. One of the appellants lives in a district of more than 900,000 people. His vote is consequently much less effective than that of each of the citizens living in the district of 112,000. And such a gross inequality in the voting power of citizens irrefutably demonstrates a complete lack of effort to make an equitable apportionment. The 1901 State Apportionment Act if applied to the next election would thus result in a wholly indefensible discrimination against appellants and all other voters in heavily populated districts. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids such discrimination. It does not permit the States to pick out certain qualified citizens or groups of citizens and deny them the right to vote at all. See Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, 541; Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73. No one would deny that the equal protection clause would also prohibit a law that would expressly give certain citizens a half-vote and others a full vote. The probable effect of the 1901 State Apportionment Act in the coming election will be that certain citizens, and among them the appellants, will in some instances have votes only one-ninth as effective in choosing representatives to Congress as the votes of other citizens. Such discriminatory legislation seems to me exactly the kind that the equal protection clause was intended to prohibit.

*570The 1901 State Apportionment Act in reducing the effectiveness of appellants’ votes abridges their privilege as citizens to vote for Congressmen and violates Article I of the Constitution. Article I provides that Congressmen “shall be . . . chosen ... by the People of the several States . . .” It thus gives those qualified a right to vote and a right to have their vote counted. Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651; United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383. This Court in order to prevent “an interference with the effective choice of the voters” has held that this right extends to primaries. United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 314. While the Constitution contains no express provision requiring that congressional election districts established by the States must contain approximately equal populations, the constitutionally guaranteed right to vote and the right to have one’s vote counted clearly imply the policy that state election systems, no matter what their form, should be designed to give approximately equal weight to each vote cast. To some extent this implication of Article I is expressly stated by § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers . . .” The purpose of this requirement is obvious: It is to make the votes of the citizens of the several States equally effective in the selection of members of Congress. It was intended to make illegal a nation-wide “rotten borough” system as between the States. The policy behind it is broader than that. It prohibits as well congressional “rotten boroughs” within the States, such as the ones here involved. The policy is that which is laid down by all the constitutional provisions regulating the election of members of the House of Representatives, including Article I which guarantees the right to vote and to have that vote effectively counted: All groups, classes, and indi*571viduals shall to the extent that it is practically feasible be given equal representation in the House of Representatives, which, in conjunction with the Senate, writes the laws affecting the life, liberty, and property of all the people.

It is true that the States are authorized by § 2 of Article I of the Constitution to legislate on the subject of congressional elections to the extent that Congress has not done so. Thus the power granted to the State Legislature on this subject is primarily derived from the Federal and not from the State Constitution. But this federally-granted power with respect to elections of Congressmen is not to formulate policy but rather to implement the policy laid down in the Constitution, that, so far as feasible, votes be given equally effective weight. Thus, a state legislature cannot deny eligible voters the right to vote for Congressmen and the right to have their vote counted. It can no more destroy the effectiveness of their vote in part and no more accomplish this in the name of “apportionment” than under any other name. For legislation which must inevitably bring about glaringly unequal representation in the Congress in favor of special classes and groups should be invalidated, “whether accomplished ingeniously or ingenuously.” Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 132. See also Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, 272.

Had Illinois passed an Act requiring that all of its twenty-six Congressmen be elected by the citizens of one county, it would clearly have amounted to a denial to the citizens of the other counties of their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. And I cannot imagine that an Act that would have apportioned twenty-five Congressmen to the State’s smallest county and one Congressman to all the others, would have been sustained by any court. Such an Act would clearly have violated the con*572stitutional policy of equal representation. The 1901 Apportionment Act here involved violates that policy in the same way. The policy with respect to federal elections laid down by the Constitution, while it does not mean that the courts can or should prescribe the precise methods to be followed by state legislatures and the invalidation of all Acts that do not embody those precise methods, does mean that state legislatures must make real efforts to bring about approximately equal representation of citizens in Congress. Here the Legislature of Illinois has not done so. Whether that was due to negligence or was a wilful effort to deprive some citizens of an effective vote, the admitted result is that the constitutional policy of equality of representation has been defeated. Under these circumstances it is the Court’s duty to invalidate the state law.

It is contended, however, that a court of equity does not have the power, or even if it has the power, that it should not exercise it in this case. To do so, it is argued, would mean that the Court is entering the area of “political questions.” I cannot agree with that argument. There have been cases, such as Coleman v. Miller, supra, pp. 454, 457, where this Court declined to decide a question because it was political. In the Miller case, however, the question involved was ratification of a constitutional amendment, a matter over which the Court believed Congress had been given final authority. To have decided that question would have amounted to a trespass upon the constitutional power of Congress. Here we have before us a state law which abridges the constitutional rights of citizens to cast votes in such way as to obtain the kind of congressional representation the Constitution guarantees to them.

It is true that voting is a part of elections and that elections are “political.” But as this Court said in Nixon *573v, Herndon, supra, it is a mere “play upon words” to refer to a controversy such as this as “political” in the sense that courts have nothing to do with protecting and vindicating the right of a voter to cast an effective ballot. The Classic case, among myriads of others, refutes the contention that courts are impotent in connection with evasions of all “political” rights. Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, does not preclude the granting of equitable relief in this case. There this Court simply held that the State Apportionment Act did not violate the Congressional Reapportionment Act of 1929, 46 Stat. 21, 26, 27, since that Act did not require election districts of equal population. The Court expressly reserved the question of “the right of the complainant to relief in equity.” Giles v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475, also did not hold that a court of equity could not, or should not, exercise its power in a case like this. As we said with reference to that decision in Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, 272-273, it stands for the principle that courts will not attempt to “supervise” elections. Furthermore, the author of the Giles v. Harris opinion also wrote the opinion in Nixon v. Herndon, in which a voter’s right to cast a ballot was held to give rise to a justiciable controversy.

In this case, no supervision over elections .is asked for. What is asked is that this Court do exactly what it did in Smiley v. Holm, supra. It is asked to declare a state apportionment bill invalid and to enjoin state officials from enforcing it. The only difference between this case and the Smiley case is that there the case originated in the state courts while here the proceeding originated in the Federal District Court. The only type of case in which this Court has held that a federal district court should in its discretion stay its hand any more than a state court is where the question is one which state courts or administrative agencies have special competence to *574decide. This is not that type of question. What is involved here is the right to vote guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. It has always been the rule that where a federally protected right has been invaded the federal courts will provide the remedy to rectify the wrong done. Federal courts have not hesitated to exercise their equity power in cases involving deprivation of property and liberty. Ex parte Young, supra; Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496. There is no reason why they should do so where the case involves the right to choose representatives that make laws affecting liberty and property.

Nor is there any more difficulty in enforcing a decree in this case than there was in the Smiley case. It is true that declaration of invalidity of the State Act and the enjoining of state officials would result in prohibiting the State from electing Congressmen under the system of the old congressional districts. But it would leave the State free to elect them from the State at large, which, as we held in the Smiley case, is a manner authorized by the Constitution. It is said that it would be inconvenient for the State to conduct the election in this manner. But it has an element of virtue that the more convenient method does not have — namely, it does not discriminate against some groups to favor others, it gives all the people an equally effective voice in electing their representatives as is essential under a free government, and it is constitutional.

Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Murpht join in this dissent.

1

People v. Thompson, 155 Ill. 451, 40 N. E. 307; Fergus v. Marks, 321 Ill. 510, 152 N. E. 557; Fergus v. Kinney, 333 Ill. 437, 164 N. E. 665; People v. Clardy, 334 Ill. 160, 165 N. E. 638; People v. Blackwell, 342 Ill. 223, 173 N. E. 750; Daly v. Madison County, 378 Ill. 357, 38 N. E. 2d 160. Cf. Moran v. Bowley, 347 Ill. 148, 179 N. E. 526.

2

28 U. S. C. 41 (14); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678.

3

Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355; Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375; Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380; Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1; Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, 540; McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 23-24; see also cases collected in 2 A. L. R. note, 1337 et seq.

4

Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 438, 467.

5

Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123; Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378, 393.

BAKER et al. v. CARR et al.

No. 6.

Argued April 19-20, 1961.

Set for reargument May 1, 1961.

Reargued October 9, 1961.

Decided March 26, 1962.

Charles S. Rhyne and Z. T. Osborn, Jr. reargued the cause for appellants. With them on the briefs were Hobart F. Atkins, Robert H. Jennings, Jr., J. W. Anderson, C. R. McClain, Walter Chandler, Harris A. Gilbert, E. K. Meacham and Herzel H. E. Plaine.

*187Jack Wilson, Assistant Attorney General of Tennessee, reargued the cause for appellees. With him on the briefs were George F. McCanless, Attorney General, and Milton P. Rice and James M. Glasgow, Assistant Attorneys General.

Solicitor General Cox, by special leave of Court, 365 U. S. 864, reargued the cause for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging reversal. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Marshall, Acting Assistant Attorney General Doar, Bruce J. Terris, Harold H. Greene, David Rubin and Howard A. Glickstein.

Briefs of amici curiae, in support of appellants, were filed by J. Howard Edmondson, Governor of Oklahoma, and Norman E. Reynolds, Jr. for the Governor; W. Scott Miller, Jr. and George J. Long for the City of St. Matthews, Kentucky; Roger Arnebergh, Henry P. Kucera, J. Elliott Drinard, Barnett I. Shur, Alexander G. Brown, Nathaniel H. Goldstick and Charles S. Rhyne for the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers; Eugene H. Nickerson and David M. Levitan for John F. English et al.; Upton Sisson, Clare S. Hornsby, Walter L. Nixon, Jr. and John Sekul for Marvin Fortner et al.; and Theodore Sachs for August Scholle.

Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This civil action was brought under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1988 to redress the alleged deprivation of federal constitutional rights. The complaint, alleging that by means of a 1901 statute of Tennessee apportioning the members of the General Assembly among the State’s 95 counties,1 “these plaintiffs and others similarly situated, *188are denied the equal protection of the laws accorded them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by virtue of the debasement of their votes,” was dismissed by a three-judge court convened under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 in the Middle District of Tennessee.2 The court held that it lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter and also that no claim was stated upon which relief could be granted. 179 F. Supp. 824. We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal. 364 U. S. 898.3 We hold that the dismissal was error, and remand the cause to the District Court for trial and further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The General Assembly of Tennessee consists of the Senate with 33 members and the House of Representatives with 99 members. The Tennessee Constitution provides in Art. II as follows:

“Sec. 3. Legislative authority- — -Term of office.— The Legislative authority of this State shall be vested in a General Assembly, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives, both dependent on the people; who shall hold their offices for two years from the day of the general election.

“Sec. 4. Census.- — An enumeration of the qualified voters, and an apportionment of the Representatives in the General Assembly, shall be made in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and within every subsequent term of ten years.

“Sec. 6. Apportionment of representatives. — The number of Representatives shall, at the several *189periods of- making the enumeration, be apportioned among the several counties or districts, according to the number of qualified voters in each; and shall not exceed seventy-five, until the population of the State shall be one million and a half, and shall never exceed ninety-nine; Provided, that any county having two-thirds of the ratio shall be, entitled to one member.

“Sec. 6. Apportionment of senators. — The number of Senators shall, at the several periods of making the enumeration, be apportioned among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified electors in each, and shall not exceed one-third the number of representatives. In apportioning the Senators among the different counties, the fraction that may be lost by any county or counties, in the apportionment of members to the House of Representatives, shall be made up to such county or counties in the Senate, as near as may be practicable. When a district is composed of two or more counties, they shall be adjoining; and no county shall be divided in forming a district.”

Thus, Tennessee’s standard for allocating legislative representation among her counties is the total number of qualified voters resident in the respective counties, subject only to minor qualifications.4 Decennial reapportionment *190in compliance with the constitutional scheme was effected by the General Assembly each decade from 1871 to 1901. The 1871 apportionment5 was preceded by an 1870 statute requiring an enumeration.6 The 1881 apportionment involved three statutes, the first authorizing an enumeration, the second enlarging the Senate from 25 to *19133 members and the House from 75 to 99 members, and the third apportioning the membership of both Houses.7 In 1891 there were both an enumeration and an apportionment.8 In 1901 the General Assembly abandoned separate enumeration in favor of reliance upon the Federal Census and passed the Apportionment Act here in controversy.9 In the more than 60 years since that action, all proposals in both Houses of the General Assembly for reapportionment have failed to pass.10

*192Between 1901 and 1961, Tennessee has experienced substantial growth and redistribution of her population. In 1901 the population was 2,020,616, of whom 487,380 were eligible to vote.11 The 1960 Federal Census reports the State’s population at 3,567,089, of whom 2,092,891 are eligible to vote.12 The relative standings of the counties in terms of qualified voters have changed significantly. It is primarily the continued application of the 1901 Apportionment Act to this shifted and enlarged voting population which gives rise to the present controversy.

Indeed, the complaint alleges that the 1901 statute, even as of the time of its passage, “made no apportionment of Representatives and Senators in accordance with the constitutional formula . . . , but instead arbitrarily and capriciously apportioned representatives in the Senate and House without reference ... to any logical or reasonable formula whatever.” 13 It is further alleged *193that “because of the population changes since 1900, and the failure of the Legislature to reapportion itself since 1901/'’ the 1901 statute became “unconstitutional and obsolete.” Appellants also argue that, because of the composition of the legislature effected by the 1901 Apportionment Act, redress in the form of a state constitutional amendment to change the entire mechanism for reapportioning, or any other change short of that, is difficult or impossible.14 The complaint concludes that- “these plain - *194tiffs and others similarly situated, are denied the equal protection of the laws accorded them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by virtue of the debasement of their votes.” 15 They seek a *195declaration that the 1901 statute is unconstitutional and an injunction restraining the appellees from acting to conduct any further elections under it. They also pray that unless and until the General Assembly enacts a valid reapportionment, the District Court should either decree a reapportionment by mathematical application of the Tennessee constitutional formulae to the most recent Federal Census figures, or direct the appellees to conduct legislative elections, primary and general, at large. They also pray for such other and further relief as may be appropriate.

I.

The District Court’s Opinion and Order of Dismissal.

Because we deal with this case on appeal from an order of dismissal granted on appellees’ motions, precise identi*196fication of the issues presently confronting us demands clear exposition of the grounds upon which the District Court rested in dismissing the case. The dismissal order recited that the court sustained the appellees’ grounds “(1) that the Court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, and (2) that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted . . . .”

In the setting of a case such as this, the recited grounds embrace two possible reasons for dismissal:

First: That the facts and injury alleged, the legal bases invoked as creating the rights and duties relied upon, and the relief sought, fail to come within that language of Article III of the Constitution and of the jurisdictional statutes which define those matters concerning which United States District Courts are empowered to act;

Second: That, although the matter is cognizable and facts are alleged which establish infringement of appellants’ rights as a result of state legislative action departing from a federal constitutional standard, the court will not proceed because the matter is considered unsuited to judicial inquiry or adjustment.

We treat the first ground of dismissal as “lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter.” The second we consider to result in a failure to state a justiciable cause of action.

The District Court’s dismissal order recited that it was issued in conformity with the court’s per curiam opinion. The opinion reveals that the court rested its dismissal upon lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and lack of a justiciable cause of action without attempting to distinguish between these grounds. After noting that the plaintiffs challenged the existing legislative apportionment in Tennessee under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, and summarizing the supporting allegations and the relief requested, the court stated that

“The action is presently before the Court upon the defendants’ motion to dismiss predicated upon three *197grounds: first, that the Court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter; second, that the complaints fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; and third, that indispensable party defendants are not before the Court.” 179 F. Supp., at 826.

The court proceeded to explain its action as turning on the case’s presenting a “question of the distribution of political strength for legislative purposes.” For,

“From a review of [numerous Supreme Court] . . . decisions there can be no doubt that the federal rule, as enunciated and applied by the Supreme Court, is that the federal courts, whether from a lack of jurisdiction or from the inappropriateness of the subject matter for judicial consideration, will not intervene in cases of this type to compel legislative reapportionment.” 179 F. Supp., at 826.

The court went on to express doubts as to the feasibility of the various possible remedies sought by the plaintiffs. 179 F. Supp., at 827-828. Then it made clear that its dismissal reflected a view not of doubt that violation of constitutional rights was alleged, but of a court’s impotence to correct that violation:

“With the plaintiffs’ argument that the legislature of Tennessee is guilty of a clear violation of the state constitution and of the rights of the plaintiffs the Court entirely agrees. It also agrees that the evil is a serious one which should be corrected without further delay. But even so the remedy in this situation clearly does not lie with the courts. It has long been recognized and is accepted doctrine that there are indeed some rights guaranteed by the Constitution for the violation of which the courts cannot give redress.” 179 F. Supp., at 828.

In light of the District Court’s treatment of the case, we hold today only (a) that the court possessed jurisdiction of the subject matter; (b) that a justiciable cause of *198action is stated upon which appellants would be entitled to appropriate relief; and (c) because appellees raise the issue before this Court, that the appellants have standing to challenge the Tennessee apportionment statutes.16 Beyond noting that we have no cause at this stage to doubt the District Court will be able to fashion relief if violations of constitutional rights are found, it is improper now to consider what remedy would be most appropriate if appellants prevail at the trial.

1 — 1 H-{

Jurisdiction op the Subject Matter.

The District Court was uncertain whether our cases withholding federal judicial relief rested upon a lack of federal jurisdiction or upon the inappropriateness of the subject matter for judicial consideration — what we have designated “nonjusticiability.” The distinction between the two grounds is significant. In the instance of non jus-ticiability, consideration of the cause is not wholly and immediately foreclosed; rather, the Court’s inquiry necessarily proceeds to the point- of deciding whether the duty asserted can be judicially identified and its breach judicially determined, and whether protection for the right asserted can be judicially molded. In the instance of lack of jurisdiction the cause either does not “arise under” the Federal Constitution, laws or treaties (or fall within one of the other enumerated categories of Art. Ill, § 2), or is not a “case or controversy” within the meaning of that section ; or the cause is not one described by any jurisdictional statute. Our conclusion, see pp. 208-237, infra, that this cause presents no non justiciable “political question” settles the only possible doubt that it is a case or controversy. Under the present heading of “Jurisdic*199tion of the Subject Matter” we hold only that the matter set forth in the complaint does arise under the Constitution and is within 28 U. S. C. § 1343.

Article III, § 2, of the Federal Constitution provides that “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority . . . .” It is clear that the cause of action is one which “arises under” the Federal Constitution. The complaint alleges that the 1901 statute effects an apportionment that deprives the appellants of the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dismissal of the complaint upon the ground of lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter would, therefore, be justified only if that claim were “so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit,” Newburyport Water Co. v. Newburyport, 193 U. S. 561, 579, or “frivolous,” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 683.17 That the claim is unsubstantial must be “very plain.” Hart v. Keith Vaudeville Exchange, 262 U. S. 271, 274. Since the District Court obviously and correctly did not deem the asserted federal constitutional claim unsubstantial and frivolous, it should not have dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter. And of course no further consideration of the merits of the claim is relevant to a determination of the court’s jurisdiction of the subject matter. We said in an earlier voting case from Tennessee: “It is obvious . . . that the court, in dismissing for want of jurisdiction, was controlled by what it deemed to be the want of merit in the averments which were made in the complaint as to the violation of the Federal right. But as the very nature of the controversy was Federal, and, therefore, *200jurisdiction existed, whilst the opinion of the court as to the want of merit in the cause of action might have furnished ground for dismissing for that reason, it afforded no sufficient ground for deciding that the action was not one arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487, 493. “For it is well settled that the failure to state a proper cause of action calls for a judgment on the merits and not for a dismissal for want of jurisdiction.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682. See also Binderup v. Pathe Exchange, 263 U. S. 291, 305-308.

Since the complaint plainly sets forth a case arising under the Constitution, the subject matter is within the federal judicial power defined in Art. Ill, § 2, and so within the power of Congress to assign to the jurisdiction of the District Courts. Congress has exercised that power in 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3):

“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action authorized by law18 to be commenced by any person . . . [t]o redress the deprivation, under color of any State law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States . . . .”19

*201An unbroken line of our precedents sustains the federal courts’ jurisdiction of the subject matter of federal constitutional claims of this nature. The first cases involved the redistricting of States for the purpose of electing Representatives to the Federal Congress. When the Ohio Supreme Court sustained Ohio legislation against an attack for repugnancy to Art. I, § 4, of the Federal Constitution, we affirmed on the merits and expressly refused to dismiss for want of jurisdiction “In view ... of the subject-matter of the controversy and the Federal characteristics which inhere in it . . . .” Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565, 570. When the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of a suit to enjoin the Secretary of State of Minnesota from acting under Minnesota redistricting legislation, we reviewed the constitutional merits of the legislation and reversed the State Supreme Court. Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355. And see companion cases from the New York Court of Appeals and the Missouri Supreme Court, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375; Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380. When a three-judge District Court, exercising jurisdiction under the predecessor of 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3), permanently enjoined officers of the State of Mississippi from conducting an election of Representatives under a Mississippi redistricting act, we reviewed the federal questions on the merits and reversed the District Court. Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, reversing 1 F. Supp. 134. A similar decree of a District Court, exercising jurisdiction under the same statute, concerning a Kentucky redistricting act, was *202reviewed and the decree reversed. Mahan v. Hume, 287 U. S. 575, reversing 1 F. Supp. 142.20

The appellees refer to Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, as authority that the District Court lacked jurisdietion of the subject matter. Appellees misconceive the holding of that case. The holding was precisely contrary to their reading of it. Seven members of the Court participated in the decision. Unlike many other cases in this field which have assumed without discussion that there was jurisdiction, all three opinions filed in Colegrove discussed the question. Two of the opinions expressing the views of four of the Justices, a majority, flatly held that there was jurisdiction of the subject matter. Mr. Justice Black joined by Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Murphy stated: “It is my judgment that the District Court had jurisdiction . . . ,” citing the predecessor of 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3), and Bell v. Hood, supra. 328 U. S., at 568. Mr. Justice Rutledge, writing separately, expressed agreement with this conclusion. 328 U. S., at 564, 565, n. 2. Indeed, it is even questionable that the opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Justices .Reed and Burton, doubted jurisdiction of the subject \ matter. Such doubt would have been inconsistent with the professed willingness to turn the decision on either the majority or concurring views in Wood v. Broom, supra. 328 U. S., at 551.

Several subsequent cases similar to Colegrove have been decided by the Court in summary per curiam statements. None was dismissed for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter. Cook v. Fortson, 329 U. S. 675; Turman v. *203Duckworth, ibid.; Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804; 21 Tedesco v. Board of Supervisors, 339 U. S. 940; Remmey v. Smith, 342 U. S. 916; Cox v. Peters, 342 U. S. 936; Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U. S. 912; Kidd v. McCanless, 362 U. S. 920; Radford v. Gary, 352 U. S. 991; Hartsfield v. Sloan, 357 U. S. 916; Matthews v. Handley, 361 U. S. 127.22

Two cases decided with opinions after Colegrove likewise plainly imply that the subject matter of this suit is within District Court jurisdiction. In MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, the District Court dismissed for want of jurisdiction, which had been invoked under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3), a suit to enjoin enforcement of the requirement that nominees for state-wide elections be supported by a petition signed by a minimum number of persons from at least 50 of the State’s 102 counties. This Court’s disagreement with that action is clear since the Court affirmed the judgment after a review of the merits and concluded that the particular claim there was without merit. In South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276, we affirmed the dismissal of an attack on the Georgia “county unit” system but founded our action on a ground that plainly would not have been reached if the lower court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter, which allegedy existed under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3). The express words of our holding were that “Federal courts consistently refuse to exercise their equity powers in cases posing *204political issues arising from a state’s geographical distribution of electoral strength among its political subdivisions.” 339 U. S., at 277.

We hold that the District Court has jurisdiction of the subject matter of the federal constitutional claim asserted in the complaint.

III.

Standing.

A federal court cannot “pronounce any statute, either of a State or of the United States, void, because irreconcilable with the Constitution, except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies.” Liverpool Steamship Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 39. Have the appellants alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions? This is the gist of the question of standing. It is, of course, a question of federal law.

The complaint was filed by residents of Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Montgomery, and Shelby Counties. Each is a person allegedly qualified to vote for members of the General Assembly representing his county.23 These appellants sued “on their own behalf and on behalf of all qualified voters of their respective counties, and further, on behalf of all voters of the State of Tennessee who *205are similarly situated . . . 24 The appellees are the Tennessee Secretary of State, Attorney General, Coordinator of Elections, and members of the State Board of Elections; the members of the State Board are sued in their own right and also as representatives of the County Election Commissioners whom they appoint.25

*206We hold that the appellants do have standing to maintain this suit. Our decisions plainly support this conclusion. Many of the cases have assumed rather than articulated the premise in deciding the merits of similar claims.26 And Colegrove v. Green, supra, squarely held that voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals have standing to sue.27 A num*207ber of cases decided after Colegrove recognized the standing of the voters there involved to bring those actions.28

These appellants seek relief in order to protect or vindicate an interest of their own, and of those similarly situated. Their constitutional claim is, in substance, that the 1901 statute constitutes arbitrary and capricious state action, offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment in its irrational disregard of the standard of apportionment prescribed by the State’s Constitution or of any standard, effecting a gross disproportion of representation to voting population. The injury which appellants assert is that this classification disfavors the voters in the counties in which they reside, placing them in a position of constitutionally unjustifiable inequality vis-á-vis voters *208in irrationally favored counties. A citizen’s right to a vote free of arbitrary impairment by state action has been judicially recognized as a right secured by the Constitution, when such impairment resulted from dilution by a false tally, cf. United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299; or by a refusal to count votes from arbitrarily selected precincts, cf. United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383, or by a stuffing of the ballot box, cf. Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371; United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385.

It would not be necessary to decide whether appellants’, allegations of impairment of their votes by the 1901 apportionment will, ultimately, entitle them to any relief, in order to hold that they have standing to seek it. If such impairment does produce a legally cognizable injury, they are among those who have sustained it. They are asserting “a plain, direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes,” Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S., at 438, not merely a claim of “the right, possessed by every citizen, to require that the Government be administered according to law . . . .” Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126, 129; compare Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130. They are entitled to a hearing and to the District Court’s decision on their claims. “The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163.

IV.

Justiciability.

In holding that the subject matter of this suit was not justiciable, the District Court relied on Colegrove v. Green, supra, and subsequent per curiam cases.29 The *209court stated: “From a review of these decisions there can be no doubt that the federal rule ... is that the federal courts . . . will not intervene in cases of this type to compel legislative reapportionment.” 179 F. Supp., at 826. We understand the District Court to have read the cited cases as compelling the conclusion that since the appellants sought to have a legislative apportionment held unconstitutional, their suit presented a “political question” and was therefore nonjusticiable. ( We hold that this challenge to an apportionment presents no nonjusticiable “political question.” The cited cases do not hold the contrary.

Of course the mere fact that the suit seeks protection of a political right does not mean it presents a political question. Such an objection “is little more than a play upon words.” Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, 540. Rather, it is argued that apportionment cases, whatever the actual wording of the complaint, can involve no federal constitutional right except one resting on the guaranty of a republican form of government,30 and that complaints based on that clause have been held to present political questions which are nonjusticiable.

We hold that the claim pleaded here neither rests upon nor implicates the Guaranty Clause and that its justici-ability is therefore not foreclosed by our decisions of cases involving that clause. The District Court misinterpreted Colegrove v. Green and other decisions of this Court on which it relied. Appellants’ claim that they are being denied equal protection is justiciable, and if *210“discrimination is sufficiently shown, the right to relief under the equal protection clause is not diminished by the fact that the discrimination relates to political rights.” Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 11. To show why we reject the argument based on the Guaranty Clause, we must examine the authorities under it. But because there appears to be some uncertainty as to why those cases did present political questions, and specifically as to whether this apportionment case is like those cases, we deem it necessary first to consider the contours of the “political question” doctrine.

Our discussion, even at the price of extending this opinion, requires review of a number of political question cases, in order to expose the attributes of the doctrine— attributes which, in various settings, diverge, combine, appear, and disappear in seeming disorderliness. Since that review is undertaken solely to demonstrate that neither singly nor collectively do these cases support a conclusion that this apportionment case is non justiciable, we of course do not explore their implications in other contexts. That review reveals that in the Guaranty Clause cases and in the other “political question” cases, it is the relationship between the judiciary and the coordinate branches of the Federal Government, and not the federal judiciary’s relationship to the States, which gives rise to the “political question.”

We have said that “In determining whether a question falls within [the political question] category, the appro-riateness under our system of government of attributing finality to the action of the political departments and also the lack of satisfactory criteria for a judicial determination are dominant considerations.” Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 454-455. The nonjusticiability of a political question is primarily a function of the separation of powers. Much confusion results from the capacity of the “political question” label to obscure the need for *211case-by-case inquiry. Deciding whether a matter has in any measure been committed by the Constitution to another branch of government, or whether the action of that branch exceeds whatever authority has been committed, is itself a delicate exercise in constitutional interpretation, and is a responsibility of this Court as ultimate interpreter of the Constitution. To demonstrate this requires no less than to analyze representative cases and to infer from them the analytical threads that make up the political question doctrine. We shall then show that none of those threads catches this case.

Foreign relations: There are sweeping statements to the effect that all questions touching foreign relations are political questions.31 Not only does resolution of such issues frequently turn on standards that defy judicial application, or involve the exercise of a discretion demonstrably committed to the executive or legislature;32 but many such questions uniquely demand single-voiced statement of the Government’s views.33 Yet it is error to suppose that every case or controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond judicial cognizance. Our cases in this field seem invariably to show a discriminating analysis of the particular question posed, in terms of the history of its management by the political branches, of its susceptibility to judicial handling in the light of its nature and posture in the specific case, and of the possible conse*212quences of judicial action. For example, though a court will not ordinarily inquire whether a treaty has been terminated, since on that question “governmental action . . . must be regarded as of controlling importance,” if there has been no conclusive “governmental action” then a court can construe a treaty and may find it provides the answer. Compare Terlinden v. Ames, 184 U. S. 270, 285, with Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts v. New Haven, 8 Wheat. 464, 492-495.34 Though a court will not undertake to construe a treaty in a manner inconsistent with a subsequent federal statute, no similar hesitancy obtains if the asserted clash is with state law. Compare Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U. S. 190, with Kolovrat v. Oregon, 366 U. S. 187.

While recognition of foreign governments so strongly defies judicial treatment that without executive recognition a foreign state has been called “a republic of whose existence we know nothing,” 35 and the judiciary ordinarily follows the executive as to which nation has sovereignty over disputed territory,36 once sovereignty over an area is politically determined and declared, courts may examine the resulting status and decide independently whether a statute applies to that area.37 Similarly, recognition of belligerency abroad is an executive responsibility, but if the executive proclamations fall short of an explicit answer, a court may construe them seeking, for example, to determine whether the situation is such that statutes designed to assure American neutrality have *213become operative. The Three Friends, 166 U. S. 1, 63, 66. Still again, though it is the executive that determines a person’s status as representative of a foreign government, Ex parte Hitz, 111 U. S. 766, the executive’s statements will be construed where necessary to determine the court’s jurisdiction, In re Baiz, 135 U. S. 403. Similar judicial action in the absence of a recognizedly authoritative executive declaration occurs in cases involving the immunity from seizure of vessels owned by friendly foreign governments. Compare Ex parte Peru, 318 U. S. 578, with Mexico v. Hoffman, 324 U. S. 30, 34—35.

Dates of duration of hostilities: Though it has been stated broadly that “the power which declared the necessity is the power to declare its cessation, and what the cessation requires,” Commercial Trust Co. v. Miller, 262 U. S. 51, 57, here too analysis reveals isolable reasons for the presence of political questions, underlying this Court’s refusal to review the political departments’ determination of when or whether a war has ended. Dominant is the need for finality in the political determination, for emergency’s nature demands “A prompt and unhesitating obedience,” Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19, 30 (calling up of militia). Moreover, “the cessation of hostilities does not necessarily end the war power. It was stated in Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & W. Co., 251 U. S. 146, 161, that the war power includes the power ‘to remedy the evils which have arisen from its rise and progress’ and continues during that emergency. Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, 507.” Fleming v. Mohawk Wrecking Co., 331 U. S. 111, 116. But deference rests on reason, not habit.38 The question in a particular case may not seriously implicate considerations of finality — e. g., a public program of importance *214(rent control) yet not central to the emergency effort.39 Further, clearly definable criteria for decision may be available. In such case the political question barrier falls away: “[A] Court is not at liberty to shut its eyes to an obvious mistake, when the validity of the law depends upon the truth of what is declared. ... [It can] inquire whether the exigency still existed upon which the continued operation of the law depended.” Chastleton Corp. v. Sinclair, 264 U. S. 543, 547-548.40 Compare Woods v. Miller Co., 333 U. S. 138. On the other hand, even in private litigation which directly implicates no feature of separation of powers, lack of judicially discoverable standards and the drive for even-handed application may impel reference to the political departments’ determination of dates of hostilities’ beginning and ending. The Protector, 12 Wall. 700.

Validity of enactments: In Coleman v. Miller, supra, this Court held that the questions of how long a proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution remained open to ratification, and what effect a prior rejection had on a subsequent ratification, were committed to congressional resolution and involved criteria of decision that necessarily escaped the judicial grasp.41 Similar considerations apply to the enacting process: “The respect due to coequal and independent departments,” and the need for finality and certainty about the status of a statute contribute to judicial reluctance to inquire whether, as passed, it complied with all requisite formalities. Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 672, 676-677; see Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130, 137. But it is not true that courts will never delve *215into a legislature’s records upon such a quest: If the enrolled statute lacks an effective date, a court will not hesitate to seek it in the legislative journals in order to preserve the enactment. Gardner v. The Collector, 6 Wall. 499. The political question doctrine, a tool for maintenance of governmental order, will not be so applied as to promote only disorder.

The status of Indian tribes: This Court’s deference to the political departments in determining whether Indians are recognized as a tribe, while it reflects familiar attributes of political questions,42 United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407, 419, also has a unique element in that “the relation of the Indians to the United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist no where else. . . . [The Indians are] domestic dependent nations ... in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.” The Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 16, 17.43 Yet, here too, there is no blanket rule. While *216“ ‘It is for [Congress] . . . , and not for the courts, to determine when the true interests of the Indian require his release from [the] condition of tutelage’ ... , it is not meant by this that Congress may bring a community or body of people within the range of this power by arbitrarily calling them an Indian tribe . . . .” United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28, 46. Able to discern what is “distinctly Indian,” ibid., the courts will strike down *217any heedless extension of that label. They will not stand impotent before an obvious instance of a manifestly unauthorized exercise of power.

It is apparent that several formulations which vary slightly according to the settings in which the questions arise may describe a political question, although each has one or more elements which identify it as essentially a function of the separation of powers. Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.

Unless one of these formulations is inextricable from the case at bar, there should be no dismissal for non-justiciability on the ground of a political question’s presence. The doctrine of which we treat is one of “political questions,” not one of “political cases.” The courts cannot reject as “no law suit” a bona fide controversy as to whether some action denominated “political” exceeds constitutional authority. The cases we have reviewed show the necessity for discriminating inquiry into the precise facts and posture of the particular case, and the impossibility of resolution by any semantic cataloguing.

But it is argued that this case shares the characteristics of decisions that constitute a category not yet considered, cases concerning the Constitution’s guaranty, in Art. IY, *218§ 4, of a republican form of government. A conclusion as to whether the case at bar does present a political question cannot be confidently reached until we have considered those cases with special care. We shall discover that Guaranty Clause claims involve those elements which define a “political question,” and for that reason and no other, they are nonjusticiable. In particular, we shall discover that the non justiciability of such claims has nothing to do with their touching upon matters of state governmental organization.

Republican form of government: Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1, though in form simply an action for damages for trespass was, as Daniel Webster said in opening the argument for the defense, “an unusual case.”44 The defendants, admitting an otherwise tortious breaking and entering, sought to justify their action on the ground that they were agents of the established lawful government of Rhode Island, which State was then under martial law to defend itself from active insurrection; that the plaintiff was engaged in that insurrection; and that they entered under orders to arrest the plaintiff. The case arose “out of the unfortunate political differences which agitated the people of Rhode Island in 1841 and 1842,” 7 How., at 34, and which had resulted in a situation wherein two groups laid competing claims to recognition as the lawful government.45 The plaintiff’s right to *219recover depended upon which of the two groups was entitled to such recognition; but the lower court’s refusal to receive evidence or hear argument on that issue, its charge to the jury that the earlier established or “charter” government was lawful, and the verdict for the defendants, were affirmed upon appeal to this Court.

Chief Justice Taney’s opinion for the Court reasoned as follows: (1) If a court were to hold the defendants’ acts unjustified because the charter government had no legal existence during the period in question, it would follow that all of that government’s actions — laws enacted, taxes collected, salaries paid, accounts settled, sentences passed — were of no effect; and that “the officers who carried their decisions into operation [were] answerable as trespassers, if not in some cases as criminals.”46 There was, of course, no room for application of any doctrine of de facto status to uphold prior acts of an officer not authorized de jure, for such would have defeated the plaintiff’s very action. A decision for the plaintiff would inevitably have produced some significant measure of chaos, a consequence to be avoided if it could be done without abnegation of the judicial duty to uphold the Constitution.

(2) No state court had recognized as a judicial responsibility settlement of the issue of the locus of state governmental authority. Indeed, the courts of Rhode Island had in several cases held that “it rested with the political power to decide whether the charter government had been displaced or not,” and that that department had acknowledged no change.

*220(3) Since “[t]he question relates, altogether, to the constitution and laws of [the] . . . State,” the courts of the United States had to follow the state courts’ decisions unless there was a federal constitutional ground for overturning them.47

(4) No provision of the Constitution could be or had been invoked for this purpose except Art. IV, § 4, the Guaranty Clause. Having already noted the absence of standards whereby the choice between governments could be made by a court acting independently, Chief Justice Taney now found further textual and practical reasons for concluding that, if any department of the United States was empowered by the Guaranty Clause to resolve the issue, it was not the judiciary:

“Under this article of the Constitution it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State. For as the United States guarantee to each State a republican government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State before it can determine whether it is republican or not. And when the senators and representatives of a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the authority of the government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character, is recognized by the proper constitutional authority. And its decision is binding on every other department of the government, and could not be questioned in a judicial tribunal. It is true that the contest in this case did not last long enough to bring the matter to this issue; and . . . Congress was not called upon to decide the controversy. Yet the right to decide is placed there, and not in the courts.

*221“So, too, as relates to the clause in the above-mentioned article of the Constitution, providing for cases of domestic violence. It rested with Congress, too, to determine upon the means proper to be adopted to fulfill this guarantee. . . . [B]y the act of February 28, 1795, [Congress] provided, that, ‘in case of an insurrection in any State against the government thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such State or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), to call forth such number of the militia of any other State or States, as may be applied for, as he may judge sufficient to suppress such insurrection.’

“By this act, the power of deciding whether the exigency had arisen upon which the government of the United States is bound to interfere, is given to the President. . . .

“After the President has acted and called out the militia, is a Circuit Court of the United States authorized to inquire whether his decision was right? ... If the judicial power extends so far, the guarantee contained in the Constitution of the United States is a guarantee of anarchy, and not of order. . . .

“It is true that in this case the militia were not called out by the President. But upon the application of the governor under the charter government, the President recognized him as the executive power of the State, and took measures to call out the militia to support his authority if it should be found necessary for the general government to interfere . . . . [C]ertainly no court of the United States, with a knowledge of this decision, would have been justified in recognizing the opposing party as the lawful gov*222ernment .... In the case of foreign nations, the government acknowledged by the President is always recognized in the courts of justice. . . 7 How., at 42-44.

Clearly, several factors were thought by the Court in Luther to make the question there “political’': the commitment to the other branches of the decision as to which is the lawful state government; the unambiguous action by the President, in recognizing the charter government as the lawful authority; the need for finality in the executive’s decision; and the lack of criteria by which a court could determine which form of government was republican.48

*223But the only significance that Luther could have for our immediate purposes is in its holding that the Guaranty Clause is not a repository of judicially manageable standards which a court could utilize independently in order to identify a State’s lawful government. The Court has since refused to resort to the Guaranty Clause — which alone had been invoked for the purpose — as the source of a constitutional standard for invalidating state action. See Taylor & Marshall v. Beckham (No. 1), 178 U. S. 548 (claim that Kentucky’s resolution of contested gubernatorial election deprived voters of republican government held nonjusticiable); Pacific States Tel. Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118 (claim that initiative and referendum negated republican government held nonjusticiable) ; Kiernan v. Portland, 223 U. S. 151 (claim that municipal charter amendment -per municipal initiative and referendum negated republican government held ñoñ-*224justiciable); Marshall v. Dye, 231 U. S. 250 (claim that Indiana’s constitutional amendment procedure negated republican government held non justiciable); O’Neill v. Leamer, 239 U. S. 244 (claim that delegation to court of power to form drainage districts negated republican government held “futile”); Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565 (claim that invalidation of state reapportionment statute per referendum negates republican government held non justiciable);49 Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219 (claim that workmen’s compensation violates republican government held nonjusti-ciable); Ohio ex rel. Bryant v. Akron Metropolitan Park District, 281 U. S. 74 (claim that rule requiring invalidation of statute by all but one justice of state court negated republican government held nonjusticiable); Highland Farms Dairy v. Agnew, 300 U. S. 608 (claim that delegation to agency of power to control milk prices violated republican government, rejected).

Just as the Court has consistently held that a challenge to state action based on the Guaranty Clause presents no justiciable question so has it held, and for the same reasons, that challenges to congressional action on the ground of inconsistency with that clause present no justiciable question. In Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, the State sought by an original bill to enjoin execution of the Reconstruction Acts, claiming that it already possessed “A republican State, in every political, legal, constitutional, and juridical sense,” and that enforcement of the new Acts “Instead of keeping the guaranty against a forcible overthrow of its government by foreign invaders or domestic insurgents, ... is destroying that very government by force.” 50 Congress had clearly refused to *225recognize the republican character of the government of the suing State.51 It seemed to the Court that the only-constitutional claim that could be presented was under the Guaranty Clause, and Congress having determined that the effects of the recent hostilities required extraordinary measures to restore governments of a republican form, this Court refused to interfere with Congress' action at the behest of a claimant relying on that very guaranty.52

In only a few other cases has the Court considered Art. IY, § 4, in relation to congressional action. It has refused to pass on a claim relying on the Guaranty Clause to establish that Congress lacked power to allow the States to employ the referendum in passing on legislation redistricting for congressional seats. Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, supra. And it has pointed out that Congress is not required to establish republican government in the territories before they become States, and before they have attained a sufficient population to warrant a *226popularly elected legislature. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244, 278-279 (dictum).53

We come, finally, to the ultimate inquiry whether our precedents as to what constitutes a non justiciable “political question” bring the case before us under the umbrella of that doctrine. A natural beginning is to note whether any of the common characteristics which we have been able to identify and label descriptively are present. We find none: The question here is the consistency of state action with the Federal Constitution. We have no question decided, or to be decided, by a political branch of government coequal with this Court. Nor do we risk embarrassment of our government abroad, or grave disturbance at home54 if we take issue with Tennessee as to the constitutionality of her action here challenged. Nor need the appellants, in order to succeed in this action, ask the Court to enter upon policy determinations for which judicially manageable standards are lacking. Judicial standards under the Equal Protection Clause are well developed and familiar, and it has been open to courts since the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment to determine, if on the particular facts they must, that a discrimination reflects no policy, but simply arbitrary and capricious action.

This case does, in one sense, involve the allocation of political power within a State, and the appellants *227might conceivably have added a claim under the Guaranty Clause. Of course, as we have seen, any reliance on that clause would be futile. But because any reliance on the Guaranty Clause could not have succeeded it does not follow that appellants may not be heard on the equal protection claim which in fact they tender. True, it must be clear that the Fourteenth Amendment claim is not so enmeshed with those political question elements which render Guaranty Clause claims nonjusticiable as actually to present a political question itself. But we have found that not to be the case here.

In this connection special attention is due Pacific States Tel. Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118. In that case a corporation tax statute enacted by the initiative was attacked ostensibly on three grounds: (1) due process; (2) equal protection; and (3) the Guaranty Clause. But it was clear that the first two grounds were invoked solely in aid of the contention that the tax was invalid by reason of its passage:

“The defendant company does not contend here that it could not have been required to pay a license tax. It does not assert that it was denied an opportunity to be heard as to the amount for which it was taxed, or that there was anything inhering in the tax or involved intrinsically in the law which violated any of its constitutional rights. If such questions had been raised they would have been justiciable, and therefore would have required the calling into operation of judicial power. Instead, however, of doing any of these things, the attack on the statute here made is of a wholly different character. Its essentially political nature is at once made manifest by understanding that the assault which the contention here advanced makes it [sic] not on the tax as a tax, but on the State as a State. It is addressed to the *228framework and political character of the government by which the statute levying the tax was passed. It is the government, the political entity, which (reducing the case to its essence) is called to the bar of this court, not for the purpose of testing judicially some exercise of power assailed, on the ground that its exertion has injuriously affected the rights of an individual because of repugnancy to some constitutional limitation, but to demand of the State that it establish its right to exist as a State, republican in form.” 223 U. S., at 150-151.

The due process and equal protection claims were held non justiciable in Pacific States not because they happened to be joined with a Guaranty Clause claim, or because they sought to place before the Court a subject matter which might conceivably have been dealt with through the Guaranty Clause, but because the Court believed that they were invoked merely in verbal aid of the resolution of issues which, in its view, entailed political questions. Pacific States may be compared with cases such as Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, wherein the Court refused to consider whether a workmen’s compensation act violated the Guaranty Clause but considered at length, and rejected, due process and equal protection arguments advanced against it; and O’Neill v. Leamer, 239 U. S. 244, wherein the Court refused to consider whether Nebraska’s delegation of power to form drainage districts violated the Guaranty Clause, but went on to consider and reject the contention that the action against which an injunction was sought was not a taking for a public purpose.

We conclude then that the non justiciability of claims resting on the Guaranty Clause which arises from their embodiment of questions that were thought “political,” can have no bearing upon the justiciability of the equal protection claim presented in this case. Finally, we *229emphasize that it is the involvement in Guaranty Clause claims of the elements thought to define “political questions,” and no other feature, which could render them nonjusticiable. Specifically, we have said that such claims are not held nonjusticiable because they touch matters of state governmental organization. Brief examination of a few cases demonstrates this.

When challenges to state action respecting matters of “the administration of the affairs of the State and the officers through whom they are conducted” 55 have rested on claims of constitutional deprivation which are amenable to judicial correction, this Court has acted upon its view of the merits of the claim. For example, in Boyd v. Nebraska ex rel. Thayer, 143 U. S. 135, we reversed the Nebraska Supreme Court’s decision that Nebraska’s Governor was not a citizen of the United States or of the State and therefore could not continue in office. In Kennard v. Louisiana ex rel. Morgan, 92 U. S. 480, and Foster v. Kansas ex rel. Johnston, 112 U. S. 201, we considered whether persons had been removed from public office by procedures consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process guaranty, and held on the merits that they had. And only last Term, in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, we applied the Fifteenth Amendment to strike down a redrafting of municipal boundaries which effected a discriminatory impairment of voting rights, in the face of what a majority of the Court of Appeals thought to be a sweeping commitment to state legislatures of the power to draw and redraw such boundaries.56

Gomillion was brought by a Negro who had been a resident of the City of Tuskegee, Alabama, until the municipal boundaries were so recast by the State Legis*230lature as to exclude practically all Negroes. The plaintiff claimed deprivation of the right to vote in municipal elections. The District Court’s dismissal for want of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. This Court unanimously reversed. This Court’s answer to the argument that States enjoyed unrestricted control over municipal boundaries was:

“Legislative control of municipalities, no less than other state power, lies within the scope of relevant limitations imposed by the United States Constitution. . . . The opposite conclusion, urged upon us by respondents, would sanction the achievement by a State of any impairment of voting rights whatever so long as it was cloaked in the garb of the realignment of political subdivisions. Tt is inconceivable that guaranties embedded in the Constitution of the United States may thus be manipulated out of existence.’ ” 364 U. S., at 344-345.

To a second argument, that Colegrove v. Green, supra, was a barrier to hearing the merits of the case, the Court responded that Gomillion was lifted “out of the so-called 'political’ arena and into the conventional' sphere of constitutional litigation” because here was discriminatory treatment of a racial minority violating the Fifteenth Amendment.

“A statute which is alleged to have worked unconstitutional deprivations of petitioners’ rights is not immune to attack simply because the mechanism employed by the legislature is a redefinition of municipal boundaries. . . . While in form this is merely an act redefining metes and bounds, if the allegations are established, the inescapable human effect of this essay in geometry and geography is to despoil colored citizens, and only colored citizens, of *231their theretofore enjoyed voting rights. That was not Colegrove v. Green.

“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.” 364 U. S., at 347.57

We have not overlooked such cases as In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200, and Walton v. House of Representatives, 265 U. S. 487, which held that federal equity power could not be exercised to enjoin a state proceeding to remove a public officer. But these decisions explicitly reflect only a traditional limit upon equity jurisdiction, and not upon federal courts’ power to inquire into matters of state governmental organization. This is clear not only from the opinions in those cases, but also from White v. Berry, 171 U. S. 366, which, relying on Sawyer, withheld federal equity from staying removal of a federal officer. Wilson v. North Carolina, 169 U. S. 586, simply dismissed an appeal from an unsuccessful suit to upset a State’s removal procedure, on the ground that the constitutional claim presented — that a jury trial was necessary if the removal procedure was to comport with due process requirements — was frivolous. Finally, in Taylor and Marshall v. Beckham (No. 1), 178 U. S. 548, where losing candidates attacked the constitutionality of Kentucky’s resolution of a contested gubernatorial election, the Court refused to consider the merits of a claim posited upon *232the Guaranty Clause, holding it presented a political question, but also held on the merits that the ousted candidates had suffered no deprivation of property without due process of law.58

Since, as has been established, the equal protection claim tendered in this case does not require decision of any political question, and since the presence of a matter affecting state government does not render the case non-justiciable, it seems appropriate to examine again the reasoning by which the District Court reached its conclusion that the case was non justiciable.

We have already noted that the District Court’s holding that the subject matter of this complaint was non-justiciable relied upon Colegrove v. Green, supra, and later cases. Some of those concerned the choice of members of a state legislature, as in this case; others, like Colegrove itself and earlier precedents, Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375, and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, concerned the choice of Representatives in the Federal Congress. Smiley, Koenig and Carroll settled the issue in favor of justiciability of questions of congressional redistricting. The Court followed these precedents in Colegrove although over the dissent of three of the seven Justices who participated in that decision. On the issue of justiciability, all four Justices comprising a majority relied upon Smiley v. Holm, but in two opinions, one for three Justices, 328 U. S., at 566, 568, and a separate one by Mr. Justice Rutledge, 328 U. S., at 564. The argument that congressional redistricting problems presented a “political question” the resolution of which was confided to Congress might have been rested upon Art. I, § 4, Art. I, § 5, Art. I, § 2, and Amendment *233XIV, § 2. Mr. Justice Rutledge said: “But for the ruling in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, I should have supposed that the provisions of the Constitution, Art. I, § 4, that 'The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for . . . Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations . . .’; Art. I, § 2 [but see Amendment XIV, § 2], vesting in Congress the duty of apportionment of representatives among the several states ‘according to their respective Numbers’ ; and Art. I, § 5, making each House the sole judge of the qualifications of its own members, would remove the issues in this case from justiciable cognizance. But, in my judgment, the Smiley case rules squarely to the contrary, save only in the matter of degree. . . . Assuming that that decision is to stand, I think . . . that its effect is to rule that this Court has power to afford relief in a case of this type as against the objection that the issues are not justiciable.” 328 U. S., at 564-565. Accordingly, Mr. Justice Rutledge joined in the conclusion that the case was justiciable, although he held that the dismissal of the complaint should be affirmed. His view was that “The shortness of the time remaining [before forthcoming elections] makes it doubtful whether action could, or would, be taken in time to secure for petitioners the effective relief they seek. ... I think, therefore, the case is one in which the Court may properly, and should, decline to exercise its jurisdiction. Accordingly, the judgment should be affirmed and I join in that disposition of the cause.” 328 U. S., at 565-566.59

*234Article I, §§ 2, 4, and 5, and Amendment XIV, § 2, relate only to congressional elections and obviously do not govern apportionment of state legislatures. However, our decisions in favor of justiciability even in light of those provisions plainly afford no support for the District Court’s conclusion that the subject matter of this controversy presents a political question. Indeed, the refusal to award relief in Colegrove resulted only from the controlling view of a want of equity. Nor is anything contrary to be found in those per curiams that came after Colegrove. This Court dismissed the appeals in Cook v. Fortson and Turman v. Duckworth, 329 U. S. 675, as moot. MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, held only that in that case equity would not act to void the State’s requirement that there be at least a minimum of support for nom*235inees for state-wide office, over at least a minimal area of the State. Problems of timing were critical in Remmey v. Smith, 342 U. S. 916, dismissing for want of a substantial federal question a three-judge court’s dismissal of the suit as prematurely brought, 102 F. Supp. 708; and in Hartsfield v. Sloan, 357 U. S. 916, denying mandamus sought to compel the convening of a three-judge court— movants urged the Court to advance consideration of their case, “Inasmuch as the mere lapse of time before this case can be reached in the normal course of . . . business may defeat the cause, and inasmuch as the time problem is due to the inherent nature of the case . . . .” South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276, like Colegrove appears to be a refusal to exercise equity’s powers; see the statement of the holding, quoted, supra, p. 203. And Cox v. Peters, 342 U. S. 936, dismissed for want of a substantial federal question the appeal from the state court’s holding that their primary elections implicated no “state action.” See 208 Ga. 498, 67 S. E. 2d 579. But compare Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461.

Tedesco v. Board of Supervisors, 339 U. S. 940, indicates solely that no substantial federal question was raised by a state court’s refusal to upset the- districting of city council seats, especially as it was urged that there was a rational justification for the challenged districting. See 43 So. 2d 514. Similarly, in Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U. S. 912, it was certain only that the state court had refused to issue a discretionary writ, original mandamus in the Supreme Court. That had been denied without opinion, and of course it was urged here that an adequate state ground barred this Court’s review. And in Kidd v. McCanless, 200 Tenn. 273, 292 S. W. 2d 40, the Supreme Court of Tennessee held that it could not invalidate the very statute at issue in the case at bar, but its holding rested on its state law of remedies, i. e., the state view of *236de facto officers,60 and not on any view that the norm for legislative apportionment in Tennessee is not numbers of qualified voters resident in the several counties. Of course this Court was there precluded by the adequate state ground, and in dismissing the appeal, 352 U. S. 920, we cited Anderson, supra, as well as Colegrove. Nor does the Tennessee court’s decision in that case bear upon this, for just as in Smith v. Holm, 220 Minn. 486, 19 N. W. 2d 914, and Magraw v. Donovan, 163 F. Supp. 184, 177 F. Supp. 803, a state court’s inability to grant relief does not bar a federal court’s assuming jurisdiction to inquire into alleged deprivation of federal constitutional rights. Problems of relief also controlled in Radford v. Gary, 352 U. S. 991, affirming the District Court’s refusal to mandamus the Governor to call a session of the legislature, to mandamus the legislature then to apportion, and if they did not comply, to mandamus the State Supreme Court to do so. And Matthews v. Handley, 361 U. S. 127, affirmed a refusal to strike down the State’s gross income tax statute — urged on the ground that the legislature was malapportioned — that had rested on the adequacy of available state legal remedies for suits involving that tax, including challenges to its constitutionality. Lastly, Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804, in which Mr. Justice Rutledge concurred in this Court’s refusal to note the appeal from a dismissal for want of equity, is sufficiently- explained by his statement in Cook v. Fortson, supra: “The discretionary exercise or non-exercise of equitable or declaratory judgment jurisdiction ... in one case is not precedent in another case *237where the facts differ.” 329 U. S., at 678, n. 8. (Citations omitted.)

We conclude that the complaint’s allegations of a denial of equal protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision. The right asserted is within the reach of judicial protection under the Fourteenth Amendment,

The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice Whittaker did not participate in the decision of this case.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.

The Tennessee Code Annotated provides for representation in the General Assembly as follows:

“3-101. Composition — Counties electing one representative each. — The general assembly of the state of Tennessee shall be composed of thirty-three (33) senators and ninety-nine (99) representatives, to be apportioned among the qualified voters of the state as follows: Until the next enumeration and apportionment of voters each of the following counties shall elect one (1) representative, to wit: Bedford, Blount, Cannon, Carroll, Chester, Cocke, Claiborne, Coffee, Crockett, DeKalb, Dickson, Dyer, Fayette, Franklin, Giles, Greene, Hardeman, Hardin, Henry, Hickman, Hawkins, Haywood, Jackson, Lake, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Lincoln, Marion, Marshall, Maury, Monroe, Montgomery, Moore, McMinn, Mc-Nairy, Obion, Overton, Putnam, Roane, Robertson, Rutherford, Sevier, Smith, Stewart, Sullivan, Sumner, Tipton, Warren, Washington, White, Weakley, William*238son and Wilson. [Acts 1881 (E. S.), ch. 5, § 1; 1881 (E. S.), ch. 6, § 1; 1901, ch. 122, § 2; 1907, ch. 178, §§ 1, 2; 1915, ch. 145; Shan., § 123; Acts 1919, ch. 147, §§ 1, 2; 1925 Private, ch. 472, § 1; Code 1932, § 140; Acts 1935, ch. 150, § 1; 1941, ch. 58, § 1; 1945, ch. 68, § 1; C. Supp. 1950, § 140.]

“3-102. Counties electing two representatives each.— The following counties shall elect two (2) representatives each, to wit: Gibson and Madison. [Acts 1901, ch. 122, § 3; Shan., § 124; mod. Code 1932, § 141.]

“3-103. Counties electing three representatives each.— The following counties shall elect three (3) representatives each, to wit: Knox and Hamilton. [Acts 1901, ch. 122, § 4; Shan., § 125; Code 1932, § 142.]

“3-104. Davidson County. — Davidson county shall elect six (6) representatives. [Acts 1901, ch. 122, §5; Shan., § 126; Code 1932, § 143.]

“3-105. Shelby county. — Shelby county shall elect eight (8) representatives. Said county shall consist of eight (8) representative districts, numbered one (1) through eight (8), each district co-extensive with the county, with one (1) representative to be elected from each district. [Acts 1901, ch. 122, §6; Shan., §126a1; Code 1932, § 144; Acts 1957, ch. 220, § 1; 1959, ch. 213, §1.]

“3-106. Joint representatives. — The following counties jointly, shall elect one representative, as follows, to wit:

“First district — Johnson and Carter.

“Second district — Sullivan and Hawkins.

“Third district — Washington, Greene and Unicoi.

“Fourth district — Jefferson and Hamblen.

“Fifth district — Hancock and Grainger.

“Sixth district — Scott, Campbell, and Union.

“Seventh district — Anderson and Morgan.

“Eighth district — Knox and Loudon.

*239“Ninth district — Polk and Bradley.

“Tenth district — Meigs and Rhea.

“Eleventh district — Cumberland, Bledsoe, Sequatchie, Van Burén and Grundy.

“Twelfth district — Fentress, Pickett, Overton, Clay and Putnam.

“Fourteenth district — Sumner, Trousdale and Macon.

“Fifteenth district — Davidson and Wilson.

“Seventeenth district — Giles, Lewis, Maury and Wayne.

“Eighteenth district — Williamson, Cheatham and Robertson.

“Nineteenth district — Montgomery and Houston.

“Twentieth district — Humphreys and Perry.

“Twenty-first district — Benton and Decatur.

“Twenty-second district — Henry, Weakley and Carroll.

“Twenty-third district — Madison and Henderson.

“Twenty-sixth district — Tipton and Lauderdale. [Acts 1901, ch. 122, § 7; 1907, ch. 178, §§ 1, 2; 1915, ch. 145, §|1, 2; Shan., § 127; Acts 1919, ch. 147, § 1; 1925 Private, ch. 472, § 2; Code 1932, § 145; Acts 1933, ch. 167, § 1; 1935, ch. 150, § 2; 1941, ch. 58, § 2; 1945, ch. 68, § 2; C. Supp. 1950, § 145; Acts 1957, ch. 220, § 2.]

“3-107. State senatorial districts. — Until the next enumeration and apportionment of voters, the following counties shall comprise the senatorial districts, to wit:

“First district — Johnson, Carter, Unicoi, Greene, and Washington.

“Second district — Sullivan and Hawkins.

“Third district — Hancock, Morgan, Grainger, Claiborne, Union, Campbell, and Scott.

“Fourth district — Cocke, Hamblen, Jefferson, Sevier, and Blount.

“Fifth district — Knox.

“Sixth district — Knox, Loudon, Anderson, and Roane.

*240“Seventh district — McMinn, Bradley, Monroe, and Polk.

“Eighth district — Hamilton.

“Ninth district — Rhea, Meigs, Bledsoe, Sequatchie, Van Burén, White, and Cumberland.

“Tenth district — Fentress, Pickett, Clay, Overton, Putnam, and Jackson.

“Eleventh district — Marion, Franklin, Grundy and Warren.

“Twelfth district — Rutherford, Cannon, and DeKalb.

“Thirteenth district — Wilson and Smith.

“Fourteenth district — Sumner, Trousdale and Macon.

“Fifteenth district — Montgomery and Robertson.

“Sixteenth district — Davidson.

“Seventeenth district — Davidson'.

“Eighteenth district — Bedford, Coffee and Moore.

“Nineteenth district — Lincoln and Marshall.

“Twentieth district — Maury, Perry and Lewis.

“Twenty-first district — Hickman, Williamson and Cheatham.

“Twenty-second district — Giles, Lawrence and Wayne.

“Twenty-third district — Dickson, Humphreys, Houston and Stewart.

“Twenty-fourth district — Henry and Carroll.

“Twenty-fifth district — Madison, Henderson and Chester.

“Twenty-sixth district — Hardeman, McNairy, Hardin, Decatur and Benton.

“Twenty-seventh district — Gibson.

“Twenty-eighth district — Lake, Obion and Weakley.

“Twenty-ninth district — Dyer, Lauderdale and Crockett.

“Thirtieth district — Tipton and Shelby.

“Thirty-first district — Haywood and Fayette.

“Thirty-second district — Shelby.

*241“Thirty-third district — Shelby. [Acts 1901, ch. 122, § 1; 1907, ch. 3, § 1; Shan., § 128; Code 1932, § 146; Acts 1945, ch. 11, § 1; C. Supp. 1950, § 146.]”

Today’s apportionment statute is as enacted in 1901, with minor changes. For example:

(1) In 1957, Shelby County was raised from 7% to 8 representatives. Acts of 1957, c. 220. See also Acts of 1959, c. 213. The 1957 Act, § 2, abolished the Twenty-seventh Joint Representative District, which had included Shelby and Fayette Counties.

(2) In 1907, Marion County was given a whole House seat instead of sharing a joint seat with Franklin County. Acts of 1907, c. 178. Acts of 1915, c. 145, repealed that change, restoring the status quo ante. And that reversal was itself reversed, Acts of 1919, c. 147.

(3) James County was in 1901 one of five counties in the Seventh State Senate District and one of the three in the Ninth House District. It appears that James County no longer exists but we are not advised when or how it was dissolved.

(4) In 1945, Anderson and Roane Counties were shifted to the Sixth State Senate District from the Seventh, and Monroe and Polk Counties were shifted to the Seventh from the Sixth. Acts of 1945, c. 11.

1

Public Acts of Tennessee, c. 122 (1901), now Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 3-101 to 3-107. The full text of the 1901 Act as amended appears in an Appendix to this opinion, post, p. 237.

2

The three-judge court was convened pursuant to the order of a single district judge, who, after he had reviewed certain decisions of this Court and found them distinguishable in features “that may ultimately prove to be significant,” held that the complaint was not so obviously without merit that he would be justified in refusing to convene a three-judge court. 175 F. Supp. 649, 652.

3

We heard argument first at the 1960 Term and again at this Term when the case was set over for reargument. 366 U. S. 907.

4

A county having less than, but at least two-thirds of, the population required to choose a Representative is allocated one Representative. See also Tenn. Const., Art. II, § 6. A common and much more substantial departure from the number-of-voters or total-population standard is the guaranty of at least one seat to each county. See, e. g., Kansas Const., Art. 2, § 2; N. J. Const., Art. 4, § 3, ¶ 1.

While the Tennessee Constitution speaks of the number of “qualified voters,” the exhibits attached to the complaint use figures based on the number of persons 21 years of age and over. This basis seems to have been employed by the General Assembly in apportioning legislative seats from the outset. The 1870 statute providing for the first enumeration, Acts of 1870 (1st Sess.), c. 107, directed the courts of *190the several counties to select a Commissioner to enumerate “all the male inhabitants of their respective counties, who are twenty-one years of age and upward, who shall be resident citizens of their counties on the first day of January, 1871 ...” Reports compiled in the several counties on this basis were submitted to the General Assembly by the Secretary of State and were used in the first apportionment. Appendix to Tenn. S. J., 1871, 41-43. Yet such figures would not reflect the numbers of persons qualified to exercise the franchise under the then-governing qualifications: (a) citizenship; (b) residence in the State 12 months, and in the county 6 months; (c) payment of poll taxes for the preceding year unless entitled to exemption. Acts of 1870 (2d Sess.), c. 10. (These qualifications continued at least until after 1901. See Shan. Tenn. Code Ann., §§ 1167, 1220 (1896; Supp. 1904).) Still, when the General Assembly directed the Secretary of State to do all he could to obtain complete reports from the counties, the Resolution spoke broadly of “the impossibility of . . . [redistricting] without the census returns of the voting population from each county . . . .” Tenn. S. J., 1871, 46-47, 96. The figures also showed a correlation with Federal Census figures for 1870. The Census reported 259,016 male citizens 21 and upward in Tennessee. Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Statistics of the Population 635 (1872). The Tennessee Secretary of State’s Report, with 15 counties not reported, gave a figure of 237,431. Using the numbers of actual votes in the last gubernatorial election for those 15 counties, the Secretary arrived at a total of 250,025. Appendix to Tenn. S. J., 1871, 41-43. This and subsequent history indicate continued reference to Census figures and finally in 1901, abandonment of a state enumeration in favor of the use of Census figures. See notes 7, 8, 9, infra. See also Williams, Legislative Apportionment in Tennessee, 20 Tenn. L. Rev. 235, 236, n. 6. It would therefore appear that unless there is a contrary showing at the trial, appellants’ current figures, taken from the United States Census Reports, are apposite.

5

Acts of 1871 (1st Sess.), c. 146.

6

Acts of 1870 (1st Sess.), c. 107.

7

The statute authorizing the enumeration was Acts of 1881 (1st Sess.), c. 124. The enumeration commissioners in the counties were allowed “access to the U. S. Census Reports of the enumeration of 1880, on file in the offices of the County Court Clerks of the State, and a reference to said reports by said commissioners shall be legitimate as an auxiliary in the enumeration required . . . .” Ibid., § 4.

The United States Census reported 330,305 male citizens 21 and upward in Tennessee. The Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Compendium 596 (1883). The Tennessee Secretary of State’s Report gave a figure of 343,817, Tenn. H. J. (1st Extra. Sess.), 1881, 12-14 (1882).

The General Assembly was enlarged in accordance with the constitutional mandate since the State’s population had passed 1,500,000. Acts of 1881 (1st Extra. Sess.), c. 5; and see, id., S. J. Res. No. Ill; see also Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Statistics of the Population 77 (1881). The statute apportioning the General Assembly was Acts of 1881 (1st Extra. Sess.), c. 6.

8

Acts of 1891, c. 22; Acts of 1891 (Extra. Sess.), c. 10. Reference to United States Census figures was allowed just as in 1881, see supra, n. 7. The United States Census reported 402,476 males 21 and over in Tennessee. The Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, Population (Part I) 781 (1895). The Tennessee Secretary of State’s Report gave a figure of 399,575. 1 Tenn. S. J., 1891, 473-474.

9

Acts of 1901, S. J. Res. No. 35; Acts of 1901, c. 122. The Joint Resolution said: “The Federal census of 1900 has been very recently taken and by reference to said Federal census an accurate enumeration of the qualified voters of the respective counties of the State of Tennessee can be ascertained and thereby save the expense of an actual enumeration . . . .”

10

For the history of legislative apportionment in Tennessee, including attempts made since 1901, see Tenn. S. J., 1959, 909-930; *192and “A Documented Survey of Legislative Apportionment in Tennessee, 1870-1957,” which is attached as exhibit 2 to the intervening complaint of Mayor West of Nashville, both prepared by the Tennessee State Historian, Dr. Robert H. White. Examples of preliminary steps are: In 1911, the Senate called upon the Redistricting Committee to make an enumeration of qualified voters and to use the Federal Census of 1910 as the basis. Acts of 1911, S. J. Res. No. 60, p. 315. Similarly, in 1961, the Senate called for appointment of a select committee to make an enumeration of qualified voters. Acts of 1961, S. J. Res. No. 47. In 1955, the Senate called for a study of reapportionment. Tenn. S. J., 1955, 224; but see id., at 1403. Similarly, in 1961, the House directed the State Legislative Council to study methods of reapportionment. Acts of 1961, H. J. Res. No. 65.

11

Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Population (Part 1) 39 (1901); (Part 2) 202 (1902).

12

United States Census of Population: 1960, General Population Characteristics — Tennessee, Table 16 (1961).

13

In the words of one of the intervening complaints, the apportionment was “wholly arbitrary, . . . and, indeed, based upon no lawfully pertinent factor whatever.”

14

The appellants claim that no General Assembly constituted according to the 1901 Act will -submit reapportionment proposals either to the people or to a Constitutional Convention. There is no provision for popular initiative in Tennessee. Amendments proposed in the Senate or House must first be approved by a majority of all members of each House and again by two-thirds of the members in the General Assembly next chosen. The proposals are then submitted to the people at the next general election in which a Governor is to be chosen. Alternatively, the legislature may submit to the people at any general election the question of calling a convention to consider specified proposals. Such as are adopted at a convention do not, however, become effective unless approved by a majority of the qualified voters voting separately on each proposed change or amendment at an election fixed by the convention. Conventions shall not ..be held oftener than once in six years. Tenn. Const., Art. XI, § 3. Acts of 1951, c. 130, § 3, and Acts of 1957, c. 340, § 3, provided that delegates to the 1953 and 1959 conventions were to be chosen from the counties and floterial districts just as are members of the State House of Representatives. The General Assembly’s call for a 1953 Constitutional Convention originally contained a provision “relating to the appointment [sic] of representatives and senators” but this was excised. Tenn. H. J., 1951, 784. A Resolution introduced at the 1959 Constitutional Convention and reported unfavorably by the Rules Committee of the Convention was as follows:

“By Mr. Chambliss (of Hamilton County), Resolution No. 12— Relative to Convention considering reapportionment, which is as follows:

“Whereas, there is a rumor that this Limited Convention has been called for the purpose of postponing for six years a Convention that would make a decision as to reapportionment; and

*194“Whereas, there is pending in the United States Courts in Tennessee a suit under which parties are seeking, through decree, to compel reapportionment; and

“Whereas, it is said that this Limited Convention, which was called for limited consideration, is yet a Constitutional Convention within the language of the Constitution as to Constitutional Conventions, forbidding frequent Conventions in the last sentence of Article Eleven, Section 3, second paragraph, more often than each six years, to-wit:

“ ‘No such Convention shall be held oftener than once in six years.’

“Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, That it is the consensus of opinion of the members of this Convention that since this is a Limited Convention as hereinbefore set forth another Convention could be had if it did not deal with the matters submitted to this Limited Convention.

“Be It Further Resolved, That it is the consensus of opinion of this Convention that a Convention should be called by the General Assembly for the purpose of considering reapportionment in order that a possibility of Court enforcement being forced on the Sovereign State of Tennessee by the Courts of the National Government may be avoided.

“Be It Further Resolved, That this Convention be adjourned for two years to meet again at the same time set forth in the statute providing for this Convention, and that it is the consensus of opinion of this body that it is within the power of the next General Assembly of Tennessee to broaden the powers of this Convention and to authorize and empower this Convention to consider a proper amendment to the Constitution that will provide, when submitted to the electorate, a method of reapportionment.” Tenn. Constitutional Convention of 1959, The Journal and Debates, 35, 278.

15

It is clear that appellants’ federal constitutional claims rest exclusively on alleged violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Their primary claim is that the 1901 statute violates the Equal Protection Clause of that amendment. There are allegations invoking the Due Process Clause but from the argument and the exhibits it appears that the Due Process Clause argument is directed at certain tax statutes. Insofar as the claim involves the validity of those statutes *195under the Due Process Clause we find it unnecessary to decide its merits. And if the allegations regarding the tax statutes are designed as the framework for proofs as to the effects of the allegedly discriminatory apportionment, we need not rely upon them to support our holding that the complaint states a federal constitutional claim of violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Whether, when the issue to be decided is one of the constitutional adequacy of this particular apportionment, taxation arguments and exhibits as now presented add anything, or whether they could add anything however presented, is for the District Court in the first instance to decide.

The complaint, in addition to the claims under the Federal Constitution, also alleges rights, and the General Assembly’s duties, under the Tennessee Constitution. Since we hold that appellants have — if it develops at trial that the facts support the allegations — a cognizable federal constitutional cause of action resting in no degree on rights guaranteed or putatively guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution, we do not consider, let alone enforce, rights under a State Constitution which go further than the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. Lastly, we need not assess the legal significance, in reaching our conclusion, of the statements of the complaint that the apportionment effected today under the 1901 Act is “contrary to the philosophy of government in the United States and all Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence . . . .”

16

We need not reach the question of indispensable parties because the District Court has not yet decided it.

17

The accuracy of calling even such dismissals “jurisdictional” was questioned in Bell v. Hood. See 327 U. S., at 683.

18

42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides: “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”

19

This Court has frequently sustained District Court jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3) or its predecessors to entertain suits to redress deprivations of rights secured against state infringement by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth *201Amendment. Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157; Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117; cf. Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536; Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73; Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649; Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167; Egan v. Aurora, 365 U. S. 514.

20

Since that case was not brought to the Court until after the election had been held, the Court cited not only Wood v. Broom, but also directed dismissal for mootness, citing Brownlow v. Schwartz, 261 U. S. 216.

21

Compare Boeing Aircraft Co. v. King County, 330 U. S. 803 (“the appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction”). See Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 440.

22

Matthews did affirm, a judgment that may be read as a dismissal for want of jurisdiction, 179 F. Supp. 470. However, the motion to affirm also rested on the ground of failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Cf. text following, on MacDougall v. Green. And see text, infra, p. 236.

23

The Mayor of Nashville suing “on behalf of himself and all residents of the City of Nashville, Davidson County, . . and the Cities of Chattanooga (Hamilton County) and Knoxville (Knox County), each suing on behalf of its residents, were permitted to intervene as parties plaintiff. Since they press the same claims as do the initial plaintiffs, we find it unnecessary to decide whether the intervenors would have standing to maintain this action in their asserted representative capacities.

24

The complaint also contains an averment that the appellants sue “on their own behalf and on behalf of all other voters in the State of Tennessee.” (Emphasis added.) This may be read to assert a claim that voters in counties allegedly over-represented in the General Assembly also have standing to complain. But it is not necessary to decide that question in this case.

25

The duties of the respective appellees are alleged to be as follows:

“Defendant, Joe C. Carr, is the duly elected, qualified and acting Secretary of State of the State of Tennessee, with his office in Nashville in said State, and as such he is charged with the duty of furnishing blanks, envelopes and information slips to the County Election Commissioners, certifying the results of elections and maintaining the records thereof; and he is further ex officio charged, together with the Governor and the Attorney General, with the duty of examining the election returns received from the County Election Commissioners and declaring the .election results, by the applicable provisions of the Tennessee Code Annotated, and by Chapter 164 of the Acts of 1949, inter alia.

“Defendant, George F. McCanless, is the duly appointed and acting Attorney General of the State of Tennessee, with his office in Nashville in said State, and is charged with the duty of advising the officers of the State upon the law, and is made by Section 23-1107 of the Tennessee Code Annotated a necessary party defendant in any declaratory judgment action where the constitutionality of statutes of the State of Tennessee is attacked, and he is ex-officio charged, together with the Governor and the Secretary of State, with the duty of declaring the election results, under Section 2-140 of the Tennessee Code Annotated.

“Defendant, Jerry McDonald, is the duly appointed Coordinator of Elections in the State of Tennessee, with his office in Nashville, Tennessee, and as suph official, is charged with the duties set forth in the public law enacted by the 1959 General Assembly of Tennessee creating said office.

“Defendants, Dr. Sam Coward, James Alexander, and Hubert Brooks are the duly appointed and qualified members constituting *206the State Board of Elections, and as such they are charged with the duty of appointing the Election Commissioners for all the counties of the State of Tennessee, the organization and supervision of the biennial elections as provided by the Statutes of Tennessee, Chapter 9 of Title 2 of the Tennessee Code Annotated, Sections 2-901, et seq.

“That this action is brought against the aforenamed defendants in their representative capacities, and that said Election Commissioners are sued also as representatives of all of the County Election Commissioners in the State of Tennessee, such persons being so numerous as to make it impracticable to bring them all before the court; that there is a common question of law involved, namely, the constitutionality of Tennessee laws set forth in the Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 3-101 through Section 3-109, inclusive; that common relief is sought against all members of said Election Commissions in their official capacities, it being the duties of the aforesaid County Election Commissioners, within their respective jurisdictions, to appoint the judges of elections, to maintain the registry of qualified voters of said County, certify the results of elections held in said County to the defendants State Board of Elections and Secretary of State, and of preparing ballots and taking other steps to prepare for and hold elections in said Counties by virtue of Sections 2-1201, et seq. of Tennessee Code Annotated, and Section 2-301, et seq. of Tennessee Code Annotated, and Chapter 164 of the Acts of 1949, inter alia.”

The question whether the named defendants are sufficient parties remains open for consideration on remand.

26

Smiley v. Holm, supra, at 361 (“ citizen, elector and taxpayer’ of the State”); Koenig v. Flynn, supra, at 379 (“ 'citizens and voters’ of the State”) Wood v. Broom, supra, at 4 (“citizen of Mississippi, a qualified elector under its laws, and also qualified to be a candidate for election as representative in Congress”); cf. Carroll v. Becker, supra (candidate for office).

27

Mr. Justice Rutledge was of the view that any question of standing was settled in Smiley v. Holm, supra; MR. Justice BlacK stated “that appellants had standing to sue, since the facts alleged show that *207they have been injured as individuals.” He relied on Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 438, 467. See 328 U. S. 564, 568.

Commentators have suggested that the following statement in Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s opinion might imply a view that appellants there had no standing: “This is not an action to recover for damage because of the discriminatory exclusion of a plaintiff from rights enjoyed by other citizens. The basis for the suit is not a private wrong, but a wrong suffered by Illinois as a polity.” 328 U. S., at 552. See Jaffe, Standing to Secure Judicial Review: Public Actions, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 1265, 1298 (1961); Lewis, Legislative Apportionment and the Federal Courts, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 1057, 1081-1083 (1958). But since the opinion goes on to consider the merits, it seems that this statement was not intended to intimate any view that the plaintiffs in that action lacked standing. Nor do the cases cited immediately after the above quotation deal with standing. See especially Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, 272-273.

28

MacDougall v. Green, supra, at 282 (“the ‘Progressive Party,’ its nominees for United States Senator, Presidential Electors, and State offices, and several Illinois voters”); South v. Peters, supra, at 277 (“residents of the most populous county in the State”); Radford v. Gary, 145 F. Supp. 541, 542 (“citizen of Oklahoma and resident and voter in the most populous county”); Matthews v. Handley, supra (“citizen of the State”); see also Hawke v. Smith (No. 1), 253 U. S. 221; Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130; Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 437-446.

29

Cook v. Fortson, 329 U. S. 675; Turman v. Duckworth, ibid.; Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804; MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281; South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276; Remmey v. Smith, 342 U. S. 916; *209Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U. S. 912; Kidd v. McCanless, 352 U. S. 920; Radford v. Gary, 352 U. S. 991.

30

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” U. S. Const., Art. IV, § 4.

31

E. g., “The conduct of the foreign relations of our Government is committed by the Constitution to the Executive and Legislative— 'the political’ — Departments of the Government, and the propriety of what may be done in the exercise of this political power is not subject to judicial inquiry or decision.” Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U. S. 297, 302.

32

See Doe v. Braden, 16 How. 635, 657; Taylor v. Morton, 23 Fed. Cas., No. 13,799 (C. C. D. Mass.) (Mr. Justice Curtis), affirmed, 2 Black 481.

33

See Doe v. Braden, 16 How. 635, 657.

34

And see Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503.

35

United States v. Klintock, 5 Wheat. 144, 149; see also United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 634-635.

36

Foster & Elam v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, 307; and see Williams v. Suffolk Insurance Co., 13 Pet. 415, 420.

37

Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U. S. 377, 380; De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1, 180-200.

38

See, e. g., Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, 426.

39

Contrast Martin v. Mott, supra.

40

But cf. Dakota Central Tel. Co. v. South Dakota, 260 U. S. 163, 184, 187.

41

Cf. Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U. S. 368. See also United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 732.

42

See also Fellows v. Blacksmith, 19 How. 366, 372; United States v. Old Settlers, 148 U. S. 427, 466; and compare Doe v. Braden, 16 How. 635, 657.

43

This case, so frequently cited for the broad proposition that the status of an Indian tribe is a matter for the political departments, is in fact a noteworthy example of the limited and precise impact of a political question. The Cherokees brought an original suit in this Court to enjoin Georgia’s assertion of jurisdiction over Cherokee territory and abolition of Cherokee government and laws. Unquestionably the case lay at the vortex of most fiery political embroilment. See 1 Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Rev. ed.), 729-779. But in spite of some broader language in separate opinions, all that the Court held was that it possessed no original jurisdiction over the suit: for the Cherokees could in no view be considered either a State of this Union or a “foreign state.” Chief Justice Marshall treated the question as one of de novo interpretation of words in the Constitution. The Chief Justice did say that “The acts of our government plainly recognize the Cherokee nation *216as a state, and the courts are bound by those acts,” but here he referred to their existence “as a state, as a distinct political society, separated from others . . . .” From there he went to “A question of much more difficulty .... Do the Cherokees constitute a foreign state in the sense of the constitution?” Id., at 16. Thus, while the Court referred to “the political” for the decision whether the tribe was an entity, a separate polity, it held that whether being an entity the tribe had such status as to be entitled to sue originally was a judicially soluble issue: criteria were discoverable in relevant phrases of the Constitution and in the common understanding of the times. As to this issue, the Court was not hampered by problems of the management of unusual evidence or of possible interference with a congressional program. Moreover, Chief Justice Marshall’s dictum that “It savours too much of the exercise of political power to be within the proper province of the judicial department,” id., at 20, was not addressed to the issue of the Cherokees’ status to sue, but rather to the breadth of the claim asserted and the impropriety of the relief sought. Compare Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, 77. The Chief Justice made clear that if the issue of the Cherokees’ rights arose in a customary legal context, “a proper case with proper parties,” it would be justiciable. Thus, when the same dispute produced a case properly brought, in which the right asserted was one of protection under federal treaties and laws from conflicting state law, and the relief sought was the voiding of a conviction under that state law, the Court did void the conviction. Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515. There, the fact that the tribe was a separate polity served as a datum contributing to the result, and despite the consequences in a heated federal-state controversy and the opposition of the other branches of the National Government, the judicial power acted to reverse the State Supreme Court. An example of similar isolation of a political question in the decision of a case is Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1, see infra.

44

7 How., at 29. And see 11 The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster 217 (1903).

45

See Mowry, The Dorr War (1901), and its exhaustive bibliography. And for an account of circumstances surrounding the deei-cion here, see 2 Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Rev. ed.), 185-195.

Dorr himself, head of one of the two groups and held in a Rhode Island jail under a conviction for treason, had earlier sought a decision from the Supreme Court that his was the lawful government. His application for original habeas corpus in the Supreme Court was *219denied because the federal courts then lacked authority to issue habeas for a prisoner held under a state court sentence. Ex parte Dorr, 3 How. 103.

46

7 How., at 39.

47

Id., at 39, 40.

48

Even though the Court wrote of unrestrained legislative and executive authority under this Guaranty, thus making its enforcement a political question, the Court plainly implied that the political question barrier was no absolute: “Unquestionably a military government, established as the permanent government of the State, would not be a republican government, and it would be the duty of Congress to overthrow it.” 7 How., at 45. Of course, it does not necessarily follow that if Congress did not act, the Court would. For while the judiciary might be able to decide the limits of the meaning of “republican form,” and thus the factor of lack of criteria might fall away, there would remain other possible barriers to decision because of primary commitment to another branch, which would have to be considered in the particular fact setting presented.

That was not the only occasion on which this Court indicated that lack of criteria does not obliterate the Guaranty’s extreme limits: “The guaranty is of a republican form of government. No particular government is designated as republican, neither is the exact form to be guaranteed, in any manner especially designated. Here, as in other parts of the instrument, we are compelled to resort elsewhere to ascertain what was intended.

“The guaranty necessarily implies a duty on the part of the States themselves to provide such a government. All the States had governments when the Constitution was adopted. In all the people participated to some extent, through their representatives elected in the manner specially provided. These governments the Constitution did not change. They were accepted precisely as they were, and it *223is, therefore, to be presumed that they were such as it was the duty of the States to provide. Thus we have unmistakable evidence of what was republican in form, within the meaning of that term as employed in the Constitution.” Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 175-176. There, the question was whether a government republican in form could deny the vote to women.

In re Duncan, 139 U. S. 449, upheld a murder conviction against a claim that the relevant codes had been invalidly enacted. The Court there said:

“By the Constitution, a republican form of government is guaranteed to every State in the Union, and the distinguishing feature of that form is the right of the people to choose their own officers for governmental administration, and pass their own laws in virtue of the legislative power reposed in representative bodies, whose legitimate acts may be said to be those of the people themselves; but, while the people are thus the source of political power, their governments, National and State, have been limited by written constitutions, and they have themselves thereby set bounds to their own power, as against the sudden impulses of mere majorities.” 139 U. S., at 461. But the Court did not find any of these fundamental principles violated.

49

But cf. Hawke v. Smith (No. 1), 253 U. S. 221; National Prohibition Cases, 253 U. S. 350.

50

6 Wall., at 65, 66.

51

The First Reconstruction Act opened: “Whereas no legal State governments . . . now exists [sic] in the rebel States of . . . Georgia [and] Mississippi . . . ; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: . . .” 14 Stat. 428. And see 15 Stat. 2, 14.

52

In Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475, the State sought to enjoin the President from executing the Acts, alleging that his role was purely ministerial. The Court held that the duties were in no sense ministerial, and that although the State sought to compel inaction rather than action, the absolute lack of precedent for any such distinction left the case one in which “general principles . . . forbid judicial interference with the exercise of Executive discretion.” 4 Wall., at 499. See also Mississippi v. Stanton, 154 U. S. 554; and see 2 Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Rev. ed.), 463.

For another instance of congressional action challenged as transgressing the Guaranty Clause, see The Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 125-126, overruled, Graves v. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466.

53

On the other hand, the implication of the Guaranty Clause in a case concerning congressional action does not always preclude judicial action. It has been held that the clause gives Congress no power to impose restrictions upon a State’s admission which would undercut the constitutional mandate that the States be on an equal footing. Coyle v. Smith, 221 U. S. 559. And in Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, although Congress had determined that the State’s government was not republican in form, the State’s standing to bring an original action in this Court was sustained.

54

See, infra, p. 235, considering Kidd v. McCanless, 352 U. S. 920.

55

Boyd v. Nebraska ex rel. Thayer, 143 U. S. 135, 183 (Field, J., dissenting).

56

Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 270 F. 2d 594, relying upon, inter alia, Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U. S. 161.

57

The Court’s opinion was joined by Mr. Justice Douglas, noting his adherence to the dissents in Colegrove and South v. Peters, supra; and the judgment was concurred in by Mr. Justice Whittaker, who wrote that the decision should rest on the Equal Protection Clause rather than on the Fifteenth Amendment, since there had been not solely a denial of the vote (if there had been that at all) but also a “fencing out” of a racial group.

58

No holding to the contrary is to be found in Cave v. Newell, 246 U. S. 650, dismissing a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Missouri, 272 Mo. 653, 199 S. W. 1014; or in Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1.

59

The ground of Mr. Justice Rutledge’s vote to affirm is further explained in Ms footnote 3, 328 U. S., at 566: “ ‘The power of a court of equity to act is a discretionary one. . . . Where a federal court of equity is asked to interfere with the enforcement of state laws, it should do so only “to prevent irreparable injury which is clear and *234imminent.” ’ American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582, 593 and cases cited.”

No constitutional questions, including the question whether voters have a judicially enforceable constitutional right to vote at elections of congressmen from districts of equal population, were decided in Cole-grove. Six of the participating Justices reached the questions but divided three to three on their merits. Mr. Justice Rutledge believed that it was not necessary to decide them. He said: “There is [an alternative to constitutional decision] in this case. And I think the gravity of the constitutional questions raised so great, together with the possibilities for collision [with the political departments of the Government], that the admonition [against avoidable constitutional decision] is appropriate to be followed here. Other reasons support this view, including the fact that, in my opinion, the basic ruling and less important ones in Smiley v. Holm, supra, would otherwise be brought into question.” 328 U. S., at 564-565. He also joined with his brethren who shared his view that the issues were justiciable in considering that Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, decided no constitutional questions but “the Court disposed of the cause on the ground that the 1929 Reapportionment Act, 46 Stat. 21, did not carry forward the requirements of the 1911 Act, 37 Stat. 13, and declined to decide whether there was equity in the bill.” 328 U. S., at 565; see also, id., at 573. We agree with this view of Wood v. Broom.

60

See also Buford v. State Board of Elections, 206 Tenn. 480, 334 S. W. 2d 726; State ex rel. Sanborn v. Davidson County Board of Election Comm’rs, No. 36,391 Tenn. Sup. Ct., Oct. 29, 1954 (unreported); 8 Vand. L. Rev. 501 (1955).

Mr. Justice Douglas,

concurring.

While I join the opinion of the Court and, like the Court, do not reach the merits, a word of explanation is necessary.1 I put to one side the problems of “politi*242cal” questions involving the distribution of power between this Court, the Congress, and the Chief Executive. We have here a phase of the recurring problem of the relation of the federal courts to state agencies. More particularly, the question is the extent to which a State may weight one person’s vote more heavily than it does another’s.

So far as voting rights are concerned, there are large gaps in the Constitution. Yet the right to vote is inherent in the republican form of government envisaged by Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. The House-and now the Senate — are chosen by the people. The time, manner, and place of elections of Senators and Representatives are left to the States (Article I, Section 4, Clause 1; Amendment XVII) subject to the regulatory power of Congress. A “republican form” of government is guaranteed each State by Article IV, Section 4, and each is likewise promised protection against invasion.2 Ibid. *243That the States may specify the qualifications for voters is implicit in Article I, Section 2, Clause 1, which provides that the House of Representatives shall be chosen by the *244people and that “the Electors (voters) in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors (voters) of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” The same provision, contained in the Seventeenth Amendment, governs the election of Senators. Within limits those qualifications may be fixed by state law. See Lassiter v. Northampton Election Board, 360 U. S. 45, 50-51. Yet, as stated in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 663-664, those who vote for members of Congress do not “owe their right to vote to the State law in any sense which makes the exercise of the right to depend exclusively on the law of the State.” The power of Congress to prescribe the qualifications for voters and thus override state law is not in issue here. It is, however, clear that by reason of the commands of the Constitution there are several qualifications that a State may not require.

Race, color, or previous condition of servitude is an impermissible standard by reason of the Fifteenth Amendment, and that alone is sufficient to explain Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. See Taper, Gomillion versus Lightfoot (1962), pp. 12-17.

Sex is another impermissible standard by reason of the Nineteenth Amendment.

There is a third barrier to a State’s freedom in prescribing qualifications of voters and that is the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the provision invoked here. And so the question is, may a State weight the vote of one county or one district more heavily than it weights the vote in another?

The traditional test under the Equal Protection Clause has been whether a State has made “an invidious discrimination,” as it does when it selects “a particular race or nationality for oppressive treatment.” See Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 541. Universal equality is not *245the test; there is room for weighting. As we stated in Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489, “The prohibition of the Equal Protection Clause goes no further than the invidious discrimination.”

I agree with my Brother Clark that if the allegations in the complaint can be sustained a case for relief is established. We are told that a single vote in Moore County, Tennessee, is worth 19 votes in Hamilton County, that one vote in Stewart or in Chester County is worth nearly eight times a single vote in Shelby or Knox County. The opportunity to prove that an “invidious discrimination” exists should therefore be given the appellants.

It is said that any decision in cases of this kind is beyond the competence of courts. Some make the same point as regards the problem of equal protection in cases involving racial segregation. Yet the legality of claims and conduct is a traditional subject for judicial determination. Adjudication is often perplexing and complicated. An example of the extreme complexity of the task can be seen in a decree apportioning water among the several States. Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U. S. 589, 665. The constitutional guide is often vague, as the decisions under the Due Process and Commerce Clauses show. The problem under the Equal Protection Clause is no more intricate. See Lewis, Legislative Apportionment and the Federal Courts, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 1057, 1083-1084.

There are, of course, some questions beyond judicial competence. Where the performance of a “duty” is left to the discretion and good judgment of an executive officer, the judiciary will not compel the exercise of his discretion one way or the other (Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, 109), for to do so would be to take over the office. Cf. Federal Communications Comm’n v. Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 145.

*246Where the Constitution assigns a particular function wholly and indivisibly3 to another department, the federal judiciary does not intervene. Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U. S. 297, 302. None of those cases is relevant here.

*247There is no doubt that the federal courts have jurisdiction of controversies concerning voting rights. The Civil Rights Act gives them authority to redress the deprivation “under color of any State law” of any “right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States or by any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens . . . .” 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3). And 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (4) gives the federal courts authority to award damages or issue an injunction to redress the violation of “any Act of Congress providing for the protection of civil rights, including the right to vote.” (Italics added.) The element of state action covers a wide range. For as stated in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 326:

“Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken ‘under color of state law.” And see Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167.

The right to vote in both federal and state elections was protected by the judiciary long before that right received the explicit protection it is now accorded by § 1343 (4). Discrimination against a voter on account of race has been penalized (Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651) or struck down. Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649; Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461. Fraudulent acts that dilute the votes of some *248have long been held to be within judicial cognizance. Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371. The “right to have one’s vote counted” whatever his race or nationality or creed was held in United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383, 386, to be “as open to protection by Congress as the right to put a ballot in a box.” See also United States v. Classic, supra, 324-325; United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385.

Chief Justice Holt stated in Ashby v. White, 2 Ld. Raym. 938, 956 (a suit in which damages were awarded against election officials for not accepting the plaintiff’s vote, 3 Ld. Raym. 320) that:

“To allow this action will make publick officers more careful to observe the constitution of cities and boroughs, and not to be so partial as they commonly are in all elections, which is indeed a great and growing mischief, and tends to the prejudice of the peace of the nation.”

The same prophylactic effect will be produced here, as entrenched political regimes make other relief as illusory in this case as a petition to Parliament in Ashby v. White would have been.4

*249Intrusion of the Federal Government into the election machinery of the States has taken numerous forms — investigations (Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420); criminal proceedings (Ex parte Siebold, supra; Ex parte Yarbrough, supra; United States v. Mosley, supra; United States v. Classic, supra); collection of penalties (Smith v. Allwright, supra); suits for declaratory relief and for an injunction (Terry v. Adams, supra); suits by the United States under the Civil Rights Act to enjoin discriminatory practices. United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17.

As stated by Judge McLaughlin in Dyer v. Kazuhisa Abe, 138 F. Supp. 220, 236 (an apportionment case in Hawaii which was reversed and dismissed as moot, 256 F. 2d 728):

“The whole thrust of today’s legal climate is to end unconstitutional discrimination. It is ludicrous to preclude judicial relief when a mainspring of representative government is impaired. Legislators have no immunity from the Constitution. The legislatures of our land should be made as responsive to the Constitution of the United States as are the citizens who elect the legislators.”

With the exceptions of Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549; MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281; South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276, and the decisions they spawned, the Court has never thought that protection of voting rights *250was beyond judicial cognizance. Today’s treatment of those cases removes the only impediment to judicial cognizance of the claims stated in the present complaint.

The justiciability of the present claims being established, any relief accorded can be fashioned in the light of well-known principles of equity.5

1

I feel strongly that many of the cases cited by the Court and involving so-called “political” questions were wrongly decided.

In joining the opinion, I do not approve those decisions but only construe the Court’s opinion in this case as stating an accurate historical account of what the prior cases have held.

2

The statements in Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1, 42, that this guaranty is enforceable only by Congress or the Chief Executive is not maintainable. Of course the Chief Executive, not the Court, determines how a State will be protected against invasion. Of course each House of Congress, not the Court, is “the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members.” Article I, Section 6, Clause 1. But the abdication of all judicial functions respecting voting rights (7 How., at 41), however justified by the peculiarities of the charter form of government in Rhode Island at the time of Dorr’s Rebellion, states no general principle. It indeed is contrary to the cases discussed in the body of this opinion — the modern decisions of the Court that give the full panoply of judicial protection to voting rights. Today we would not say with Chief Justice Taney that it is no part of the judicial function to protect the right to vote of those “to whom it is denied by the written and established constitution and laws of the State.” Ibid.

Moreover, the Court’s refusal to examine the legality of the regime of martial law which had been laid upon Rhode Island (id., at 45-46) is indefensible, as Mr. Justice Woodbury maintained in his dissent. Id., at 59 et seq. Today we would ask with him: “. . . who *243could hold for a moment, when the writ of habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the legislature itself, either in the general government or most of the States, without an express constitutional permission, that all other writs and laws could be suspended, and martial law substituted for them over the whole State or country, without-.any express constitutional license to that effect, in any emergency?” Id., at 67.

Justice Woodbury went on to say:

“It would be alarming enough to sanction here an unlimited power, exercised either by legislatures, or the executive, or courts, when all our governments are themselves governments of limitations and checks, and of fixed and known laws, and the people a race above all others jealous of encroachments by those in power. And it is far better that those persons should be without the protection of the ordinary laws of the land who disregard them in an emergency, and should look to a grateful country for indemnity and pardon, than to allow, beforehand, the whole frame of jurisprudence to be overturned, and every thing placed at the mercy of the bayonet.

“No tribunal or department in our system of governments ever can be lawfully authorized to dispense with the laws, like some of the tyrannical Stuarts, or to repeal, or abolish, or suspend the whole body of them; or, in other words, appoint an unrestrained military dictator at the head of armed men.

“Whatever stretches of such power may be ventured on in great crises, they cannot be upheld by the laws, as they prostrate the laws and ride triumphant over and beyond them, however the Assembly of Rhode Island, under the exigency, may have hastily supposed that such a measure in this instance was constitutional. It is but a branch of the omnipotence claimed by Parliament to pass bills of attainder, belonging to the same dangerous and arbitrary family with martial law.” Id., at 69-70.

What he wrote was later to become the tradition, as expressed by Chief Justice Hughes in Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378, 401: “What are the allowable limits of military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are judicial questions.”

3

The category of the “political” question is, in my view, narrower than the decided cases indicate. “Even the English courts have held that a resolution of one House of Parliament does not change the law (Stockdale v. Hansard, (1839), 9 A. & E. 1; and Bowles v. Bank of England (No. 2) [1913] 1 Ch. 57), and these decisions imply that the House of Commons acting alone does not constitute the 'Parliament’ recognised by the English courts.” 103 Sol. Jour. 995, 996. The Court in Bowles v. Bank of England, [1913] 1 Ch. 57, 84-85, stated: “By the statute 1. W. & M., usually known as the Bill of Rights, it was finally settled that there could be no taxation in this country except under authority of an Act of Parliament. The Bill of Rights still remains unrepealed, and no practice or custom, however prolonged, or however acquiesced in on the part of the subject, can be relied on by the Crown as justifying any infringement of its provisions. It follows that, with regard to the powers of the Crown to levy taxation, no resolution, either of the Committee for Ways and Means or of the House itself, has any legal effect whatever. Such resolutions are necessitated by a parliamentary procedure adopted with a view to the protection of the subject against the hasty imposition of taxes, and it would be strange to find them relied on as justifying the Crown in levying a tax before such tax is actually imposed by Act of Parliament.”

In The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655, the Court undertook a review of the veto provisions of the Constitution and concluded that the measure in litigation had not become a law. Cf. Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433.

Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, involved the application of the Reconstruction Acts to Georgia — laws which destroyed by force the internal regime of that State. Yet the Court refused to take jurisdiction. That question was no more “political” than a host of others we have entertained. See, e. g., Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553; Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579; Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S. 272.

*247Today would this Court hold nonjusticiable or “political” a suit to enjoin a Governor who, like Fidel Castro, takes everything into his own hands and suspends all election laws?

Georgia v. Stanton, supra, expresses a philosophy at war with Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, and Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U. S. 304. The dominance of the civilian authority has been expressed from the beginning. See Wise v. Withers, 3 Cranch 331, 337; Sterling v. Constantin, supra, note 2.

4

We are told by the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers in an amicus brief:

“Regardless of the fact that in the last two decades the United States has become a predominantly urban country where well over two-thirds of the population now lives in cities or suburbs, political representation in the majority of state legislatures is 50 or more years behind the times. Apportionments made when the greater part of the population was located in rural communities are still determining and undermining our elections.

"As a consequence, the municipality of 1960 is forced to function in a horse and buggy environment where there is little political recognition of the heavy demands of an urban population. These demands will become even greater by 1970 when some 150 million people will be living in urban areas.

“The National Institute of Municipal Law Officers has for many years recognized the wide-spread complaint that by far the greatest *249preponderance of state representatives and senators are from rural areas which, in the main, fail to become vitally interested in the increasing difficulties now facing urban administrators.

“Since World War II, the explosion in city and suburban population has created intense local problems in education, transportation, and housing. Adequate handling of these problems has not been possible to a large extent, due chiefly to the political weakness of municipalities. This situation is directly attributable to considerable under-representation of cities in the legislatures of most states.” Amicus brief, pp. 2-3.

5

The recent ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court that a legislature, though elected under an unfair apportionment scheme, is nonetheless a legislature empowered to act (Cedar Rapids v. Cox, 252 Iowa 948, 964, 108 N. W. 2d 253, 262-263; cf. Kidd v. McCanless, 200 Tenn. 273, 292 S. W. 2d 40) is plainly correct.

There need be no fear of a more disastrous collision between federal and state agencies here than where a federal court enjoins gerrymandering based on racial lines. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, supra.

The District Court need not undertake a complete reapportionment. It might possibly achieve the goal of substantial equality merely by directing respondent to eliminate the egregious injustices. Or its conclusion that reapportionment should be made may in itself stimulate legislative action. That was the result in Asbury Park Press v. Woolley, 33 N. J. 1, 161 A. 2d 705, where the state court ruled it had jurisdiction:

“If by reason of passage of time and changing conditions the reapportionment statute no longer serves its original purpose of securing to the voter the full constitutional value of his franchise, and the legislative branch fails to take appropriate restorative action, the doors of the courts must be open to him. The law-making body cannot by inaction alter the constitutional system under which it has its own existence.” 33 N. J., at 14, 161 A. 2d, at 711. The court withheld its decision on the merits in order that the legislature might have an opportunity to consider adoption of a reapportionment act. For the sequel see Application of Lamb, 67 N. J. Super. 39, 46-47, 169 A. 2d 822, 825-826.

Reapportionment was also the result in Magraw v. Donovan, 159 F. Supp. 901, where a federal three-judge District Court took jurisdiction, saying, 163 F. Supp. 184, 187:

“Here it is the unmistakable duty of the State Legislature to reapportion itself periodically in accordance with recent population changes. . . . Early in January 1959 the 61st Session of the Minnesota Legislature will convene, all of the members of which will be newly elected on November 4th of this year. The facts which have *251been presented to us will be available to them. It is not to be presumed that the Legislature will refuse to take such action as is necessary to comply with its duty under the State Constitution. We defer decision on all the issues presented (including that of the power of this Court to grant relief), in order to afford the Legislature full opportunity to ‘heed the constitutional mandate to redistrict.’ ”

See 177 F. Supp. 803, where the case was dismissed as moot, the State Legislature having acted.

*251Mr. Justice Clark,

concurring.

One emerging from the rash of opinions with their accompanying clashing of views may well find himself suffering a mental blindness. The Court holds that the appellants have alleged a cause of action. However, it refuses to award relief here — although the facts are undisputed — and fails to give the District Court any guidance whatever. One dissenting opinion, bursting with words that go through so much and conclude with so little, contemns the majority action as “a massive repudiation of the experience of our whole past.” Another describes the complaint as merely asserting conclusory allegations that Tennessee’s apportionment is “incorrect,” “arbitrary,” “obsolete,” and “unconstitutional.” I believe it can be shown that this case is distinguishable from earlier cases dealing with the distribution of political power by a State, that a patent violation of the Equal-Protection Clause of the United States Constitution has been shown, and that an appropriate remedy may be formulated.

I.

I take the law of the case from MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281 (1948), which involved an attack under the Equal Protection Clause upon an Illinois election statute. The Court decided that case on its merits without hindrance from the “political question” doctrine. Although the statute under attack was upheld, it is clear *252that the Court based its decision upon the determination that the statute represented a rational state policy. It stated:

“It would be strange indeed, and doctrinaire, for this Court, applying such broad constitutional concepts as due process and equal protection of the laws, to deny a State the power to assure a proper diffusion of political initiative as between its thinly populated counties and those having concentrated masses, in view of the fact that the latter have practical opportunities for exerting their political weight at the polls not available to the former.” Id., at 284. (Emphasis supplied.)

The other cases upon which my Brethren dwell are all distinguishable or inapposite. The widely heralded case of Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549 (1946), was one not only in which the Court was bobtailed but in which there was no majority opinion. Indeed, even the “political question” point in Mr. Justice Frankfurter's opinion was no more than an alternative ground.1 Moreover, the appellants did not present an equal protection argument.2 While it has served as a Mother Hubbard to most of the subsequent cases, I feel it was in that respect ill-cast and for all of these reasons put it to one side.3 Like*253wise, I do not consider the Guaranty Clause cases based on Art. I, § 4, of the Constitution, because it is not invoked here and it involves different criteria, as the Court’s opinion indicates. Cases resting on various other considerations not present here, such as Radford v. Gary, 352 U. S. 991 (1957) (lack of equity); Kidd v. McCanless, 352 U. S. 920 (1956) (adequate state grounds supporting the state judgment); Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U. S. 912 (1952) (adequate state grounds); Remmey v. Smith, 342 U. S. 916 (1952) (failure to exhaust state procedures), are of course not controlling. Finally, the Georgia county-unit-system cases, such as South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276 (1950), reflect the viewpoint of MacDougall, i. e., to refrain from intervening where there is some rational policy behind the State’s system.4

II.

The controlling facts cannot be disputed. It appears from the record that 37% of the voters of Tennessee elect 20 of the 33 Senators while 40% of the voters elect 63 of the 99 members of the House. But this might not on its face be an “invidious discrimination,” Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, 348 U. S. 483, 489 (1955), for a “statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.” McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 426 (1961).

It is true that the apportionment policy incorporated in Tennessee’s Constitution, i. e., state-wide numerical equality of representation with certain minor qualifications,5 is a rational one. On a county-by-county compari*254son a districting plan based thereon naturally will have disparities in representation due to the qualifications. But this to my mind does not raise constitutional problems, for the overall policy is reasonable. However, the root of the trouble is not in Tennessee’s Constitution, for admittedly its policy has not been followed. The discrimination lies in the action of Tennessee’s Assembly in allocating legislative seats to counties or districts created by it. \ Try as one may, Tennessee’s apportionment just cannot be made to fit the pattern cut by its Constitution. This was the finding of the District Court. The policy of the Constitution referred to by the dissenters, therefore, is of no relevance here. We must examine what the Assembly has done.6 The frequency and magnitude of the inequalities in the present districting admit of no policy whatever. An examination of Table I accompanying this opinion, post, p. 262, conclusively reveals that the apportionment picture in Tennessee is a topsy-turvical of gigantic proportions. This is not to say that some of the disparity cannot be explained, but when the entire table is examined — comparing the voting strength of counties of like population as well as contrasting that of the smaller with the larger counties — it leaves but one conclusion, namely that Tennessee’s apportionment is a crazy quilt without rational basis. At the risk of being accused of picking out a few of the horribles I shall allude to a series of examples that are taken from Table I.

*"~As is admitted, there is a wide disparity of voting strength between the large and small counties. Some *255samples are: Moore County has a total representation of two7 with a population (2,340) of only one-eleventh of Rutherford County (25,316) with the same representation; Decatur County (5,563) has the same representation as Carter (23,303) though the latter has four times the population; likewise, Loudon County (13,264), Houston (3,084), and Anderson County (33,990) have the same representation, i. e., 1.25 each. But it is said that in this illustration all of the under-represented counties contain municipalities of over 10,000 population and they therefore should be included under the “urban” classification, rationalizing this disparity as an attempt to effect a rural-urban political balance. But in so doing one is caught up in the backlash of his own bull whip, for many counties have municipalities with a population exceeding 10,000, yet the same invidious discrimination is present. For example:

County Population Representation

Carter . 23,303 1.10

Maury. 24,556 2.25

Washington CO CO CO O ccT co

Madison .. Cji O rti <N co

*256Likewise, counties with no municipality of over 10,000 suffer a similar discrimination:

Population Representation County

Grundy ... 'cn rf*. o o co CK

Chester ... OS "CO CO J — 1 to o o

Cumberland CO 05 xo o os CO

Crockett .. CO LCO bO b O

13,264 Loudon ... M to Ox

13,577 Fayette ... W cn O

This could not be an effort to attain political balance between rural and urban populations^' Since discrimination is present among counties of like population, the plan is neither consistent nor rational. It discriminates horizontally creating gross disparities between rural areas themselves as well as between urban areas themselves,8 still maintaining the wide vertical disparity already pointed out between rural and urban.

It is also insisted that the representation formula used above (see n. 7) is “patently deficient” because “it eliminates from consideration the relative voting power of the counties that are joined together in a single election district.” This is a strange claim coming from those who rely on the proposition that “the voice of every voter” need not have “approximate equality.” Indeed, representative government, as they say, is not necessarily one of “bare numbers.” The use of floterial districts in our political system is not ordinarily based on the theory that the floterial representative is splintered among the counties of his district per relative population. His function is to represent the whole district. However, I shall meet the charge on its own ground and by use of its “adjusted *257‘total representation’ ” formula show that the present apportionment is loco. For example, compare some “urban” areas of like population, using the Harlan formula:

Representation County Population

2.65 Washington . 36,967

4.87 Madison . 37,245

1.48 Carter . 23,303

2.05 Greene . 23,649

3.81 Maury. 24,556

Coffee . 13,406 Cm CO C3

Hamblen . 14,090 £-» O t“H

And now, using the same formula, compare some so-called “rural” areas of like population:

County Population Representation

Moore . 2,340 1.23

Pickett . 2,565 .22

Stewart . co CO lO O CO r — ¡

Cheatham co CO to N

6,391 Chester . CD CO r-í

6,540 Grundy . 05 CD

8,731 Smith ... ^ O

8,787 Unicoi .. O ^ O

And for counties with similar representation but with gross differences in population, take:

County Population Representation

Sullivan. 55,712 4.07

Maury. 24,556 3.81

Blount. 30,353 2.12

Coffee . 13,406 2.32

These cannot be “distorted effects,” for here the same formula proposed by the dissenters is used and the result is even “a crazier” quilt.

*258The truth is that — although this case has been here for two years and has had over six hours’ argument (three times the ordinary case) and has been most carefully considered over and over again by us in Conference and individually — no one, not even the State nor the dissenters, has come up with any rational basis for Tennessee’s apportionment statute.

No one — except the dissenters advocating the Harlan “adjusted ‘total representation’ ” formula — contends that mathematical equality among voters is required by the Equal Protection Clause. But certainly there must be some rational design to a State’s districting. The discrimination here does not fit any pattern — -as I have said, it is but a crazy quilt. My Brother Harlan contends that other proposed apportionment plans contain disparities. Instead of chasing those rabbits he should first pause long enough to meet appellants’ proof of discrimination by showing that in fact the present plan follows a rational policy. Not being able to do this, he merely counters with such generalities as “classic legislative judgment,” no “significant discrepancy,” and “de minimis departures.” I submit that even a casual glance at the present apportionment picture shows these conclusions to be entirely fanciful. If present representation has a policy at all, it is to maintain the status quo of invidious discrimination at any cost. Like the District Court, I conclude that appellants have met the burden of showing “Tennessee is guilty of a clear violation of the state constitution and of the [federal] rights of the plaintiffs. . . .”

III.

Although I find the Tennessee apportionment statute offends the Equal Protection Clause, I would not consider intervention by this Court into so delicate a field if there were any other relief available to the people of Tennessee. But the majority of the people of Tennessee have no *259“practical opportunities for exerting their political weight at the polls” to correct the existing “invidious discrimination.” Tennessee has no initiative and referendum. I have searched diligently for other “practical opportunities” present under the law. I find none other than through the federal courts. The majority of the voters have been caught up in a legislative strait jacket. Tennessee has an “informed, civically militant electorate” and “an aroused popular conscience,” but it does not sear “the conscience of the people’s representatives.” This is because the legislative policy has riveted the present seats in the Assembly to their respective constituencies, and by the votes of their incumbents a reapportionment of any kind is prevented. The people have been rebuffed at the hands of the Assembly; they have tried the constitutional convention route, but since the call must originate in the Assembly it, too, has been fruitless. They have tried Tennessee courts with the same result,9 and Governors have fought the tide only to flounder. It is said that there is recourse in Congress and perhaps that may be, but from a practical standpoint this is without substance. To date Congress has never undertaken such a task in any State. We therefore must conclude that the people of Tennessee are stymied and without judicial intervention will be saddled with the present discrimination in the affairs of their state government.

IV.

Finally, we must consider if there are any appropriate modes of effective judicial relief. The federal courts are of course not forums for political debate, nor should they *260resolve themselves into state constitutional conventions or legislative assemblies. Nor should their jurisdiction be exercised in the hope that such a declaration as is made today may have the direct effect of bringing on legislative action and relieving the courts of the problem of fashioning relief. To my mind this would be nothing less than blackjacking the Assembly into reapportioning the State. If judicial competence were lacking to fashion an effective decree, I would dismiss this appeal. However, like the Solicitor General of the United States, I see no such difficulty in the position of this case. One plan might be to start with the existing assembly districts, consolidate some of them, and award the seats thus released to those counties suffering the most egregious discrimination. Other possibilities are present and might be more effective, But the plan here suggested would at least release the strangle hold now on the Assembly and permit it to redistrict itself.

In this regard the appellants have proposed a plan based on the rationale of state-wide equal representation. Not believing that numerical equality of representation throughout a State is constitutionally required, I would not apply such a standard albeit a permissive one. Nevertheless, the dissenters attack it by the application of the Harlan “adjusted ‘total representation’ ” formula. The result is that some isolated inequalities are shown, but this in itself does not make the proposed plan irrational or place it in the “crazy quilt” category. Such inequalities, as the dissenters point out in attempting to support the present apportionment as rational, are explainable. Moreover, there is no requirement that any plan have mathematical exactness in its application. Only where, as here, the total picture reveals incom-mensurables of both magnitude and frequency can it be said that there is present an invidious discrimination.

*261In view of the detailed study that the Court has given this problem, it is unfortunate that a decision is not reached on the merits. The majority appears to hold, at least sub silentio, that an invidious discrimination is present, but it remands to the three-judge court for it to make what is certain to be that formal determination. It is true that Tennessee has not filed a formal answer. However, it has filed - voluminous papers and made extended arguments supporting its position. At no time has it been able to contradict the appellants’ factual claims; it has offered no rational explanation for the present apportionment; indeed, it has indicated that there are none known to it. As I have emphasized, the case proceeded to the point before the three-judge court that it was able to find an invidious discrimination factually present, and the State has not contested that holding here. In view of all this background I doubt if anything more can be offered or will be gained by the State on remand, other than time. Nevertheless, not being able to muster a court to dispose of the case on the merits, I concur in the opinion of the majority and acquiesce in the decision to remand. However, in fairness I do think that Tennessee is entitled to have my idea of what it faces on the record before us and the trial court some light as to how it might proceed.

As John Rutledge (later Chief Justice) said 175 years ago in the course of the Constitutional Convention, a chief function of the Court is to secure the national rights.10 Its decision today supports the proposition for which our forebears fought and many died, namely, that to be fully conformable to the principle of right, the form of government must be representative.11 That is the keystone upon which our government was founded *262and lacking which no republic can survive. It is well for this Court to practice self-restraint and discipline in constitutional adjudication, but never in its history have those principles received sanction where the national rights of so many have been so clearly infringed for so long a time. National respect for the courts is more enhanced through the forthright enforcement of those rights rather than by rendering them nugatory through the interposition of subterfuges. In my view the ultimate decision today is in the greatest tradition of this Court.

TABLE I.

County 1950 voting population Present total representation using J. Clark's formula Present total representation using J. Harlan's formula Proposed total representation (appellants' plan), using J. Harlan's formula

Van Burén. 2,039 .63 .23 ,ii

Moore . 2,340 2.00 1.23 .18

Pickett. 2,565 .70 .22 .24

Sequatchie . 2,904 .63 .33 .19

Meigs. 3,039 .93 .48 .17

Houston. 3,084 1.25 .46 .24

Trousdale . 3,351 1.33 .43 .12

Lewis. 3,413 1.25 .39 .25

Perry. 3,711 1.50 .71 .40

Bledsoe . 4,198 .63 .49 .24

Clay . 4,528 .70 .40 .42

Union 4,600 .76 .37 .45

Hancock . 4,710 .93 .62 .49

Stewart . 5,238 1.75 1.60 .41

Cheatham. 5,263 1.33 .72 .20

Cannon . 5,341 2.00 1.43 .52

Decatur . 5,563 1.10 .79 .52

Lake . 6,252 2.00 1.44 .41

Chester . 6,391 2.00 1.36 .19

Grundy . 6,540 .95 .69 .43

Humphreys. 6,588 1.25 1.39 .72

Johnson. 6,649 1.10 .42 .43

*263County 1950 voting population Present total representation using J. Clark’s formula Present total representation using J. Harlan’s formula Proposed total representation (appellants’ plan), using J. Harlan’s formula

Jackson. 6,719 1.50 1.43 .63

DeKalb . 6,984 2.00 1.56 .68

Benton . 7,023 1.10 1.01 .66

Fentress . 7,057 .70 .62 .64

Grainger . 7,125 .93 .94 .65

Wayne. 7,176 1.25 .69 .76

Polk. 7,330 1.25 .68 .73

Hickman. 7,598 2.00 1.85 .80

Macon. 7,974 1.33 1.01 .61

Morgan. 8,308 .93 .59 .75

Scott . 8,417 .76 .68 .62

Smith. 8,731 2.50 2.04 .67

Unicoi . 8,787 .93 .40 .63

Rhea . 8,937 .93 1.42 .21

White . 9,244 1.43 1.69 .90

Overton ..'. 9,474 1.70 1.83 .89

Hardin. 9,577 1.60 1.61 .93

Cumberland . 9,593 .63 1.10 .87

Crockett . 9,676 2.00 1.66 .63

Henderson . 10,199 1.50 .78 .96

Marion . 10,998 1.75 1.73 .72

Marshall . 11,288 2.50 2.28 .84

Dickson. 11,294 1.75 2.29 1.23

Jefferson . 11,359 1.10 .87 1.03

MeNairy. 11,601 1.60 1.74 1.13

Cocke . 12,572 1.60 1.46 .89

Sevier. 12,793 1.60 1.47 .69

Claiborne . 12,799 1.43 1.61 1.34

Monroe . 12,884 1.75 1.68 1.30

Loudon . 13,264 1.25 .28 .52

Warren . 13,337 1.75 1.89 1.68

Coffee . 13,406 2.00 2.32 1.68

Hardeman . 13,565 1.60 1.86 1.11

Fayette . 13,577 2.50 2.48 1.11

Haywood . 13,934 2.50 2.52 1.69

Williamson . 14,064 2.33 2.96 1.71

*264 County 1950 voting population Present total representation using J. Clark’s formula Present total representation using J. Harlan’s formula Proposed total representation (appellants’ plan), using J. Harlan’s formula

Hamblen. 14,090 1.10 1.07 1.67

Franklin . 14,297 1.75 1.95 1.73

Lauderdale . 14,413 2.50 2.45 1.73

Bedford. 14,732 2.00 1.45 1.74

Lincoln . 15,092 2.50 2.72 1.77

Henry . 15,465 2.83 2.76 1.73

Lawrence . 15,847 2.00 2.22 1.81

Giles . 15,935 2.25 2.54 1.81

Tipton. 15,944 '3.00 1.68 1.13

Robertson. 16,456 2.83 2.62 1.85

Wilson. 16,459 3.00 3.03 1.21

Carroll. 16,472 2.83 2.88 1.82

Hawkins . 16,900 3.00 1.93 1.82

Putnam. 17,071 1.70 2.50 1.86

Campbell . 17,477 .76 1.40 1.94

Roane . 17,639 1.75 1.26 1.30

Weakley . 18,007 2.33 2.63 1.85

Bradley. 18,273 1.25 1.67 1.92

McMinn . 18,347 1.75 1.97 1.92

Obion. 18,434 2.00 2.30 1.94

Dyer . 20,062 2.00 2.36 2.32

Sumner . 20,143 2.33 3.56 2.54

Carter . 23,303 1.10 1.48 2.55

Greene. 23,649 1.93 2.05 2.68

Maury. 24,556 2.25 3.81 2.85

Rutherford. 25,316 2.00 3.02 2.39

Montgomery. 26,284 3.00 3.73 3.06

Gibson. 29,832 5.00 5.00 2.86

Blount. 30,353 1.60 2.12 2.19

Anderson. 33,990 1.25 1.30 3.62

Washington . 36,967 1.93 2.65 3.45

Madison . 37,245 3.50 4.87 3.69

Sullivan. 55,712 3.00 4.07 5.57

Hamilton. 131,971 6.00 6.00 15.09

Knox . 140,559 7.25 8.96 15.21

Davidson . 211,930 12.50 12.93 21.57

Shelby. 312,345 15.50 16.85 31.59

1

The opinion stated at 551 that the Court “could also dispose of this case on the authority of Wood v. Broom [287 U. S. 1 (1932)].” Wood v. Broom involved only the interpretation of a congressional reapportionment Act.

2

Similarly, the Equal Protection Clause was not invoked in Tedesco v. Board of Supervisors, 339 U. S. 940 (1950).

3

I do not read the later case of Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804 (1947), as having rejected the equal protection argument adopted here. That was merely a dismissal of an appeal where the equal protection point was mentioned along with attacks under three other constitutional provisions, two congressional Acts, and three state constitutional provisions.

4

Georgia based its election system on a consistent combination of political units and population, giving six unit votes to the eight most populous counties, four unit votes to the 30 counties next in population, and two unit votes to each of the remaining counties.

5

See Part I of the Appendix to Mr. Justice Harlan's dissent, post, p. 341.

6

It is suggested that the districting is not unconstitutional since it was established by a statute that was constitutional when passed some 60 years ago. But many Assembly Sessions since that time have deliberately refused to change the original act, and in any event “[a] statute [constitutionally] valid when enacted may become invalid by change in the conditions to which it is applied.” Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Walters, 294 U. S. 405, 415 (1935).

7

“Total representation” indicates the combined representation in the State Senate (33 members) and the State House of Representatives (99 members) in the Assembly of Tennessee. Assuming a county has one representative, it is credited in this calculation with 1/99. Likewise, if the same county has one-third of a senate seat, it is credited with another 1/99, and thus such a county, in our calculation, would have a “total representation” of two; if a county has one representative and one-sixth of a senate seat, it is credited with 1.5/99, or 1.50. It is this last figure that I use here in an effort to make the comparisons clear. The 1950 rather than the 1960 census of voting population is used to avoid the charge that use of 1960 tabulations might not have allowed sufficient time for the State to act. However, the 1960 picture is even more irrational than the 1950 one.

8

Of course this was not the case in the Georgia county unit system, South v. Peters, supra, or the Illinois initiative plan, MacDougall v. Green, supra, where recognized political units having independent significance were given minimum political weight.

9

It is interesting to note that state judges often rest their decisions on the ground that this Court has precluded adjudication of the federal claim. See, e. g., Scholle v. Secretary of State, 360 Mich. 1, 104 N. W. 2d 63 (1960).

10

I Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 124.

11

Kant, Perpetual Peace.

1

See Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1; Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, rehearing denied, 329 U. S. 825, motion for reargument before the full bench denied, 329 U. S. 828; Cook v. Fortson, 329 U. S. 675, rehearing denied, 329 U. S. 829; Turman v. Duckworth, 329 U. S. 675, rehearing denied, 329 U. S. 829; Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804; MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281; South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276; Tedesco v. Board of Supervisors, 339 U. S. 940; Remmey v. Smith, 342 U. S. 916; Cox v. Peters, 342 U. S. 936, rehearing denied, 343 U. S. 921; Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U. S. 912; Kidd v. McCanless, 352 U. S. 920; Radford v. Gary, 352 U. S. 991; Hartsfield v. Sloan, 357 U. S. 916; Matthews v. Handley, 361 U. S. 127; Perry v. Folsom, 144 F. Supp. 874 (D. C. N. D. Ala.); Magraw v. Donovan, 163 F. Supp. 184 (D. C. D. Minn.); cf. Dyer v. Kazuhisa Abe, 138 F. Supp. 220 (D. C. D. Hawaii). And see Keogh v. Neely, 50 F. 2d 685 (C. A. 7th Cir.).

*265MR. Justice Stewart,

concurring.

The separate writings of my dissenting and concurring Brothers stray so far from the subject of today’s decision as to convey, I think, a distressingly inaccurate impression of what the Court decides. For that reason, I think it appropriate, in joining the opinion of the Court, to emphasize in a few words what the opinion does and does not say.

The Court today decides three things and no more: “(a) that the court possessed jurisdiction of the subject matter; (b) that a justiciable cause of action is stated upon which appellants would be entitled to appropriate relief; and (c) . . . that the appellants have standing to challenge the Tennessee apportionment statutes.” Ante, pp. 197-198.

The complaint in this case asserts that Tennessee’s system of apportionment is utterly arbitrary — without any possible justification in rationality. The District Court did not reach the merits of that claim, and this Court quite properly expresses no view on the subject. Contrary to the suggestion of my Brother Harlan, the Court does not say or imply that “state legislatures must be so structured as to reflect with approximate equality the voice of every voter.” Post, p. 332. The Court does not say or imply that there is anything in the Federal Constitution “to prevent a State, acting not irrationally, from choosing any electoral legislative structure it thinks best suited to the interests, temper, and customs of its people.” Post, p. 334. And contrary to the suggestion of my Brother Douglas, the Court most assuredly does not decide the question, “may a State weight the vote of one county or one district more heavily than it weights the vote in another?” Ante, p. 244.

In MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not “deny a State the power to assure a proper diffusion of political initia*266tive as between its thinly populated counties and those having concentrated masses, in view of the fact that the latter have practical opportunities for exerting their political weight at the polls not available to the former.” 335 U. S., at 284. In case after case arising under the Equal Protection Clause the Court has said what it said again only last Term — that “the Fourteenth Amendment permits the States a wide scope of discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than others.” McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 425. In case after case arising under that Clause we have also said that “the burden of establishing the unconstitutionality of a statute rests on him who assails it.” Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, 294 U. S. 580, 584.

Today’s decision does not turn its back on these settled precedents. I repeat, the Court today decides only: (1) that the District Court possessed jurisdiction of the subject matter; (2) that the complaint presents a justi-ciable controversy; (3) that the appellants have standing. My Brother Clark has made a convincing prima facie showing that Tennessee’s system of apportionment is in fact utterly arbitrary — without any possible justification in rationality. My Brother Harlan has, with imagination and ingenuity, hypothesized possibly rational bases for Tennessee’s system. But the merits of this case are not before us now. The defendants have not yet had an opportunity to be heard in defense of the State’s system of apportionment; indeed, they have not yet even filed an answer to the complaint. As in other cases, the proper place for the trial is in the trial court, not here.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,

whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins,

dissenting.

The Court today reverses a uniform course of decision established by a dozen cases, including one by which the very claim now sustained was unanimously rejected *267only five years ago. The impressive body of rulings thus cast aside reflected the equally uniform course of our political history regarding the relationship between population and legislative representation — a wholly different matter from denial of the franchise to individuals because of race, color, religion or sex. Such a massive repudiation of the experience of our whole past in asserting destructively novel judicial power demands a detailed analysis of the role of this Court in our constitutional scheme. Disregard of inherent limits in the effective exercise of the Court’s “judicial Power” not only presages the futility of judicial intervention in the essentially political conflict of forces by which the relation between population and representation has time out of mind been and now is determined. It may well impair the Court’s position as the ultimate organ of “the supreme Law of the Land” in that vast range of legal problems, often strongly entangled in popular feeling, on which this Court must pronounce. The Court’s authority — possessed of neither the purse nor the sword — ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction. Such feeling must be nourished by the Court’s complete detachment, in fact and in appearance, from political entanglements and by abstention from injecting itself into the clash of political forces in political settlements.

A hypothetical claim resting on abstract assumptions is now for the first time made the basis for affording illusory relief for a particular evil even though it foreshadows deeper and more pervasive difficulties in consequence. The claim is hypothetical and the assumptions are abstract because the Court does not vouchsafe the lower courts — state and federal — guidelines for formulating specific, definite, wholly unprecedented remedies for the inevitable litigations that today’s umbrageous disposition is bound to stimulate in connection with politically motivated reapportionments in so many States. In *268such a setting, to promulgate jurisdiction in the abstract is meaningless. It is as devoid of reality as “a brooding omnipresence in the sky,” for it conveys no intimation what relief, if any, a District Court is capable of affording that would not invite legislatures to play ducks and drakes with the judiciary. Eor this Court to direct the District Court to enforce a claim to which the Court has over the years consistently found itself required to deny legal enforcement and at the same time to find it necessary to withhold any guidance to the lower court how to enforce this turnabout, new legal claim, manifests an odd— indeed an esoteric — conception of judicial propriety. One of the Court’s supporting opinions, as elucidated by commentary, unwittingly affords a disheartening preview of the mathematical quagmire (apart from divers judicially inappropriate and elusive determinants) into which this Court today catapults the lower courts of the country without so much as adumbrating the basis for a legal calculus as a means of extrication. Even assuming the indispensable intellectual disinterestedness on the part of judges in such matters, they do not have accepted legal standards or criteria or even reliable analogies to draw upon for making judicial judgments. To charge courts with the task of accommodating the incommensurable factors of policy that underlie these mathematical puzzles is to attribute, however flatteringly, omnicompetence to judges. The Framers of the Constitution persistently rejected a proposal that embodied this assumption and Thomas Jefferson never entertained it.

Recent legislation, creating a district appropriately described as “an atrocity of ingenuity,” is not unique. Considering the gross inequality among legislative electoral units within almost every State, the Court naturally shrinks from asserting that in districting at least substantial equality is a constitutional requirement enforceable *269by courts.* Room continues to be allowed for weighting. This of course implies that geography, economics, urban-rural conflict, and all the other non-legal factors which have throughout our history entered into political dis-tricting are to some extent not to be ruled out in the undefined vista now opened up by review in the federal courts of state reapportionments. To some extent — aye, there’s the rub. In effect, today’s decision empowers the courts of the country to devise what should constitute the proper composition of the legislatures of the fifty States. If state courts should for one reason or another find themselves unable to discharge this task, the duty of doing so is put on the federal courts or on this Court, if State views do not satisfy this Court’s notion of what is proper districting.

We were soothingly told at the bar of this Court that we need not worry about the kind of remedy a court could effectively fashion once the abstract constitutional right to have courts pass on a state-wide system of electoral districting is recognized as a matter of judicial rhetoric, because legislatures would heed the Court’s admonition. This is not only a euphoric hope. It implies a sorry *270confession of judicial impotence in place of a frank acknowledgment that there is not under our Constitution a judicial remedy for every political mischief, for every undesirable exercise of legislative power. The Framers carefully and with deliberate forethought refused so to enthrone the judiciary. In this situation, as in others of like nature, appeal for relief does not belong here. Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate. In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people’s representatives. In any event there is nothing judicially more unseemly nor more self-defeating than for this Court to make in terrorem pronouncements, to indulge in merely empty rhetoric, sounding a word of promise to the ear, sure to be disappointing to the hope.

This is the latest in the series of cases in which the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment have been invoked in federal courts as restrictions upon the power of the States to allocate electoral weight among the voting populations of their various geographical subdivisions.1 The present action, which *271comes here on appeal from an order of a statutory three-judge District Court dismissing amended complaints seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, challenges the provisions of Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, §§ 3-101 to 3-109, which apportion state representative and senatorial seats among Tennessee’s ninety-five counties.

The original plaintiffs, citizens and qualified voters entitled to vote for members of the Tennessee Legislature in the several counties in which they respectively reside, bring this action in their own behalf and “on behalf of all other voters in the State of Tennessee,” or, as they alternatively assert, “on behalf of all qualified voters of their respective counties, and further, on behalf of all voters of the State of Tennessee who are similarly situated.” The cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, and the Mayor of Nashville — on his own behalf as a qualified voter and, pursuant to an authorizing resolution by the Nashville City Council, as a representative of all the city’s residents — -were permitted to intervene as parties plaintiff.2 The defendants are executive officials charged with statutory duties in connection with state elections.3

*272The original plaintiffs’ amended complaint avers, in substance, the following.4 The Constitution of the State of Tennessee declares that “elections shall be free and equal,” provides that no qualifications other than age, citizenship and specified residence requirements shall be attached to the right of suffrage, and prohibits denying to any person the suffrage to which he is entitled except upon conviction of an infamous crime. Art. I, § 5; Art. IV, § 1. It requires an enumeration of qualified voters within every term of ten years after 1871 and an apportionment of representatives and senators among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified voters in each 5 at the time of each decennial *273enumeration. Art. II, §§ 4, 5, 6. Notwithstanding these provisions, the State Legislature has not reapportioned itself since 1901. The Reapportionment Act of that year, Tenn. Acts 1901, c. 122, now Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, §§ 3-101 to 3-109,6 was unconstitutional when enacted, because not preceded by the required enumeration of qualified voters and because it allocated legislative seats arbitrarily, unequally and discriminatorily, as measured by the 1900 federal census. Moreover, irrespective of the question of its validity in 1901, it is asserted that the Act became “unconstitutional and obsolete” in 1911 by virtue of the decennial reapportionment requirement of the Tennessee Constitution. Continuing a “purposeful and systematic plan to discriminate against a geographical class of persons,” recent Tennessee Legislatures have failed, as did their predecessors, to enact reapportionment legislation, although a number of bills providing for reapportionment have been introduced. Because of population shifts since 1901, the apportionment fixed by the Act of that year and still in effect is not proportionate to population, denies to the counties in which the plaintiffs *274live an additional number of representatives to which they are entitled, and renders plaintiffs’ votes “not as effective as the votes of the voters residing in other senatorial and representative districts . . . Plaintiffs “suffer a debasement of their votes by virtue of the incorrect, arbitrary, obsolete and unconstitutional apportionment of the General Assembly . . . ,” and the totality of the malap-portionment’s effect — which permits a minority of about thirty-seven percent of the voting population of the State to control twenty of the thirty-three members of Tennessee’s Senate, and a minority of forty percent of the voting population to control sixty-three of the ninety-nine members of the House — results in “a distortion of the constitutional system” established by the Federal and State Constitutions, prevents the General Assembly “from being a body representative of the people of the State of Tennessee, . . .” and is “contrary to the basic principle of representative government . . . ,” and “contrary to the philosophy of government in the United States and all Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence . . . .”

Exhibits appended to the complaint purport to demonstrate the extent of the inequalities of which plaintiffs complain. Based upon “approximate voting population,” 7 these set forth figures showing that the State *275Senator from Tennessee’s most populous senatorial district represents five and two-tenths times the number of voters represented by the Senator from the least populous district, while the corresponding ratio for most and least populous House districts is more than eighteen to one. The General Assembly thus apportioned has discriminated against the underrepresented counties and in favor of the overrepresented counties in the collection and distribution of various taxes and tax revenues, notably in the distribution of school and highway-improvement funds,8 this discrimination being “made possible and effective” by the Legislature’s failure to reapportion itself. Plaintiffs conclude that election of the State Legislature pursuant to the apportionment fixed by the 1901 Act violates the Tennessee Constitution and deprives them of due process of law and of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Their prayer below was for a declaratory judgment striking down the Act, an injunction restraining defendants from any acts necessary to the holding of elections in the districts prescribed by Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, §§ 3-101 to 3-109, until such time as the legislature is reapportioned “according to the *276Constitution of the State of Tennessee,” and an order directing defendants to declare the next primary and general elections for members of the Tennessee Legislature on an at-large basis — the thirty-three senatorial candidates and the ninety-nine representative candidates receiving the highest number of votes to be declared elected.9

Motions to dismiss for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter and for failure to state a claim were made and granted, 179 F. Supp. 824, the District Court relying upon this Court’s series of decisions beginning with Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, rehearing denied, 329 U. S. 825, motion for reargument before the full bench denied, 329 U. S. 828. The original and intervening plaintiffs bring the case here on appeal. 364 U. S. 898. In this Court they have altered their request for relief, suggesting a “step-by-step approach.” The first step is a remand to the District Court with directions to vacate the order dismissing the complaint and to enter an order retaining jurisdiction, providing “the necessary spur to legislative action . . . .” If this proves insufficient, appellants will ask the “additional spur” of an injunction prohibiting elections under the 1901 Act, or a declaration of the Act’s unconstitutionality, or both. Finally, all other means failing, the District Court is invited by the plaintiffs, greatly daring, to order an election at large or redistrict the State itself or through a master. The Solicitor General of the United States, who has filed a brief amicus and argued in favor of reversal, asks the Court on this appeal to hold only that the District Court has “jurisdiction” and may properly exercise it to entertain the plaintiffs’ claims on the merits. This would leave to that court after remand the questions of the challenged stat*277ute’s constitutionality and of some undefined, unadum-brated relief in the event a constitutional violation is found. After an argument at the last Term, the case was set down for reargument, 366 U. S. 907, and heard this Term.

I.

In sustaining appellants’ claim, based on the Fourteenth Amendment, that the District Court may entertain this suit, this Court’s uniform course of decision over the years is overruled or disregarded. Explicitly it begins with Colegrove v. Green, supra, decided in 1946, but its roots run deep in the Court’s historic adjudicatory process.

Colegrove held that a federal court should not entertain an action for declaratory and injunctive relief to adjudicate the constitutionality, under the Equal Protection Clause and other federal constitutional and statutory provisions, of a state statute establishing the respective districts for the State’s election of Representatives to the Congress. Two opinions were written by the four Justices who composed the majority of the seven sitting members of the Court. Both opinions joining in the result in Colegrove v. Green agreed that considerations were controlling which dictated denial of jurisdiction though not in the strict sense of want of power. While the two opinions show a divergence of view regarding some of these considerations, there are important points of concurrence. Both opinions demonstrate a predominant concern, first, with avoiding federal judicial involvement in matters traditionally left to legislative policy making ; second, with respect to the difficulty — in view of the nature of the problems of apportionment and its history in this country — of drawing on or devising judicial standards for judgment, as opposed to legislative determinations, of the part which mere numerical equality among voters should play as a criterion for the allocation of *278political power; and, third, with problems of finding appropriate modes of relief — particularly, the problem of resolving the essentially political issue of the relative merits of at-large elections and elections held in districts of unequal population.

The broad applicability of these considerations — summarized in the loose shorthand phrase, “political question” — in cases involving a State’s apportionment of voting power among its numerous localities has led the Court, since 1946, to recognize their controlling effect in a variety of situations. (In all these cases decision was by a full Court.) The “political question” principle as applied in Colegrove has found wide application commensurate with its function as “one of the rules basic to the federal system and this Court’s appropriate place within that structure.” Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 570. In Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804, litigants brought suit in a Federal District Court challenging as offensive to the Equal Protection Clause Illinois’ state legislative-apportionment laws. They pointed to state constitutional provisions requiring decennial reapportionment and allocation of seats in proportion to population, alleged a failure to reapportion for more than forty-five years — during which time extensive population shifts had rendered the legislative districts grossly unequal — and sought declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to all elections to be held thereafter. After the complaint was dismissed by the District Court, this Court dismissed an appeal for want of a substantial federal question. A similar District Court decision was affirmed here in Radford v. Gary, 352 U. S. 991. And cf. Remmey v. Smith, 342 U. S. 916. In Tedesco v. Board of Supervisors, 339 U. S. 940, the Court declined to hear, for want of a substantial federal question, the claim that the division of a municipality into voting districts of unequal population for the selection for couneilmen fell *279afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment, and in Cox v. Peters, 342 U. S. 936, rehearing denied, 343 U. S. 921, it found no substantial federal question raised by a state court’s dismissal of a claim for damages for “devaluation” of plaintiff’s vote by application of Georgia’s county-unit system in a primary election for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. The same Georgia system was subsequently attacked in a complaint for declaratory judgment and an injunction; the federal district judge declined to take the requisite steps for the convening of a statutory three-judge court; and this Court, in Hartsfield v. Sloan, 357 U. S. 916, denied a motion for leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the district judge to act. In MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, 283, the Court noted that “To assume that political power is a function exclusively of numbers is to disregard the practicalities of government,” and, citing the Colegrove cases, declined to find in “such broad constitutional concepts as due process and equal protection of the laws,” id., at 284, a warrant for federal judicial invalidation of an Illinois statute requiring as a condition for the formation of a new political party the securing of at least two hundred signatures from each of fifty counties. And in South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276, another suit attacking Georgia’s county-unit law, it affirmed a District Court dismissal, saying -

“Federal courts consistently refuse to exercise their equity powers in cases posing political issues arising from a state’s geographical distribution of electoral strength among its political subdivisions.” Id., at 277.

Of course it is important to recognize particular, relevant diversities among comprehensively similar situations. Appellants seek to distinguish several of this Court’s prior decisions on one or another ground — Colegrove v. *280Green on the ground that federal, not state, legislative apportionment was involved; Remmey v. Smith on the ground that state judicial remedies had not been tried; Radford v. Gary on the ground that Oklahoma has the initiative, whereas Tennessee does not. It would only darken counsel to discuss the relevance and significance of each of these assertedly distinguishing factors here and in the context of this entire line of cases. Suffice it that they do not serve to distinguish Colegrove v. Barrett, supra, which is on all fours with the present case, or to distinguish Kidd v. McCanless, 352 U. S. 920, in which the full Court without dissent, only five years ago, dismissed on authority of Colegrove v. Green and Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U. S. 912, an appeal from the Supreme Court of Tennessee in which a precisely similar attack was made upon the very statute now challenged. If the weight and momentum of an unvarying course of carefully considered decisions are to be respected, appellants' claims are foreclosed not only by precedents governing the exact facts of the present case but are themselves supported by authority the more persuasive in that it gives effect to the Colegrove principle in distinctly varying circumstances in which state arrangements allocating relative degrees of political influence among geographic groups of voters were challenged under the Fourteenth Amendment.

n.

The Colegrove doctrine, in the form in which repeated decisions have settled it, was not an innovation. It represents long judicial thought and experience. From its earliest opinions this Court has consistently recognized a class of controversies which do not lend themselves to judicial standards and judicial remedies. To classify the various instances as “political questions” is rather a form *281of stating this conclusion than revealing of analysis.10 Some of the cases so labelled have no relevance here. But from others emerge unifying considerations that are compelling.

1. The cases concerning war or foreign affairs, for example, are usually explained by the necessity of the country’s speaking with one voice in such matters. While this concern alone undoubtedly accounts for many of the decisions,11 others do not fit the pattern. It would hardly embarrass the conduct of war were this Court to determine, in connection with private transactions between litigants, the date upon which war is to be deemed terminated. But the Court has refused to do so. See, e. g., The Protector, 12 Wall. 700; Brown v. Hiatts, 15 Wall. 177; Adger v. Alston, 15 Wall. 555; Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 192-193. It does not suffice to explain such cases as Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160 — deferring to political determination the question of the duration of war for purposes of the Presidential power to deport alien enemies — that judicial intrusion would seriously *282impede the President’s power effectively to protect the country’s interests in time of war. Of course, this is true; but the precise issue presented is the duration of the time of war which demands the power. Cf. Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19; Lamar v. Browne, 92 U. S. 187, 193; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U. S. 146; Kahn v. Anderson, 255 U. S. 1. And even for the purpose of determining the extent of congressional regulatory power over the tribes and dependent communities of Indians, it is ordinarily for Congress, not the Court, to determine whether or not a particular Indian group retains the characteristics constitutionally requisite to confer the power.12 E. g., United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407; Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286; United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28. A controlling factor in such cases is that, decision respecting these kinds of complex matters of policy being traditionally committed not to courts but to the politicial agencies of government for determination by criteria of political expediency, there exists no standard ascertainable by settled judicial experience or process by /reference to which a political decision affecting the question at issue between the parties can be judged. Where the question arises in the course of a litigation involving primarily the adjudication of other issues between the litigants, the Court accepts as a basis for adjudication the political departments’ decision of it. But where its determination is the sole function to be served by the exercise of the judicial power, the Court will not entertain the action. See Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc., v. Waterman S. S. Corp., *283333 U. S. 103. The dominant consideration is “the lack of satisfactory criteria for a judicial determination . . . Mr. Chief Jusice Hughes, for the Court, in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 454-455. Compare United States v. Rogers, 4 How. 567, 572, with Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515.13

This may be, like so many questions of law, a matter of degree. Questions have arisen under the Constitution to which adjudication gives answer although the criteria for decision are less than unwavering bright lines. Often in these cases illumination was found in the federal structures established by, or the underlying presuppositions of, the Constitution. With respect to such questions, the Court has recognized that, concerning a particular power of Congress put in issue, “. . . effective restraints on its exercise must proceed from political rather than from judicial processes.” Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 120. It is also true that even regarding the duration of war and the status of Indian tribes, referred to above as subjects ordinarily committed exclusively to the non-judicial branches, the Court has suggested that some limitations exist upon the range within which the decisions of those branches will be permitted to go unreviewed. See United States v. Sandoval, supra, at 46; cf. Chastleton Corp. v. Sinclair, 264 U. S. 543. But this is merely to acknowledge that particular circumstances may differ so greatly in degree as to differ thereby in kind, and that, although within a certain range of cases on a continuum, no standard of distinction can be found to tell between them, other cases will fall above or below the range. The doctrine of political questions, like any other, is not to *284be applied beyond the limits of its own logic, with all the quiddities and abstract disharmonies it may manifest. See the disposition of contentions based on logically distorting views of Colegrove v. Green and Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U. S. 161, in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339.

2. The Court has been particularly unwilling to intervene in matters concerning the structure and organization of the political institutions of the States. The abstention from judicial entry into such areas has been greater even than that which marks the Court’s ordinary approach to issues of state power challenged under broad federal guarantees. “We should be very reluctant to decide that we had jurisdiction in such a case, and thus in an action of this nature to supervise and review the political administration of a state government by its own officials and through its own courts. The jurisdiction of this court would only exist in case there had been . . . such a plain and substantial departure from the fundamental principles upon which our government is based that it could with truth and propriety be said that if the judgment were suffered to remain, the party aggrieved would be deprived of his life, liberty or property in violation of the provisions of the Federal Constitution.” Wilson v. North Carolina, 169 U. S. 586, 596. See Taylor and Marshall v. Beckham (No. 1), 178 U. S. 548; Walton v. House of Representatives, 265 U. S. 487; Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1. Cf. In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200, 220-221.

Where, however; state law has made particular federal questions determinative of relations within the structure of state government, not in .challenge of it, the Court has resolved such narrow, legally defined questions in proper proceedings. See Boyd v. Nebraska ex rel. Thayer, 143 U. S. 135. In such instances there is no conflict between state policy and the exercise of federal judicial *285power. This distinction explains the decisions in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355; Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375; and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, in which the Court released state constitutional provisions prescribing local lawmaking procedures from misconceived restriction of superior federal requirements. Adjudication of the federal claim involved in those cases was not one demanding the accommodation of conflicting interests for which no readily accessible judicial standards could be found. See McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, in which, in a case coming here on writ of error from the judgment of a state court which had entertained it on the merits, the Court treated as justiciable the claim that a State could not constitutionally select its presidential electors by districts, but held that Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, of the Constitution left the mode of choosing electors in the absolute discretion of the States. Cf. Pope v. Williams, 193 U. S. 621; Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U. S. 277. To read with literalness the abstracted jurisdictional discussion in the McPherson opinion reveals the danger of conceptions of “justiciability” derived from talk and not from the effective decision in a case. In probing beneath the surface of cases in which the Court has declined to interfere with the actions of political organs of government, of decisive significance is whether in each situation the ultimate decision has been to intervene or not to intervene. Compare the reliance in South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276, on MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, and the “jurisdictional” form of the opinion in Wilson v. North Carolina, 169 U. S. 586, 596, supra.

3. The cases involving Negro disfranchisement are no exception to the principle. >of avoiding federal judicial intervention into matters of state government in the absence of an explicit and clear constitutional imperative. For here the controlling command of Supreme Law is plain and unequivocal. An end of discrimination against *286the Negro was the compelling motive of the Civil War Amendments. The Fifteenth expresses this in terms, and it is no less true of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth. Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 67-72; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 306-307; Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, 541. Thus the Court, in cases involving discrimination against the Negro’s right to vote, has recognized not only the action at law for damages,14 but, in appropriate circumstances, the extraordinary remedy of declaratory or injunctive relief.15 Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933; Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461.16 Injunctions in these cases, it should be noted, would not have restrained state-wide general elections. Compare Giles v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475.

4. The Court has refused to exercise its jurisdiction to pass on “abstract questions of political power, of sovereignty, of government.” Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 485. See Texas v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 258 U. S. 158, 162; New Jersey v. Sargent, 269 U. S. 328, 337. The “political question” doctrine, in this aspect, reflects the policies underlying the requirement of “standing”: that the litigant who would challenge offi*287cial action must claim infringement of an interest particular and personal to himself, as distinguished from a cause of dissatisfaction with the general frame and functioning of government — a complaint that the political institutions are awry. ) See Stearns v. Wood, 236 U. S. 75; Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126; United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 89-91. What renders cases of this kind non-justiciable is not necessarily the nature of the parties to them, for the Court has resolved other issues between similar parties;17 nor is it the nature of the legal question involved, for the same type of question has been adjudicated when presented in other forms of controversy.18 The crux of the matter is that courts are not fit instruments of decision where what is essentially at stake is the composition of those large contests of policy traditionally fought out in non-judicial forums, by which governments and the actions of governments are made and unmade. See Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700; White v. Hart, 13 Wall. 646; Phillips v. Payne, 92 U. S. 130; Marsh v. Burroughs, 1 Woods 463, 471-472 (Bradley, Circuit Justice); cf. Wilson v. Shaw, 204 U. S. 24; but see Coyle v. Smith, 221 U. S. 559. Thus, where the Cherokee Nation sought by an original motion to restrain the State of Georgia from the enforcement of laws which assimilated Cherokee territory to the State’s counties, abrogated Cherokee law, and abolished Cherokee government, the Court held that such a claim was not judicially cognizable. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1.19 And in Georgia *288v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 60, the Court dismissed for want of jurisdiction a bill by the State of Georgia seeking to enjoin enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts on the ground that the command by military districts which they established extinguished existing state government and replaced it with a form of government unauthorized by the Constitution: 20

“That these matters, both as stated in the body of the bill; and, in the prayers for relief, call for the judgment of the court upon political questions, and, upon rights, not of persons or property, but of a political character, will hardly be denied. For the rights for the protection of which our authority is invoked, are the rights of sovereignty, of political jurisdiction, of government, of corporate existence as a State, with all its constitutional powers and privileges. No case of private rights or private property infringed, or in danger of actual or threatened infringement, is presented by the bill, in a judicial form, for the judgment of the court.” Id., at 77.21

*2895. The influence of these converging considerations— the caution not to undertake decision where standards meet for judicial judgment are lacking, the reluctance to interfere with matters of state government in the absence of an unquestionable and effectively enforceable mandate, the unwillingness to make courts arbiters of the broad issues of political organization historically committed to other institutions and for whose adjustment the judicial process is ill-adapted — has been decisive of the settled line of cases, reaching back more than a century, which holds that Art. IV, § 4, of the Constitution, guaranteeing to the States “a Republican Form of Government,"22 is not enforceable through the courts. E. g., O’Neill v. Leamer, 239 U. S. 244; Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219; Cochran v. Board of Education, 281 U. S. 370; Highland Farms Dairy, Inc., v. Agnew, 300 U. S. 608.23 Claims resting on this specific *290guarantee of the Constitution have been held non-justiciable which challenged state distribution of powers between the legislative and judicial branches, Ohio ex rel. Bryant v. Akron Metropolitan Park District, 281 U. S. 74, state delegation of power to municipalities, Kiernan v. Portland, Oregon, 223 U. S. 151, state adoption of the referendum as a legislative institution, Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565, 569, and state restriction upon the power of state constitutional amendment, Marshall v. Dye, 231 U. S. 250, 256-257. The subject was fully considered in Pacific States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118, in which the Court dismissed for want of jurisdiction a writ of error attacking a state license-tax statute enacted by the initiative, on the claim that this mode of legislation was inconsistent with a Republican Form of Government and violated the Equal Protection Clause and other federal guarantees. After noting “. . . the ruinous destruction of legislative authority in matters purely political which would necessarily be occasioned by giving sanction *291to the doctrine which underlies and would be necessarily involved in sustaining the propositions contended for,” 24 the Court said:

. . [The] essentially political nature [of this claim] is at once made manifest by understanding that the assault which the contention here advanced makes it [sic] not on the tax as a tax, but on the State as a State. It is addressed to the framework and political character of the government by which the statute levying the tax was passed. It is the government, the political entity, which (reducing the case to its essence) is called to the bar of this court, not for the purpose of testing judicially some exercise of power assailed, on the ground that its exertion *292has injuriously affected the rights of an individual because of repugnancy to some constitutional limitation, but to demand of the State that it establish its right to exist as a State, republican in form.” Id., at 150-151.

The starting point of the doctrine applied in these cases is, of course, Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1. The case arose out of the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island in 1841-1842. Rhode Island, at the time of the separation from England, had not adopted a new constitution but had continued, in its existence as an independent State, under its original royal Charter, with certain statutory alterations. This frame of government provided no means for amendment of the fundamental law; the right of suffrage was to be prescribed by legislation, which limited it to freeholders. In the 1830’s, largely because of the growth of towns in which there developed a propertied class whose means were not represented by freehold estates, dissatisfaction arose with the suffrage qualifications of the charter government. In addition, population shifts had caused a dated apportionment of seats in the lower house to yield substantial numerical inequality of political influence, even among qualified voters. The towns felt themselves underrepresented, and agitation began for electoral reform. When the charter government failed to respond, popular meetings of those who favored the broader suffrage were held and delegates elected to a convention which met and drafted a state constitution. This constitution provided for universal manhood suffrage (with certain qualifications); and it was to be adopted by vote of the people at elections at which a similarly expansive franchise obtained. This new scheme of government was ratified at the polls and declared effective by the convention, but the government elected and organized under it, with Dorr at its head, never came to power. The *293charter government denied the validity of the convention, the constitution and its government and, after an insignificant skirmish, routed Dorr and his followers. It meanwhile provided for the calling of its own convention, which drafted a constitution that went peacefully into effect in 1843.25

Luther v. Borden was a trespass action brought by one of Dorr’s supporters in a United States Circuit Court to recover damages for the breaking and entering of his house. The defendants justified under military orders pursuant to martial law declared by the charter government, and plaintiff, by his reply, joined issue on the legality of the charter government subsequent to the adoption of the Dorr constitution. Evidence offered by the plaintiff tending to establish that the Dorr government was the rightful government of Rhode Island was rejected by the Circuit Court; the court charged the jury that the charter government was lawful; and on a verdict for defendants, plaintiff brought a writ of error to this Court.

The Court, through Mr. Chief Justice Taney, affirmed, After noting that the issue of the charter government’s legality had been resolved in that government’s favor by the state courts of Rhode Island — that the state courts, deeming the matter a political one unfit for judicial determination, had declined to entertain attacks upon the existence and authority of the charter government — the Chief Justice held that the courts of the United States must follow those of the State in this regard. Id., at 39-40. It was recognized that the compulsion to follow *294state law would not apply in a federal court in the face of a superior command found in the Federal Constitution, ibid., but no such command was found. The Constitution, the Court said — referring to the Guarantee Clause of the Fourth Article — “. . . as far as it has provided for an emergency of this kind, and authorized the general government to interfere in the domestic concerns of a State, has treated the subject as political in its nature, and placed the power in the hands of that department.” Id., at 42.

“Under this article of the Constitution it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State. For as the United States guarantee to each State a republican government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State before it can determine whether it is republican or not. And when the senators and representatives of a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the authority of the government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character, is recognized by the proper constitutional authority. And its decision is binding on every other department of the government, and could not be questioned in a judicial tribunal. It is true that the contest in this casé did not last long enough to bring the matter to this issue; and as no senators or representatives were elected under the authority of the government of which Mr. Dorr was the head, Congress was not called upon to decide the controversy. Yet the right to decide is placed there, and not in the courts.” Ibid.26

*295In determining this issue non-justiciable, the Court was sensitive to the same considerations to which its later decisions have given the varied applications already discussed. It adverted to the delicacy of judicial intervention into the very structure of government.27 It acknowledged that tradition had long entrusted questions of this nature to non-judicial processes,28 and that judicial processes were unsuited to their decision.29 The absence of guiding standards for judgment was critical, for the question whether the Dorr constitution had been rightfully adopted depended, in part, upon the extent of the franchise to be recognized — the very point of contention over which rebellion had been fought.

“. . . [I] f the Circuit Court had entered upon this inquiry, by what rule could it have determined the qualification of voters upon the adoption or rejection of the proposed constitution, unless there was some previous law of the State to guide it? It is the province of a court to expound the law, not to make it. And certainly it is no part of the judicial functions of any court of the United States to prescribe the qualification of voters in a State, giving the right to those to whom it is denied by the written and established constitution and laws of the State, or taking it away from those to whom it is given; nor has it the right to determine what political privileges *296the citizens of a State are entitled to, unless there is an established constitution or law to govern its decision.” Id., at 41.

Mr. Justice Woodbury (who dissented with respect to the effect of martial law) agreed with the Court regarding the inappropriateness of judicial inquiry into the issues:

“But, fortunately for our freedom from political excitements in judicial duties, this court can never with propriety be called on officially to be the umpire in questions merely political. The adjustment of these questions belongs to the people and their political representatives, either in the State or general government. These questions relate to matters not to be settled on strict legal principles. They are adjusted rather by inclination, — or prejudice or compromise, often. Some of them succeed or are defeated even by public policy alone, or mere naked power, rather than intrinsic right. . . .

“Another evil, alarming and little foreseen, involved in regarding these as questions for the final arbitrament of judges would be, that in such an event all political privileges and rights would, in a dispute among the people, depend on our decision finally. . . . [DJisputed points in making constitutions, depending often, as before shown, on policy, inclination, popular resolves, and popular will, . . . if the people, in the distribution of powers under the constitution, should ever think of making judges supreme arbiters in political controversies, when not selected by nor, frequently, amenable to them, nor at liberty to follow such various considerations in their judgments as belong to mere political questions, they will dethrone themselves and lose one of their own invaluable birthrights; building up in this way— slowly, but surely — a new sovereign power in the *297republic, in most respects irresponsible and unchangeable for life, and one more dangerous, in theory at least, than the worst elective oligarchy in the worst of times. . . Id., at 51-53.30

III.

The present case involves all of the elements that have made the Guarantee Clause cases non-justiciable. It is, in effect, a Guarantee Clause claim masquerading under a different label. But it cannot make the case more fit for judicial action that appellants invoke the Fourteenth Amendment rather than Art. IV, § 4, where, in fact, the gist of their complaint is the same — unless it can be found that the Fourteenth Amendment speaks with greater particularity to their situation, f We have been admonished "to avoid “the tyranny of labels.” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 114. Art. IV, § 4, is not committed by express constitutional terms to Congress. It is the nature of the controversies arising under it, nothing else, which has made it judicially unenforceable. Of course, if a controversy falls within judicial power, it depends “on how he [the plaintiff] casts his action,” Pan American Petroleum Corp. v. Superior Court, 366 U. S. 656, 662, whether he brings himself within a jurisdictional statute. But where judicial competence is wanting, it cannot be created by invoking one clause of the Constitution rather than another. When what was essentially a Guarantee Clause claim was sought to be laid, as well, under the Equal Protection Clause in Pacific States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Oregon, supra, the Court had no difficulty in “dis*298pelling any mere confusion resulting from forms of expression and considering the substance of things . . . .” 223 U. S., at 140.

Here appellants attack “the State as a State,” precisely as it was perceived to be attacked in the Pacific States case, id., at 150. Their complaint is that the basis of representation of the Tennessee Legislature hurts them. They assert that “a minority now rules in Tennessee,” that the apportionment statute results in a “distortion of the constitutional system,” that the General Assembly is no longer “a body representative of the people of the State of Tennessee,” all “contrary to the basic principle of representative government . . . .” Accepting appellants’ own formulation of the issue, one can know this handsaw from a hawk. Such a claim would be non-justiciable not merely under Art. IV, § 4, but under any clause of the Constitution, by virtue of the very fact that a federal court is not a forum for political debate. Massachusetts v. Mellon, supra.

But appellants, of course, do not rest on this claim simpliciter. In invoking the Equal Protection Clause, they assert that the .distortion of representative government complained of is produced by systematic discrimination against them, by way of “a debasement of their votes . . . .” Does this characterization, with due regard for the facts from which it is derived, add anything to appellants’ case? 31

At first blush, this charge of discrimination based on legislative underrepresentation is given the appearance of *299a more private, less impersonal claim, than the assertion that the frame of government is askew. Appellants appear as representatives of a class that is prejudiced as a class, in contradistinction to the polity in its entirety. However, the discrimination relied on is the deprivation of what appellants conceive to be their proportionate share of political influence. This, of course, is the practical effect of any allocation of power within the institutions of government. Hardly any distribution of political authority that could be assailed as rendering government non-republican would fail similarly to operate to the prejudice of some groups, and to the advantage of others, within the body politic. It would be ingenuous not to see, or consciously blind to deny, that the real battle over the initiative and referendum, or over a delegation of power to local rather than state-wide authority, is the battle between forces whose influence is disparate among the various organs of government to whom power may be given. No shift of power but works a corresponding shift iin political influence among the groups composing a : society.

What, then, is this question of legislative apportionment? Appellants invoke the right to vote and to have their votes counted.32 But they are permitted to vote and their votes are counted. They go to the polls, they cast their ballots, they send their representatives to the state *300councils. Their complaint is simply that the representatives are not sufficiently numerous or powerful — in short, that Tennessee has adopted a basis of representation with which they are dissatisfied. Talk of “debasement” or “dilution” is circular talk. One cannot speak of “debasement” or “dilution” of the value of a vote until there is first defined a standard of reference as to what a vote should be worth. What is actually asked of the Court in this case is to choose among competing bases of representation — ultimately, really, among competing theories of political philosophy — in order to establish an appropriate frame of government for the State of Tennessee and thereby for all the States of the Union.

In such a matter, abstract analogies which ignore the facts of history deal in unrealities; they betray reason. This is not a case in which a State has, through a device however oblique and sophisticated, denied Negroes or Jews or redheaded persons a vote, or given them only a third or a sixth of a vote. That was Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. What Tennessee illustrates is an old and still widespread method of representation — representation by local geographical division, only in part respective of population — in preference to others, others, forsooth, more appealing. Appellants contest this choice and seek to make this Court the arbiter of the disagreement. They would make the Equal Protection Clause the charter of adjudication, asserting that the equality which it guarantees comports, if not the assurance of equal weight to every voter’s vote, at least the basic conception that representation ought to be proportionate to population, a standard by reference to which the reasonableness of apportionment plans may be judged.

To find such a political conception legally enforceable in the broad and unspecific guarantee of equal protection to rewrite the.. Constitution. See Luther v. Borden, supra. "Certainly, “equal protection” is no more secure *301a foundation for judicial judgment of the permissibility of varying forms of representative government than is “Republican Form.” Indeed since “equal protection of the laws” can only mean an equality of persons standing in the same relation to whatever governmental action is challenged, the determination whether treatment is equal presupposes a determination concerning the nature of the relationship. This, with respect to apportionment, means an inquiry into the theoretic base of representation in an acceptably republican state. For a court could not determine the equal-protection issue without in fact first determining the Republican-Form issue, simply because what is reasonable for equal-protection purposes will depend upon what frame of government, basically, is allowed. To divorce “equal protection” from “Republican Form” is to talk about half a question.

The notion that representation proportioned to the geographic spread of population is so universally accepted as a necessary element of equality between man and man that it must be taken to be the standard of a political equality preserved by the Fourteenth Amendment — that it is, in appellants’ words “the basic principle of representative government” — is, to put it bluntly, not true. However desirable and however desired by some among the great political thinkers and framers of our government, it has never been generally practiced, today or in the past. It was not the English system, it was not the colonial system, it was not the system chosen for the national government by the Constitution, it was not the system exclusively or even predominantly practiced by the States at the time of adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is not predominantly practiced by the States today. Unless judges, the judges of this Court, are to make their private views of political wisdom the measure of the Constitution — views which in all honesty cannot but give the appearance, if not reflect the reality, of *302involvement with the business of partisan politics so inescapably a part of apportionment controversies — the Fourteenth Amendment, “itself a historical product,” Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 31, provides no guide for judicial oversight of the representation problem.

1. Great Britain. Writing in 1958, Professor W. J. M. Mackenzie aptly summarized the British history of the principle of representation proportioned to population: “ ‘Equal electoral districts’ formed part of the programme of radical reform in England in the 1830s, the only part of that programme which has not been realised.” 33 Until the late nineteenth century, the sole base of representation (with certain exceptions not now relevant) was the local geographical unit: each county or borough returned its fixed number of members, usually two for the English units, regardless of population.34 Prior to the Reform Act of 1832, this system was marked by the almost total disfranchisement of the populous northern industrial centers, which had grown to significant size at the advent of the Industrial Revolution and had not been granted borough representation, and by the existence of the rotten borough, playing its substantial part in the Crown’s struggle for continued control of the Commons.35 In 1831, ten southernmost English counties, numbering three and a quarter million people, had two hundred and thirty-five parliamentary representatives, while the six northernmost counties, with more than three and a half million people, had sixty-eight.36 It was said that one hundred and eighty persons appointed three hundred and *303fifty members in the Commons.37 Less than a half century earlier, Madison in the Federalist had remarked that half the House was returned by less than six thousand of the eight million people of England and Scotland.38

The Act of 1832, the product of a fierce partisan political struggle and the occasion of charges of gerrymandering not without foundation,39 effected eradication of only the most extreme numerical inequalities of the unreformed system. It did not adopt the principle of representation based on population, but merely disfranchised certain among the rotten borough and enfranchised most of the urban centers — still quite without regard to their relative numbers.40 In the wake of the Act there remained substantial electoral inequality: the boroughs of Cornwall were represented sixteen times as weightily, judged by population, as the county’s eastern division; the average ratio of seats to population in ten agricultural counties was four and a half times that in ten manufacturing divisions; Honiton, with about three thousand inhabitants, was equally represented with Liverpool, which had four hundred thousand.41 In 1866 apportionment by population began to be advocated generally in the House, but was not made the basis of the redistribution of 1867, although the act of that year did apportion representation more evenly, gauged by the population standard.42 Population shifts increased the surviving inequalities; by 1884 the representation ratio *304in many small boroughs was more than twenty-two times that of Birmingham or Manchester, forty-to-one disparities could be found elsewhere, and, in sum, in the 1870’s and 1880’s, a fourth of the electorate returned two-thirds of the members of the House.43

The first systematic English attempt to distribute seats by population was the Redistribution Act of 1885.44 The statute still left ratios of inequality of as much as seven to one,45 which had increased to fifteen to one by 1912.46 In 1918 Parliament again responded to “shockingly bad” conditions of inequality,47 and to partisan political inspiration,48 by redistribution.49 In 1944, redistribution was put on a periodic footing by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act of that year,50 which committed a continuing primary responsibility for reapportioning the Commons to administrative agencies (Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively).51 The Commissions, having regard to certain rules prescribed for their guidance, are to prepare at designated intervals reports for the Home Secretary’s submission to Parliament, along with the draft of an Order in Council to give effect to the *305Commissions’ recommendations. The districting rules adopt the basic principle of representation by population, although the principle is significantly modified by directions to respect local geographic boundaries as far as practicable, and by discretion to take account of special geographical conditions, including the size, shape and accessibility of constituencies. Under the original 1944 Act, the rules provided that (subject to the exercise of the discretion respecting special geographical conditions and to regard for the total size of the House of Commons as prescribed by the Act) so far as practicable, the single-member districts should not deviate more than twenty-five percent from the electoral quota (population divided by number of constituencies). However, apparently at the recommendation of the Boundary Commission for England, the twenty-five percent standard was eliminated as too restrictive in 1947, and replaced by the flexible provision that constituencies are to be as near the electoral quota as practicable, a rule which is expressly subordinated both to the consideration of special geographic conditions and to that of preserving local boundaries.52 Free of the twenty-five percent rule, the Commissions drew up plans of distribution in which inequalities among the districts run, in ordinary eases, as high as two to one and, in the case of a few extraordinary constituencies, three to one.53 The action of the Boundary Commission for England was twice challenged in the courts in 1954 — the claim being that the Commission had violated statutory rules *306prescribing the standards for its judgment — and in both cases the Judges declined to intervene. In Hammersmith Borough Council v. Boundary Commission for England,54, Harm an, J., was of opinion that the nature of the controversy and the scheme of the Acts made the matter inappropriate for judicial interference, and in Harper v. Home Secretary55 the Court of Appeal, per Evershed, M. R., quoting Harman, J., with approval, adverting to the wide range of discretion entrusted to the Commission under the Acts, and remarking the delicate character of the parliamentary issues in which it was sought to engage the court, reached the same conclusion.56

The House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1958,57 made two further amendments to the law. Responsive to the recommendation of the Boundary Commission for England,58 the interval permitted between Commission reports was more than doubled, to a new maximum of fifteen years.59 And at the suggestion of the same Commission that “It would ease the future labours of the Commission and remove much local irritation if Rule 5 [requiring that the electorate of each constituency be as near the electoral quota as practicable] were to be so amended as to allow us to make recommendations preserving the status quo in any area where such a course appeared to be desirable and not inconsistent *307with the broad intention of the Rules,” 60 the Commissions were directed to consider the inconveniences attendant upon the alteration of constituencies, and the local ties which such alteration might break. The Home Secretary’s view of this amendment was that it worked to erect “a presumption against making changes unless there is a very strong case for them.” 61

2. The Colonies and the Union. For the guiding political theorists of the Revolutionary generation, the English system of representation, in its most salient aspects of numerical inequality, was a model to be avoided, not followed.62 Nevertheless, the basic English principle of apportioning representatives among the local governmental entities, towns or counties, rather than among units of approximately equal population, had early taken root in the colonies.63 In some, as in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, numbers of electors were taken into account, in a rough fashion, by allotting increasing fixed quotas of representatives to several towns or classes of towns graduated by population, but in most of the colonies delegates were allowed to the local units without respect to numbers.64 This resulted in grossly unequal electoral units.65 The representation ratio in one North Carolina county was more than eight times that in another.66 Moreover, American rotten boroughs had appeared,67 and apportionment was made an instrument first in the politi*308cal struggles between the King or the royal governors and the colonial legislatures,68 and, later, between the older tidewater regions in the colonies and the growing interior.69 Madison in the Philadelphia Convention adverted to the “inequality of the Representation in the Legislatures of particular States, . . .”70 arguing that it was necessary to confer on Congress the power ultimately to regulate the times, places and manner of selecting Representatives,71 in order to forestall the overrepresented counties’ securing themselves a similar over-representation in the national councils. The example of South Carolina, where Charleston’s overrepresentation was a continuing bone of contention between the tidewater and the back country, was cited by Madison in the Virginia Convention and by King in the Massachusetts Convention, in support of the same power, and King also spoke of the extreme numerical inequality arising from Connecticut’s town-representation system.72

Such inequalities survived the constitutional period. The United States Constitution itself did not largely adopt the principle of numbers. Apportionment of the national legislature among the States was one of the most difficult problems for the Convention; 73 its solution— involving State representation in the Senate 74 and the three-fifths compromise in the House75 — left neither chamber apportioned proportionately to population. *309Within the States, electoral power continued to be allotted to favor the tidewater.76 Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, recorded the “very unequal” representation there: individual counties differing in population by a ratio of more than seventeen to one elected the same number of representatives, and those nineteen thousand of Virginia’s fifty thousand men who lived between the falls of the rivers and the seacoast returned half the State’s senators and almost half its delegates.77 In South Carolina in 1790, the three lower districts, with a white population of less than twenty-nine thousand elected twenty senators and seventy assembly members; while in the uplands more than one hundred and eleven thousand white persons elected seventeen senators and fifty-four assemblymen.78

In the early nineteenth century, the demands of the interior became more insistent. The apportionment quarrel in Virginia was a major factor in precipitating the calling of a constitutional convention in 1829. Bitter animosities racked the convention, threatening the State with disunion. At last a compromise which gave the three hundred and twenty thousand people of the west thirteen senators, as against the nineteen senators returned by the three hundred sixty-three thousand people of the east, commanded agreement. It was adopted at the polls but left the western counties so dissatisfied that there were threats of revolt and realignment with the State of Maryland.79

Maryland, however, had her own numerical disproportions. In 1820, one representative vote in Calvert County *310was worth five in Frederick County, and almost two hundred thousand people were represented by eighteen members, while fifty thousand others elected twenty.80 This was the result of the county-representation system of allotment. And, except for Massachusetts which, after a long struggle, did adopt representation by population at the mid-century, a similar town-representation principle continued to prevail in various forms throughout New England, with all its attendant, often gross inequalities.81

3. The States at the time of ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and those later admitted. The several state conventions throughout the first half of the nineteenth century were the scenes of fierce sectional and party strifes respecting the geographic allocation of representation.82 Their product was a wide variety of apportionment methods which recognized the element of population in differing ways and degrees. Particularly pertinent to appraisal of the contention that the Fourteenth Amendment embodied a standard limiting the freedom of the States with regard to the principles and bases of local legislative apportionment is an examination of the apportionment provisions of the thirty-three States which ratified the Amendment between 1866 and 1870, at their respective times of ratification. These may be considered in two groups: (A) the ratifying States other than the ten Southern States whose constitutions, at the time of ratification or shortly thereafter, were the work of the Reconstruction Act conventions;83 and *311(B) the ten Reconstruction-Act States. All thirty-three are significant, because they demonstrate how unfounded is the assumption that the ratifying States could have agreed on a standard apportionment theory or practice, and how baseless the suggestion that by voting for the Equal Protection Clause they sought to establish a test mold for apportionment which — if appellants’ argument is sound — struck down sub silentio not a few of their own state constitutional provisions. But the constitutions of the ten Reconstruction-Act States have an added importance, for it is scarcely to be thought that the Congress which was so solicitous for the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment as to make the readmission of the late rebel States to Congress turn on their respective ratifications of it, would have approved constitutions which — again, under appellants’ theory — contemporaneously offended the Amendment.

A. Of the twenty-three ratifying States of the first group, seven or eight had constitutions which demanded or allowed apportionment of both houses on the basis of population,84 unqualifiedly or with only qualifications respecting the preservation of local boundaries.85 Three *312more apportioned on what was essentially a population base, but provided that in one house counties having a specified fraction of a ratio — a moiety or two-thirds— should have a representative.86 Since each of these three States limited the size of their chambers, the fractional rule could operate — and, at least in Michigan, has in fact operated87 — to produce substantial numerical inequalities *313in favor of the sparsely populated counties.88 Iowa favored her small counties by the rule that no more than four counties might be combined in a representative district,89 and New York and Kansas compromised population and county-representation principles by assuring every county, regardless of the number of its inhabitants, at least one seat in their respective Houses.90

Ohio and Maine recognized the factor of numbers by a different device. The former gave a House representative to each county having half a ratio, two representatives for a ratio and three-quarters, three representatives for three ratios, and a single additional representative for each additional ratio.91 The latter, after apportioning among counties on a population base, gave each town of fifteen hundred inhabitants one representative, each town of three thousand, seven hundred and fifty inhabitants two representatives, and so on in increasing intervals to twenty-six thousand, two hundred and fifty inhabitants— towns of that size or larger receiving the maximum permitted number of representatives: seven.92 The departure from numerical equality under these systems is apparent: in Maine, assuming the incidence of towns in *314all categories, representative ratios would differ by factors of two and a half to one, at a minimum. Similarly, Missouri gave each of its counties, however small, one representative, two representatives for three ratios, three representatives for six ratios, and one additional representative for each three ratios above six.93 New Hampshire allotted a representative to each town of one hundred and fifty ratable male polls of voting age and one more representative for each increment of three hundred above that figure;94 its Senate was not apportioned by population but among districts based on the proportion of direct taxes paid.95 In Pennsylvania, the basis of apportionment in both houses was taxable inhabitants; and in the House every county of at least thirty-five hundred taxables had a representative, nor could more than three counties be joined in forming a representative district; while in the Senate no city or county could have more than four of the State’s twenty-five to thirty-three senators.96

Finally, four States apportioned at least one House with no regard whatever to population. In Connecticut97 and Vermont98 representation in the House was on a town basis; Rhode Island gave one senator to each of its towns or cities,99 and New Jersey, one to each of its counties.100 *315Nor, in any of these States, was the other House apportioned on a strict principle of equal numbers: Connecticut gave each of its counties a minimum of two senators101 and Vermont, one;102 New Jersey assured each county a representative;103 and in Rhode Island, which gave at least one representative to each town or city, no town or city could have more than one-sixth of the total number in the House.104

B. Among the ten late Confederate States affected by the Reconstruction Acts, in only four did it appear that apportionment of both state legislative houses would or might be based strictly on population.105 In North Carolina,106 South Carolina,107 Louisiana,108 and Alabama,109 each county (in the case of Louisiana, each parish) was assured at least one seat in the lower House irrespective of numbers — a distribution which exhausted, respectively, *316on the basis of the number of then-existing counties, three-quarters, one-quarter, two-fifths and three-fifths of the maximum possible number of representatives, before a single seat was available for assignment on a population basis; and in South Carolina, moreover, the Senate was composed of one member elected from each county, except that Charleston sent two.110 In Florida’s House, each county had one seat guaranteed and an additional seat for every thousand registered voters up to a maximum of four representatives; 111 while Georgia, whose Senate seats were distributed among forty-four single-member districts each composed of three contiguous counties,112 assigned representation in its House as follows: three seats to each of the six most populous counties, two to each of the thirty-one next most populous, one to each of the remaining ninety-five.113 As might be expected, the one-representative-per-county minimum pattern has proved incompatible with numerical equality,114 and Georgia’s *317county-clustering system has produced representative-ratio disparities, between the largest and smallest counties, of more than sixty to one.115

C. The constitutions 116 of the thirteen States which Congress admitted to the Union after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment showed a similar pattern. Six of them required or permitted apportionment of both Houses by population, subject only to qualifications concerning local boundaries.117 Wyoming, apportioning by population, guaranteed to each of its counties at least one seat in each House,118 and Idaho, which prescribed (after the first legislative session) that apportionment should be “as may be provided by law,” gave each county at least one representative.119 In Oklahoma, House members were apportioned among counties so as to give one *318seat for half a ratio, two for a ratio and three-quarters, and one for each additional ratio up to a maximum of seven representatives per county.120 Montana required reapportionment of its House on the basis of periodic enumerations according to ratios to be fixed by law121 but its counties were represented as counties in the Senate, each county having one senator.122 Alaska123 and Hawaii124 each apportioned a number of senators among constitutionally fixed districts; their respective Houses were to be periodically reapportioned by population, subject to a moiety rule in Alaska125 and to Hawaii’s guarantee of one representative to each of four constitutionally designated areas.126 The Arizona Constitution assigned representation to each county in each house, giving one or two senators and from one to seven representatives to each, and making no provision for reapportionment.127

*3194. Contemporary apportionment. Detailed recent studies are available to describe the present-day constitutional and statutory status of apportionment in the fifty States.128 They demonstrate a decided twentieth-century trend away from population as the exclusive base of representation. Today, only a dozen state constitutions provide for periodic legislative reapportionment of both houses by a substantially unqualified application of the population standard,129 and only about a dozen more prescribe such reapportionment for even a single chamber. “Specific provision for county representation in at least one house of the state legislature has been increasingly adopted since the end of the 19th century. . . .”130 More than twenty States now guarantee each county at least one seat in one of their houses regardless of population, and in nine others county or town units are given equal representation in one legislative branch, whatever the number of each unit’s inhabitants. Of course, numerically considered, “These provisions invariably result in over-representation of the least populated areas. . . .” 131 And in an effort to curb the political dominance of metropolitan regions, at least ten States now limit the maximum entitlement of any single county (or, in some cases, city) *320in one legislative house — another source of substantial numerical disproportion.132

Moreover, it is common knowledge that the legislatures have not kept reapportionment up to date, even where state constitutions in terms require it.133 In particular, the pattern of according greater per capita representation to rural, relatively sparsely populated areas — the same pattern which finds expression in various state constitutional provisions,134 and which has been given effect in England and elsewhere135 — has, in some of the States, been made the law by legislative inaction in the face of *321population shifts.136 Throughout the country, urban and suburban areas tend to be given higher representation ratios than do rural areas.137

The stark fact is that if among the numerous widely varying principles and practices that control state legislative apportionment today there is any generally prevailing feature, that feature is geographic inequality in relation to the population standard.138 Examples could be endlessly multiplied. In New Jersey, counties of *322thirty-five thousand and of more than nine hundred and five thousand inhabitants respectively each have a single senator.139 Representative districts in Minnesota range from 7,290 inhabitants to 107,246 inhabitants.140 Ratios of senatorial representation in California vary as much as two hundred and ninety-seven to one.141 In Oklahoma, the range is ten to one for House constituencies and roughly sixteen to one for Senate constituencies.142 Cole-brook, Connecticut — population 592 — elects two House representatives; Hartford — population 177,397 — also elects two.143 The first, third and fifth of these examples are the products of constitutional provisions which subordinate population to regional considerations in apportionment; the second is the result of legislative inaction; the fourth derives from both constitutional and legislative sources. A survey made in 1955, in sum, reveals that less than thirty percent of the population inhabit districts sufficient to elect a House majority in thirteen States and a Senate majority in nineteen States.144 These figures show more than individual variations from a generally accepted standard of electoral equality. They show that there is not — as there has never been — a standard by *323which the place of equality as a factor in apportionment can be measured.

Manifestly, the Equal Protection Clause supplies no clearer guide for judicial examination of apportionment methods than would the Guarantee Clause itself. Apportionment, by its character, is a subject of extraordinary complexity, involving — even after the fundamental theoretical issues concerning what is to be represented in a representative legislature have been fought out or compromised — considerations of geography, demography, electoral convenience, economic and social cohesions or divergencies among particular local groups, communications, the practical effects of political institutions like the lobby and the city machine, ancient traditions and ties of settled usage, respect for proven incumbents of long experience and senior status, mathematical mechanics, censuses compiling relevant data, and a host of others.145 *324Legislative responses throughout the country to the reapportionment demands of the 1960 Census have glaringly confirmed that these are not factors that lend themselves to evaluations of a nature that are the staple of judicial determinations or for which judges are equipped to adjudicate by legal training or experience or native wit. And this is the more so true because in every strand of this complicated, intricate web of values meet the contending forces of partisan politics.146 The practical significance of apportionment is that the next election results may differ because of it. Apportionment battles are overwhelmingly party or intra-party contests.147 It will add a virulent source of friction and tension in federal-state relations to embroil the federal judiciary in them.148

*325IV.

Appellants, however, contend that the federal courts may provide the standard which the Fourteenth Amendment lacks by reference to the provisions of the constitution of Tennessee. The argument is that although the same or greater disparities of electoral strength may be suffered to exist immune from federal judicial review in States where they result from apportionment legislation consistent with state constitutions, the Tennessee Legislature may not abridge the rights which, on its face, its own constitution appears to give, without by that act denying equal protection of the laws. It is said that the law of Tennessee, as expressed by the words of its written constitution, has made the basic choice among policies in favor of representation proportioned to population, and that it is no longer open to the State to allot its voting power on other principles.

This reasoning does not bear analysis. Like claims invoking state constitutional requirement have been rejected here and for good reason. It is settled that whatever federal consequences may derive from a discrimination worked by a state statute must be the same as if the same discrimination were written into the *326State’s fundamental law. Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Browning, 310 U. S. 362. And see Castillo v. McConnico, 168 U. S. 674; Coulter v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 196 U. S. 599, 608-609; Owensboro Waterworks Co. v. Owensboro, 200 U. S. 38; Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U. S. 312, 316-317; Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 11. Appellants complain of a practice which, by their own allegations, has been the law of Tennessee for sixty years. They allege that the Apportionment Act of 1901 created unequal districts when passed and still maintains unequal districts. They allege that the Legislature has since 1901 purposefully retained unequal districts. And the Supreme Court of Tennessee has refused to invalidate the law establishing these unequal districts. Kidd v. McCanless, 200 Tenn. 273, 292 S. W. 2d 40; appeal dismissed here in 352 U. S. 920. In these circumstances, what was said in the Browning case, supra, at 369, clearly governs this case:

“. . . Here, according to petitioner’s own claim, all the organs of the state are conforming to a practice, systematic, unbroken for more than forty years, and now questioned for the first time. It would be a narrow conception of jurisprudence to confine the notion of ‘laws’ to what is found written on the statute books, and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon it. Settled state practice cannot supplant constitutional guarantees, but it can establish what is state law. The Equal Protection Clause did not write an empty formalism into the Constitution. Deeply embedded traditional ways of carrying out state policy, such as those of which petitioner complains, are often tougher and truer law than the dead words of the written text. . . . [T]he Equal Protection Clause is not a command of candor. . . .”

*327Tennessee’s law and its policy respecting apportionment are what 60 years of practice show them to be, not what appellants cull from the unenforced and, according to its own judiciary, unenforceable words of its Constitution. The statute comes here on the same footing, therefore, as would the apportionment laws of New Jersey, California or Connecticut,149 and is unaffected by its supposed repugnance to the state constitutional language on which appellants rely.150

In another aspect, however, the Kidd v. McCanless case, supra, introduces a factor peculiar to this litigation, which only emphasizes the duty of declining the exercise of federal judicial jurisdiction. In all of the apportionment cases which have come before the Court, a consideration which has been weighty in determining their non-justicia-bility has been the difficulty or impossibility of devising effective judicial remedies in this class of case. An injunction restraining a general election unless the legislature reapportions would paralyze the critical centers of a State’s political system and threaten political dislocation whose consequences are not foreseeable. A declaration devoid *328of implied compulsion of injunctive or other relief would be an idle threat.151 Surely a Federal District Court could not itself remap the State: the same complexities which impede effective judicial review of apportionment a fortiori make impossible a court’s consideration of these imponderables as an original matter. And the choice of elections at large as opposed to elections by district, however unequal the districts, is a matter of sweeping political judgment having enormous political implications, the nature and reach of which are certainly beyond the informed understanding of, and capacity for appraisal by, courts.

In Tennessee, moreover, the McCanless case has closed off several among even these unsatisfactory and dangerous modes of relief. <\That case was a suit in the state courts attacking the 1901 Reapportionment Act and seeking a declaration and an injunction of the Act’s enforcement or, alternatively, a writ of mandamus compelling state election officials to hold the elections at large, or, again alternatively, a decree of the court reapportioning the State. The Chancellor denied all coercive relief, but entertained the suit for the purpose of rendering a declaratory judgment. It was his view that despite an invalidation of the statute under 'which the present legislature was elected, that body would continue to possess de facto authority to reapportion, and that therefore the maintaining of the suit did not threaten the disruption of the government. The Tennessee Supreme Court agreed that no coercive relief could be granted; in particular, it said, “There is no provision of- law for election of our General Assembly by an election at large over the State.” 200 Tenn., at 277, 292 S. W. 2d, at 42. Thus, a legislature elected at *329large would not be the legally constituted legislative authority of the State. The court reversed, however, the Chancellor’s determination to give declaratory relief, holding that the ground of demurrer which asserted that a striking down of the statute would disrupt the orderly process of government should have been sustained:

“(4) It seems obvious and we therefore hold that if the Act of 1901 is to be declared unconstitutional, then the de facto doctrine cannot be applied to maintain the present members of the General Assembly in office. If the Chancellor is correct in holding that this statute has expired by the passage of the decade following its enactment then for the same reason all prior apportionment acts have expired by a like lapse of time and are non-existent. Therefore we would not only not have any existing members of the General Assembly but we would have no apportionment act whatever under which a new election could be held for the election of members to the General Assembly.

“The ultimate result of holding this Act unconstitutional by reason of the lapse of time would be to deprive us of the present Legislature and the means of electing a new one and ultimately bring about the destruction of the State itself.” 200 Tenn., at 281-282, 292 S. W. 2d, at 44.

A federal court enforcing the Federal Constitution is not, to be sure, bound by the remedial doctrines of the state courts. But it must consider as pertinent to the propriety or impropriety of exercising its jurisdiction those state-law effects of its decree which it cannot itself control. A federal court cannot provide the authority requisite to make a legislature the proper governing body of the State of Tennessee. And it cannot be doubted that the striking down *330of the statute here challenged on equal protection grounds, no less than on grounds of failure to reapportion decennially, would deprive the State of all valid apportionment legislation and — under the ruling in McCanless — deprive the State of an effective law-based legislative branch. Just such considerations, among others here present, were determinative in Luther v. Borden and the Oregon initiative cases.152

Although the District Court had jurisdiction in the very restricted sense of power to determine whether it could adjudicate the claim, the case is of that class of political controversy which, by the nature of its subject, is unfit for federal judicial action. The judgment of the District Court, in dismissing the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, should therefore be affirmed.

*

It is worth reminding that the problem of legislative apportionment is not one dividing North and South. Indeed, in the present House of Representatives, for example, Michigan’s congressional districts are far less representative of the numbers of inhabitants, according to the 1960 census, than are Louisiana’s. Michigan’s Sixteenth District, which is 93.1% urban, contains 802,994 persons and its Twelfth, which is 47.6% urban, contains 177,431 — one-fifth as many persons. Louisiana’s most populous district, the Sixth, is 53.6% urban and contains 536,029 persons, and its least populous, the Eighth, 36.7% urban, contains 263,850 — nearly half. Gross disregard of any assumption that our political system implies even approximation to the notion that individual votes in the various districts within a State should have equal weight is as true, e. g., of California, Illinois, and Ohio as it is of Georgia. See United States Department of Commerce, Census Release, February 24,1962, CB62-23.

2

Although the motion to intervene by the Mayor of Nashville asserted an interest in the litigation in only a representative capacity, the complaint which he subsequently filed set forth that he was a qualified voter who also sued in his own behalf. The municipalities of Knoxville and Chattanooga purport to represent their residents. Since the claims of the municipal intervenors do not differ materially from those of the parties who sue as individual voters, the Court need not now determine whether the municipalities are proper parties to this proceeding. See, e. g., Stewart v. Kansas City, 239 U. S. 14.

3

The original complaint named as defendants Tennessee’s Secretary of State, Attorney General, Coordinator of Elections, and the three members of the State Board of Elections, seeking to make the Board members representatives of all the State’s County Election Commissioners. The prayer in an intervening complaint by the City of Knoxville, that the Commissioners of Elections of Knox County be added as parties defendant seems not to have been acted on by the court below. Defendants moved to dismiss, inter alia, on the ground *272of failure to join indispensable parties, and they argue in this Court that only the County Election Commissioners of the ninety-five counties are the effective administrators of Tennessee’s elections laws, and that none of the defendants have substantial duties in connection therewith. The District Court deferred ruling on this ground of the motion. Inasmuch as it involves questions of local law more appropriately decided by judges sitting in Tennessee than by this Court, and since in any event the failure to join County Election Commissioners in this action looking to prospective relief could be corrected, if necessary, by amendment of the complaints, the issue does not concern the Court on this appeal.

4

Jurisdiction is predicated upon R. S. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, and 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3).

5

However, counties having two-thirds of the ratio required for a Representative are entitled to seat one member in the House, and there are certain geographical restrictions upon the formation of Senate districts. The applicable provisions of Article II of the Tennessee Constitution are:

“Sec. 4- Census. — An enumeration of the qualified voters, and an apportionment of the Representatives in the General Assembly, shall be made in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and within every subsequent term of ten years.”

“Sec. 5. Apportionment of representatives. — The number of Representatives shall, at the several periods of making the enumeration, be apportioned among the several counties or districts, according to the number of qualified voters in each; and shall not exceed seventy-*273five, until the population of the State shall be one million and a half, and shall never exceed ninety-nine; Provided that any county having two-thirds of the ratio shall be entitled to one member.”

“Sec. 6. Apportionment of senators. — The number of Senators shall, at the several periods of making the enumeration, be apportioned among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified electors in each, and shall not exceed one-third the number of representatives. In apportioning the Senators among the different counties, the fraction that may be lost by any county or counties, in the apportionment of members to the House of Representatives, shall be made up to such county or counties in the Senate, as near as may be practicable. When a district is composed of two or more counties, they shall be adjoining; and no county shall be divided in forming a district.”

6

It is alleged that certain amendments to the Act of 1901 made only minor modifications of that Act, adjusting the boundaries of individual districts in a manner not material to plaintiffs’ claims.

7

The exhibits do not reveal the source of the population figures which they set forth, but it appears that the figures were taken from the United States Census of Population, 1950, Volume II, Part 42 (Tennessee), Table 41, at 76-91. These census figures represent the total population over twenty-one years of age in each Tennessee county; they do not purport to enumerate “qualified voters” or “qualified electors,” the measure of apportionment prescribed by the Tennessee Constitution. See note 5, supra. To qualify to vote in Tennessee, in addition to fulfilling the age requirement, an individual must be a citizen of the United States, a resident of the State for twelve months and of the county where he offers his vote for six months next preceding the election, and must not be under the dis*275qualification attaching to conviction for certain offenses. Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, §§ 2-201, 2-205. The statistics found in the United States Census of Population, 1950, Volume II, Part 42 (Tennessee), Table 42, at 92-97, suggest that the residence requirement, in particular, may be an unknown variable of considerable significance. Appellants do not suggest a means by which a court, on the basis of the federal census figures, can determine the number of qualified voters in the various Tennessee counties.

8

The “county aid funds” derived from a portion of a state gasoline privilege tax, for example, are distributed among the counties as follows: one-half equally among the ninety-five counties, one-quarter on the basis of area, one-quarter on the basis of population, to be used-by county authorities in the building, repairing and improving of county roads and bridges. Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, § 54-403. Appellants urge that this distribution is discriminatory.

9

Plaintiffs also suggested, as an alternative to at-large elections, that the District Court might itself redistrict the State. They did not, however, expressly pray such relief.

10

See Bickel, Foreword: The Passive Virtues, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 40, 45 et seq. (1961).

11

See, e. g., United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 634, 635; The Divina Pastora, 4 Wheat. 52; Williams v. Suffolk Ins. Co., 13 Pet. 415; Kennett v. Chambers, 14 How. 38; Doe v. Braden, 16 How. 635; Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202; Terlinden v. Ames, 184 U. S. 270; Charlton v. Kelly, 229 U. S. 447; Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U. S. 297; Ex parte Peru, 318 U. S. 578; Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503. Compare Foster and Elam v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, with United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691. Of course, judgment concerning the “political” nature of even a controversy affecting the Nation’s foreign affairs is not a simple mechanical matter, and certain of the Court’s decisions have accorded scant weight to the consideration of unity of action in the conduct of external relations. Compare Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U. S. 377, with United States v. Pink, 315 U. S. 203.

12

Obviously, this is the equivalent of saying that the characteristics are not “constitutionally requisite” in a judicially enforceable sense. The recognition of their necessity as a condition of legislation is left, as is observance of certain other constitutional commands, to the conscience of the non-judicial organs. Cf. Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66.

13

Also compare the Coleman case and United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, with Hawke v. Smith (No. 1), 253 U. S. 221. See the National Prohibition Cases, 253 U. S. 350; and consider the Court’s treatment of the several contentions in Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130.

14

E. g., Myers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368; Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73; Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649. The action for damages for improperly rejecting an elector’s vote had been given by the English law since the time of Ashby v. White, 1 Brown’s Cases in Parliament 62; 2 Ld. Raym. 938; 3 Ld. Raym. 320, a case which in its own day precipitated an intra-parliamentary war of major dimensions. See 6 Hansard, Parliamentary History of England (1810), 225-324, 376-436. Prior to the racial-discrimination cases, this Court had recognized the action, by implication, in dictum in Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U. S. 487, and Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 58, both respecting federal elections.

15

Cf. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339.

16

By statute an action for preventive relief is now given the United States in certain voting cases. 71 Stat. 637, 42 U. S. C. § 1971 (c), amending R. S. § 2004. See United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17; United States v. Thomas, 362 U. S. 58.

17

Compare Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, and cases following, with Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50.

18

Compare Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, with Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 20, 28 (Mr. Justice Johnson, concurring), 51 and 75 (Mr. Justice Thompson, dissenting).

19

This was an alternative ground of Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion for the Court. Id., at 20. The question which Marshall reserved as “unnecessary to decide,” ibid., was not the justiciability of the bill *288in this aspect, but the “more doubtful” question whether that “part of the bill which respects the land occupied by the Indians, and prays the aid of the court to protect their possession,” might be entertained. Ibid. Mr. Justice Johnson, concurring, found the controversy non-justiciable and would have put the ruling solely on this ground, id., at 28, and Mr. Justice Thompson, in dissent, agreed that much of the matter in the bill was not fit for judicial determination. Id., at 51, 75.

20

Cf. Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475.

21

Considerations similar to those which determined the Cherokee Nation case and Georgia v. Stanton no doubt explain the celebrated decision in Nabob of the Carnatic v. East India Co., 1 Ves. jun. *371; 2 Ves. jun. *56, rather than any attribution of a portion of British sovereignty, in respect of Indian affairs, to the company. The reluctance of the English Judges to involve themselves in contests of factional political power is of ancient standing. In The Duke *289of York’s Claim to the Croum, 5 Rotuli Parl. 375, printed in Wambaugh, Cases on Constitutional Law (1915), 1, the role which the Judges were asked to play appears to have been rather that of advocates than of judges, but the answer which they returned to the Lords relied on reasons equally applicable to either role.

22

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”

23

Cf. the cases holding that the Fourteenth Amendment imposes no such restriction upon the form of a State’s governmental organization as will permit persons affected by government action to complain that in its organization principles of separation of powers have been violated. E. g., Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U. S. 71; Soliah v. Heskin, 222 U. S. 522; Houck v. Little River Drainage District, 239 U. S. 254. The same consistent refusal of this Court to find that the Federal Constitution restricts state power to design the structure of state political institutions is reflected in the cases rejecting claims arising out of the States’ creation, alteration, or destruction of local *290subdivisions or their powers, insofar as these claims are made by the subdivisions themselves, see Laramie County v. Albany County, 92 U. S. 307; Pawhuska v. Pawhuska Oil & Gas Co., 250 U. S. 394; Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U. S. 182; Risty v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 270 U. S. 378, 389-390; Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 289 U. S. 36, or by the whole body of their residents who share only a general, undifferentiated interest in their preservation. See Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U. S. 161. The policy is also given effect by the denial of “standing” to persons seeking to challenge state action as infringing the interest of some separate unit within the State’s administrative structure — a denial which precludes the arbitrament by federal courts of what are only disputes over the local allocation of government functions and powers. See, e. g., Smith v. Indiana, 191 U. S. 138; Braxton County Court v. West Virginia, 208 U. S. 192; Marshall v. Dye, 231 U. S. 250; Stewart v. Kansas City, 239 U. S. 14.

24

223 U. S., at 141. . . [T]he contention, if held to be sound, would necessarily affect the validity, not only of the particular statute which is before us, but of every other statute passed in Oregon since the adoption of the initiative and referendum. And indeed the propositions go further than this, since in their essence they assert that there is no governmental function, legislative or judicial, in Oregon, because it cannot be assumed, if the proposition be well founded, that there is at one and the same time one and the same government which is republican in form and not of that character.” Compare Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1, 38—39:

“. . . For, if this court is authorized to enter upon this inquiry as proposed by the plaintiff, and it should be decided that the charter government had no legal existence during the period of time above mentioned, — if it had been annulled by the adoption of the opposing government, — then the laws passed by its legislature during that time were nullities; its taxes wrongfully collected; its salaries and compensation to its officers illegally paid; its public accounts improperly settled; and the judgments and sentences of its courts in civil and criminal cases null and void, and the officers who carried their decisions into operation answerable as trespassers, if not in some cases as criminals.

“When the decision of this court might lead to such results, it becomes its duty to examine very carefully its own powers before it undertakes to exercise jurisdiction.”

25

See Bowen, The Recent Contest in Rhode Island (1844); Frieze, A Concise History of the Efforts to Obtain an Extension of Suffrage in Rhode Island; From the Year 1811 to 1842 (2d ed. 1842); Mowry, The Dorr War (1901); Wayland, The Affairs of Rhode Island (2d ed. 1842).

26

The Court reasoned, with respect to the guarantee against domestic violence also contained in Art. IV, §4, that this, too, was an authority committed solely to Congress; that Congress had empowered the President, not the courts, to enforce it; and that it *295was inconceivable that the courts should assume a power to make determinations in the premises which might conflict with those of the Executive. It noted further that, in fact, the President had recognized the governor of the charter government as the lawful authority in Rhode Island, although it had been unnecessary to call out the militia in his support.

27

See note 24, supra.

28

Id., at 39, 46-47.

29

Id., at 41-42.

30

In evaluating the Court’s determination not to inquire into the authority of the charter government, it must be remembered that, throughout the country, Dorr “had received the sympathy of the Democratic press. His cause, therefore, became distinctly a party issue.” 2 Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Rev. ed. 1937), 186.

31

Appellants also allege discrimination in the legislature’s allocation of certain tax burdens and benefits. Whether or not such discrimination would violate the Equal Protection Clause if the tax statutes were challenged in a proper proceeding, see Dane v. Jackson, 256 U. S. 589; cf. Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249, 268, these recitative allegations do not affect the nature of the controversy which appellants’ complaints present.

32

Appellants would find a “right” to have one’s ballot counted on authority of United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383; United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299; United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385. All that these cases hold is that conspiracies to commit certain sharp election practices which, in a federal election, cause ballots not to receive the weight which the law has in fact given them, may amount to deprivations of the constitutionally secured right to vote for federal officers. But see United States v. Bathgate, 246 U. S. 220. The cases do not so much as suggest that there exists a constitutional limitation upon the relative weight to which the law might properly entitle respective ballots, even in federal elections.

33

Mackenzie, Free Elections (1958) (hereafter, Mackenzie), 108.

34

Ogg, English Government and Politics (2d ed. 1936) (hereafter, Ogg), 248-250, 257; Seymour, Electoral Reform in England and Wales (1915) (hereafter, Seymour), 46-47.

35

Ogg 257-259; Seymour 45-52; Carpenter, The Development of American Political Thought (1930) (hereafter, Carpenter), 45-46.

36

Ogg 258.

37

Seymour 51.

38

The Federalist, No. 56 (Wright ed. 1961), at 382. Compare Seymour 49. This takes account of the restricted franchise as well as the effect of the local-unit apportionment principle.

39

Seymour 52-76.

40

Ogg 26-4-265; Seymour 318-319.

41

For these and other instances of gross inequality, see Seymour 320-325.

42

Seymour 333-346; Ogg 265.

43

Seymour 349, 490-491.

44

Seymour 489-518.

45

Mackenzie 108; see also Seymour 513-517.

46

Ogg 270.

47

Ogg 253.

48

Ogg 270-271.

49

Ogg 273-274.

50

7 & 8 Geo. VI, c. 41. The 1944 Act was amended by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1947, 10 & 11 Geo. VI, c. 10, and the two, with other provisions, were consolidated in the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1949, 12 & 13 Geo. VI, c. 66, since amended by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1958, 6 & 7 Eliz. II, c. 26.

51

See generally Butler, The Redistribution of Seats, 33 Public Administration 125 (1955).

52

See note 50, supra. However, Commissions are given discretion to depart from the strict application of the local boundary rule to avoid excessive disparities between the electorate of a constituency and the electoral quota, or between the electorate of a constituency and that of neighboring constituencies. For detailed discussion, see Craig, Parliament and Boundary Commissions, [1959] Public Law 23. See also Butler, supra, note 51, at 127.

53

Mackenzie 108, 113.

54

The Times, Dee. 15, 1954, p. 4, cols 3-4.

55

[1955] 1 Ch. 238.

56

The court reserved the question whether a judicial remedy might be found in a case in which it appeared that a Commission had manifestly acted in complete disregard of the Acts.

57

Note 50, supra.

58

First Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission for England [Cmd. 9311] (1954), 4, par. 19.

59

Under the 1949 Act, see note 50, supra, the intervals between reports were to be not less than three nor more than seven years, with certain qualifications. The 1958 Act raised the minimum to ten and the maximum to fifteen years.

60

First Periodical Report, supra, note 58, at 4, par. 20.

61

582 H. C. Deb. (5th ser. 1957-1958), 230.

62

See The Federalist, No. 56, supra, note 38; Tudor, Life of James Otis (1823), 188-190.

63

Griffith, The Rise and Development of the Gerrymander (1907) (hereafter, Griffith), 23-24.

64

Luce, Legislative Principles (1930) (hereafter, Luce), 336-342.

65

Griffith 25.

66

Griffith 15-16, n. 1.

67

Griffith 28.

68

Carpenter 48-49, 54; Griffith 26, 28-29; Luce 339-340.

69

Carpenter 87; Griffith 26-29, 31.

70

II Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention (1911), 241.

71

The power was provided. Art. I, §4, cl. 1.

72

III Elliot’s Debates (2d ed. 1891), 367; II id., at 50-51.

73

See Madison, in I Farrand, op. cit., supra, note 70, at 321: “The great difficulty lies in the affair of Representation; and if this could be adjusted, all others would be surmountable.”

74

See The Federalist, No. 62 (Wright ed. 1961), at 408-409.

75

See The Federalist, No. 54, id., at 369-374.

76

Carpenter 130.

77

Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Peden ed. 1955), 118-119. See also II Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial ed. 1903), 160-162.

78

Carpenter 139-140.

79

Griffith 102-104.

80

Griffith 104-105.

81

Luce 343-350. Bowen, supra, note 25, at 17-18, records that in 1824 Providence County, having three-fifths of Rhode Island’s population, elected only twenty-two of its seventy-two representatives, and that the town of Providence, more than double the size of Newport, had half Newport’s number of representatives.

82

Carpenter 130-137; Luce 364-367; Griffith 116-117.

83

See 14 Stat. 428; 15 Stat. 2, 14, 41.

84

Various indices of population were employed among the States which took account of the factor of numbers. Some counted all inhabitants, e. g., N. J. Const., 1844, Art. IV, § 3; some, only white inhabitants, e. g., Ill. Const., 1848, Art. III, § 8; some, male inhabitants over twenty-one, e. g., Ind. Const., 1851, Art. IV, §§ 4-5; some, qualified voters, e. g., Tenn. Const., 1834, Art. II, §§4 to 6; some excluded aliens, e. g., N. Y. Const., 1846, Art. II, §§ 4, 5 (and untaxed persons of color); some excluded untaxed Indians and military personnel, e. g., Neb. Const., 1866-1867, Art. II, §3. For present purposes these differences, although not unimportant as revealing fundamental divergences in representation theory, will be disregarded.

85

Ore. Const., 1857, Art. IV, §§ 5, 6, 7; Ill. Const., 1848, Art. III, §§ 8, 9; Ind. Const., 1851, Art. IV, §§ 4, 5, 6; Minn. Const., 1857, *312Art. IV, § 2; Wis. Const., 1848, Art. IV, §§ 3 to 5; Mass. Const., 1780, Amends. XXI, XXII; Neb. Const., 1866-1867, Art.. II, § 3. All of these but Minnesota made provision for periodic reapportionment. Nevada’s Constitution of 1864, Art. XV, § 13, provided that the federal censuses and interim state decennial enumerations should serve as the bases of representation for both houses, but did not expressly require either numerical equality or reapportionment at fixed intervals.

Several of these constitutions contain provisions which forbid splitting counties or which otherwise require recognition of local boundaries. See, e. g., the severe restriction in Ill. Const., 1848, Art. Ill, § 9. Such provisions will almost inevitably produce numerical inequalities. See, for example, University of Oklahoma, Bureau of Government Research, Legislative Apportionment in Oklahoma (1956), 21-23. However, because their effect in this regard will turn on idiosyncratic local factors, and because other constitutional provisions are a more significant source of inequality, these provisions are here disregarded.

86

Tenn. Const., 1834, Art. II, §§ 4 to 6 (two-thirds of a ratio entitles a co.unty to one representative in the House); W. Va. Const., 1861-1863, Art. IV, §§ 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (one-half of a ratio entitles a county to one representative in the House); Mich. Const., 1850, Art. IV, §§ 2 to 4 (one-half of a ratio entitles each county thereafter organized to one representative in the House). In Oregon and Iowa a major-fraction rule applied which gave a House seat not only to counties having a moiety of a single ratio, but to all counties having more than half a ratio in excess of the multiple of a ratio. Ore. Const., 1857, Art. IV, § 6, note 85, supra; Iowa Const., 1857, Art. III, §§ 33, 34, 35, 37, note 89, infra.

87

See Bone, States Attempting to Comply with Reapportionment Requirements, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 387, 391 (1952).

88

It also appears, although the section is not altogether clear, that the provisions of West Virginia’s Constitution controlling apportionment of senators would operate in favor of the State’s less populous regions by limiting any single county to a maximum of two senators. W. Va. Const., 1861-1863, Art. IV, § 4.

89

Iowa Const., 1857, Art. III, §§ 33, 34, 35, 37.

90

N. Y. Const., 1846, Art. III, §§ 4, 5 (except Hamilton County); Kan. Const., 1859, Art. 2, § 2; Art. 10. The Kansas provisions require periodic apportionment based on censuses, but do not in terms demand equal districts.

91

Ohio Const., 1851, Art. XI, §§ 1 to 5. See Art. XI, §§ 6 to 9 for Senate apportionment.

92

Me. Const., 1819, Art. IV, Pt. First, §§ 2, 3. See Art. IV, Pt. Second, § 2, for Senate apportionment based on numbers.

93

Mo. Const., 1865, Art. IV, §§ 2, 7, 8. See Art. IV, §§ 4 to 8, for Senate apportionment based on numbers.

94

Towns smaller than one hundred and fifty, if so situated that it was “very inconvenient” to join them to other towns for voting purposes, might be permitted by the legislature to send a representative.

95

N. H. Const., 1792, Pt. Second, §§ IX to XI; Pt. Second, § XXVI.

96

Pa. Const., 1838, as amended, Art. I, §§ 4, 6, 7.

97

Conn. Const., 1818, Art. Third, § 3.

98

Vt. Const., 1793, c. II, § 7.

99

R. I. Const., 1842, Art. VI, § 1.

100

N. J. Const., 1844, Art. IV, § 2, cl. One.

101

Conn. Const., 1818, Amend. II.

102

Vt. Const., 1793, Amend. 23.

103

N. J. Const., 1844, Art. IV, § 3, cl. One.

104

R. I. Const., 1842, Art. V, § 1.

105

Ark. Const., 1868, Art. V, §§ 8, 9; Va. Const., 1864, Art. IV, § 6 (this constitution was in effect when Virginia ratified the Fourteenth Amendment); Va. Const., 1870, Art. V, § 4 (this was Virginia’s Reconstruction-Act convention constitution); Miss. Const., 1868, Art. IV, §§ 33 to 35; Tex. Const., 1868, Art. III, §§ 11, 34. The Virginia Constitutions and Texas’ provisions for apportioning its lower chamber do not in terms require equality of numbers, although they call for reapportionment following a census. In Arkansas, the legislature was authorized, but not commanded, to reapportion periodically; it is not clear that equality was required.

106

N. C. Const., 1868, Art. II, §§ 6, 7. See Art. II, § 5, for Senate apportionment based on numbers.

107

S. C. Const., 1868, Art. I, § 34; Art. II, §§ 4 to 6.

108

La. Const., 1868, Tit. II, Arts. 20, 21. See Tit. II, Arts. 28 to 30, for Senate apportionment based on numbers.

109

Ala. Const., 1867, Art. VIII, § 1. See Art. VIII, § 3, for Senate apportionment based on numbers.

110

S. C. Const., 1868, Art. II, § 8.

111

Fla. Const., 1868, Art. XIV, par. 1. See Art. XIV, par. 2, for Senate apportionment.

112

Ga. Const., 1868, Art. III, § 2. The extent of legislative authority to alter these districts is unclear, but it appears that the structure of three contiguous counties for each of forty-four districts is meant to be permanent.

113

Ga. Const., 1868, Art. III, § 3. The extent of legislative authority to alter the apportionment is unclear, but it appears that the three-tiered structure is meant to be permanent.

114

See, e. g., Durfee, Apportionment of Representation in the Legislature: A Study of State Constitutions, 43 Mich. L. Rev. 1091, 1097 (1945); Short, States That Have Not Met Their Constitutional Requirements, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 377 (1952); Harvey, Reap-portionments of State Legislatures — Legal Requirements, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 364, 370 (1952). For an excellent case study of numerical inequalities deriving solely from a one-member-per-county minimum provision in Ohio, see Aumann, Rural Ohio Hangs On, 46 Nat. Mun. Rev. 189, 191-192 (1957).

115

Dauer and Kelsay, Unrepresentative States, 44 Nat. Mun. Rev. 571, 574 (1955). (This is the effect of a later Georgia constitutional provision, Ga. Const., 1945, § 2-1501, substantially similar to that of 1868.) The same three-tiered system has subsequently been adopted in Florida, Fla. Const., 1885, Art. VII, §§ 3, 4, where its effects have been inequalities of the order of eighty to one. Dauer and Kelsay, supra, at 575, 587.

116

The constitutions discussed are those under which the new States entered the Union.

117

Colo. Const., 1876, Art. V, §§ 45, 47; N. D. Const., 1889, Art. 2, §§ 29, 35; S. D. Const., 1889, Art. III, § 5; Wash. Const., 1889, Art. II, §§ 3, 6; Utah Const., 1895, Art. IX, §§ 2, 4; N. M. Const., 1911, Art. IV, following § 41. The Colorado and Utah Constitutions provide for reapportionment “according to ratios to be fixed by law” after periodic census and enumeration. In New Mexico the legislature is authorized, but not commanded, to reapportion periodically. North Dakota does not in terms demand equality in House representation; members are to be assigned among the several senatorial districts, which are of equal population.

118

Wyo. Const., 1889, Art. III, Legislative Department, § 3; Art. III, Apportionment, §§ 2, 3.

119

Idaho Const., 1889, Art. III, § 4.

120

Okla. Const., 1907, Art. V, § 10 (b) to (j). See Art. V, §§ 9 (a), 9 (b) for Senate apportionment based on numbers.

121

Mont. Const., 1889, Art. VI, §§ 2, 3.

122

Mont. Const., 1889, Art. V, §4; Art. VI, §4. The effective provisions are, first, that there shall be no more than one senator from each county, and, second, that no senatorial district shall consist of more than one county.

123

Alaska Const., 1956, Art. VI, § 7; Art. XIV, § 2. The exact boundaries of the districts may be modified to conform to changes in House districts, but their numbers of senators and their approximate perimeters are to be preserved.

124

Hawaii Const., 1950, Art. III, § 2.

125

Alaska Const., 1956, Art. VI, §§ 3, 4, 6. The method of equal proportions is used.

126

Hawaii Const., 1950, Art. III, § 4. The method of equal proportions is used, and, for sub-apportionment within the four “basic” areas, a form of moiety rule obtains.

127

Ariz. Const., 1910, Art. IV, Pt. 2, §1. On the basis of 1910 census figures, this apportionment yielded, for example, a senatorial-ratio differential of more than four to one between Mohave and Cochise or between Mohave and Maricopa Counties. II Thirteenth Census of the United States (1910), 71-73.

128

The pertinent state constitutional provisions are set forth in tabular form in XIII Book of the States (1960-1961), 54-58; and Greenfield, Ford and Emery, Legislative Reapportionment: California in National Perspective (University of California, Berkeley, 1959), 81-85. An earlier treatment now outdated in several respects but still useful is Durfee, supra, note 114. See discussions in Harvey, supra, note 114; Shull, Political and Partisan Implications of State Legislative Apportionment, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 417, 418-421 (1952).

129

Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is included in this count.

130

Greenfield, Ford and Emery, supra, note 128, at 7.

131

Harvey, supra, note 114, at 367. See Tabor, The Gerrymandering of State and Federal Legislative Districts, 16 Md. L. Rev. 277, 282-283 (1956).

132

See, e. g., Mather and Ray, The Iowa Senatorial Districts Can Be Reapportioned — A Possible Plan, 39 Iowa L. Rev. 535, 536-537 (1954).

133

See, e. g., Walter, Reapportionment and Urban Representation, 195 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 11, 12-13 (1938); Bone, supra, note 87. Legislative inaction and state constitutional provisions rejecting the principle of equal numbers have both contributed to the generally prevailing numerical inequality of representation in this country. Compare Walter, supra, with Baker, One Vote, One Value, 47 Nat. Mun. Rev. 16, 18 (1958).

134

See, e. g., Griffith 116-117; Luce 364-367, 370; Merriam, American Political Ideas (1929), 244-245; Legislation, Apportionment of the New York State Senate, 31 St. John’s L. Rev. 335, 341-342 (1957).

135

In 1947, the Boundary Commission for England, “. . . impressed by the advantages of accessibility [that large compact urban regions] . . . enjoy over widely scattered rural areas . . . came to the conclusion that they could conveniently support electorates in excess of the electoral quota, and would in the majority of cases prefer to do so rather than suffer severance of local unity for parliamentary purposes” — that “in general urban constituencies could more conveniently support large electorates than rural constituencies . . . .” Initial Report of the Boundary Commission for England [Cmd. 7260] (1947), 5. See also Mackenzie 110-111; De Grazia, General Theory of Apportionment, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 256, 261-262 (1952).

136

See Walter, supra, note 133; Walter, Reapportionment of State Legislative Districts, 37 Ill. L. Rev. 20, 37-38 (1942). The urban-rural conflict is often the core of apportionment controversy. See Durfee, supra, note 114, at 1093-1094; Short, supra, note 114, at 381.

137

Baker, Rural Versus Urban Political Power (1955), 11-19; MacNeil, Urban Representation in State Legislatures, 18 State Government 59 (1945); United States Conference of Mayors, Government Of the People, By the People, For the People (ca. 1947).

138

See, in addition to the authorities cited in notes 130, 131, 136 and 137, supra, and 140 to 144, infra, (all containing other examples than those remarked in text), Hurst, The Growth of American Law, The Law Makers (1950), 41-42; American Political Science Assn., Committee on American Legislatures, American State Legislatures (Zeller ed. 1954), 34-35; Gosnell, Democracy, The Threshold of Freedom (1948), 179-181; Lewis, Legislative Apportionment and the Federal Courts, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 1057, 1059-1064 (1958); Friedman, Reapportionment Myth, 49 Nat. Civ. Rev. 184,185-186 (1960); 106 Cong. Rec. 14901-14916 (remarks of Senator Clark and supporting materials); H. R. Rep. No. 2533, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. 24; H. R. Doc. No. 198, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 38-40; Hadwiger, Representation in the Missouri General Assembly, 24 Mo. L. Rev. 178, 180-181 (1959); Hamilton, Beardsley and Coats, Legislative Reapportionment in Indiana: Some Observations and a Suggestion, 35 Notre Dame Law. 368-370 (1960); Corter, Pennsylvania Ponders Apportionment, 32 Temple L. Q. 279, 283-288 (1959). Concerning the classical gerrymander, see Griffith, passim; Luce 395-404; Brooks, Political Parties and Electoral Problems (3d ed. 1933), 472-481. For foreign examples of numerical disproportion, see Hogan, Election and Representation (1945), 95; Finer, Theory and Practice of Modern Government (Rev. ed. 1949), 551-552.

139

Baker, supra, note 137, at 11. Recent New Jersey legislation provides for reapportionment of the State’s lower House by executive action following each United States census subsequent to that of 1960. N. J. Laws 1961, c. 1. The apportionment is to be made on the basis of population, save that each county is assured at least one House seat. In the State’s Senate, however, by constitutional command, each county elects a single senator, regardless of population. N. J. Const., 1947, Art. IV, § II, par. 1.

140

Note, 42 Minn. L. Rev. 617, 618-619 (1958).

141

Greenfield, Ford and Emery, supra, note 128, at 3.

142

University of Oklahoma, Bureau of Government Research, The Apportionment Problem in Oklahoma (1959), 16-29.

143

1 Labor’s Economic Rev. 89, 96 (1956).

144

Dauer and Kelsay, Unrepresentative States, 44 Nat. Mun. Rev. 571, 572, 574 (1955).

145

See the Second Schedule to the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1949, 12 & 13 Geo. VI, c. 66, as amended by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1958, 6 & 7 Eliz. II, c. 26, § 2, and the English experience described in text at notes 50 to 61, supra. See also the Report of the Assembly Interim Committee on Elections and Reapportionment, California Assembly (1951) (hereafter, California Committee Report), 37: “The geographic — the socio-economic — the desires of the people — the desires of the elected officeholders — the desires of political parties — all these can and do legitimately operate not only within the framework of the ‘relatively equal in population districts’ factor, but also within the factors of contiguity and compactness. The county and Assembly line legal restrictions operate outside the framework of theoretically ‘equal in population districts.’ All the factors might conceivably have the same weight in one situation; in another, some factors might be considerably more important than others in making the final determination.” A Virginia legislative committee adverted to “. . . many difficulties such as natural topographical barriers, divergent business and social interests, lack of communication by rail or highway, and disinclinations of communities to breaking up political ties of long standing, resulting in some cases of districts requesting to remain with populations more than their averages rather than have their equal *324representation with the changed conditions.” Report of the Joint Committee on the Re-apportionment of the State into Senatorial and House Districts, Virginia General Assembly, House of Delegates, H. Doc. No. 9 (1922), 1-2. And the Tennessee State Planning Commission, concerning the problem of congressional redistricting in 1950, spoke of a “tradition [which] relates to the sense of belonging- — loyalties to groups and items of common interest with friends and fellow citizens of like circumstance, environment or region.” Tennessee State Planning Commission, Pub. No. 222, Redistricting for Congress (1950), first page.

146

See, e. g., California Committee Report, at 52.

"... [T]he reapportionment process is, by its very nature, political. . . . There will be politics in reapportionment as long as a representative form of government exists ....

“It is impossible to draw a district boundary line without that line’s having some political significance. . . .”

147

See, e. g., Celler, Congressional Apportionment — Past, Present, and Future, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 268 (1952), speaking of the history of congressional apportionment:

“. . .A mere reading of the debates [from the Constitutional Convention down to contemporary Congresses] on this question of apportionment reveals the conflicting interests of the large and small states and the extent to which partisan politics permeates the entire problem.”

148

See Standards for Congressional Districts (Apportionment), Hearings before Subcommittee No. 2 of the Committee on the *325Judiciary, House of Representatives, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. 23, concerning a proposed provision for judicial enforcement of certain standards in the laying out of districts:

“Mr. Kasem. You do not think that that [a provision embodying the language: ‘in as compact form as practicable’] might result in a decision depending upon the political inclinations of the judge?

“Mr. Celler. Are you impugning the integrity of our Federal judiciary?

“Mr. Kasem. No; I just recognize their human frailties.”

For an instance of a court torn, in fact or fancy, over the political issues involved in reapportionment, see State ex rel. Lashly v. Becker, 290 Mo. 560, 235 S. W. 1017, and.especially the dissenting opinion of Higbee, J., 290 Mo., at 613, 235 S. W., at 1037.

149

See text at notes 139-143, supra.

150

Decisions of state courts which have entertained apportionment cases under their respective state constitutions do not, of course, involve the very different considerations relevant to federal judicial intervention. State-court adjudication does not involve the delicate problems of federal-state relations which would inhere in the exercise of federal judicial power to impose restrictions upon the States’ shaping of their own governmental institutions. Moreover, state constitutions generally speak with a specificity totally lacking in attempted utilization of the generalities of the Fourteenth Amendment to apportionment matters. Some expressly commit apportionment to state judicial review, see, e. g., N. Y. Const., 1938, Art. III, § 5, and even where they do not, they do precisely fix the criteria for judicial judgment respecting the allocation of representative strength within the electorate. See, e. g., Asbury Park Press. Inc., v. Woolley, 33 N. J. 1, 161 A. 2d 705.

151

Appellants’ suggestion that, although no relief may need be given, jurisdiction ought to be retained as a “spur” to legislative action does not merit discussion.

152

See note 24, supra.

Dissenting opinion of

Mr. Justice Harlan,

whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter joins.

The dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, in which I join, demonstrates the abrupt departure the majority makes from judicial history by putting the federal courts into this area of state concerns — an area which, in this instance, the Tennessee state courts themselves have refused to enter.

It does not detract from his opinion to say that the panorama of judicial history it unfolds, though evincing a steadfast underlying principle of keeping the federal courts out of these domains, has a tendency, because of variants in expression, to becloud analysis in a given case. With due respect to the majority, I think that has happened here.

Once one cuts through the thicket of discussion devoted to “jurisdiction,” “standing,” “justiciability,” and “po*331litical question,” there emerges a straightforward issue which, in my view, is determinative of this case. Does the complaint disclose a violation of a federal constitutional right, in other words, a claim over which a United States District Court would have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3) and 42 U. S. C. § 1983? The majority opinion does not actually discuss this basic question, but, as one concurring Justice observes, seems to decide it “sub silentio.” Ante, p. 261. However, in my opinion, appellants’ allegations, accepting all of them as true, do not, parsed down or as a whole, show an infringement by Tennessee of any rights assured by the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, I believe the complaint should have been dismissed for “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., Rule 12 (b) (6).

It is at once essential to recognize this case for what it is. The issue here relates not to a method of state electoral apportionment by which seats in the federal House of Representatives are allocated, but solely to the right of a State' to fix the "basis of representation in its own legislature. Until it is first decided to what extent that right is limited by the Federal Constitution, and whether what Tennessee has done or failed to do in this instance runs afoul of any such limitation, we need not reach the issues of “justiciability” or “political question” or any of the other considerations which in such cases as Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, led the Court to decline to adjudicate a challenge to a state apportionment affecting seats in the federal House of Representatives, in the absence of a controlling Act of Congress. See also Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1.

The appellants’ claim in this case ultimately rests entirely on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is asserted that Tennessee has violated the Equal Protection Clause by maintaining in effect a *332system of apportionment that grossly favors in legislative representation the rural sections of the State as against its urban communities. Stripped to its essentials the complaint purports to set forth three constitutional claims of varying breadth:

(1) The Equal Protection Clause requires that each vote cast in state legislative elections be given approximately equal weight.

(2) Short of this, the existing apportionment of state legislators is so unreasonable as to amount to an arbitrary and capricious act of classification on the part of the Tennessee Legislature, which is offensive to the Equal Protection Clause.

(3) In any event, the existing apportionment is rendered invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it flies in the face of the Tennessee Constitution.

For reasons given in Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s opinion, ante, pp. 325-327, the last of these propositions is manifestly untenable, and need not be dealt with further. I turn to the other two.

I.

I can find nothing in the Equal Protection Clause or elsewhere in the Federal Constitution which expressly or impliedly supports the view that state legislatures must be so structured as to reflect with approximate equality the voice of every voter. Not only is that proposition refuted by history, as shown by my Brother Frankfurter, but it strikes deep into the heart of our federal system. Its acceptance would require us to turn our backs on the regard which this Court has always shown for the judgment of state legislatures and courts on matters of basically local concern.

*333In the last analysis, what lies at the core of this controversy is a difference of opinion as to the function of representative government. It is surely beyond argument that those who have the responsibility for devising a system of representation may permissibly consider that factors other than bare numbers should be taken into account. The existence of the United States Senate is proof enough of that. To consider that we may ignore the Tennessee Legislature’s judgment in this instance because that body was the product of an asymmetrical electoral apportionment would in effect be to assume the very conclusion here disputed. Hence we must accept the present form of the Tennessee Legislature as the embodiment of the State’s choice, or, more realistically, its compromise, between competing political philosophies. The federal courts have not been empowered by the Equal Protection Clause to judge whether this resolution of the State’s internal political conflict is desirable or undesirable, wise or unwise.

With respect to state tax statutes and regulatory measures, for example, it has been said that the “day is gone when this Court uses the . . . Fourteenth Amendment to strike down state laws . . . because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.” Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 488. I would think it all the more compelling for us to follow this principle of self-restraint when what is involved is the freedom of a State to deal with so intimate a concern as the structure of its own legislative branch. The Federal Constitution imposes no limitation on the form which a state government may take other than generally committing to the United States the duty to guarantee to every State “a Republican Form of Government.” And, as my Brother Frankfurter so conclusively proves (ante, pp. 308-317), no intention to fix immutably the *334means of selecting representatives for state governments could have been in the minds of either the Founders or the draftsmen of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In short, there is nothing in the Federal Constitution to prevent a State, acting not irrationally, from choosing any electoral legislative structure it thinks best suited to the interests, temper, and customs of its people. I would have thought this proposition settled by MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, in which the Court observed (at p. 283) that to “assume that political power is a function exclusively of numbers is to disregard the practicalities of government,” and reaffirmed by South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276. A State’s choice to distribute electoral strength among geographical units, rather than according to a census of population, is certainly no less a rational decision of policy than would be .its choice to levy a tax on property rather than a tax on income. Both are legislative judgments entitled to equal respect from this Court.

II.

The claim that Tennessee’s system of apportionment is so unreasonable as to amount to a capricious classification of voting strength stands up no better under dispassionate analysis.

The Court has said time and again that the Equal Protection Clause does not demand of state enactments either mathematical identity or rigid equality. E. g., Allied Stores of Ohio v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522, 527-528, and authorities there cited; McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 425-426. All that is prohibited is “invidious discrimination” bearing no rational relation to any permissible policy of the State. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., supra, at 489. And in deciding whether such discrimination has been practiced by a State, it must be borne in mind that a “statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be con*335ceived to justify it.” McGowan v. Maryland, supra. It is not inequality alone that calls for a holding of unconstitutionality; only if the inequality is based on an impermissible standard may this Court condemn it.

What then is the basis for the claim made in this case that the distribution of state senators and representatives is the product of capriciousness or of some constitutionally prohibited policy? It is not that Tennessee has arranged its electoral districts with a deliberate purpose to dilute the voting strength of one race, cf. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, or that some religious group is intentionally underrepresented. Nor is it a charge that the legislature has indulged in sheer caprice by allotting representatives to each county on the basis of a throw of the dice, or of some other determinant bearing no rational relation to the question of apportionment. Rather, the claim is that the State Legislature has unreasonably retained substantially the same allocation of senators and representatives as was established by statute in 1901, refusing to recognize the great shift in the population balance between urban and rural communities that has occurred in the meantime.

It is further alleged that even as of 1901 the apportionment was invalid, in that it did not allocate state legislators among the counties in accordance with the formula set out in Art. II, § 5, of the Tennessee Constitution. In support of this the appellants have furnished a Table which indicates that as of 1901 six counties were overrepresented and 11 were underrepresented. But that Table in fact shows nothing in the way of significant discrepancy; in the instance of each county it is only one representative who is either lacking or added. And it is further perfectly evident that the variations are attributable to nothing more than the circumstance that the then enumeration of voters resulted in fractional remainders with respect to which the precise formula of the Tennessee Constitution was in some *336instances slightly disregarded. Unless such de minimis departures are to be deemed of significance, these statistics certainly provide no substantiation for the charge that the 1901 apportionment was arbitrary and capricious. Indeed, they show the contrary.

Thus reduced to its essentials, the charge of arbitrariness and capriciousness rests entirely on the consistent refusal of the Tennessee Legislature over the past 60 years to alter a pattern of apportionment that was reasonable when conceived.

A Federal District Court is asked to say that the passage of time has rendered the 1901 apportionment obsolete to the point where its continuance becomes vulnerable under the Fourteenth Amendment. But is not this matter one that involves a classic legislative judgment? Surely it lies within the province of a state legislature to conclude that an existing allocation of senators and representatives constitutes a desirable balance of geographical and demo-graphical representation, or that in the interest of stability of government it would be best to defer for some further time the redistribution of seats in the state legislature.

Indeed, I would hardly think it unconstitutional if a state legislature’s expressed reason for establishing or maintaining an electoral imbalance between its rural and urban population were to protect the State’s agricultural interests from the sheer weight of numbers of those residing in its cities. A State may, after all, take account of the interests of its rural population in the distribution of tax burdens, e. g., American Sugar Rfg. Co. v. Louisiana, 179 U. S. 89, and recognition of the special problems of agricultural interests has repeatedly been reflected in federal legislation, e. g., Capper-Volstead Act, 42 Stat. 388; Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 31. Even the exemption of agricultural activities from state criminal statutes of otherwise general application has not been deemed offensive to the Equal Protection Clause. *337Tigner v. Texas, 310 U. S. 141. Does the Fourteenth Amendment impose a stricter limitation upon a State’s apportionment of political representatives to its central government? I think not. These are matters of local policy, on the wisdom of which the federal judiciary is neither permitted nor qualified to sit in judgment.

The suggestion of my Brother Frankfurter that courts lack standards by which to decide such cases as this, is relevant not only to the question of “justiciability,” but also, and perhaps more fundamentally, to the determination whether any cognizable constitutional claim has been asserted in this case. Courts are unable to decide when it is that an apportionment originally valid becomes void because the factors entering into such a decision are basically matters appropriate only for legislative judgment. And so long as there exists a possible rational legislative policy for retaining an existing apportionment, such a legislative decision cannot be said to breach the bulwark against arbitrariness and caprice that the Fourteenth Amendment affords. Certainly, with all due respect, the facile arithmetical argument contained in Part II of my Brother Clark’s separate opinion (ante, pp. 253-258) provides no tenable basis for considering that there has been such a breach in this instance. (See the Appendix to this opinion.)

These conclusions can hardly be escaped by suggesting that capricious state action might be found were it to appear that a majority of the Tennessee legislators, in refusing to consider reapportionment, had been actuated by self-interest in perpetuating their own political offices or by other unworthy or improper motives. Since Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, was decided many years ago, it has repeatedly been pointed out that it is not the business of the federal courts to inquire into the personal motives of legislators. E. g., Arizona v. California, 283 U. S. 423, 455 & n. 7. The function of the federal judiciary ends in *338matters of this kind once it appears, as I think it does here on the undisputed facts, that the state action complained of could have rested on some rational basis. (See the Appendix to this opinion.)

It is my view that the majority opinion has failed to point to any recognizable constitutional claim alleged in this complaint. Indeed, it is interesting to note that my Brother Stewart is at pains to disclaim for himself, and to point out that the majority opinion does not suggest, that the Federal Constitution requires of the States any particular kind of electoral apportionment, still less that they must accord to each voter approximately equal voting strength. Concurring opinion, ante, p. 265. But that being so, what, may it be asked, is left of this complaint? Surely the bare allegations that the existing Tennessee apportionment is “incorrect,” “arbitrary,” “obsolete” and “unconstitutional” — amounting to nothing more than legal conclusions — do not themselves save the complaint from dismissal. See Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1; Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U. S. 651. Nor do those allegations shift to the appellees the burden of proving the constitutionality of this state statute; as is so correctly emphasized by my Brother Stewart {ante, p. 266), this Court has consistently held in cases .arising under the Equal Protection Clause that “ ‘the burden of establishing the unconstitutionality of a statute rests on him who assails it.’ Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, 294 U. S. 580, 584.” (Emphasis added.) Moreover, the appellants do not suggest that they could show at a trial anything beyond the matters previously discussed in this opinion, which add up to nothing in the way of a supportable constitutional challenge against this statute. And finally, the majority’s failure to come to grips with the question whether the complaint states a claim cognizable under the Federal Constitution — an issue necessarily presented by appellees’ motion to dismiss— *339does not of course furnish any ground for permitting this action to go to trial.

From a reading of the majority and concurring opinions one will not find it difficult to catch the premises that underlie this decision. The fact that the appellants have been unable to obtain political redress of their asserted grievances appears to be regarded as a matter which should lead the Court to stretch to find some basis for judicial intervention. While the Equal Protection Clause is invoked, the opinion for the Court notably eschews explaining how, consonant with past decisions, the undisputed facts in this case can be considered to show a violation of that constitutional provision. The majority seems to have accepted the argument, pressed at the bar, that if this Court merely asserts authority in this field, Tennessee and other “malapportioning” States will quickly respond with appropriate political action, so that this Court need not be greatly concerned about the federal courts becoming further involved in these matters. At the same time the majority has wholly failed to reckon with what the future may hold in store if this optimistic prediction is not fulfilled. Thus, what the Court is doing reflects more an adventure in judicial experimentation than a solid piece of constitutional adjudication. Whether dismissal of this case should have been for want of jurisdiction or, as is suggested in Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682-683, for failure of the complaint to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, the judgment of the District Court was correct.

In conclusion, it is appropriate to say that one need not agree, as a citizen, with what Tennessee has done or failed to do, in order to deprecate, as a judge, what the majority is doing today. Those observers of the Court who see it primarily as the last refuge for the correction of all inequality or injustice, no matter what its nature or source, will no doubt applaud this decision and its break *340with the past. Those who consider that continuing national respect for the Court’s authority depends in large measure upon its wise exercise of self-restraint and discipline in constitutional adjudication, will view the decision with deep concern.

I would affirm.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN.

The Inadequacy op Arithmetical Formulas as Measures op the Rationality op Tennessee’s Apportionment.

Two of the three separate concurring opinions appear to concede that the Equal Protection Clause does not guarantee to each state voter a vote of approximately equal weight for the State Legislature. Whether the existing Tennessee apportionment is constitutional is recognized to depend only on whether it can find “any possible justification in rationality” (ante, p. 265); it is to be struck down only if “the discrimination here does not fit any pattern” (ante, p. 258).

One of the concurring opinions, that of my Brother Stewart, suggests no reasons which would justify a finding that the present distribution of state legislators is unconstitutionally arbitrary. The same is true of the majority opinion. My Brother Clark, on the other hand, concludes that “the apportionment picture in Tennessee is a topsy-turvical of gigantic proportions” (ante, p. 254), solely on the basis of certain statistics presented in the text of his separate opinion and included in a more extensive Table appended thereto. In my view, that analysis is defective not only because the “total representation” formula set out in footnote 7 of the opinion (ante, p. 255), rests on faulty mathematical foundations, but, more basically, because the approach taken wholly *341ignores all other factors justifying a legislative determination of the sort involved in devising a proper apportionment for a State Legislature.

In failing to take any of such other matters into account and in focusing on a particular mathematical formula which, as will be shown, is patently unsound, my Brother Clark’s opinion has, I submit, unwittingly served to bring into bas-relief the very reasons that support the view that this complaint does not state a claim on which relief could be granted. For in order to warrant holding a state electoral apportionment invalid under the Equal Protection Clause, a court, in line with well-established constitutional doctrine, must find that none of the permissible policies and none of the possible formulas on which it might have been based could rationally justify particular inequalities.

I.

At the outset, it cannot be denied that the apportionment rules explicitly set out in the Tennessee Constitution are rational. These rules are based on the following obviously permissible policy determinations: (1) to utilize counties as electoral units; (2)' to prohibit the division of any county in the composition of electoral districts; (3) to allot to each county that has a substantial voting population — at least two-thirds of the average voting population per county — a separate “direct representative” ; (4) to create “floterial” districts (multicounty representative districts) made up of more than one county; and (5) to require that such districts be composed of adjoining counties.1 Such a framework unavoidably *342leads to unreliable arithmetic inequalities under any mathematical formula whereby the counties’ “total representation” is sought to be measured. It particularly results in egregiously deceptive disparities if the formula proposed in my Brother Clark’s opinion is applied.

That formula computes a county’s “total representation” by adding (1) the number of “direct representatives” the county is entitled to elect; (2) a fraction of any other seats in the Tennessee House which are allocated to that county jointly with one or more others in a “floterial district”; (3) triple the number of senators the county is entitled to elect alone; and (4) triple a fraction of any seats in the Tennessee Senate which are allocated to that county jointly with one or more others in a multicounty senatorial district. The fractions used for items (2) and (4) are computed by allotting to each county in a combined district an equal share of the House or Senate seat, regardless of the voting population of each of the counties that make up the election district.2

*343This formula is patently deficient in that it eliminates from consideration the relative voting power of the counties that are joined together in a single election district. As a result, the formula unrealistically assigns to Moore County one-third of a senator, in addition to its direct representative {ante, p. 255), although it must be obvious that Moore’s voting strength in the Eighteenth Senatorial District is almost negligible. Since Moore County could cast only 2,340 votes of a total eligible vote of 30,478 in the senatorial district, it should in truth be considered as represented by one-fifteenth of a senator. Assuming, arguendo, that any “total representation” figure is of significance, Moore’s “total representation” should be 1.23, not 2.3

The formula suggested by my Brother Clark must be adjusted regardless whether one thinks, as I assuredly do not, that the Federal Constitution requires that each vote be given equal weight. The correction is necessary simply to reflect the real facts of political life. It may, of course, be true that the floterial representative’s “function *344is to represent the whole district” {ante, p. 256). But can it be gainsaid that so long as elections within the district are decided not by a county-unit system, in which each county casts one vote, but by adding the total number of individual votes cast for each candidate, the concern of the elected representatives will primarily be with the most populous counties in the district?

II.

I do not mean to suggest that any mathematical formula, albeit an “adjusted” one, would be a proper touchstone to measure the rationality of the present or of appellants’ proposed apportionment plan. For, as the Table appended to my Brother Clark’s opinion so conclusively shows, whether one applies the formula he suggests or one that is adjusted to reflect proportional voting strength within an election district, no plan of apportionment consistent with the principal policies of the Tennessee Constitution could provide proportionately equal “total representation” for each of Tennessee’s 95 counties.

The pattern suggested by the appellants in Exhibits “A” and “B” attached to their complaint is said to be a “fair distribution” which accords with the Tennessee Constitution, and under which each of the election districts represents approximately equal voting population. But even when tested by the “adjusted” formula, the plan reveals gross “total representation” disparities that would make it appear to be a “crazy quilt.” For example, Loudon County, with twice the voting population of Humphreys County would have less representation than Humphreys, and about one-third the representation of Warren County, which has only 73 more voters. Among the more populous counties, similar discrepancies would appear. Although Anderson County has only somewhat over 10% more voters than Blount County, it would have *345approximately 75% more representation. And Blount would have approximately two-thirds the representation of Montgomery County, which has about 13% less voters.4

III.

The fault with a purely statistical approach to the case at hand lies not with the particular mathematical formula used, but in the failure to take account of the fact that a multitude of legitimate legislative policies, along with circumstances of .geography and demography, could account for the seeming electoral disparities among counties. The principles set out in the Tennessee Constitution are just some of those that were deemed significant. Others may have been considered and accepted by those entrusted with the responsibility for Tennessee’s apportionment. And for the purposes of judging constitutionality under the Equal Protection Clause it must be remembered that what is controlling on the issue of “rationality” is not what the State Legislature may actually have considered but what it may be deemed to have considered.

For example, in the list of “horribles” cited by my Brother Clark (ante, p. 255), all the “underrepresented” counties are semiurban: all contain municipalities of over 10,000 population.5 This is not to say, however, that the *346presence of any such municipality within a county necessarily demands that its proportional representation be reduced in order to render it consistent with an “urban versus rural” plan of apportionment. Other considerations may intervene and outweigh the Legislature’s desire to distribute seats so as to achieve a proper balance between urban and rural interests. The size of a county, in terms of its total area, may be a factor.6 Or the location within a county of some major industry may be thought to call for dilution of voting strength.7 Again, the combination of certain smaller counties with their more heavily populated neighbors in senatorial or “floterial” districts may result in apparent arithmetic inequalities.8

More broadly, the disparities in electoral strength among the various counties in Tennessee, both those relied upon by my Brother Clark and others, may be *347accounted for by various economic,9 political,10 and geographic 11 considerations. No allegation is made by the appellants that the existing apportionment is the result of any other forces than are always at work in any legislative process; and the record, briefs, and arguments in this Court themselves attest to the fact that the appellants could put forward nothing further at a trial.

By disregarding the wide variety of permissible legislative considerations that may enter into a state electoral apportionment my Brother Clark has turned a highly complex process into an elementary arithmetical puzzle. *348It is only by blinking reality that such an analysis can stand and that the essentially legislative determination can be made the subject of judicial inquiry.

IV.

Apart from such policies as those suggested which would suffice to justify particular inequalities, there is a further consideration which could rationally have led the Tennessee Legislature, in the exercise of a deliberate choice, to maintain the status quo. Rigidity of an apportionment pattern may be as much a legislative policy decision as is a provision for periodic reapportionment. In the interest of stability, a State may write into its fundamental law a permanent distribution of legislators among its various election districts, thus forever ignoring shifts in population. Indeed, several States have achieved this result by providing for minimum and maximum representation from various political subdivisions such as counties, districts, cities, or towns. See Harvey, Reapportionments of State Legislatures — Legal Requirements, 17 Law & Contemp. Probs. (1952), 364, 368-372.

It is said that one cannot find any rational standard in what the Tennessee Legislature has failed to do over the past 60 years. But surely one need not search far to find rationality in the Legislature’s continued refusal to recognize the growth of the urban population that has accompanied the development of industry over the past half decade. The existence of slight disparities between rural areas does not overcome the fact that the foremost apparent legislative motivation has been to preserve the electoral strength of the rural interests notwithstanding shifts in population. And I understand it to be conceded by at least some of the majority that this policy is not *349rendered unconstitutional merely because it favors rural voters.

Once the electoral apportionment process is recognized for what it is — the product of legislative give-and-take and of compromise among policies that often conflict— the relevant constitutional principles at once put these appellants out of the federal courts.

1

The relevant provisions of the Tennessee Constitution are Art. II, §§ 5 and 6:

“Sec. 5. Apportionment of representatives — The. number of Representatives shall, at the several periods of making the enumeration, be apportioned among the several counties or districts, according to the *342number of qualified voters in each; and shall not exceed seventy-five, until the population of the State shall be one million and a half, and shall never exceed ninety-nine; Provided, that any county having two-thirds of the ratio shall be entitled to one member.

“Sec. 6. Apportionment o/ senators. — The number of Senators shall, at the several periods of making the enumeration, be apportioned among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified electors in each, and shall not exceed one-third the number of representatives. In apportioning the Senators among the different counties, the fraction that may be lost by any county or counties, in the apportionment of members to the House of Representatives, shall be made up to such county or counties in the Senate, as near as may be practicable. When a district is composed of two or more counties, they shall be adjoining; and no counties shall be divided in forming a district.”

2

This formula is not clearly spelled out in the opinion, but it is necessarily inferred from the figures that are presented. Knox County, for example, is said to have a “total representation” of 7.25. It *343elects (1) three direct representatives (value 3.00); (2) one representative from a two-county district (value .50); (3) one direct senator (value 3.00); and (4) one senator in a four-county district (value .75). See Appendix to opinion of Mr. Justice Clark, ante, pp. 262-264.

3

If this “adjusted” formula for measuring “total representation” is applied to the other “horribles” cited in the concurring opinion {ante, p. 255), it reveals that these counties — which purportedly have equal “total representation” but distinctly unequal voting population — do not have the same “total representation” at all. Rather than having the same representation as Rutherford County, Moore County has only about 40% of what Rutherford has. Decatur County has only 55% of the representation of Carter County. While Loudon and Anderson Counties are substantially underrepresented, this is because of their proximity to Knox County, which outweighs their votes in the Sixth Senatorial District and in the Eighth Floterial District.

4

These disparities are as serious, if not more so, when my Brother Clark’s formula is applied to the appellants’ proposal. For example, if the seven counties chosen by him as illustrative are examined as they would be represented under the appellants’ distribution, Moore County, with a voting population of 2,340, is given more electoral strength than Decatur County, with a voting population of 5,563. Carter County (voting population 23,302) has 20% more “total representation” than Anderson County (voting population 33,990), and 33% more than Rutherford County (voting population 25,316).

5

Murfreesboro, Rutherford County (pop. 16,017); Elizabethton, Carter County (pop. 10,754); Oak Ridge, Anderson County (pop. 27,387). Tennessee Blue Book, 1960, pp. 143-149.

6

For example, Carter and Washington Counties are each approximately 60% as large as Maury and Madison Counties in terms of square miles, and this may explain the disparity between their “total representation” figures.

7

For example, in addition to being “semi-urban,” Blount County is the location of the City of Alcoa, where the Aluminum Company of America has located a large aluminum smelting and rolling plant. This may explain the difference between its “total representation” and that of Gibson County, which has no such large industry and contains no municipality as large as Maryville.

8

For example, Chester County (voting population 6,391) is one of those that is presently said to be overrepresented. But under the appellants’ proposal, Chester would be combined with populous Madison County in a “floterial district” and with four others, including Shelby County, in a senatorial district. Consequently, its total representation according to the Appendix to my Brother Clark’s opinion would be .19. (Ante, p. 262.) This would have the effect of disenfranchising all the county’s voters. Similarly, Rhea County’s almost 9,000 voters would find their voting strength so diluted as to be practically nonexistent.

9

For example, it is primarily the eastern portion of the State that is complaining of malapportionment (along with the Cities of Memphis and Nashville). But the eastern section is where industry is principally located and where population density, even outside the large urban areas, is highest. Consequently, if Tennessee is apportioning in favor of its agricultural interests, as constitutionally it was entitled to do, it would pecessarily reduce representation from the east.

10

For example, sound political reasons surely justify limiting the legislative chambers to workable numbers; in Tennessee, the House is set at 99 and the Senate at 33. It might have been deemed desirable, therefore, to set a ceiling on representation from any single county so as not to deprive others of individual representation. The proportional discrepancies among the four counties with large urban centers may be attributable to a conscious policy of limiting representation in this manner.

11

For example, Moore County is surrounded by four counties each of which has sufficient voting population to exceed two-thirds of the average voting population per county (which is the standard prescribed by the Tennessee Constitution for the assignment of a direct representative), thus qualifying for direct representatives. Consequently Moore County must be assigned a representative of its own despite its small voting population because it cannot be joined with any of its neighbors in a multicounty district, and the Tennessee Constitution prohibits combining it with nonadjacent counties. See note 1, supra.

WESBERRY et al. v. SANDERS, GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA, et al.

No. 22.

Argued November 18-19, 1963.

Decided February 17, 1964.

*2Frank T. Cash, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, and Emmet J. Bondurant II argued the cause for appellants. With them on the brief was DeJongh Franklin.

Paul Rodgers, Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Eugene Cook, Attorney General of Georgia.

Bruce J. Terris, by special leave of Court, argued the cause for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Cox and Richard W. Schmude.

Mr. Justice Black

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellants are citizens and qualified voters of Fulton County, Georgia, and as such are entitled to vote in congressional elections in Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District. That district, one of ten created by a 1931 Georgia statute,1 includes Fulton, DeKalb, and Rockdale Counties and has a population according to the 1960 census of 823,680. The average population of the ten districts is 394,312, less than half that of the Fifth. One district, the Ninth, has only 272,154 people, less than one-third as many as the Fifth. Since there is only one Congressman for each district, this inequality of population means that the Fifth District’s Congressman has to represent from two to three times as many people as do Congressmen from some of the other Georgia districts.

*3Claiming that these population disparities deprived them and voters similarly situated of a right under the Federal Constitution to have their votes for Congressmen given the same weight as the votes of other Georgians, the appellants brought this action under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1988 and 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3) asking that the Georgia statute be declared invalid and that the appellees, the Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia, be enjoined from conducting elections under it. The complaint alleged that appellants were deprived of the full benefit of their right to vote, in violation of (1) Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution of the United States, which provides that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States . . .”; (2) the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; and (3) that part of Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers ....” The ease was heard by a three-judge District Court, which found unanimously, from facts not disputed, that:

“It is clear by any standard . . . that the population of the Fifth District is grossly out of balance with that of the other nine congressional districts of Georgia and in fact, so much so that the removal of DeKalb and Rockdale Counties from the District, leaving only Fulton with a population of 556,326, would leave it exceeding the average by slightly more than forty per cent.” 2

Notwithstanding these findings, a majority of the court dismissed the complaint, citing as their guide Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s minority opinion in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, an opinion stating that challenges to appor*4tionment of congressional districts raised only “political” questions, which were not justiciable. Although the majority below said that the dismissal here was based on “want of equity” and not on nonjusticiability, they relied on no circumstances which were peculiar to the present case; instead, they adopted the language and reasoning of Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s Colegrove opinion in concluding that the appellants had presented a wholly “political” question.3 Judge Tuttle, disagreeing with the court’s reliance on that opinion, dissented from the dismissal, though he would have denied an injunction at that time in order to give the Georgia Legislature ample opportunity to correct the “abuses” in the apportionment. He relied on Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, which, after full discussion of Colegrove and all the opinions in it, held that allegations of disparities of population in state legislative districts raise justiciable claims on which courts may grant relief. We noted probable jurisdiction. 374 U. S. 802. We agree with Judge Tuttle that in debasing the weight of appellants’ votes the State has abridged the right to vote for members of Congress guaranteed them by the United States Constitution, that the District Court should have entered a declaratory judgment to that effect, and that it was therefore error to dismiss this suit. The question of what relief should be given we leave for further consideration and decision by the District Court in light of existing circumstances.

*5I.

Baker v. Carr, supra, considered a challenge to a 1901 Tennessee statute providing for apportionment of State Representatives and Senators under the State’s constitution, which called for apportionment among counties or districts “according to the number of qualified voters in each.” The complaint there charged that the State’s constitutional command to apportion on the basis of the number of qualified voters had not been followed in the 1901 statute and that the districts were so discrimina-torily disparate in number of qualified voters that the plaintiffs and persons similarly situated were, “by virtue of the debasement of their votes,” denied the equal protection of the laws guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment.4 The cause there of the alleged “debasement” of votes for state legislators — districts containing widely varying numbers of people — was precisely that which was alleged to debase votes for Congressmen in Colegrove v. Green, supra, and in the present case. The Court in Baker pointed out that the opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Colegrove, upon the reasoning of which the majority below leaned heavily in dismissing “for want of equity,” was approved by only three of the seven Justices sitting.5 After full consideration of Cole-grove, the Court in Baker held (1) that the District Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter; (2) that the qualified Tennessee voters there had standing to sue; and *6(3) that the plaintiffs had stated a justiciable cause of action on which relief could be granted.

The reasons which led to these conclusions in Baker are equally persuasive here. Indeed, as one of the grounds there relied on to support our holding that state apportionment controversies are justiciable we said:

. . Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375, and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, concerned the choice of Representatives in the Federal Congress. Smiley, Koenig and Carroll settled the issue in favor of justiciability of questions of congressional redistricting. The Court followed these precedents in Colegrove although over the dissent of three of the seven Justices who participated in that decision.” 6

This statement in Baker, which referred to our past decisions holding congressional apportionment cases to be justiciable, we believe was wholly correct and we adhere to it. Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s Colegrove opinion contended that Art. I, § 4, of the Constitution 7 had given Congress “exclusive authority” to protect the right of citizens to vote for Congressmen,8 but we made it clear in Baker that nothing in the language of that article gives support to a construction that would immunize state congressional apportionment laws which debase a citizen’s right to vote from the power of courts to protect the constitutional rights of individuals from legislative destruction, a power recognized at least since our decision in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, in 1803. Cf. Gib*7bons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1. The right to vote is too important in our free society to be stripped of judicial protection by such an interpretation of Article I. This dismissal can no more be justified on the ground of “want of equity” than on the ground of “nonjusticiability.” We therefore hold that the District Court erred in dismissing the complaint.

II.

This brings us to the merits. We agree with the District Court that the 1931 Georgia apportionment grossly discriminates against voters in the Fifth Congressional District. A single Congressman represents from two to three times as many Fifth District voters as are represented by each of the Congressmen from the other Georgia congressional districts. The apportionment statute thus contracts the value of some votes and expands that of others. If the Federal Constitution intends that when qualified voters elect members of Congress each vote be given as much weight as any other vote, then this statute cannot stand.

We hold that, construed in its historical context, the command of Art. I, § 2, that Representatives be chosen “by the People of the several States” 9 means that as *8nearly as is practicable one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.10 This rule is followed automatically, of course, when Representatives are chosen as a group on a statewide basis, as was a widespread practice in the first 50 years of our Nation’s history.11 It would be extraordinary to suggest that in such statewide elections the votes of inhabitants of some parts of a State, for example, Georgia’s thinly populated Ninth District, could be weighted at two or three times the value of the votes of people living in more populous parts of the State, for example, the Fifth District around Atlanta. Cf. Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368. We do not believe that the Framers of the Constitution intended to permit the same vote-diluting discrimination to be accomplished through the device of districts containing widely varied numbers of inhabitants. To say that a vote is worth more in one district than in another would not only run counter to our fundamental ideas of democratic government, it would cast aside the principle of a House of Representatives elected “by the People,” a principle tenaciously fought for and established at the Constitutional Convention. The history of the Constitution, particularly that part of it relating to the adoption of Art. I, § 2, reveals that those who framed the Con*9stitution meant that, no matter what the mechanics of an election, whether statewide or by districts, it was population which was to be the basis of the House of Representatives.

During the Revolutionary War the rebelling colonies were loosely allied in the Continental Congress, a body with authority to do little more than pass resolutions and issue requests for men and supplies. Before the war ended the Congress had proposed and secured the ratification by the States of a somewhat closer association under the Articles of Confederation. Though the Articles established a central government for the United States, as the former colonies were even then called, the States retained most of their sovereignty, like independent nations bound together only by treaties. There were no separate judicial or executive branches: only a Congress consisting of a single house. Like the members of an ancient Greek league, each State, without regard to size or population, was given only one vote in that house. It soon became clear that the Confederation was without adequate power to collect needed revenues or to enforce the rules its Congress adopted. Farsighted men felt that a closer union was necessary if the States were to be saved from foreign and domestic dangers.

The result was the Constitutional Convention of 1787, called for “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation . . . .”12 When the Conven*10tion met in May, this modest purpose was soon abandoned for the greater challenge of creating a new and closer form of government than was possible under the Confederation. Soon after the Convention assembled, Edmund Randolph of Virginia presented a plan not merely to amend the Articles of Confederation but to create an entirely new National Government with a National Executive, National Judiciary, and a National Legislature of two Houses, one house to be elected by “the people,” the second house to be elected by the first.13

The question of how the legislature should be constituted precipitated the most bitter controversy of the Convention. One principle was uppermost in the minds of many delegates: that, no matter where he lived, each voter should have a voice equal to that of every other in electing members of Congress. In support of this principle, George Mason of Virginia

“argued strongly for an election of the larger branch by the people. It was to be the grand depository of the democratic principle of the Govt.” 14

James Madison agreed, saying “If the power is not immediately derived from the people, in proportion to their numbers, we may make a paper confederacy, but that will be all.” 15 Repeatedly, delegates rose to make the same point: that it would be unfair, unjust, and contrary to common sense to give a small number of people as many Senators or Representatives as were allowed to much larger groups16 — in short, as James Wilson of Pennsyl*11vania put it, “equal numbers of people ought to have an equal no. of representatives . . .” and representatives “of different districts ought clearly to hold the same proportion to each other, as their respective constituents hold to each other.” 17

Some delegates opposed election by the people. The sharpest objection arose out of the fear on the part of small States like Delaware that if population were to be the only basis of representation the populous States like Virginia would elect a large enough number of representatives to wield overwhelming power in the National Government.18 Arguing that the Convention had no authority to depart from the plan of the Articles of Confederation which gave each State an equal vote in the National Congress, William Paterson of New Jersey said, “If the sovereignty of the States is to be maintained, the Representatives must be drawn immediately from the States, not from the people: and we have no power to vary the idea of equal sovereignty.” 19 To this end he proposed a single legislative chamber in which each State, as in the Confederation, was to have an equal vote.20 A number of delegates supported this plan.21

The delegates who wanted every man’s vote to count alike were sharp in their criticism of giving each State, *12regardless of population, the same voice in the National Legislature. Madison entreated the Convention “to renounce a principle wch. was confessedly unjust,” 22 and Rufus King of Massachusetts “was prepared for every event, rather than sit down under a Govt, founded in a vicious principle of representation and which must be as shortlived as it would be unjust.” 23

The dispute came near ending the Convention without a Constitution. Both sides seemed for a time to be hopelessly obstinate. Some delegations threatened to withdraw from the Convention if they did not get their way.24 Seeing the controversy growing sharper and emotions rising, the wise and highly respected Benjamin Franklin arose and pleaded with the delegates on both sides to “part with some of their demands, in order that they may join in some accomodating proposition.” 25 At last those who supported representation of the people in both houses and those who supported it in neither were brought together, some expressing the fear that if they did not reconcile their differences, “some foreign sword will probably do the work for us.” 26 The deadlock was finally broken when a majority of the States agreed to what has been called the Great Compromise,27 based on a proposal which had been repeatedly advanced by Roger *13Sherman and other delegates from Connecticut.28 It provided on the one hand that each State, including little Delaware and Rhode Island, was to have two Senators. As a further guarantee that these Senators would be considered state emissaries, they were to be elected by the state legislatures, Art. I, § 3, and it was specially provided in Article V that no State should ever be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate. The other side of the compromise was that, as provided in Art. I, § 2, members of the House of Representatives should be chosen “by the People of the several States” and should be “apportioned among the several States . . . according to their respective Numbers.” While those who wanted both houses to represent the people had yielded on the Senate, they had not yielded on the House of Representatives. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut had summed it up well: “in one branch the people, ought to be represented; in the other, the States.” 29

The debates at the Convention make at least one fact abundantly clear: that when the delegates agreed that the House should represent “people” they intended that in allocating Congressmen the number assigned to each State should be determined solely by the number of the State’s inhabitants.30 The Constitution embodied Edmund Randolph’s proposal for a periodic census to ensure “fair representation of the people,” 31 an idea endorsed by Mason as assuring that “numbers of inhabitants” *14should always be the measure of representation in the House of Representatives.32 The Convention also overwhelmingly agreed to a resolution offered by Randolph to base future apportionment squarely on numbers and to delete any reference to wealth.33 And the delegates defeated a motion made by Elbridge Gerry to limit the number of Representatives from newer Western States so that it would never exceed the number from the original States.34

It would defeat the principle solemnly embodied in the Great Compromise — equal representation in the House for equal numbers of people — for us to hold that, within the States, legislatures may draw the lines of congressional districts in such a way as to give some voters a greater voice in choosing a Congressman than others. The House of Representatives, the Convention agreed, was to represent the people as individuals, and on a basis of complete equality for each voter. The delegates were quite aware of what Madison called the “vicious representation” in Great Britain35 whereby “rotten boroughs” with few inhabitants were represented in Parliament on or almost on a par with cities of greater population. Wilson urged that people must be represented as individuals, so that America would escape-*15the evils of the English system under which one man could send two members to Parliament to represent the borough of Old Sarum while London’s million people sent but four.36 The delegates referred to rotten borough apportionments in some of the state legislatures as the kind of objectionable governmental action that the Constitution should not tolerate in the election of congressional representatives.37

Madison in The Federalist described the system of division of States into congressional districts, the method which he and others 38 assumed States probably would adopt: “The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty and sixty thousand souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts for the choice of Foederal Representatives.” 39 “[N] umbers,” he said, not only are a suitable way to represent wealth but in any event “are the only proper scale of representation.” 40 In the state conventions, speakers urging ratification of the Constitution emphasized the theme of equal representation in the House which had permeated the debates in Phila*16delphia.41 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney told the South Carolina Convention, “the House of Representatives will be elected immediately by the people, and represent them and their personal rights individually . . . .”42 Speakers at the ratifying conventions emphasized that the House of Representatives was meant to be free of the malapportionment then existing in some of the state legislatures — such as those of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and South Carolina — and argued that the power given Congress in Art. I, § 4,43 was meant to be used to vindicate the people’s right to equality of representation in the House.44 Congress’ power, said John Steele at the North Carolina convention, was not to be used to allow Congress to create rotten boroughs; in answer to another delegate’s suggestion that Congress might use its power to favor people living near the seacoast, Steele said that Congress “most probably” would “lay the state off into districts,” and if it made laws “inconsistent with the Constitution, independent judges will not uphold them, nor will the people obey them.” 45

*17Soon after the Constitution was adopted, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, by then an Associate Justice of this Court, gave a series of lectures at Philadelphia in which, drawing on his experience as one of the most active members of the Constitutional Convention, he said:

“[A] 11 elections ought to be equal. Elections are equal, when a given number of citizens, in one part of the state, choose as many representatives, as are chosen by the same number of citizens, in any other part of the state. In this manner, the proportion of the representatives and of the constituents will remain invariably the same.” 46

It is in the light of such history that we must construe Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution, which, carrying out the ideas of Madison and those of like views, provides that Representatives shall be chosen “by the People of the several States” and shall be “apportioned among the several States . . . according to their respective Numbers.” It is not surprising that our Court has held that this Article gives persons qualified to vote a constitutional right to vote and to have their votes counted. United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383; Ex Parte Yar-brough, 110 U. S. 651. Not only can this right to vote not be denied outright, it cannot, consistently with Article I, be destroyed by alteration of ballots, see United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, or diluted by stuffing of the ballot box, see United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385. No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. Our Constitution leaves no room for classification of people in a way that unnecessarily abridges *18this right. In urging the people to adopt the Constitution, Madison said in No. 57 of The Federalist:

“Who are to be the electors of the Fcederal Representatives? Not the rich more than the poor; not the learned more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. . . 47

Readers surely could have fairly taken this to mean, “one person, one vote.” Cf. Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368, 381. While it may not be possible to draw congressional districts with mathematical precision, that is no excuse for ignoring our Constitution’s plain objective of making equal representation for equal numbers of people the fundamental goal for the House of Representatives. That is the high standard of justice and common sense which the Founders set for us.

Reversed and remanded.

1

Ga. Code, §34-2301.

2

Wesberry v. Vandiver, 206 F. Supp. 276, 279-280.

3

“We do not deem [Colegrove v. Green] ... to be a precedent for dismissal based on the nonjusticiability of a political question involving the Congress as here, but we do deem it to be strong authority for dismissal for want of equity when the following factors here involved are considered on balance: a political question involving a coordinate branch of the federal government; a political question posing a delicate problem difficult of solution without depriving others of the right to vote by district, unless we are to redistrict for the state; relief may be forthcoming from a properly apportioned state legislature; and relief may be afforded by the Congress.” 206 F. Supp., at 285 (footnote omitted).

4

369 U. S., at 188.

5

Mr. Justice Rutledge in Colegrove believed that the Court should exercise its equitable discretion to refuse relief because “The shortness of the time remaining [before the next election] makes it doubtful whether action could, or would, be taken in time to secure for petitioners the effective relief they seek.” 328 U. S., at 565. In a later separate opinion he emphasized that his vote in Colegrove had been based on the “particular circumstances” of that case. Cook v. Fortson, 329 U. S. 675, 678.

6

369 U. S., at 232. Cf. also Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1.

7

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. . . IT. S. Const., Art. I, § 4.

8

328 U. S., at 554.

9

“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Man*8ner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative . . . .” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2.

The provisions for apportioning Representatives and direct taxes have been amended by the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Amendments, respectively.

10

We do not reach the arguments that the Georgia statute violates the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

11

As late as 1842, seven States still conducted congressional elections at large. See Paschal, “The House of Representatives: ‘Grand Depository of the Democratic Principle’?” 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 276, 281 (1952).

12

3 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Farrand ed. 1911) 14 (hereafter cited as “Farrand”).

James Madison, who took careful and complete notes during the Convention, believed that in interpreting the Constitution later generations should consider the history of its adoption:

“Such were the defects, the deformities, the diseases and the ominous prospects, for which the Convention were to provide a remedy, and which ought never to be overlooked in expounding & appreciating the Constitutional Charter the remedy that was provided.” Id., at 549.

13

1 id., at 20.

14

Id., at 48.

15

Id., at 472.

16

See, e. g., id., at 197-198 (Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania); id., at 467 (Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts); id., at 286, 465-466 (Alexander Hamilton of New York); id., at 489-490 (Rufus King of Massachusetts); id., at 322, 446-449, 486, 527-528 (James Madison of Virginia); id., at 180, 456 (Hugh Williamson of North Carolina); id., at 253-254, 406, 449-450, 482-484 (James Wilson of Pennsylvania).

17

Id., at 180.

18

Luther Martin of Maryland declared “that the States being equal cannot treat or confederate so as to give up an equality of votes without giving up their liberty: that the propositions on the table were a system of slavery for 10 States: that as Va. Masts. & Pa. have 42/90 of the votes they can do as they please without a miraculous Union of the other ten: that they will have nothing to do, but to gain over one of the ten to make them compleat masters of the rest ...” Id., at 438.

19

Id., at 251.

20

3 id., at 613.

21

E. g., 1 id., at 324 (Alexander Martin of North Carolina); id., at 437-438, 439-441, 444-445, 453-455 (Luther Martin of Maryland); id., at 490-492 (Gunning Bedford of Delaware).

22

Id., at 464.

23

Id., at 490.

24

Gunning Bedford of Delaware said:

“We have been told (with a dictatorial air) that this is the last moment for a fair trial in favor of a good Governmt. . . . The Large States dare not dissolve the confederation. If they do the small ones will find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice.” Id., at 492.

25

Id., at 488.

26

Id., at 532 (Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts). George Mason of Virginia urged an “accomodation” as “preferable to an appeal to the world by the different sides, as had been talked of by some Gentlemen.” Id., at 533.

27

See id., at 551.

28

See id., at 193, 342-343 (Roger Sherman); id., at 461-462 (William Samuel Johnson).

29

Id., at 462. (Emphasis in original.)

30

While “free Persons” and those “bound to Service for a Term of Years” were counted in determining representation, Indians not taxed were not counted, and “three fifths of all other Persons” (slaves) were included in computing the States’ populations. Art. I, § 2. Also, every State was to have “at Least one Representative.” Ibid.

31

1 Farrand, at 580.

32

Id., at 579.

33

Id., at 606. Those who thought that one branch should represent wealth were told by Roger Sherman of Connecticut that the “number of people alone [was] the best rule for measuring wealth as well as representation; and that if the Legislature were to be governed by wealth, they would be obliged to estimate it by numbers.” Id., at 582.

34

2 id., at 3. The rejected thinking of those who supported the proposal to limit western representation is suggested by the statement of Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania that “The Busy haunts of men not the remote wilderness, was the proper School of political Talents.” 1 id., at 583.

35

Id., at 464.

36

Id., at 457. “Rotten boroughs” have long since disappeared in Great Britain. Today permanent parliamentary Boundary Commissions recommend periodic changes in the size of constituencies, as population shifts. For the statutory standards under which these commissions operate, see House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Acts of 1949, 12 & 13 Geo. 6, c. 66, Second Schedule, and of 1958, 6 & 7 Eliz. 2, c. 26, Schedule.

37

2 id., at 241.

38

See, e. g., 2 Works of Alexander Hamilton (Lodge ed. 1904) 25 (statement to New York ratifying convention).

39

The Federalist, No. 57 (Cooke ed. 1961), at 389.

40

Id., No. 54, at 368. There has been some question about the authorship of Numbers 54 and 57, see The Federalist (Lodge ed. 1908) xxiii-xxxv, but it is now generally believed that Madison was the author, see, e. g., The Federalist (Cooke ed. 1961) xxvii; The Federalist (Van Doren ed. 1945) vi-vii; Brant, “Settling the Authorship of The Federalist,” 67 Am. Hist. Rev. 71 (1961).

41

See, e. g., 2 The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (2d Elliot ed. 1836) 11 (Fisher Ames, in the Massachusetts Convention) (hereafter cited as “Elliot”); id., at 202 (Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut); 4 id., at 21 (William Richardson Davie, North Carolina); id., at 257 (Charles Pinckney, South Carolina).

42

Id., at 304.

43

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. . . .” U. S. Const., Art. I, §4.

44

See 2 Elliot, at 49 (Francis Dana, in the Massachusetts Convention) ; id., at 50-51 (Rufus King, Massachusetts); 3 id., at 367 (James Madison, Virginia).

45

4 id., at 71.

46

2 The Works of James Wilson (Andrews ed. 1896) 15.

47

The Federalist, No. 57 (Cooke ed. 1961), at 385.

Mr. Justice Clark,

concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Unfortunately I can join neither the opinion of the Court nor the dissent of my Brother Harlan. It is true that the opening sentence of Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution provides that Representatives are to be chosen “by the People of the several States . . . .” However, in my view, Brother Harlan has clearly demonstrated that both the historical background and language preclude a finding that Art. I, § 2, lays down the ipse dixit “one person, one vote” in congressional elections.

On the other hand, I agree with the majority that congressional districting is subject to judicial scrutiny. This *19Court has so held ever since Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355 (1932), which is buttressed by two companion cases, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375 (1932), and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380 (1932). A majority of the Court in Colegrove v. Green felt, upon the authority of Smiley, that the complaint presented a justiciable controversy not reserved exclusively to Congress. Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, 564, and 568, n. 3 (1946). Again, in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 232 (1962), the opinion of the Court recognized that Smiley “settled the issue in favor of justiciability of questions of congressional redistricting.” I therefore cannot agree with Brother Harlan that the supervisory power granted to Congress under Art. I, § 4, is the exclusive remedy.

I would examine the Georgia congressional districts against the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As my Brother Black said in his dissent in Colegrove v. Green, supra, the “equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids . . . discrimination. It does not permit the States to pick out certain qualified citizens or groups of citizens and deny them the right to vote at all. ... No one would deny that the equal protection clause would also prohibit a law that would expressly give certain citizens a half-vote and others a full vote. . . . Such discriminatory legislation seems to me exactly the kind that the equal protection clause was intended to prohibit.” At 569.

The trial court, however, did not pass upon the merits of the case, although it does appear that it did make a finding that the Fifth District of Georgia was “grossly out of balance” with other congressional districts of the State. Instead of proceeding on the merits, the court dismissed the case for lack of equity. I believe that the court erred in so doing. In my view we should therefore vacate this judgment and remand the case for a hearing *20on the merits. At that hearing the court should apply the standards laid down in Baker v. Carr, supra.

I would enter an additional caveat. The General Assembly of the Georgia Legislature has been recently reapportioned * as a result of the order of the three-judge District Court in Toombs v. Fortson, 205 F. Supp. 248 (1962). In addition, the Assembly has created a Joint Congressional Redistricting Study Committee which has been working on the problem of congressional redistricting for several months. The General Assembly is currently in session. If on remand the trial court is of the opinion that there is likelihood of the General Assembly’s reapportioning the State in an appropriate manner, I believe that coercive relief should be deferred until after the General Assembly has had such an opportunity.

*

Georgia Laws, Sept.-Oct. 1962, Extra. Sess. 7-31.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

dissenting.

I had not expected to witness the day when the Supreme Court of the United States would render a decision which casts grave doubt on the constitutionality of the composition of the House of Representatives. It is not an exaggeration to say that such is the effect of today’s decision. The Court’s holding that the Constitution requires States to select Representatives either by elections at large or by elections in districts composed “as nearly as is practicable” of equal population places in jeopardy the seats of almost all’the members of the present House of Representatives.

In the last congressional election, in 1962, Representatives from 42 States were elected from congressional districts.1 In all but five of those States, the difference be*21tween the populations of the largest and smallest districts exceeded 100,000 persons.2 A difference of this magnitude in the size of districts the average population of which in each State is less than 500,000 3 is presumably not equality among districts “as nearly as is practicable,” although the Court does not reveal its definition of that phrase.4 Thus, today’s decision impugns the validity of the election of 398 Representatives from 37 States, leaving a “constitutional” House of 37 members now sitting.5

*22Only a demonstration which could not be avoided would justify this Court in rendering a decision the effect of which, inescapably as I see it, is to declare constitutionally defective the very composition of a coordinate branch of the Federal Government. The Court’s opinion not only fails to make such a demonstration, it is unsound logically on its face and demonstrably unsound historically.

I.

Before coming to grips with the reasoning that carries such extraordinary consequences, it is important to have firmly in mind the provisions of Article I of the Constitution which control this case:

“Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

*23“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative ....

“Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

“Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members . . .

As will be shown, these constitutional provisions and their “historical context,” ante, p. 7, establish:

1. that congressional Representatives are to be apportioned among the several States largely, but not entirely, according to population;

'2. that the States have plenary power to select their allotted Representatives in accordance with any method of popular election they please, subject only to the supervisory power of Congress; and

3. that the supervisory power of Congress is exclusive.

*24In short, in the absence of legislation providing for equal districts by the Georgia Legislature or by Congress, these appellants have no right to the judicial relief which they seek. It goes without saying that it is beyond the province of this Court to decide whether equally populated districts is the preferable method for electing Representatives, whether state legislatures would have acted more fairly or wisely had they adopted such a method, or whether Congress has been derelict in not requiring state legislatures to follow that course. Once it is clear that there is no constitutional right at stake, that ends the case.

II.

Disclaiming all reliance on other provisions of the Constitution, in particular those of the Fourteenth Amendment on which the appellants relied below and in this Court, the Court holds that the provision in Art. I, § 2, for election of Representatives “by the People” means that congressional districts are to be “as nearly as is practicable” equal in population, ante, pp. 7-8. Stripped of rhetoric and a “historical context,” ante, p. 7, which bears little resemblance to the evidence found in the pages of history, see infra, pp. 30-41, the Court’s opinion supports its holding only with the bland assertion that “the principle of a House of Representatives elected ‘by the People’ ” would be “cast aside” if “a vote is worth more in one district than in another,” ante, p. 8, i. e., if congressional districts within a State, each electing a single Representative, are not equal in population. The fact is, however, that Georgia’s 10 Representatives are elected “by the People” of Georgia, just as Representatives from other States are elected “by the People of the several States.” This is all that the Constitution requires.6

*25Although the Court finds necessity for its artificial construction of Article I in the undoubted importance of the right to vote, that right is not involved in this case. All of the appellants do vote. The Court’s talk about “debasement” and “dilution” of the vote is a model of circular reasoning, in which the premises of the argument feed on the conclusion. Moreover, by focusing exclusively on numbers in disregard of the area and shape of a congressional district as well as party affiliations within the district, the Court deals in abstractions which will be recognized even by the politically unsophisticated to have little relevance to the realities of political life.

In any event, the very sentence of Art. I, § 2, on which the Court exclusively relies confers the right to vote for Representatives only on those whom the State has found qualified to vote for members of “the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” Supra, p. 22. So far as Article I is concerned, it is within the State’s power to confer that right only on persons of wealth or of a particular sex or, if the State chose, living in specified areas of the State.7 Were Georgia to find the residents of the *26Fifth District unqualified to vote for Representatives to the State House of Representatives, they could not vote for Representatives to Congress, according to the express words of Art. I, § 2. Other provisions of the Constitution would, of course, be relevant, but, so far as Art. I, § 2, is concerned, the disqualification would be within Georgia’s power. How can it be, then, that this very same sentence prevents Georgia from apportioning its Representatives as it chooses? The truth is that it does not.

The Court purports to find support for its position in the third paragraph of Art. I, § 2, which provides for the apportionment of Representatives among the States. The appearance of support in that section derives from the Court’s confusion of two issues: direct election of Representatives within the States and the apportionment of Representatives among the States. Those issues are distinct, and were separately treated in the Constitution. The fallacy of the Court’s reasoning in this regard is illustrated by its slide, obscured by intervening discussion (see ante, pp. 13-14), from the intention of the delegates at the Philadelphia Convention “that in allocating Congressmen the number assigned to each State should be determined solely by the number of the State’s inhabitants,” ante, p. 13, to a “principle solemnly embodied in the Great Compromise — equal representation in the House for equal numbers of people,” ante, p. 14. The delegates did have the former intention and made clear *27provision for it.8 Although many, perhaps most, of them also believed generally — but assuredly not in the precise, formalistic way of the majority of the Court9 — that within the States representation should be based on population, they did not surreptitiously slip their belief into the Constitution in the phrase “by the People,” to be discovered 175 years later like a Shakespearian anagram.

Far from supporting the Court, the apportionment of Representatives among the States shows how blindly the Court has marched to its decision. Representatives were to be apportioned among the States on the basis of free population plus three-fifths of the slave population. Since no slave voted, the inclusion of three-fifths of their number in the basis of apportionment gave the favored States representation far in excess of their voting population. If, then, slaves were intended to be without representation, Article I did exactly what the Court now says it prohibited: it “weighted” the vote of voters in the slave States. Alternatively, it might have been thought that Representatives elected by free men of a State would speak also for the slaves. But since the slaves added to the representation only of their own State, Representa*28tives from the slave States could have been thought to speak only for the slaves of their own States, indicating both that the Convention believed it possible for a Representative elected by one group to speak for another nonvoting group and that Representatives were in large degree still thought of as speaking for the whole population of a State.10

There is a further basis for demonstrating the hollowness of the Court’s assertion that Article I requires “one man’s vote in a congressional election ... to be worth as much as another’s,” ante, p. 8. Nothing that the Court does today will disturb the fact that although in 1960 the population of an average congressional district was 410,481,11 the States of Alaska, Nevada, and Wyo*29ming each have a Representative in Congress, although their respective populations are 226,167, 285,278, and 330,066.12 In entire disregard of population, Art. I, § 2, guarantees each of these States and every other State “at Least one Representative.” It is whimsical to assert in the face of this guarantee that an absolute principle of “equal representation in the House for equal numbers of people” is “solemnly embodied” in Article I. All that there is is a provision which bases representation in the House, generally but not entirely, on the population of the States. The provision for representation of • each State in the House of Representatives is not a mere exception to the principle framed by the majority; it shows that no such principle is to be found.

Finally in this array of hurdles to its decision which the Court surmounts only by knocking them down is § 4 of Art. I which states simply:

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” (Emphasis added.)

The delegates were well aware of the problem of “rotten boroughs,” as material cited by the Court, ante, pp. 14-15, and hereafter makes plain. It cannot be supposed that delegates to the Convention would have labored to establish a principle of equal representation only to bury it, one would have thought beyond discovery, in § 2, and omit all mention of it from § 4, which deals explicitly with the conduct of elections. Section 4 states without qualification that the state legislatures shall prescribe regulations for the conduct of elections for Representatives and, equally without qualification, that Congress may make or *30alter such regulations. There is nothing to indicate any limitation whatsoever on this grant of plenary initial and supervisory power. The Court’s holding is, of course, derogatory not only of the power of the state legislatures but also of the power of Congress, both theoretically and as they have actually exercised their power. See infra, pp. 42-45.13 It freezes upon both, for no reason other than that it seems wise to the majority of the present Court, a particular political theory for the selection of Representatives.

III.

There is dubious propriety in turning to the “historical context” of constitutional provisions which speak so consistently and plainly. But, as one might expect when the Constitution itself is free from ambiguity, the surrounding history makes what is already clear even clearer.

As the Court repeatedly emphasizes, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention frequently expressed their view that representation should be based on population. There were also, however, many statements favoring limited monarchy and property qualifications for suffrage and expressions of disapproval for unrestricted democracy.14 Such expressions prove as little on one side of this case as they do on the other. Whatever the dominant political philosophy at the Convention, one thing seems clear: it is in the last degree unlikely that most or even many of the delegates would have subscribed to the *31principle of “one person, one vote,” ante, p. 18.15 Moreover, the statements approving population-based representation were focused on the problem of how representation should be apportioned among the States in the House of Representatives. The Great Compromise concerned representation of the States in the Congress. In all of the discussion surrounding the basis of representation of the House and all of the discussion whether Representatives should be elected by the legislatures or the people of the States, there is nothing which suggests *32even remotely that the delegates had in mind the problem of districting within a State.16

The subject of districting within the States is discussed explicitly with reference to the provisions of Art. I, § 4, which the Court so pointedly neglects. The Court states: “The delegates referred to rotten borough apportion-ments in some of the state legislatures as the kind of objectionable governmental action that the Constitution should not tolerate in the election of congressional representatives.” Ante, p. 15. The remarks of Madison cited by the Court are as follows:

“The necessity of a Geni. Govt, supposes that the State Legislatures will sometimes fail or refuse to consult the common interest at the expense of their local conveniency or prejudices. The policy of referring the appointment of the House of Representatives to the people and not to the Legislatures of the States, supposes that the result will be somewhat influenced by the mode, [sic] This view of the question seems to decide that the Legislatures of the States ought not to have the uncontrouled right of regulating the times places & manner of holding elections. These were words of great latitude. It was impossible to foresee all the abuses that might be made of the discretionary power. Whether the electors should vote by ballot or viva voce, should assemble at this place or that place; should be divided into districts or all meet at one place, shd all vote for all the representatives; or all in a district vote for a number allotted to the district; these & many other points would depend on the Legislatures. [sic] and might materially affect the appointments. *33Whenever the State Legislatures had a favorite measure to carry, they would take care so to mould their regulations as to favor the candidates they wished to succeed. Besides, the inequality of the Representation in the Legislatures of particular States, would produce a like inequality in their representation in the Natl. Legislature, as it was presumable that the Counties having the power in the former case would secure it to themselves in the latter. What danger could there be in giving a controuling power to the Natl. Legislaturef”17 (Emphasis added.)

These remarks of Madison were in response to a proposal to strike out the provision for congressional supervisory power over the regulation of elections in Art. I, § 4. Supported by others at the Convention,18 and not contradicted in any respect, they indicate as clearly as may be that the Convention understood the state legislatures to have plenary power over the conduct of elections for Representatives, including the power to district well or badly, subject only to the supervisory power of Congress. How, then, can the Court hold that Art. I, § 2, prevents the state legislatures from districting as they choose? ‘ If the Court were correct, Madison’s remarks would have been pointless. One would expect, at the very least, some reference to Art. I, § 2, as a limiting factor on the States. This is the “historical context” which the Convention debates provide.

Materials supplementary to the debates are as unequivocal. In the ratifying conventions, there was no suggestion that the provisions of Art. I, § 2, restricted the power of the States to prescribe the conduct of elections conferred on them by Art. I, § 4. None of the Court’s ref*34erences to the ratification debates supports the view that the provision for election of Representatives “by the People” was intended to have any application to the apportionment of Representatives within the States; in each instance, the cited passage merely repeats what the Constitution itself provides: that Representatives were to be elected by the people of the States.19

In sharp contrast to this unanimous silence on the issue of this case when Art. I, § 2, was being discussed, there are repeated references to apportionment and related problems affecting the States’ selection of Representatives in connection with Art. I, § 4. The debates in the ratifying conventions, as clearly as Madison’s statement at the Philadelphia Convention, supra, pp. 32-33, indicate that under § 4, the state legislatures, subject only to the ultimate control of Congress, could district as they chose.

At the Massachusetts convention, Judge Dana approved § 4 because it gave Congress power to prevent a state legislature from copying Great Britain, where “a borough of but two or three cottages has a right to send two representatives to Parliament, while Birmingham,- a large and populous manufacturing town, lately sprung up, cannot send one.” 20 He noted that the Rhode Island Legislature was “about adopting” a plan which would *35“deprive the towns of Newport and Providence of their weight.” 21 Mr. King noted the situation in Connecticut, where “Hartford, one of their largest towns, sends no more delegates than one of their smallest corporations,” and in South Carolina: “The back parts of Carolina have increased greatly since the adoption of their constitution, and have frequently attempted an alteration of this unequal mode of representation but the members from Charleston, having the balance so much in their favor, will not consent to an alteration, and we see that the delegates from Carolina in Congress have always been chosen by the delegates of that city.” 22 King stated that the power of Congress under § 4 was necessary to “control in this case”; otherwise, he said, “The representatives . . . from that state [South Carolina], will not be chosen by the people, but will be the representatives of a faction of that state.” 23

Mr. Parsons was as explicit.

“Mr. PARSONS contended for vesting in Congress the powers contained in the 4th section [of Art. I], not only as those powers were necessary for preserving the union, but also for securing to the people their equal rights of election. . . . [State legislatures] might make an unequal and partial division of the states into districts for the election of representatives, or they might even disqualify one third of the electors. Without these powers in Congress, the people can have no remedy; but the 4th section provides a remedy, a controlling power in a legislature, composed of senators and representatives of twelve states, without the influence of our commotions and factions, who will hear impartially, and preserve and restore *36to the people their equal and sacred rights of election. Perhaps it then will be objected, that from the supposed opposition of interests in the federal legislature, they may never agree upon any regulations; but regulations necessary for the interests of the people can never be opposed to the interests of either of the branches of the federal legislature; because that the interests of the people require that the mutual powers of that legislature should be preserved unimpaired, in order to balance the government. Indeed, if the Congress could never agree on any regulations, then certainly no objection to the 4th section can remain; for the regulations introduced by the state legislatures will be the governing rule of elections, until Congress can agree upon alterations’’24 (Emphasis added.)

In the New York convention, during the discussion of § 4, Mr. Jones objected to congressional power to regulate elections because such power “might be so construed as to deprive the states of an essential right, which, in the true design of the Constitution, was to be reserved 'to them.” 25 He proposed a resolution explaining that Congress had such power only if a state legislature neglected or refused or was unable to regulate elections itself.26 Mr. Smith proposed to add to the resolution “. . . that each state shall be divided into as many districts as the representatives it is entitled to, and that each representative shall be chosen by a majority of votes.” 27 He stated that his proposal was designed to prevent elections at large, which might result in all the representatives being “taken from a small part of the state.” 28 *37He explained further that his proposal was not intended to impose a requirement on the other States but “to enable the states to act their discretion, without the control of Congress.” 29 After further discussion of districting, the proposed resolution was modified to read as follows:

“[Resolved] . . . that nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prevent the legislature of any state to pass laws, from time to time, to divide such state into as many convenient districts as the state shall be entitled to elect representatives for Congress, nor to prevent such legislature from making provision, that the electors in each district shall choose a citizen of the United States, who shall have been an inhabitant of the district, for the term of one year immediately preceding the time of his election, for one of the representatives of such state.” 30

Despite this careful, advertent attention to the problem of congressional districting, Art. I, § 2, was never mentioned. Equally significant is the fact that the proposed resolution expressly empowering the States to establish congressional districts contains no mention of a requirement that the districts be equal in population.

In the Virginia convention, during the discussion of § 4, Madison again stated unequivocally that he looked solely to that section to prevent unequal districting:

“. . . [I] t was thought that the regulation of time, place, and manner, of electing the representatives, should be uniform throughout the continent. Some states might regulate the elections on the principles of equality, and others might regulate them otherwise. This diversity would be obviously unjust. Elections are regulated now unequally in some states, particularly South Carolina, with respect to Charles*38ton, which is represented by thirty members. Should the people of any state by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage, it was judged proper that it should be remedied by the general government. It was found impossible to fix the time, place, and manner, of the election of representatives, in the Constitution. It was found necessary to leave the regulation of these, in the first place, to the state governments, as being best acquainted with the situation of the people, subject to the control of the general government, in order to enable it to produce uniformity, and prevent its own dissolution. And, considering the state governments and general government as distinct bodies, acting in different and independent capacities for the people, it was thought the particular regulations should be submitted to the former, and the general regulations to the latter. Were they exclusively under the control of the state governments, the general government might easily be dissolved. But if they be regulated properly by the state legislatures, the congressional control will very probably never be exercised. The power appears to me satisfactory, and as unlikely to be abused as any part of the Constitution.”31 (Emphasis added.)

Despite the apparent fear that § 4 would be abused, no one suggested that it could safely be deleted because § 2 made it unnecessary.

In the North Carolina convention, again during discussion of § 4, Mr. Steele pointed out that the state legislatures had the initial power to regulate elections, and that the North Carolina legislature would regulate the first election at least “as they think proper.” 32 Respond*39ing to the suggestion that the Congress would favor the seacoast, he asserted that the courts would not uphold nor the people obey “laws inconsistent with the Constitution.” 33 (The particular possibilities that Steele had in mind were apparently that Congress might attempt to prescribe the qualifications for electors or “to make the place of elections inconvenient.” 34) Steele was concerned with the danger of congressional usurpation, under the authority of § 4, of power belonging to the States. Section 2 was not mentioned.

In the Pennsylvania convention, James Wilson described Art. I, § 4, as placing “into the hands of the state legislatures” the power to regulate elections, but retaining for Congress “self-preserving power” to make regulations lest “the general government ... lie prostrate at the mercy of the legislatures of the several states.” 35 Without such power, Wilson stated, the state governments might “make improper regulations” or “make no regulations at all.” 36 Section 2 was not mentioned.

Neither of the numbers of The Federalist from which the Court quotes, ante, pp. 15, 18, fairly supports its holding. In No. 57, Madison merely stated his assumption that Philadelphia’s population would entitle it to two Representatives in answering the argument that congressional constituencies would be too large for good government.37 In No. 54, he discussed the inclusion of slaves in the basis of apportionment. He said: “It is agreed on all sides, that numbers are the best scale of wealth and taxation, as they are the only proper scale of representation.” 38 This statement was offered simply to show that the slave *40population could not reasonably be included in the basis of apportionment of direct taxes and excluded from the basis of apportionment of representation. Further on in the same number of The Federalist, Madison pointed out the fundamental cleavage which Article I made between apportionment of Representatives among the States and the selection of Representatives within each State:

“It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution, that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States, is to be determined by a foederal rule founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the right of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants, as the State itself may designate. The qualifications on which the right of suffrage depend, are not perhaps the same in any two States. In some of the States the difference is very material. In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the Constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the Foederal Constitution apportions the representatives. In this point of view, the southern States might retort the complaint, by insisting, that the principle laid down by the Convention required that no regard should be had to the policy of particular States towards their own inhabitants; and consequently, that the slaves as inhabitants should have been admitted into the census according to their full number, in like manner with other inhabitants, who by the policy of other States, are not admitted to all the rights of citizens.”39

In The Federalist, No. 59, Hamilton discussed the provision of § 4 for regulation of elections. He justified Congress’ power with the “plain proposition, that every *41government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation.”40 Further on, he said:

“It will not be alledged that an election law could have been framed and inserted into the Constitution, which would have been always applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country; and it will therefore not be denied that a discretionary power over elections ought to exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as readily conceded, that there loere only three ways, in which this power could have been reasonably modified and disposed, that it must either have been lodged wholly in the National Legislature, or wholly in the State Legislatures, or primarily in the latter, and ultimately in the former. The last mode has with reason been preferred by the Convention. They have submitted the regulation of elections for the Foederal Government in the first instance to the local administrations; which in ordinary cases, and when no improper views prevail, may be both more convenient and more satisfactory; but they have reserved to the national authority a right to interpose, whenever extraordinary circumstances might render that interposition necessary to its safety.”41 (Emphasis added.)

Thus, in the number of The Federalist which does discuss the regulation of elections, the view is unequivocally stated that the state legislatures have plenary power over the conduct of congressional elections subject only to such regulations as Congress itself might provide.

The upshot of all this is that the language of Art. I, §§ 2 and 4, the surrounding text, and the relevant history *42are all in strong and consistent direct contradiction of the Court’s holding. The constitutional scheme vests in the States plenary power to regulate the conduct of elections for Representatives, and, in order to protect the Federal Government, provides for congressional supervision of the States’ exercise of their power. Within this scheme, the appellants do not have the right which they assert, in the absence of provision for equal districts by the Georgia Legislature or the Congress. The constitutional right which the Court creates is manufactured out of whole cloth.

IV.

The unstated premise of the Court’s conclusion quite obviously is that the Congress has not dealt, and the Court believes it will not deal, with the problem of congressional apportionment in accordance with what the Court believes to be sound political principles. Laying aside for the moment the validity of such a consideration as a factor in constitutional interpretation, it becomes relevant to examine the history of congressional action under Art. I, § 4. This history reveals that the Court is not simply undertaking to exercise a power which the Constitution reserves to the Congress; it is also overruling congressional judgment.

Congress exercised its power to regulate elections for the House of Representatives for the first time in 1842, when it provided that Representatives from States “entitled to more than one Representative” should be elected by districts of contiguous territory, “no one district electing more than one Representative.” 42 The requirement was later dropped,43 and reinstated.44 In 1872, Congress required that Representatives “be elected by districts composed of contiguous territory, and containing as *43nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants, . . . no one district electing more than one Representative.” 45 This provision for equal districts which the Court exactly duplicates in effect, was carried forward in each subsequent apportionment statute through 1911.46 There was no reapportionment following the 1920 census. The provision for equally populated districts was dropped in 1929 47 and has not been revived, although the 1929 provisions for apportionment have twice been amended and, in 1941, were made generally applicable to subsequent censuses and apportionments.48

The legislative history of the 1929 Act is carefully reviewed in Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1. As there stated:

“It was manifestly the intention of the Congress not to re-enact the provision as to compactness, contiguity, and equality in population with respect to the districts to be created pursuant to the reapportionment under the Act of 1929.

“This appears from the terms of the act, and its legislative history shows that the omission was deliberate. The question was up, and considered.” 287 U. S., at 7.

Although there is little discussion of the reasons for omitting the requirement of equally populated districts, the fact that such a provision was included in the bill as it was presented to the House,49 and was deleted by the House after debate and notice of intention to do so,50 *44leaves no doubt that the omission was deliberate. The likely explanation for the omission is suggested by a remark on the floor of the House that “the States ought to have their own way of making up their apportionment when they know the number of Congressmen they are going to have.” 51

Debates over apportionment in subsequent Congresses are generally unhelpful to explain the continued rejection of such a requirement; there are some intimations that the feeling that districting was a matter exclusively for the States persisted.52 Bills which would have imposed on the States a requirement of equally or nearly equally populated districts were regularly introduced in the House.53 None of them became law.

*45For a period of about 50 years, therefore, Congress, by repeated legislative act, imposed on the States the requirement that congressional districts be equal in population. (This, of course, is the very requirement which the Court now declares to have been constitutionally required of the States all along without implementing legislation.) Subsequently, after giving express attention to the problem, Congress eliminated that requirement, with the intention of permitting the States to find their own solutions. Since then, despite repeated efforts to obtain congressional action again, Congress has continued to leave the problem and its solution to the States. It cannot be contended, therefore, that the Court’s decision today fills a gap left by the Congress. On the contrary, the Court substitutes its own judgment for that of the Congress.

V.

The extent to which the Court departs from accepted principles of adjudication is further evidenced by the irrelevance to today’s issue of the cases on which the Court relies.

Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, was a habeas corpus proceeding, in which the Court sustained the validity of a conviction of a group of persons charged with violating federal statutes 54 which made it a crime to conspire to deprive a citizen of his federal rights, and in particular the right to vote. The issue before the Court was whether or not the Congress had power to pass laws pro*46tecting the right to vote for a member of Congress from fraud and violence; the Court relied expressly on Art. I, § 4, in sustaining this power. Id., at 660. Only in this context, in order to establish that the right to vote in a congressional election was a right protected by federal law, did the Court hold that the right was dependent on the Constitution and not on the law of the States. Indeed, the Court recognized that the Constitution “adopts the qualification” furnished by the States “as the qualification of its own electors for members of Congress.” Id., at 663. Each of the other three cases cited by the Court, ante, p. 17, similarly involved acts which were prosecuted as violations of federal statutes. The acts in question were filing false election returns, United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383, alteration of ballots and false certification of votes, United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, and stuffing the ballot box, United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385. None of those cases has the slightest bearing on the present situation.55

*47The Court gives scant attention, and that not on the merits, to Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, which is directly in point; the Court there affirmed dismissal of a complaint alleging that “by reason of subsequent changes in population the Congressional districts for the election of Representatives in the Congress created by the Illinois Laws of 1901 . . . lacked compactness of territory and approximate equality of population.” Id., at 550-551. Leaving to another day the question of what Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, did actually decide, it can hardly be maintained on the authority of Baker or anything else, that the Court does not today invalidate Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s eminently correct statement in Colegrove that “the Constitution has conferred upon Congress exclusive authority to secure fair representation by the States in the popular House .... If Congress failed in exercising its powers, whereby standards of fairness are offended, the remedy ultimately lies with the people.” 328 U. S., at 554. The problem was described by Mr. Justice Frankfurter as “an aspect of government from which the judiciary, in view of what is involved, has been excluded by the clear intention of the Constitution . . . .” Ibid. Mr. Justice Frankfurter did not, of course, speak for a majority of the Court in Colegrove; but refusal for that reason to give the opinion precedential effect does not justify refusal to give appropriate attention to the views there expressed.56

*48VI.

Today’s decision has portents for our society and the Court itself which should be recognized. This is not a case in which the Court vindicates the kind of individual rights that are assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, whose “vague contours,” Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 170, of course leave much room for constitutional developments necessitated by changing conditions in a dynamic society. Nor is this a case in which an emergent set of facts requires the Court to frame new principles to protect recognized constitutional rights. The claim for judicial relief in this case strikes at one of the fundamental doctrines of our system of government, the separation of powers. In upholding that claim, the Court attempts to effect reforms in a field which the Constitution, as plainly as can be, has committed exclusively to the political process.

This Court, no less than all other branches of the Government, is bound by the Constitution. The Constitution does not confer on the Court blanket authority to step into every situation where the political branch may be thought to have fallen short. The stability of this institution ultimately depends not only upon its being alert to keep the other branches of government within constitutional bounds but equally upon recognition of the limitations on the Court’s own functions in the constitutional system.

What is done today saps the political process. The promise of judicial intervention in matters of this sort cannot but encourage popular inertia in efforts for political reform through the political process, with the inevitable result that the process is itself weakened. By yielding to the demand for a judicial remedy in this instance, the Court in my view does a disservice both to itself and to the broader values of our system of government.

*49Believing that the complaint fails to disclose a constitutional claim, I would affirm the judgment below dismissing the complaint.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF MR. JUSTICE HARLAN.*

Difference

Between

State and Largest and

Number of Largest Smallest Smallest

Representatives ** District District Districts

Alabama (8)................... ....... .......

Alaska (1)..................... ....... .......

Arizona (3)............. 663,510 198,236 465,274

Arkansas (4)........... 575,385 332,844 242,541

California (38).......... 588,933 301,872 287,061

Colorado (4)............ 653,954 195,551 458,403

Connecticut (6)......... 689,555 318,942 370, 613

Delaware (1).................. ....... .......

Florida (12)............ 660,345 237,235 423,110

Georgia (10)............ 823, 680 272,154 551,526

Hawaii (2).................... ....... .......

Idaho (2).............. 409,949 257,242 152,707

Illinois (24)............ 552,582 278,703 273,879

Indiana (11)............ 697,567 290,596 406,971

Iowa (7)............... 442,406 353,156 89,250

Kansas (5)............. 539,592 373,583 166,009

Kentucky (7)........... 610,947 350,839 260,108

Louisiana (8)........... 536,029 263,850 272,179

Maine (2).............. 505,465 463,800 41,665

Maryland (8)........... 711,045 243,570 467,475

Massachusetts (12)...... 478,962 376,336 102,626

Michigan (19).......... 802,994 177,431 625,563

Minnesota (8).......... 482,872 375,475 107,397

Mississippi (5).......... 608,441 295,072 313,369

*50 Difference

Between

State and Largest and

Number of Largest Smallest Smallest

Representatives District District Districts

Missouri (10)........... 506,854 378,499 128,355

Montana (2)........... 400,573 274,194 126,379

Nebraska (3)........... 530,507 404,695 125,812

Nevada (1).................... ....... .......

New Hampshire (2)..... 331,818 275,103 56,715

New Jersey (15)........ 585,586 255,165 330,421

New Mexico (2)................ ....... .......

New York (41)......... 471,001 350,186 120,815

North Carolina (11)..... 491,461 277,861 213,600

North Dakota (2)....... 333,290 . 299,156 34,134

Ohio (24).............. 726,156 236,288 489,868

Oklahoma (6)........... 552,863 227,692 325,171

Oregon (4)............. 522,813 265,164 257,649

Pennsylvania (27)....... 553,154 303,026 250,128

Rhode Island (2)........ 459,706 399,782 59,924

South Carolina (6)...... 531,555 302,235 229,320

South Dakota (2)....... 497,669 182,845 314,824

Tennessee (9)........... 627,019 223,387 403,632

Texas (23).............. 951,527 216,371 735,156

Utah (2)............... 572,654 317,973 254,681

Vermont (1)................... ....... .......

Virginia (10)........... 539,618 312,890 226,728

Washington (7)......... 510,512 342,540 167,972

West Virginia (5)....... 422,046 303,098 118,948

Wisconsin (10).......... 530,316 236,870 293,446

Wyoming (1).................. ....... .......

Mr. Justice Stewart.

I think it is established that “this Court has power to afford relief in a case of this type as against the objection that the issues are not justiciable,”* and I cannot subscribe to any possible implication to the contrary which *51may lurk in Mr. Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion. With this single qualification I join the dissent because I think Mr. Justice Harlan has unanswerably demonstrated that Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution gives no mandate to this Court or to any court to ordain that congressional districts within each State must be equal in population.

1

Representatives were elected at large in Alabama (S), Alaska (1), Delaware (1), Hawaii (2), Nevada (1), New Mexico (2), Vermont (1), and Wyoming (1). In addition, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas each elected one of their Representatives at large.

2

Thé five States are Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Rhode Island. Together, they elect 15 Representatives.

The populations of the largest and smallest districts in each State and the difference between them are contained in an Appendix to this opinion.

3

The only State in which the average population per district is greater than 500,000 is Connecticut, where the average population per district is 507,047 (one Representative being elected at large). The difference between the largest and smallest districts in Connecticut is, however, 370,613.

4

The Court’s “as nearly as is practicable” formula sweeps a host of questions under the rug. How great a difference between the populations of various districts within a State is tolerable? Is the standard an absolute or relative one, and if the latter to what is the difference in population to be related? Does the number of districts within the State have any relevance? Is the number of voters or the number of inhabitants controlling? Is the relevant statistic the greatest disparity between any two districts in the State or the average departure from the average population per district, or a little of both? May the State consider factors such as area or natural boundaries (rivers, mountain ranges) which are plainly relevant to the practicability of effective representation?

There is an obvious lack of criteria for answering questions such as these, which points up the impropriety of the Court’s wholehearted but heavy-footed entrance into the political arena.

5

The 37 “constitutional” Representatives are those coming from the eight States which elected their Representatives at large (plus one each elected at large in Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas) and those coming from States in which the difference between the populations of the largest and smallest districts was less *22than 100,000. See notes 1 and 2, supra. Since the difference between the largest and smallest districts in Iowa is 89,250, and the average population per district in Iowa is only 393,934, Iowa’s 7 Representatives might well lose their seats as well. This would leave a House of Representatives composed of the 22 Representatives elected at large plus eight elected in congressional districts.

These conclusions presume that all the Representatives from a State in which any part of the congressional districting is found invalid would be affected. Some of them, of course, would ordinarily come from districts the populations of which were about that which would result from an apportionment based solely on population. But a court cannot erase only the districts which do not conform to the standard announced today, since invalidation of those districts would require that the lines of all the districts within the State be redrawn. In the absence of a reapportionment, all the Representatives from a State found to have violated the standard would presumably have to be elected at large.

6

Since I believe that the Constitution expressly provides that state legislatures and the Congress shall have exclusive jurisdiction *25over problems of congressional apportionment of the kind involved in this case, there is no occasion for me to consider whether, in the absence of such provision, other provisions of the Constitution, relied on by the appellants, would confer on them the rights which they assert.

7

Although it was held in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, and subsequent cases, that the right to vote for a member of Congress depends on the Constitution, the opinion noted that the legislatures of the States prescribe the qualifications for electors of the legislatures and thereby for electors of the House of Representatives. 110 U. S., at 663. See ante, p. 17, and infra, pp. 45-46.

The States which ratified the Constitution exercised their power. A property or taxpaying qualification was in effect almost everywhere. See, e. g., the New York Constitution of 1777, Art. VII, which restricted the vote to freeholders “possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds, ... or [who] have rented a tenement ... of the *26yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to this State.” The constitutional and statutory qualifications for electors in the various States are set out in tabular form in 1 Thorpe, A Constitutional History of the American People 1776-1850 (1898), 93-96. The progressive elimination of the property qualification is described in Sait, American Parties and Elections (Penni-man ed., 1952), 16-17. At the time of the Revolution, “no serious inroads had yet been made upon the privileges of property, which, indeed, maintained in most states a second line of defense in the *27form of high personal-property qualifications required for membership in the legislature.” Id., at 16 (footnote omitted).

Women were not allowed to vote. Thorpe, op. cit., supra, 93-96. See generally Sait, op. cit., supra, 49-54. New Jersey apparently allowed women, as “inhabitants,” to vote until 1807. See Thorpe, op. cit., supra, 93. Compare N. J. Const., 1776, Art. XIII, with N. J. Const., 1844, Art. II, ¶ 1.

8

Even that is not strictly true unless the word “solely” is deleted. The “three-fifths compromise” was a departure from the principle of representation according to the number of inhabitants of a State. Cf. The Federalist, No. 54, discussed infra, pp. 39-40. A more obvious departure was the provision that each State shall have a Representative regardless of its population. See infra, pp. 28-29.

9

The fact that the delegates were able to agree on a Senate composed entirely without regard to population and on the departures from a population-based House, mentioned in note 8, supra, indicates *28that they recognized the possibility that alternative principles combined with political reality might dictate conclusions inconsistent with an abstract principle of absolute numerical equality.

On the apportionment of the state legislatures at the time of the Constitutional Convention, see Luce, Legislative Principles (1930), 331-364; Hacker, Congressional Districting (1963), 5.

10

It is surely beyond debate that the Constitution did not require the slave States to apportion their Representatives according to the dispersion of slaves within their borders. The above implications of the three-fifths compromise were recognized by Madison. See The Federalist, No. 54, discussed infra, pp. 39-40.

Luce points to the “quite arbitrary grant of representation proportionate to three fifths of the number of slaves” as evidence that even in the House “the representation of men as men” was not intended. He states: “There can be no shadow of question that populations were accepted as a measure of material interests — landed, agricultural, industrial, commercial, in short, property.” Legislative Principles (1930), 356-357.

11

U. S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1960 (hereafter, Census), xiv. The figure is obtained by dividing the population base (which excludes the population of the District of Columbia, the population of the Territories, and the number of Indians not taxed) by the number of Representatives. In 1960, the population base was 178,559,217, and the number of Representatives was 435.

12

Census, 1-16.

13

Section 5 of Article I, which provides that “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,” also points away from the Court’s conclusion. This provision reinforces the evident constitutional scheme of leaving to the Congress the protection of federal interests involved in the selection of members of the Congress.

14

1 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention (1911) (hereafter Farrand), 48, 86-87, 134-136, 288-289, 299, 533, 534; II Farrand 202.

15

“The assemblage at the Philadelphia Convention was by no means committed to popular government, and few of the delegates had sympathy for the habits or institutions of democracy. Indeed, most of them interpreted democracy as mob rule and assumed that equality of representation would permit the spokesmen for the common man to outvote the beleaguered deputies of the uncommon man.” Hacker, Congressional Districting (1963), 7-8. See Luce, Legislative Principles (1930), 356-357. With respect to apportionment of the House, Luce states: “Property was the basis, not humanity.” Id., at 357.

Contrary to the Court’s statement, ante, p. 18, no reader of The Federalist “could have fairly taken . . . [it] to mean” that the Constitutional Convention had adopted a principle of “one person, one vote” in contravention of the qualifications for electors which the States imposed. In No. 54, Madison said: “It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution, that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States, is to be determined by a foederal rule founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the light of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants, as the State itself may designate. ... In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the Constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the Foederal Constitution apportions the representatives.” (Cooke ed. 1961) 369. (Italics added.) The passage from which the Court quotes, ante, p. 18, concludes with the following, overlooked by the Court: “They [the electors] are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the correspondent branch of the Legislature of the State.” Id., at 385.

16

References to Old Sarum {ante, p. 15), for example, occurred during the debate on the method of apportionment of Representatives among the States. I Farrand 449-450, 457.

17

II Farrand 240-241.

18

Ibid.

19

See the materials cited in notes 41-42, 44-45 of the Court’s opinion, ante, p. 16. Ames’ remark at the Massachusetts convention is typical: “The representatives are to represent the people.” II Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution (2d ed. 1836) (hereafter Elliot’s Debates), 11. In the South Carolina Convention, Pinckney stated that the House would “be so chosen as to represent in due proportion the people of the Union . . . .” IV Elliot’s Debates 257. But he had in mind only that other clear provision of the Constitution that representation would be apportioned among the States according to population. None of his remarks bears on apportionment within the States. Id., at 256-257.

20

II Elliot’s Debates 49.

21

Ibid.

22

Id., at 50-51.

23

Id., at 51.

24

Id., at 26-27.

25

Id., at 325.

26

Id., at 325-326.

27

Id., at 327.

28

Ibid.

29

Id., at 328.

30

Id., at 329.

31

III Elliot’s Debates 367.

32

IV Elliot’s Debates 71.

33

Ibid.

34

Ibid.

35

II Elliot’s Debates 440-441.

36

Id., at 441.

37

The Federalist, No. 57 (Cooke ed. 1961), 389.

38

Id., at 368.

39

Id., at 369.

40

Id., at 398.

41

Id., at 398-399.

42

Act of June 25,1842, § 2,5 Stat. 491.

43

Act of May 23,1850, 9 Stat. 428.

44

Act of July 14, 1862, 12 Stat. 572.

45

Act of Feb. 2, 1872, § 2, 17 Stat. 28.

46

Act of Feb. 25, 1882, § 3, 22 Stat. 5, 6; Act of Feb. 7, 1891, § 3, 26 Stat. 735; Act of Jan. 16, 1901, §3, 31 Stat. 733, 734; Act of Aug. 8, 1911, § 3, 37 Stat. 13, 14.

47

Act of June 18,1929,46 Stat. 21.

48

Act of Apr. 25, 1940, 54 Stat. 162; Act of Nov. 15, 1941, 55 Stat. 761.

49

H. R. 11725, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., introduced on Mar. 3, 1928, 69 Cong. Rec. 4054.

50

70 Cong. Rec. 1499, 1584, 1602, 1604.

51

70 Cong. Rec. 1499 (remarks of Mr. Dickinson). The Congressional Record reports that this statement was followed by applause. At another point in the debates, Representative Lozier stated that Congress lacked “power to determine in what manner the several States exercise their sovereign rights in selecting their Representatives in Congress . . . .” 70 Cong. Rec. 1496. See also the remarks of Mr. Graham. Ibid.

52

See, e. g., 86 Cong. Rec. 4368 (remarks of Mr. Rankin), 4369 (remarks of Mr. McLeod), 4371 (remarks of Mr. McLeod); 87 Cong. Rec. 1081 (remarks of Mr. Moser).

53

H. R. 4820, 76th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 5099, 76th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 2648, 82d Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 6428, 83d Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. Ill, 85th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 814, 85th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 8266, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 73, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 575, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 841; 87th Cong., 1st Sess.

Typical of recent proposed legislation is H. R. 841, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., which amends 2 U. S. C. § 2a to provide:

“(c) Each State entitled to more than one Representative in Congress under the apportionment provided in subsection (a) of this section, shall establish for each Representative a district composed of contiguous and compact territory, and the number of inhabitants contained within any district so established shall not vary more than 10 per centum from the number obtained by dividing the total population of such States, as established in the last decennial *45census, by the number of Representatives apportioned to such State under the provisions of subsection (a) of this section.

“(d) Any Representative elected to the Congress from a district which does not conform to the requirements set forth in subsection (c) of this section shall be denied his seat in the House of Representatives and the Clerk of the House shall refuse his credentials.”

Similar bills introduced in the current Congress are H. R. 1128, H. R. 2836, H. R. 4340, and H. R. 7343, 88th Cong., 1st Sess.

54

R. S. §5508; R. S. §5520.

55

Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, and its two companion cases, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375; Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, on which my Brother Clark relies in his separate opinion, ante, pp. 18-19, are equally irrelevant. Smiley v. Holm presented two questions: the first, answered in the negative, was whether the provision in Art. I, § 4, which empowered the “Legislature” of a State to prescribe the regulations for congressional elections meant that a State could not by law provide for a Governor’s veto over such regulations as had been prescribed by the legislature. The second question, which concerned two congressional apportionment measures, was whether the Act of June 18, 1929, 46 Stat. 21, had repealed certain provisions of the Act of Aug. 8, 1911, 37 Stat. 13. In answering this question, the Court was concerned to carry out the intention of Congress in enacting the 1929 Act. See id., at 374. Quite obviously, therefore, Smiley v. Holm does not stand for the proposition which my Brother Clark derives from it. There was not the slightest intimation in that case that Congress’ power to prescribe regulations for elections was subject to judicial scrutiny, ante, p. 18, such that this Court could itself prescribe regulations for congressional elec*47tions in disregard and even in contradiction of congressional purpose. The companion cases to Smiley v. Holm presented no different issues and were decided wholly on the basis of the decision in that case.

56

The Court relies in part on Baker v. Carr, supra, to immunize its present decision from the force of Colegrove. But nothing in Baker is contradictory to the view that, political question and other objections to “justiciability” aside, the Constitution vests exclusive authority to deal with the problem of this case in the state legislatures and the Congress.

*

The populations of the districts are based on the 19Í30 Census. The districts are those used in the election of the current 88th Congress. The populations of the districts are available in the biographical section of the Congressional Directory, 88th Cong., 2d Sess.

**

435 in all.

*

The quotation is from Mr. Justice Rutledge’s concurring opinion in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S., at 565.

SHAW et al. v. RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al.

No. 92-357.

Argued April 20, 1993

Decided June 28, 1993

*632O’Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. White, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 658. Blackmun, J., post, p. 676, Stevens, J., post, p. 676, and Souter, J., post, p. 679, filed dissenting opinions.

Robinson O. Everett argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs was Jeffrey B. Parsons.

H. Jefferson Powell argued the cause for state appellees. With him on the briefs were Michael F. Easley, Attorney General of North Carolina, Edwin M. Speas, Jr., Senior *633Deputy Attorney General, and Norma S. Harrell and Tiare B. Smiley, Special Deputy Attorneys General. Edwin S. Kneedler argued the cause for federal appellees. On the brief were Acting Solicitor. General Bryson, Acting Assistant Attorney General Turner, Thomas G. Hungar, and Jessica Dunsay Silver.*

*

Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Jewish Congress by Marc D. Stern and Lois C. Waldman; for the Republican National Committee by Benjamin L. Ginsberg and Michael A Hess; and for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A Samp.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Democratic National Committee et al. by Wayne R. Arden and Jeffrey M. Wice; for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law et al. by Herbert Wachtell, William H. Brown III, Thomas J. Henderson, Frank R. Parker, Brenda Wright, Nicholas DeB. Katzenbach, Michael R. Cole, Alan E. Kraus, Laughlin McDonald, Kathy Wilde, E. Richard Larson, and Dennis Courtland Hayes; for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., by Elaine R. Jones, Charles Stephen Ralston, and Dayna L. Cunningham; and for Bolley Johnson et al. by Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Scott A Sinder, Kevin X. Crowley, and James A Peters.

Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case involves two of the most complex and sensitive issues this Court has faced in recent years: the meaning of the constitutional “right” to vote, and the propriety of race-based state legislation designed to benefit members of historically disadvantaged racial minority groups. As a result of the 1990 census, North Carolina became entitled to a 12th seat in the United States House of Representatives. The General Assembly enacted a reapportionment plan that included one majority-black congressional district. After the Attorney General of the United States objected to the plan pursuant to § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, the General Assembly passed new legislation creating a second majority-black district. Appellants allege that the revised plan, which contains district boundary lines of dramatically irregular shape, consti*634tutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The question before us is whether appellants have stated a cognizable claim.

I

The voting age population of North Carolina is approximately 78% white, 20% black, and 1% Native American; the remaining 1% is predominantly Asian. App. to Brief for Federal Appellees 16a. The black population is relatively dispersed; blacks constitute a majority of the general population in only 5 of the State’s 100 counties. Brief for Appellants 57. Geographically, the State divides into three regions: the eastern Coastal Plain, the central Piedmont Plateau, and the western mountains. H. Lefler & A. Newsom, The History of a Southern State: North Carolina 18-22 (3d ed. 1973). The largest concentrations of black citizens live in the Coastal Plain, primarily in the northern part. O. Gade & H. Stillwell, North Carolina: People and Environments 65-68 (1986). The General Assembly’s first redistricting plan contained one majority-black district centered in that area of the State.

Forty of North Carolina’s one hundred counties are covered by § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, which prohibits a jurisdiction subject to its provisions from implementing changes in a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” without federal authorization, ibid. The jurisdiction must obtain either a judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia declaring that the proposed change “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” or administrative preclearance from the Attorney General. Ibid. Because the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan affected the covered counties, the parties agree that § 5 applied. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14, 27-29. The State chose to submit its plan to the Attorney General for preclearance.

*635The Attorney General, acting through the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, interposed a formal objection to the General Assembly’s plan. The Attorney General specifically objected to the configuration of boundary lines drawn in the south-central to southeastern region of the State. In the Attorney General’s view, the General Assembly could have created a second majority-minority district “to give effect to black and Native American voting strength in this area” by using boundary lines “no more irregular than [those] found elsewhere in the proposed plan,” but failed to do so for “pretextual reasons.” See App. to Brief for Federal Appellees 10a-lla.

Under §5, the State remained free to seek a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia notwithstanding the Attorney General’s objection. It did not do so. Instead, the General Assembly enacted a revised redistricting plan, 1991 N. C. Extra Sess. Laws, ch. 7, that included a second majority-black district. The General Assembly located the second district not in the south-central to southeastern part of the State, but in the north-central region along Interstate 85. See Appendix, infra.

The first of the two majority-black districts contained in the revised plan, District 1, is somewhat hook shaped. Centered in the northeast portion of the State, it moves southward until it tapers to a narrow band; then, with finger-like extensions, it reaches far into the southernmost part of the State near the South Carolina border. District 1 has been compared to a “Rorschach ink-blot test,” Shaw v. Barr, 808 F. Supp. 461, 476 (EDNC 1992) (Voorhees, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and a “bug splattered on a windshield,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 4, 1992, p. A14.

The second majority-black district, District 12, is even more unusually shaped. It is approximately 160 miles long and, for much of its length, no wider than the 1-85 corridor. It winds in snakelike fashion through tobacco country, financial centers, and manufacturing areas “until it gobbles in *636enough enclaves of black neighborhoods.” 808 F. Supp., at 476-477 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Northbound and southbound drivers on 1-85 sometimes find themselves in separate districts in one county, only to “trade” districts when they enter the next county. Of the 10 counties through which District 12 passes, 5 are cut into 3 different districts; even towns are divided. At one point the district remains contiguous only because it intersects at a single point with two other districts before crossing over them. See Brief for Republican National Committee as Amicus Curiae 14-15. One state legislator has remarked that “ ‘[i]f you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you’d kill most of the people in the district.’” Washington Post, Apr. 20, 1993, p. A4. The district even has inspired poetry: “Ask not for whom the line is drawn; it is drawn to avoid thee.” Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Had Said: “When It Comes to Redistricting, Race Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing”?, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. 1237, 1261, n. 96 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Attorney General did not object to the General Assembly’s revised plan. But numerous North Carolinians did. The North Carolina Republican Party and individual voters brought suit in Federal District Court, alleging that the plan constituted an unconstitutional political gerrymander under Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109 (1986). That claim was dismissed, see Pope v. Blue, 809 F. Supp. 392 (WDNC), and this Court summarily affirmed, 506 U. S. 801 (1992).

Shortly after the complaint in Pope v. Blue was filed, appellants instituted the present action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Appellants alleged not that the revised plan constituted a political gerrymander, nor that it violated the “one person, one vote” principle, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 558 (1964), but that the State had created an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Appellants are five residents of Dur*637ham County, North Carolina, all registered to vote in that county. Under the General Assembly’s plan, two will vote for congressional representatives in District 12 and three will vote in neighboring District 2. Appellants sued the Governor of North Carolina, the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, and members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections (state appellees), together with two federal officials, the Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division (federal appellees).

Appellants contended that the General Assembly’s revised reapportionment plan violated several provisions of the United States Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. They alleged that the General Assembly deliberately “create[d] two Congressional Districts in which a majority of black voters was concentrated arbitrarily — without regard to any other considerations, such as compactness, contiguousness, geographical boundaries, or political subdivisions” with the purpose “to create Congressional Districts along racial lines” and to assure the election of two black representatives to Congress. App. to Juris. Statement 102a. Appellants sought declaratoiX-and-i-njunctive -relief against the state^appellees. ¡Theysought similar relief against* t'he^ ''federaf appellees, arguing, alternatively, that the federal appellees had misconstrued the Voting Rights Act or that .the Act itself was unconstitutional.

' The-three-judge District Court granted the federal appellees’ motion to dismiss. 808 F. Supp. 461 (EDNC 1992). The court agreed unanimously that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction by reason of § 14(b) of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1973¿(b), which vests the District Court for the District of Columbia with exclusive jurisdiction to issue injunctions against the execution of the Act and to enjoin actions taken by federal officers pursuant thereto. 808 F. Supp., at 466-467; id., at 474 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring *638in relevant part). Two judges also concluded that, to the extent appellants challenged the Attorney General’s preclearance decisions, their claim was foreclosed by this Court’s holding in Morris v. Gressette, 432 U. S. 491 (1977). 808 F. Supp., at 467.

By a 2-to-l vote, the District Court also dismissed the complaint against the state appellees. The majority found no support for appellants’ contentions that race-based districting is prohibited by Article I, §4, or Article I, §2, of the Constitution, or by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It deemed appellants’ claim under the Fifteenth Amendment essentially subsumed within their related claim under the Equal Protection Clause. 808 F. Supp., at 468-469. That claim, the majority concluded, was barred by United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144 (1977) (UJO).

The majority first took judicial notice of a fact omitted from appellants’ complaint: that appellants are white. It rejected the argument that race-conscious redistricting to benefit minority voters is per se unconstitutional. The majority also rejected appellants’ claim that North Carolina’s reapportionment plan was impermissible. The majority read UJO to stand for the proposition that a redistricting scheme violates white voters’ rights only if it is “adopted with the purpose and effect of discriminating against white voters ... on account of their race.” 808 F. Supp., at 472. The purposes of favoring minority voters and complying with the Voting Rights Act are not discriminatory in the constitutional sense, the court reasoned, and majority-minority districts have an impermissibly discriminatory effect only when they unfairly dilute or cancel out white voting strength. Because the State’s purpose here was to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and because the General Assembly’s plan did not lead to proportional underrepresentation of white voters state*639wide, the majority concluded that appellants had failed to state an equal protection claim. Id., at 472-473.

Chief Judge Voorhees agreed that race-conscious redistricting is not per se unconstitutional but dissented from the rest of the majority’s equal protection analysis. He read Justice White’s opinion in UJO to authorize race-based reapportionment only when the State employs traditional districting principles such as compactness and contiguity. 808 F. Supp., at 475-477 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). North Carolina’s failure to respect these principles, in Judge Voorhees’ view, “augur[ed] a constitutionally suspect, and potentially unlawful, intent” sufficient to defeat the state appellees’ motion to dismiss. Id., at 477.

We noted probable jurisdiction. 506 U. S. 1019 (1992).

II

A

“The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society . .. .” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S., at 555. For much of our Nation’s history, that right sadly has been denied to many because of race. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870 after a bloody Civil War, promised unequivocally that “ft]he right of citizens of the United States to vote” no longer would be “denied or abridged ... by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 15, § 1.

But “[a] number of states . . . refused to take no for an answer and continued to circumvent the fifteenth amendment’s prohibition through the use of both subtle and blunt instruments, perpetuating ugly patterns of pervasive racial discrimination.” Blumstein, Defining and Proving Race Discrimination: Perspectives on the Purpose Vs. Results Approach from the Voting Rights Act, 69 Va. L. Rev. 633, 637 (1983). Ostensibly race-neutral devices such as literacy tests with “grandfather” clauses and “good character” provisos were devised to deprive black voters of the franchise. *640Another of the weapons in the States’ arsenal was the racial gerrymander — “the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries ... for [racial] purposes.” Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 164 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (internal quotation marks omitted). In the 1870’s, for example, opponents of Reconstruction in Mississippi “concentrated the bulk of the black population in a ‘shoestring’ Congressional district running the length of the Mississippi River, leaving five others with white majorities.” E. Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, p. 590 (1988). Some 90 years later, Alabama redefined the boundaries of the city of Tuskegee “from a square to an uncouth twenty-eight-sided figure” in a manner that was alleged to exclude black voters, and only black voters, from the city limits. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 340 (1960).

Alabama’s exercise in geometry was but one example of the racial discrimination in voting that persisted in parts of this country nearly a century after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 309-313 (1966). In some States, registration of eligible black voters ran 50% behind that of whites. Id., at 313. Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a dramatic and severe response to the situation. The Act proved immediately successful in ensuring racial minorities access to the voting booth; by the early 1970’s, the spread between black and white registration in several of the targeted Southern States had fallen to well below 10%. A. Thernstrom, Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 44 (1987).

But it soon became apparent that guaranteeing equal access to the polls would not suffice to root out other racially discriminatory voting practices. Drawing on the “one person, one vote” principle, this Court recognized that “[t]he right to vote can be affected by a dilution of voting power as well as by an absolute prohibition on casting a ballot.” *641Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 569 (1969) (emphasis added). Where members of a racial minority group vote as a cohesive unit, practices such as multimember or at-large electoral systems can reduce or nullify minority voters’ ability, as a group, “to elect the candidate of their choice.” Ibid. Accordingly, the Court held that such schemes violate the Fourteenth Amendment when they are adopted with a discriminatory purpose and have the effect of diluting minority voting strength. See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 616-617 (1982); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973). Congress, too, responded to the problem of vote dilution. In 1982, it amended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prohibit legislation that results in the dilution of a minority group’s voting strength, regardless of the legislature’s intent. 42 U. S. C. § 1973; see Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986) (applying amended § 2 to vote-dilution claim involving multimember districts); see also Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 155 (1993) (single-member districts).

B

It is against this background that we confront the questions presented here. In our view, the District Court properly dismissed appellants’ claims against the federal appellees. Our focus is on appellants’ claim that the State engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. That argument strikes a powerful historical chord: It is unsettling how closely the North Carolina plan resembles the most egregious racial gerrymanders of the past.

An understanding of the nature of appellants’ claim is critical to our resolution of the case. In their complaint, appellants did not claim that the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan unconstitutionally “diluted” white voting strength. They did not even claim to be white. Rather, appellants’ complaint alleged that the deliberate segregation of voters into separate districts on the basis of race violated their constitutional right to participate in a “color-blind” *642electoral process. Complaint ¶ 29, App. to Juris. Statement 89a-90a; see also Brief for Appellants 31-32.

Despite their invocation of the ideal of a “color-blind” Constitution, see Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting), appellants appear to concede that race-conscious redistricting is not always unconstitutional. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 16-19. That concession is wise: This Court never has held that race-conscious state decision-making is impermissible in all circumstances. What appellants object to is redistricting legislation that is so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting, without regard for traditional districting principles and without sufficiently compelling justification. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that appellants have stated a claim upon which relief can be granted under the Equal Protection Clause. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6).

Ill

A

The Equal Protection Clause provides that “[n]o State shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1. Its central purpose is to prevent the States from purposefully discriminating between individuals on the basis of race. Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 239 (1976). Laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of that prohibition.

No inquiry into legislative purpose is necessary when the racial classification appears on the face of the statute. See Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 272 (1979). Accord, Washington v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 485 (1982). Express racial classifications are immediately suspect because, “[a]bsent searching judicial inquiry . . . , there is simply no way of determining what classifications are ‘benign’ or ‘remedial’ and what classi*643fications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.” Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493 (1989) (plurality opinion); id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); see also UJO, 430 U. S., at 172 (Brennan, J., concurring in part) (“[A] purportedly preferential race assignment may in fact disguise a policy that perpetuates disadvantageous treatment of the plan’s supposed beneficiaries”).

Classifications of citizens solely on the basis of race “are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943). Accord, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 11 (1967). They threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility. Croson, supra, at 493 (plurality opinion); UJO, supra, at 173 (Brennan, J., concurring in part) (“[E]ven in the pursuit of remedial objectives, an explicit policy of assignment by race may serve to stimulate our society’s latent race consciousness, suggesting the utility and propriety of basing decisions on a factor that ideally bears no relationship to an individual’s worth or needs”). Accordingly, we have held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires state legislation that expressly distinguishes among citizens because of their race to be narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. See, e. g., Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277-278 (1986) (plurality opinion); id., at 285 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

These principles apply not only to legislation that contains explicit racial distinctions, but also to those “rare” statutes that, although race neutral, are, on their face, “unexplainable on grounds other than race.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977). As we explained in Feeney:

“A racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only *644upon an extraordinary justification. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483; McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184. This rule applies as well to a classification that is ostensibly neutral but is an obvious pretext for racial discrimination. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347; cf. Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339.” 442 U. S., at 272.

B

Appellants contend that redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is “unexplainable on grounds other than race,” Arlington Heights, supra, at 266, demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race. Our voting rights precedents support that conclusion.

In Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347 (1915), the Court invalidated under the Fifteenth Amendment a statute that imposed a literacy requirement on voters but contained a “grandfather clause” applicable to individuals and their lineal descendants entitled to vote “on [or prior to] January 1, 1866.” Id., at 357 (internal quotation marks omitted). The determinative consideration for the Court was that the law, though ostensibly race neutral, on its face “embodied] no exercise of judgment and rest[ed] upon no discernible reason” other than to circumvent the prohibitions of the Fifteenth Amendment. Id., at 363. In other words, the statute was invalid because, on its face, it could not be explained on grounds other than race.

The Court applied the same reasoning to the “uncouth twenty-eight-sided” municipal boundary line at issue in Gomillion. Although the statute that redrew the city limits of Tuskegee was race neutral on its face, plaintiffs alleged that its effect was impermissibly to remove from the city virtually all black voters and no white voters. The Court reasoned:

*645“If these allegations upon a trial remained uncontradicted or unqualified, the conclusion would be irresistible, tantamount for all practical purposes to a mathematical demonstration, that the legislation is solely concerned with segregating white and colored voters by fencing Negro citizens out of town so as to deprive them of their pre-existing municipal vote.” 364 U. S., at 341.

The majority resolved the case under the Fifteenth Amendment. Id., at 342-348. Justice Whittaker, however, concluded that the “unlawful segregation of races of citizens” into different voting districts was cognizable under the Equal Protection Clause. Id., at 349 (concurring opinion). This Court’s subsequent reliance on Gomillion in other Fourteenth Amendment cases suggests the correctness of Justice Whittaker’s view. See, e. g., Feeney, supra, at 272; Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 149 (1971); see also Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 86 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (Gomillion’s holding “is compelled by the Equal Protection Clause”). Gomillion thus supports appellants’ contention that district lines obviously drawn for the purpose of separating voters by race require careful scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause regardless of the motivations underlying their adoption.

The Court extended the reasoning of Gomillion to congressional districting in Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964). At issue in Wright were four districts contained in a New York apportionment statute. The plaintiffs alleged that the statute excluded nonwhites from one district and concentrated them in the other three. Id., at 53-54. Every Member of the Court assumed that the plaintiffs’ allegation that the statute “segregate^] eligible voters by race and place of origin” stated a constitutional claim. Id., at 56 (internal quotation marks omitted); id., at 58 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 59-62 (Douglas, J., dissenting). The Justices disagreed only as to whether the plaintiffs had carried their burden of proof at trial. The dissenters thought the unusual *646shape of the district lines could “be explained only in racial terms.” Id., at 59. The majority, however, accepted the. District Court’s finding that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that the districts were in fact drawn on racial lines. Although the boundary lines were somewhat irregular, the majority reasoned, they were not so bizarre as to permit of no other conclusion. Indeed, because most of the nonwhite voters lived together in one area, it would have been difficult to construct voting districts without concentrations of nonwhite voters. Id., at 56-58.

Wright illustrates the difficulty of determining from the face of a single-member districting plan that it purposefully distinguishes between voters on the basis of race. A reapportionment statute typically does not classify persons at all; it classifies tracts of land, or addresses. Moreover, redistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors. That sort of race consciousness does not lead inevitably to impermissible race discrimination. As Wright demonstrates, when members of a racial group live together in one community, a reapportionment plan that concentrates members of the group in one district and excludes them from others may reflect wholly legitimate purposes. The district lines may be drawn, for example, to provide for compact districts of contiguous territory, or to maintain the integrity of political subdivisions. See Reynolds, 377 U. S., at 578 (recognizing these as legitimate state interests).

The difficulty of proof, of course, does not mean that a racial gerrymander, once established, should receive less scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause than other state legislation classifying citizens by race. Moreover, it seems clear to us that proof sometimes will not be difficult at all. In some exceptional cases, a reapportionment plan may be so highly irregular that, on its face, it rationally cannot be *647understood as anything other than an effort to “segregate] . . . voters” on the basis of race. Gomillion, supra, at 341. Gomillion, in which a tortured municipal boundary line was drawn to exclude black voters, was such a case. So, too, would be a case in which a State concentrated a dispersed minority population in a single district by disregarding traditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions. We emphasize that these criteria are important not because they are constitutionally required — they are not, cf. Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U. S. 735, 752, n. 18 (1973) — but because they are objective factors that may serve to defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines. Cf. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 755 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring) (“One need not use Justice Stewart’s classic definition of obscenity — ‘I know it when I see it’ — as an ultimate standard for judging the constitutionality of a gerrymander to recognize that dramatically irregular shapes may have sufficient probative force to call for an explanation” (footnotes omitted)).

Put differently, we believe that reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter. A reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid. It reinforces the perception that members of the same racial group — regardless of their age, education, economic status, or the community in which they live — think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls. We have rejected such perceptions elsewhere as impermissible racial stereotypes. See, e.g., Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474, 484, n. 2 (1990) (“[A] prosecutor’s assumption that a black juror may be presumed to be partial simply because he is black ... violates the Equal Protection *648Clause” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991) (“If our society is to continue to progress as a multiracial democracy, it must recognize that the automatic invocation of race stereotypes retards that progress and causes continued hurt and injury”). By perpetuating such notions, a racial gerrymander may exacerbate the very patterns of racial bloc voting that majority-minority districting is sometimes said to counteract.

The message that such districting sends to elected representatives is equally pernicious. When a district obviously is created solely to effectuate the perceived common interests of one racial group, elected officials are more likely to believe that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of that group, rather than their constituency as a whole. This is altogether antithetical to our system of representative democracy. As Justice Douglas explained in his dissent in Wright v. Rockefeller nearly 30 years ago:

“Here the individual is important, not his race, his creed, or his color. The principle of equality is at war with the notion that District A must be represented by a Negro, as it is with the notion that District B must be represented by a Caucasian, District C by a Jew, District D by a Catholic, and so on. . . . That system, by whatever name it is called, is a divisive force in a community, emphasizing differences between candidates and voters that are irrelevant in the constitutional sense....

“When racial or religious lines are drawn by the State, the multiracial, multireligious communities that our Constitution seeks to weld together as one become separatist; antagonisms that relate to race or to religion rather than to political issues are generated; communities seek not the best representative but the best racial or religious partisan. Since that system is at war with *649the democratic ideal, it should find no footing here.” 376 U. S., at 66-67.

For these reasons, we conclude that a plaintiff challenging a reapportionment statute under the Equal Protection Clause may state a claim by alleging that the legislation, though race neutral on its face, rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification. It is unnecessary for us to decide whether or how a reapportionment plan that, on its face, can be explained in nonracial terms successfully could be challenged. Thus, we express no view as to whether “the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more,” always gives rise to an equal protection claim. Post, at 668 (White, J., dissenting). We hold only that, on the facts of this case, appellants have stated a claim sufficient to defeat the state appellees’ motion to dismiss.

C

The dissenters consider the circumstances of this case “functionally indistinguishable” from multimember districting and at-large voting systems, which are loosely described as “other varieties of gerrymandering.” Post, at 671 (White, J., dissenting); see also post, at 684 (Souter, J., dissenting). We have considered the constitutionality of these practices in other Fourteenth Amendment cases and have required plaintiffs to demonstrate that the challenged practice has the purpose and effect of diluting a racial group’s voting strength. See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613 (1982) (at-large system); Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980) (same); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973) (multimember districts); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124 (1971) (same); see also supra, at 640-641. At-large and multimember schemes, however, do not classify voters on the basis of race. Classifying citizens by race, as we have said, threatens spe*650cial harms that are not present in our vote-dilution cases. It therefore warrants different analysis.

Justice Souter apparently believes that racial gerrymandering is harmless unless it dilutes a racial group’s voting strength. See post, at 684 (dissenting opinion). As we have explained, however, reapportionment legislation that cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to classify and separate voters by race injures voters in other ways. It reinforces racial stereotypes and threatens to undermine our system of representative democracy by signaling to elected officials that they represent a particular racial group rather than their constituency as a whole. See supra, at 647-649. Justice Souter does not adequately explain why these harms are not cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The dissenters make two other arguments that cannot be reconciled with our precedents. First, they suggest that a racial gerrymander of the sort alleged here is functionally equivalent to gerrymanders for nonracial purposes, such as political gerrymanders. See post, at 679 (opinion of Stevens, J.); see also post, at 662-663 (opinion of White, J.). This Court has held political gerrymanders to be justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause. See Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 118-127. But nothing in our case law compels the conclusion that racial and political gerrymanders are subject to precisely the same constitutional scrutiny. In fact, our country’s long and persistent history of racial discrimination in voting — as well as our Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, which always has reserved the strictest scrutiny for discrimination on the basis of race, see supra, at 642-644 — would seem to compel the opposite conclusion.

Second, Justice Stevens argues that racial gerrymandering poses no constitutional difficulties when district lines are drawn to favor the minority, rather than the majority. See post, at 678 (dissenting opinion). . We have made clear, however, that equal protection analysis “is not dependent *651on the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification.” Croson, 488 U. S., at 494 (plurality opinion); see also id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). Accord, Wygant, 476 U. S., at 273 (plurality opinion). Indeed, racial classifications receive close scrutiny even when they may be said to burden or benefit the races equally. See Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S. 400, 410 (1991) (“It is axiomatic that racial classifications do not become legitimate on the assumption that all persons suffer them in equal degree”).

Finally, nothing in the Court’s highly fractured decision in UJO — on which the District Court almost exclusively relied, and which the dissenters evidently believe controls, see post, at 664-667 (opinion of White, J.); post, at 684, and n. 6 (opinion of Souter, J.) — forecloses the claim we recognize today. UJO concerned New York’s revision of a reapportionment plan to include additional majority-minority districts in response to the Attorney General’s denial of administrative preclearance under § 5. In that regard, it closely resembles the present case. But the cases are critically different in another way. The plaintiffs in UJO — members of a Hasidic community split between two districts under New York’s revised redistricting plan — did not allege that the plan, on its face, was so highly irregular that it rationally could be understood only as an effort to segregate voters by race. Indeed, the facts of the case would not have supported such a claim. Three Justices approved the New York statute, in part, precisely because it adhered to traditional districting principles:

“[W]e think it . . . permissible for a State, employing sound districting principles such as compactness and population equality, to attempt to prevent racial minorities from being repeatedly outvoted by creating districts that will afford fair representation to the members of those racial groups who are sufficiently numerous and whose residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority.” *652430 U. S., at 168 (opinion of White, J., joined by Stevens and Rehnquist, JJ.) (emphasis added).

As a majority of the Justices construed the complaint, the UJO plaintiffs made a different claim: that the New York plan impermissibly “diluted” their voting strength. Five of the eight Justices who participated in the decision resolved the case under the framework the Court previously had adopted for vote-dilution cases. Three Justices rejected the plaintiffs’ claim on the grounds that the New York statute “represented no racial slur or stigma with respect to whites or any other race” and left white voters with better than proportional representation. Id., at 165-166. Two others concluded that the statute did not minimize or cancel out a minority group’s voting strength and that the State’s intent to comply with the Voting Rights Act, as interpreted by the Department of Justice, “foreclose^] any finding that [the State] acted with the invidious purpose of discriminating against white voters.” Id., at 180 (Stewart, J., joined by Powell, J., concurring in judgment).

The District Court below relied on these portions of UJO to reject appellants’ claim. See 808 F. Supp., at 472-473. In our view, the court used the wrong analysis. UJO’s framework simply does not apply where, as here, a reapportionment plan is alleged to be so irrational on its face that it immediately offends principles of racial equality. UJO set forth a standard under which white voters can establish unconstitutional vote dilution. But it did not purport to overrule Gomillion or Wright. Nothing in the decision precludes white voters (or voters of any other race) from bringing the analytically distinct claim that a reapportionment plan rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate citizens into separate voting districts on the basis of race without sufficient justification. Because appellants here stated such a claim, the District Court erred in dismissing their complaint.

*653IV

Justice Souter contends that exacting scrutiny of racial gerrymanders under the Fourteenth Amendment is inappropriate because reapportionment “nearly always require[s] some consideration of race for legitimate reasons.” Post, at 680 (dissenting opinion). “As long as members of racial groups have [a] commonality of interest” and “racial bloc voting takes place,” he argues, “legislators will have to take race into account” in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Ibid. Justice Souter’s reasoning is flawed.

Earlier this Term, we unanimously reaffirmed that racial bloc voting and minority-group political cohesion never can be assumed, but specifically must be proved in each case in order to establish that a redistricting plan dilutes minority voting strength in violation of §2. See Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40-41 (1993) (“Unless these points are established, there neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy”). That racial bloc voting or minority political cohesion may be found to exist in some cases, of course, is no reason to treat all racial gerrymanders differently from other kinds of racial classification. Justice Souter apparently views racial gerrymandering of the type presented here as a special category of “benign” racial discrimination that should be subject to relaxed judicial review. Cf. post, at 684-685 (dissenting opinion). As we have said, however, the very reason that the Equal Protection Clause demands strict scrutiny of all racial classifications is because without it, a court cannot determine whether or not the discrimination truly is “benign.” See supra, at 642-643. Thus, if appellants’ allegations of a racial gerrymander are not contradicted on remand, the District Court must determine whether the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan satisfies strict scrutiny. We therefore consider what that level of scrutiny requires in the reapportionment context.

The state appellees suggest that a covered jurisdiction may have a compelling interest in creating majority-minority *654districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The States certainly have a very strong interest in complying with federal antidiscrimination laws that are constitutionally valid as interpreted and as applied. But in the context of a Fourteenth Amendment challenge, courts must bear in mind the difference between what the law permits and what it requires.

For example, on remand North Carolina might claim that it adopted the revised plan in order to comply with the § 5 “nonretrogression” principle. Under that principle, a proposed voting change cannot be precleared if it will lead to “a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.” Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976). In Beer, we held that a reapportionment plan that created one majority-minority district where none existed before passed muster under § 5 because it improved the position of racial minorities. Id., at 141-142; see also Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 370-371 (1975) (annexation that reduces percentage of blacks in population satisfies §5 where post-annexation districts “fairly reflect” current black voting strength).

Although the Court concluded that the redistricting scheme at issue in Beer was nonretrogressive, it did not hold that the plan, for that reason, was immune from constitutional challenge. The Court expressly declined to reach that question. See 425 U. S., at 142, n. 14. Indeed, the Voting Rights Act and our case law make clear that a reapportionment plan that satisfies § 5 still may be enjoined as unconstitutional. See 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (neither a declaratory judgment by the District Court for the District of Columbia nor preclearance by the Attorney General “shall bar a subsequent action to enjoin enforcement” of new voting practice); Allen, 393 U. S., at 549-550 (after preclearance, “private parties may enjoin the enforcement of the new enactment . . . in traditional suits attacking its constitutionality”). Thus, *655we do not read Beer or any of our other §5 cases to give covered jurisdictions carte blanche to engage in racial gerrymandering in the name of nonretrogression. A reapportionment plan would not be narrowly tailored to the goal of avoiding retrogression if the State went beyond what was reasonably necessary to avoid retrogression. Our conclusion is supported by the plurality opinion in UJO, in which four Justices determined that New York’s creation of additional majority-minority districts was constitutional because the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the State “did more than the Attorney General was authorized to require it to do under the nonretrogression principle of Beer.” 430 U. S., at 162-163 (opinion of White, J., joined by Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.) (emphasis added).

Before us, the state appellees contend that the General Assembly’s revised plan was necessary not to prevent retrogression, but to avoid dilution of black voting strength in violation of §2, as construed in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986). In Gingles the Court considered a multimember redistricting plan for the North Carolina State Legislature. The Court held that members of a racial minority group claiming §2 vote dilution through the use of multimember districts must prove three threshold conditions: that the minority group “is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district,” that the minority group is “politically cohesive,” and that “the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it. . . usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.” Id., at 50-51, We have indicated that similar preconditions apply in §2 challenges to single-member districts. See Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S., at 157-158; Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S., at 40.

Appellants maintain that the General Assembly’s revised plan could not have been required by § 2. They contend that the State’s black population is too dispersed to support two geographically compact majority-black districts, as the bi*656zarre shape of District 12 demonstrates, and that there is no evidence of black political cohesion. They also contend that recent black electoral successes demonstrate the willingness of white voters in North Carolina to vote for black candidates. Appellants- point out that blacks currently hold the positions of State Auditor, Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, and chair of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. They also point out that in 1990 a black candidate defeated a white opponent in the Democratic Party runoff for a United States Senate seat before being defeated narrowly by the Republican incumbent in the general election. Appellants further argue that if §2 did require adoption of North Carolina’s revised plan, § 2 is to that extent unconstitutional. These arguments were not developed below, and the issues remain open for consideration on remand.

The state appellees alternatively argue that the General Assembly’s plan advanced a compelling interest entirely distinct from the Voting Rights Act. We previously have recognized a significant state interest in eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination. See, e. g., Croson, 488 U. S., at 491-493 (opinion of O’Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White, J.); id., at 518 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Wygant, 476 U. S., at 280-282 (plurality opinion); id., at 286 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But the State must have a “ ‘strong basis in evidence for [concluding] that remedial action [is] necessary.’” Croson, supra, at 500 (quoting Wygant, supra, at 277 (plurality opinion)).

The state appellees submit that two pieces of evidence gave the General Assembly a strong basis for believing that remedial action was warranted here: the Attorney General’s imposition of the § 5 preclearance requirement on 40 North Carolina counties, and the Gingles District Court’s findings of a long history of official racial discrimination in North Carolina’s political system and of pervasive racial bloc voting. *657The state appellees assert that the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts is the most precise way — indeed the only effective way — to overcome the effects of racially polarized voting. This question also need not be decided at this stage of the litigation. We note, however, that only three Justices in UJO were prepared to say that States have a significant interest in minimizing the consequences of racial bloc voting apart from the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. And those three Justices specifically concluded that race-based districting, as a response to racially polarized voting, is constitutionally permissible only when the State “employ[s] sound districting principles,” and only when the affected racial group’s “residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority.” 430 U. S., at 167-168 (opinion of White, J., joined by Stevens and Rehnquist, JJ.).

V

Racial classifications of any sort pose the risk of lasting harm to our society. They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin. Racial classifications with respect to voting carry particular dangers. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters — a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire. It is for these reasons that race-based districting by our state legislatures demands close judicial scrutiny.

In this case, the Attorney General suggested that North Carolina could have created a reasonably compact second majority-minority district in the south-central to southeastern part of the State. We express no view as to whether appellants successfully could have challenged such a district under the Fourteenth Amendment. We also do not decide *658whether appellants’ complaint stated a claim under constitutional provisions other than the Fourteenth Amendment. Today we hold only that appellants have stated a claim under the Equal Protection Clause by alleging that the North Carolina General Assembly adopted a reapportionment scheme so irrational on its face that it can be understood only as an effort to segregate voters into separate voting districts because of their race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification. If the allegation of racial gerrymandering remains uncontradicted, the District Court further must determine whether the North Carolina plan is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the District Court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

[Appendix containing map of North Carolina Congressional Plan follows this page.]

Justice White,

with whom

Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.

The facts of this case mirror those presented in United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144 (1977) (UJO), where the Court rejected a claim that creation of a majority-minority district violated the Constitution, either as a per se matter or in light of the circumstances leading to the creation of such a district. Of particular relevance, five of the Justices reasoned that members of the white majority could not plausibly argue that their influence over the political process had been unfairly canceled, see id., at 165-168 (opinion of White, J., joined by Rehnquist and Stevens, JJ.), or that such had been the State’s intent, see id., at 179-180 (Stewart, J., joined by Powell, J., concurring in judgment). Accordingly, they held that plaintiffs were not entitled to relief under the Constitution’s

*659

*661Equal Protection Clause. On the same reasoning, I would affirm the District Court’s dismissal of appellants’ claim in this instance.

The Court today chooses not to overrule, but rather to sidestep, UJO. It does so by glossing over the striking similarities, focusing on surface differences, most notably the (admittedly unusual) shape of the newly created district, and imagining an entirely new cause of action. Because the holding is limited to such anomalous circumstances, ante, at 649, it perhaps will not substantially hamper a State’s legitimate efforts to redistrict in favor of racial minorities. Nonetheless, the notion that North Carolina’s plan, under which whites remain a voting majority in a disproportionate number of congressional districts, and pursuant to which the State has sent its first black representatives since Reconstruction to the United States Congress, might have violated appellants’ constitutional rights is both a fiction and a departure from settled equal protection principles. Seeing no good reason to engage in either, I dissent.

I

A

The grounds for my disagreement with the majority are simply stated: Appellants have not presented a cognizable claim, because they have not alleged a cognizable injury. To date, we have held that only two types of state voting practices could give rise to a constitutional claim. The first involves direct and outright deprivation of the right to vote, for example by means of a poll tax or literacy test. See, e. g., Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347 (1915). Plainly, this variety is not implicated by appellants’ allegations and need not detain us further. The second type of unconstitutional practice is that which “affects the political strength of various groups,” Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 83 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment), in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. As for this latter category, we *662have insisted that members of the political or racial group demonstrate that the challenged action have the intent and effect of unduly diminishing their influence on the political process.1 Although this severe burden has limited the number of successful suits, it was adopted for sound reasons.

The central explanation has to do with the nature of the redistricting process. As the majority recognizes, “redistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors.” Ante, at 646 (emphasis in original). “Being aware,” in this context, is shorthand for “taking into account,” and it hardly can be doubted that legislators routinely engage in the business of making electoral predictions based on group characteristics — racial, ethnic, and the like.

“[L]ike bloc-voting by race, [the racial composition of geographic area] too is a fact of life, well known to those responsible for drawing electoral district lines. These lawmakers are quite aware that the districts they create will have a white or a black majority; and with each new district comes the unavoidable choice as to the racial composition of the district.” Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 144 (1976) (White, J., dissenting).

As we have said, “it requires no special genius to recognize the political consequences of drawing a district line along one street rather than another.” Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 *663U. S. 735, 753 (1973); see also Mobile v. Bolden, supra, at 86-87 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Because extirpating such considerations from the redistricting process is unrealistic, the Court has not invalidated all plans that consciously use race, but rather has looked at their impact.

Redistricting plans also reflect group interests and inevitably are conceived with partisan aims in mind. To allow judicial interference whenever this occurs would be to invite constant and unmanageable intrusion. Moreover, a group’s power to affect the political process does not automatically dissipate by virtue of an electoral loss. Accordingly, we have asked that an identifiable group demonstrate more than mere lack of success at the polls to make out a successful gerrymandering claim. See, e. g., White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 153-155 (1971).

With these considerations in mind, we have limited such claims by insisting upon a showing that “the political processes ... were not equally open to participation by the group in question — that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.” White v. Regester, supra, at 766. Indeed, as a brief survey of decisions illustrates, the Court’s gerrymandering cases all carry this theme — that it is not mere suffering at the polls but discrimination in the polity with which the Constitution is concerned.

In Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S., at 149, we searched in vain for evidence that black voters “had less opportunity than did other . . . residents to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.” More generally, we remarked:

“The mere fact that one interest group or another concerned with the outcome of [the district’s] elections has found itself outvoted and without legislative seats of its *664own provides no basis for invoking constitutional remedies where . . . there is no indication that this segment of the population is being denied access to the political system.” Id., at 154-155.

Again, in White v. Regester, swpra, the same criteria were used to uphold the District Court’s finding that a redistricting plan was unconstitutional. The “historic and present condition” of the Mexican-American community, id., at 767, a status of cultural and economic marginality, id., at 768, as well as the legislature’s unresponsiveness to the group’s interests, id., at 768-769, justified the conclusion that Mexican-Americans were “‘effectively removed from the political processes,’ ” and “invidiously excluded... from effective participation in political life,” id., at 769. Other decisions of this Court adhere to the same standards. See Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 624-626 (1982); Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 17 (1975) (requiring proof that “the group has been denied access to the political process equal to the access of other groups”).2

1 summed up my views on this matter in the phibality opinion in Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109 (1986).3 Because districting inevitably is the expression of interest group politics, and because “the power to influence the political process is not limited to winning elections,” id., at 132, *665the question in gerrymandering cases is “whether a particular group has been unconstitutionally denied its chance to effectively influence the political process,” id., at 132-133. Thus, “an equal protection violation may be found only where the electoral system substantially disadvantages certain voters in their opportunity to influence the political process effectively.” Id., at 133 (emphasis added). By this, I meant that the group must exhibit “strong indicia of lack of political power and the denial of fair representation,” so that it could be said that it has “essentially been shut out of the political process.” Id., at 139. In short, even assuming that racial (or political) factors were considered in the drawing of district boundaries, a showing of discriminatory effects is a “threshold requirement” in the absence of which there is no equal protection violation, id., at 143, and no need to “reach the question of the state interests . . . served by the particular districts,” id., at 142.4

To distinguish a claim that alleges that the redistricting scheme has discriminatory intent and effect from one that does not has nothing to do with dividing racial classifications between the “benign” and the malicious — an enterprise which, as the majority notes, the Court has treated with skepticism. See ante, at 642-643. Rather, the issue is whether the classification based on race discriminates *666against anyone by denying equal access to the political process. Even Members of the Court least inclined to approve of race-based remedial measures have acknowledged the significance of this factor. See Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 524-525, n. 3 (1980) (Stewart, J., dissenting) (“No person in [UJO] was deprived of his electoral franchise”); Regents of Univ. of Cal v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 304-305 (1978) (Powell, J.) (“United Jewish Organizations . . . properly is viewed as a case in which the remedy for an administrative finding of discrimination encompassed measures to improve the previously disadvantaged group’s ability to participate, without excluding individuals belonging to any other group from enjoyment of the relevant opportunity — meaningful participation in the electoral process”) (emphasis added).

B

The most compelling evidence of the Court’s position prior to this day, for it is most directly on point, is UJO, 430 U. S. 144 (1977). The Court characterizes the decision as “highly fractured,” ante, at 651, but that should not detract attention from the rejection by a majority in UJO of the claim that the State’s intentional creation of majority-minority districts transgressed constitutional norms. As stated above, five Justices were of the view that, absent any contention that the proposed plan was adopted with the intent, or had the effect, of unduly minimizing the white majority’s voting strength, the Fourteenth Amendment was not implicated. Writing for three Members of the Court, I justified this conclusion as follows:

“It is true that New York deliberately increased the non white majorities in certain districts in order to enhance the opportunity for election of nonwhite representatives from those districts. Nevertheless, there was no fencing out of the white population from participation in the political processes of the county, and the *667plan did not minimize or unfairly cancel out white voting strength.” 430 U. S., at 165.

In a similar vein, Justice Stewart was joined by Justice Powell in stating:

“The petitioners have made no showing that a racial criterion was used as a basis for denying them their right to vote, in contravention of the Fifteenth Amendment. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. They have made no showing that the redistricting scheme was employed as part of a ‘contrivance to segregate’; to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of a minority class or interest; or otherwise to impair or burden the opportunity of affected persons to participate in the political process.” Id., at 179 (opinion concurring in judgment) (some citations omitted).

Under either formulation, it is irrefutable that appellants in this proceeding likewise have failed to state a claim. As was the case in New York, a number of North Carolina’s political subdivisions have interfered with black citizens’ meaningful exercise of the franchise and are therefore subject to §§ 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Cf. UJO, supra, at 148. In other words, North Carolina was found by Congress to have “‘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’ ” and therefore “would be likely to engage in ‘similar maneuvers in the future in order to evade the remedies for voting discrimination contained in the Act itself.’ ” McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 245 (1984) (quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 334, 335 (1966)).5 Like New York, North Carolina failed to prove to *668the Attorney General’s satisfaction that its proposed redistricting had neither the purpose nor the effect of abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. Cf. UJO, supra, at 150. The Attorney General’s interposition of a §5 objection “properly is viewed” as “an administrative finding of discrimination” against a racial minority. Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, supra, at 305 (opinion of Powell, J.). Finally, like New York, North Carolina reacted by modifying its plan and creating additional majority-minority districts. Cf. UJO, supra, at 151-152.

In light of this background, it strains credulity to suggest that North Carolina’s purpose in creating a second majority-minority district was to discriminate against members of the majority group by “impair[ing] or burdening their] opportunity ... to participate in the political process.” Id., at 179 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). The State has made no mystery of its intent, which was to respond to the Attorney General’s objections, see Brief for State Appellees 13-14, by improving the minority group’s prospects of electing a candidate of its choice. I doubt that this constitutes a discriminatory purpose as defined in the Court’s equal protection cases — i. e., an intent to aggravate “the unequal distribution of electoral power.” Post, at 678 (Stevens, J., dissenting). But even assuming that it does, there is no question that appellants have not alleged the requisite discriminatory effects. Whites constitute roughly 76% of the total population and 79% of the voting age population in North Carolina. Yet, under the State’s plan, they still constitute a voting majority in 10 (or 83%) of the 12 congressional districts. Though they might be dissatisfied at the prospect of casting a vote for a losing candidate — a lot shared by many, including a disproportionate number of minor*669ity voters — surely they cannot complain of discriminatory treatment.6

II

The majority attempts to distinguish UJO by imagining a heretofore unknown type of constitutional claim. In its words, “UJO set forth a standard under which white voters can establish unconstitutional vote dilution. . . . Nothing in the decision precludes white voters (or voters of any other race) from bringing the analytically distinct claim that a reapportionment plan rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate citizens into separate voting districts on the basis of race without sufficient justification.” Ante, at 652. There is no support for this distinction in UJO, and no authority in the cases relied on by the Court either. More importantly, the majority’s submission does not withstand analysis. The logic of its theory appears to be that race-conscious redistricting that “segregates” by drawing odd-shaped lines is qualitatively different from race-conscious redistricting that affects groups in some other way. The distinction is without foundation.

A

The essence of the majority’s argument is that UJO dealt with a claim of vote dilution — which required a specific showing of harm — and that cases such as Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), and Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964), dealt with claims of racial segregation — which did not. I read these decisions quite differently. Petitioners’ *670claim in UJO was that the State had “violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by deliberately revising its reapportionment plan along racial lines.” 430 U. S., at 155 (plurality opinion) (emphasis added). They also stated: “ ‘Our argument is . . . that the history of the area demonstrates that there could be — and in fact was — no reason other than race to divide the community at this time.’ ” Id., at 154, n. 14 (quoting Brief for Petitioners, O. T. 1976, No. 75-104, p. 6, n. 6) (emphasis in original). Nor was it ever in doubt that “the State deliberately used race in a purposeful manner.” 430 U. S., at 165. In other words, the “analytically distinct claim” the majority discovers today was in plain view and did not carry the day for petitioners. The fact that a demonstration of discriminatory effect was required in that case was not a function of the kind of claim that was made. It was a function of the type of injury upon which the Court insisted.

Gomillion is consistent with this view. To begin, the Court’s reliance on that case as the font of its novel type of claim is curious. Justice Frankfurter characterized the complaint as alleging a deprivation of the right to vote in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. See 364 U. S., at 341, 346. Regardless whether that description was accurate, see ante, at 645, it seriously deflates the precedential value which the majority seeks to ascribe to Gomillion: As I see it, the case cannot stand for the proposition that the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more, gives rise to an equal protection challenge under the Fourteenth Amendment. But even recast as a Fourteenth Amendment case, Gomillion does not assist the majority, for its focus was on the alleged effect of the city’s action, which was to exclude black voters from the municipality of Tuskegee. As the Court noted, the “inevitable effect of this redefinition of Tuskegee’s boundaries” was “to deprive the Negro petitioners discriminatorily of the benefits of residence in Tuskegee.” 364 U. S., at 341. Even Justice Whit-*671taker’s concurrence appears to be premised on the notion that black citizens were being “fenc[ed] out” of municipal benefits. Id., at 349. Subsequent decisions of this Court have similarly interpreted Gomillion as turning on the unconstitutional effect of the legislation. See Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U. S. 217, 225 (1971); United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 385 (1968). In Gomillion, in short, the group that formed the majority at the state level purportedly set out to manipulate city boundaries in order to remove members of the minority, thereby denying them valuable municipal services. No analogous purpose or effect has been alleged in this case.

The only other case invoked by the majority is Wright v. Rockefeller, supra. Wright involved a challenge to a legislative plan that created four districts. In the 17th, 19th, and 20th Districts, whites constituted respectively 94.9%, 71.5%, and 72.5% of the population. 86.3% of the population in the 18th District was classified as nonwhite or Puerto Rican. See Wright v. Rockefeller, 211 F. Supp. 460, 472 (SDNY 1962) (Murphy, J., dissenting); 376 U. S., at 54. The plaintiffs alleged that the plan was drawn with the intent to segregate voters on the basis of race, in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Id., at 53-54. The Court affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the complaint on the ground that plaintiffs had not met their burden of proving discriminatory intent. See id., at 55, 58. I fail to see how a decision based on a failure to establish discriminatory intent can support the inference that it is unnecessary to prove discriminatory effect.

Wright is relevant only to the extent that it illustrates a proposition with which I have no problem: that a complaint stating that a plan has carved out districts on the basis of race can, under certain circumstances, state a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. To that end, however, there must be an allegation of discriminatory purpose and effect, for the constitutionality of a race-conscious redistricting plan *672depends on these twin elements. In Wright, for example, the facts might have supported the contention that the districts were intended to, and did in fact, shield the 17th District from any minority influence and “pack” black and Puerto Rican voters in the 18th, thereby invidiously minimizing their voting strength. In other words, the purposeful creation of a majority-minority district could have discriminatory effect if it is achieved by means of “packing” — i. e., overconcentration of minority voters. In the present case, the facts could sustain no such allegation.

B

Lacking support in any of the Court’s precedents, the majority’s novel type of claim also makes no sense. As I understand the theory that is put forth, a redistricting plan that uses race to “segregate” voters by drawing “uncouth” lines is harmful in a way that a plan that uses race to distribute voters differently is not, for the former “bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid.” See ante, at 647. The distinction is untenable.

Racial gerrymanders come in various shades: At-large voting schemes, see, e. g., White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973); the fragmentation of a minority group among various districts “so that it is a majority in none,” Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 153 (1993), otherwise known as “cracking,” cf. Connor v. Finch, 431 U. S. 407, 422 (1977); the “stacking” of “a large minority population concentration . . . with a larger white population,” Parker, Racial Gerrymandering and Legislative Reapportionment, in Minority Vote Dilution 85, 92 (C. Davidson ed. 1984); and, finally, the “concentration of [minority voters] into districts where they constitute an excessive majority,” Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 46, n. 11 (1986), also called “packing,” Voinovich, supra, at 153. In each instance, race is consciously utilized by the legislature for electoral purposes; in each instance, we have put the plaintiff challenging the district lines to the *673burden of demonstrating that the plan was meant to, and did in fact, exclude an identifiable racial group from participation in the political process.

Not so, apparently, when the districting “segregates” by drawing odd-shaped lines.7 In that case, we are told, such proof no longer is needed. Instead, it is the State that must rebut the allegation that race was taken into account, a fact that, together with the legislators’ consideration of ethnic, religious, and other group characteristics, I had thought we practically took for granted, see supra, at 660. Part of the explanation for the majority’s approach has to do, perhaps, with the emotions stirred by words such as “segregation” and “political apartheid.” But their loose and imprecise use by today’s majority has, I fear, led it astray. See n. 7, supra. The consideration of race in “segregation” cases is no different than in other race-conscious districting; from the standpoint of the affected groups, moreover, the line-drawings all act in similar fashion.8 A plan that “segregates” being functionally indistinguishable from any of the other varieties of gerrymandering, we should be consistent in what we require from a claimant: proof of discriminatory purpose and effect.

The other part of the majority’s explanation of its holding is related to its simultaneous discomfort and fascination with irregularly shaped districts. Lack of compactness or contiguity, like uncouth district lines, certainly is a helpful *674indicator that some form of gerrymandering (racial or other) might have taken place and that “something may be amiss.” Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 758 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring). Cf. Connor, supra, at 425. Disregard for geographic divisions and compactness often goes hand in hand with partisan gerrymandering. See Karcher, supra, at 776 (White, J., dissenting); Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U. S. 542, 554 (1969) (White, J., dissenting).

But while district irregularities may provide strong indicia of a potential gerrymander, they do no more than that. In particular, they have no bearing on whether the plan ultimately is found to violate the Constitution. Given two districts drawn on similar, race-based grounds, the one does not become more injurious than the other simply by virtue of being snakelike, at least so far as the Constitution is concerned and absent any evidence of differential racial impact. The majority’s contrary view is perplexing in light of its concession that “compactness or attractiveness has never been held to constitute an independent federal constitutional requirement for state legislative districts.” Gaffney, 412 U. S., at 752, n. 18; see ante, at 647. It is shortsighted as well, for a regularly shaped district can just as effectively effectuate racially discriminatory gerrymandering as an odd-shaped one.9 By focusing on looks rather than impact, the majority “immediately casts attention in the wrong direction — toward superficialities of shape and size, rather than toward the political realities of district composition.” R. Dixon, Democratic Representation: Reapportionment in Law and Politics 459 (1968).

*675Limited by its own terms to cases involving unusually shaped districts, the Court’s approach nonetheless will unnecessarily hinder to some extent a State’s voluntary effort to ensure a modicum of minority representation. This will be true in areas where the minority population is geographically dispersed. It also will be true where the minority population is not scattered but, for reasons unrelated to race— for example incumbency protection — the State would rather not create the majority-minority district in its most “obvious” location.10 When, as is the case here, the creation of *676a majority-minority district does not unfairly minimize the voting power of any other group, the Constitution does not justify, much less mandate, such obstruction. We said as much in Gaffney:

“[C]ourts have [no] constitutional warrant to invalidate a state plan, otherwise within tolerable population limits, because it undertakes, not to minimize or eliminate the political strength of any group or party, but to recognize it and, through districting, provide a rough sort of proportional representation in the legislative halls of the State.” 412 U. S., at 754.

Ill

Although I disagree with the holding that appellants’ claim is cognizable, the Court’s discussion of the level of scrutiny it requires warrants a few comments. I have no doubt that a State’s compliance with the Voting Rights Act clearly constitutes a compelling interest. Cf. UJO, 430 U. S., at 162-165 (opinion of White, J.); id., at 175-179 (Brennan, J., concurring in part); id., at 180 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). Here, the Attorney General objected to the State’s plan on the ground that it failed to draw a second majority-minority district for what appeared to be pretextual reasons. Rather than challenge this conclusion, North Carolina chose to draw the second district. As UJO held, a State is entitled to take such action. See also Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 291 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

The Court, while seemingly agreeing with this position, warns that the State’s redistricting effort must be “narrowly tailored” to further its interest in complying with the law. Ante, at 658. It is evident to me, however, that what North Carolina did was precisely tailored to meet the objection of the Attorney General to its prior plan. Hence, I see no need *677for a remand at all, even accepting the majority’s basic approach to this case.

Furthermore, how it intends to manage this standard, I do not know. Is it more “narrowly tailored” to create an irregular majority-minority district as opposed to one that is compact but harms other state interests such as incumbency protection or the representation of rural interests? Of the following two options — creation of two minority influence districts or of a single majority-minority district — is one “narrowly tailored” and the other not? Once the Attorney General has found that a proposed redistricting change violates § 5’s nonretrogression principle in that it will abridge a racial minority’s right to vote, does “narrow tailoring” mean that the most the State can do is preserve the status quo? Or can it maintain that change, while attempting to enhance minority voting power in some other manner? This small sample only begins to scratch the surface of the problems raised by the majority’s test. But it suffices to illustrate the unworkability of a standard that is divorced from any measure of constitutional harm. In that, state efforts to remedy minority vote dilution are wholly unlike what typically has been labeled “affirmative action.” To the extent that no other racial group is injured, remedying a Voting Rights Act violation does not involve preferential treatment. Cf. Wygant, supra, at 295 (White, J., concurring in judgment). It involves, instead, an attempt to equalize treatment, and to provide minority voters with an effective voice in the political process. The Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, surely, does not stand in the way.

IV

Since I do not agree that appellants alleged an equal protection violation and because the Court of Appeals faithfully followed the Court’s prior cases, I dissent and would affirm the judgment below.

1

It has been argued that the required showing of discriminatory effect should be lessened once a plaintiff successfully demonstrates intentional discrimination. See Garza v. County of Los Angeles, 918 F. 2d 763, 771 (CA9 1990). Although I would leave this question for another day, I would note that even then courts have insisted on “some showing of injury . . . to assure that the district court can impose a meaningful remedy.” Ibid.

2

It should be noted that §2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids any State to impose specified devices or procedures that result in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. Section 2 also provides that a violation of that prohibition “is established if, based oh the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election . . . are not equally open to participation by members of a [protected] class ... in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b).

3

Although Davis involved political groups, the principles were expressly drawn from the Court’s racial gerrymandering cases. See 478 U. S., at 131, n. 12 (plurality opinion).

4

Although disagreeing with the Court’s holding in Davis that claims of political gerrymandering are justiciable, see id., at 144 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment), the author of today’s opinion expressed views on racial gerrymandering quite similar to my own:

“[W]here a racial minority group is characterized by ‘the traditional indicia of suspectness’ and is vulnerable to exclusion from the political process . . . individual voters who belong to that group enjoy some measure of protection against intentional dilution of their group voting strength by means of racial gerrymandering. . . . Even so, the individual’s right is infringed only if the racial minority can prove that it has ‘essentially been shut out of the political process.’ ” Id., at 151-152 (emphasis added). As explained below, that position cannot be squared with the one taken by the majority in this case.

5

In Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 38 (1986), we noted the District Court’s findings that “North Carolina had officially discriminated against *668its black citizens with respect to their exercise of the voting franchise from approximately 1900 to 1970 by employing a poll tax [and] a literacy test.”

6

This is not to say that a group that has been afforded roughly proportional representation never can make out a claim of unconstitutional discrimination. Such districting might have both the intent and effect of “packing” members of the group so as to deprive them of any influence in other districts. Again, however, the equal protection inquiry should look at the group’s overall influence over, and treatment by, elected representatives and the political process as a whole.

7

I borrow the term “segregate” from the majority, but, given its historical connotation, believe that its use is ill advised. Nor is it a particularly accurate description of what has occurred. The majority-minority district that is at the center of the controversy is, according to the State, 54.71% African-American. Brief for State Appellees 5, n. 6. Even if racial distribution was a factor, no racial group can be said to have been “segregated” — i. e., “set apart” or “isolate[dj.” Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 1063 (9th ed. 1983).

8

The black plaintiffs in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), I am confident, would have suffered equally had whites in Tuskegee sought to maintain their control by annexing predominantly white suburbs, rather than splitting the municipality in two.

9

As has been remarked, “[d]ragons, bacon strips, dumbbells and other strained shapes are not always reliable signs that partisan (or racial or ethnic or factional) interests are being served, while the most regularly drawn district may turn out to have been skillfully constructed with an intent to aid one party.” Sickels, Dragons, Bacon Strips, and Dumbbells — Who’s Afraid of Reapportionment?, 75 Yale L. J. 1300 (1966).

10

This appears to be what has occurred in this instance. In providing the reasons for the objection, the Attorney General noted that “[f]or the south-central to southeast area, there were several plans drawn providing for a second majority-minority congressional district” and that such a district would have been no more irregular than others in the State’s plan. See App. to Brief for Federal Appellees 10a. North Carolina’s decision to create a majority-minority district can be explained as an attempt to meet this objection. Its decision not to create the more compact southern majority-minority district that was suggested, on the other hand, was more likely a result of partisan considerations. Indeed, in a suit brought prior to this one, different plaintiffs charged that District 12 was “grossly contorted” and had “no logical explanation other than incumbency protection and the enhancement of Democratic partisan interests. . . . The plan ... ignores the directive of the [Department of Justice] to create a minority district in the southeastern portion of North Carolina since any such district would jeopardize the reelection of... the Democratic incumbent.” App. to Juris. Statement, O. T. 1991, No. 91-2038, p. 43a (Complaint in Pope v. Blue, No. 3:92CV71-P (WDNC)). With respect to this incident, one writer has observed that “understanding why the configurations are shaped as they are requires us to know at least as much about the interests of incumbent Democratic politicians, as it does knowledge of the Voting Rights Act.” Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Had Said: “When It Comes to Redistricting, Race Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing”?, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. 1237, 1258 (1993). The District Court in Pope dismissed appellants’ claim, reasoning in part that “plaintiffs do not allege, nor can they, that the state’s redistricting plan has caused them to be ‘shut out of the political process.’” Pope v. Blue, 809 F. Supp. 392, 397 (WDNC 1992). We summarily affirmed that decision. 506 U. S. 801 (1992).

*678Justice Blackmun,

dissenting.

I join Justice White’s dissenting opinion. I did not join Part IV of his opinion in United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144 (1977), because I felt that its “additional argument,” id., at 165, was not necessary to decide that case. I nevertheless agree that the conscious use of race in redistricting does not violate the Equal Protection Clause unless the effect of the redistricting plan is to deny a particular group equal access to the political process or to minimize its voting strength unduly. See, e. g., Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 17 (1975); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973). It is particularly ironic that the case in which today’s majority chooses to abandon settled law and to recognize for the first time this “analytically distinct” constitutional claim, ante, at 652, is a challenge by white voters to the plan under which North Carolina has sent black representatives to Congress for the first time since Reconstruction. I dissent.

Justice Stevens,

dissenting.

For the reasons stated by Justice White, the decision of the District Court should be affirmed. I add these comments to emphasize that the two critical facts in this case are undisputed: First, the shape of District 12 is so bizarre that it must have been drawn for the purpose of either advantaging or disadvantaging a cognizable group of voters; and, second, regardless of that shape, it was drawn for the purpose of facilitating the election of a second black representative from North Carolina.

These unarguable facts, which the Court devotes most of its opinion to proving, give rise to three constitutional questions: Does the Constitution impose a requirement of contiguity or compactness on how the States may draw their electoral districts? Does the Equal Protection Clause prevent a State from drawing district boundaries for the purpose of *679facilitating the election of a member of an identifiable group of voters? And, finally, if the answer to the second question is generally “No,” should it be different when the favored group is defined by race? Since I have already written at length about these questions,1 my negative answer to each can be briefly explained.

The first question is easy. There is no independent constitutional requirement of compactness or contiguity, and the Court’s opinion (despite its many references to the shape of District 12, see ante, at 635-636, 641, 642, 644-648) does not suggest otherwise. The existence of bizarre and uncouth district boundaries is powerful evidence of an ulterior purpose behind the shaping of those boundaries — usually a purpose to advantage the political party in control of the districting process. Such evidence will always be useful in cases that lack other evidence of invidious intent. In this case, however, we know what the legislators’ purpose was: The North Carolina Legislature drew District 12 to include a majority of African-American voters. See ante, at 634-635. Evidence of the district’s shape is therefore convincing, but it is also cumulative, and, for our purposes, irrelevant.

As for the second question, I believe that the Equal Protection Clause is violated when the State creates the kind of uncouth district boundaries seen in Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725 (1983), Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), and this case, for the sole purpose of making it more difficult for members of a minority group to win an election.2 The *680duty to govern impartially is abused when a group with power over the electoral process defines electoral boundaries solely to enhance its own political strength at the expense of any weaker group. That duty, however, is not violated when the majority acts to facilitate the election of a member of a group that lacks such power because it remains underrepresented in the state legislature — whether that group is defined by political affiliation, by common economic interests, or by religious, ethnic, or racial characteristics. The difference between constitutional and unconstitutional gerrymanders has nothing to do with whether they are based on assumptions about the groups they affect, but whether their purpose is to enhance the power of the group in control of the districting process at the expense of any minority group, and thereby to strengthen the unequal distribution of electoral power. When an assumption that people in a particular minority group (whether they are defined by the political party, religion, ethnic group, or race to which they belong) will vote in a particular way is used to benefit that group, no constitutional violation occurs. Politicians have always relied on assumptions that people in particular groups are likely to vote in a particular way when they draw new district lines, and I cannot believe that anything in today’s opinion will stop them from doing so in the future.3

*681Finally, we must ask whether otherwise permissible redistricting to benefit an underrepresented minority group becomes impermissible when the minority group is defined by its race. The Court today answers this question in the affirmative, and its answer is wrong. If it is permissible to draw boundaries to provide adequate representation for rural voters, for union members, for Hasidic Jews, for Polish Americans, or for Republicans, it necessarily follows that it is permissible to do the same thing for members of the very minority group whose history in the United States gave birth to the Equal Protection Clause. See, e.g., ante, at 639-641.4 A contrary conclusion could only be described as perverse.

Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

1

See Cousins v. City Council of Chicago, 466 F. 2d 830, 848-852 (CA7) (Stevens, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 893 (1972); Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 83-94 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment); Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 744-765 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring); see also Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109, 161-185 (1986) (Powell, J., joined by Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

2

See Karcher, 462 U. S., at 748 (Stevens, J., concurring) (“If they serve no purpose other than to favor one segment — whether racial, ethnic, religious, economic, or political — that may occupy a position of strength at a particular point in time, or to disadvantage a politically weak segment of *680the community, they violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection”); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 178-183, and nn. 21-24 (Powell, J., joined by Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (describing “grotesque gerrymandering” and “unusual shapes” drawn solely to deprive Democratic voters of electoral power).

3

The majority does not acknowledge that we require such a showing from plaintiffs who bring a vote dilution claim under §2 of the Voting Rights Act. Under the three-part test established by Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50-51 (1986), a minority group must show that it could constitute the majority in a single-member district, “that it is politically cohesive,” and “that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it... usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.” At least *681the latter two of these three conditions depend on proving that what the Court today brands as “impermissible racial stereotypes,” ante, at 647, are true. Because Gingles involved North Carolina, which the Court admits has earlier established the existence of “pervasive racial bloc voting,” ante, at 656, its citizens and legislators — as well as those from other States — will no doubt be confused by the Court’s requirement of evidence in one type of case that the Constitution now prevents reliance on in another. The Court offers them no explanation of this paradox.

4

The Court’s opinion suggests that African-Americans may now be the only group to which it is unconstitutional to offer specific benefits from redistricting. Not very long ago, of course, it was argued that minority groups defined by race were the only groups the Equal Protection Clause protected in this context. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S., at 86-90, and nn. 6-10 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).

Justice Souter,

dissenting.

Today, the Court recognizes a new cause of action under which a State’s electoral redistricting plan that includes a configuration “so bizarre,” ante, at 644, that it “rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race [without] sufficient justification,” ante, at 649, will be subjected to strict scrutiny. In my view there is no justification for the *682Court’s determination to depart from our prior decisions by carving out this narrow group of cases for strict scrutiny in place of the review customarily applied in cases dealing with discrimination in electoral districting on the basis of race.

I

Until today, the Court has analyzed equal protection claims involving race in electoral districting differently from equal protection claims involving other forms of governmental conduct, and before turning to the different regimes of analysis it will be useful to set out the relevant respects in which such districting differs from the characteristic circumstances in which a State might otherwise consciously consider race. Unlike other contexts in which we have addressed the State’s conscious use of race, see, e. g., Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469 (1989) (city contracting); Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267 (1986) (teacher layoffs), electoral districting calls for decisions that nearly always require some consideration of race for legitimate reasons where there is a racially mixed population. As long as members of racial groups have the commonality of interest implicit in our ability to talk about concepts like “minority voting strength,” and “dilution of minority votes,” cf. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 46-51 (1986), and as long as racial bloc voting takes place,1 legislators will have to take race into account in order to avoid dilution of minority voting strength in the districting plans they adopt.2 One need look *683no further than the Voting Rights Act to understand that this may be required, and we have held that race may constitutionally be taken into account in order to comply with that Act. United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144, 161-162 (1977) (UJO) (plurality opinion of White, J., joined by Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.); id., at 180, and n. (Stewart, J., joined by Powell, J., concurring in judgment).3

A second distinction between districting and most other governmental decisions in which race has figured is that those other decisions using racial criteria characteristically occur in circumstances in which the use of race to the advantage of one person is necessarily at the obvious expense of a member of a different race. Thus, for example, awarding government contracts on a racial basis excludes certain firms from competition on racial grounds. See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., supra, at 493; see also Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 484 (1980) (opinion of Burger, C. J.). And when race is used to supplant seniority in layoffs, someone is laid off who would not be otherwise. Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., supra, at 282-283 (plurality opinion). The same principle pertains in nondistricting aspects of voting law, where race-based discrimination places the disfavored voters at the disadvantage of exclusion from the franchise without any alternative benefit. See, e. g., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 341 (1960) (voters alleged to have been excluded from voting in the municipality).

In districting, by contrast, the mere placement of an individual in one district instead of another denies no one a right *684or benefit provided to others.4 All citizens may register, vote, and be represented. In whatever district, the individual voter has a right to vote in each election, and the election will result in the voter’s representation. As we have held, one’s constitutional rights are not violated merely because the candidate one supports loses the election or because a group (including a racial group) to which one belongs winds up with a representative from outside that group. See Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 153-155 (1971). It is true, of course, that one’s vote may be more or less effective depending on the interests of the other individuals who are in one’s district, and our cases recognize the reality that members of the same race often have shared interests. “Dilution” thus refers to the effects of districting decisions not on an individual’s political power viewed in isolation, but on the political power of a group. See UJO, supra, at 165 (plurality opinion). This is the reason that the placement of given voters in a given district, even on the basis of race, does not, without more, diminish the effectiveness of the individual as a voter.

II

Our different approaches to equal protection in electoral districting and nondistricting cases reflect these differences. There is a characteristic coincidence of disadvantageous effect and illegitimate purpose associated with the State’s use of race in those situations in which it has immediately trig*685gered at least heightened scrutiny (which every Member of the Court to address the issue has agreed must be applied even to race-based classifications designed to serve some permissible state interest).5 Presumably because the legitimate consideration of race in a districting decision is usually inevitable under the Voting Rights Act when communities are racially mixed, however, and because, without more, it does not result in diminished political effectiveness for anyone, we have not taken the approach of applying the usual standard of such heightened “scrutiny” to race-based districting decisions. To be sure, as the Court says, it would be logically possible to apply strict scrutiny to these cases (and to uphold those uses of race that are permissible), see ante, at 653-657. But just because there frequently will be a constitutionally permissible use of race in electoral districting, as exemplified by the consideration of race to comply with the Voting Rights Act (quite apart from the consideration of race to remedy a violation of the Act or the Consti*686tution), it has seemed more appropriate for the Court to identify impermissible uses by describing particular effects sufficiently serious to justify recognition under the Fourteenth Amendment. Under our cases there is in general a requirement that in order to obtain relief under the Fourteenth Amendment, the purpose and effect of the districting must be to devalue the effectiveness of a voter compared to what, as a group member, he would otherwise be able to enjoy. See UJO, 430 U. S., at 165-166 (plurality opinion of White, J., joined by Stevens and Rehnquist, JJ.); id., at 179-180 (Stewart, J., joined by Powell, J., concurring in judgment). Justice White describes the formulations we have used and the common categories of dilutive practice in his dissenting opinion. See ante, at 661-663, 669-670.6

A consequence of this categorical approach is the absence of any need for further searching “scrutiny” once it has been shown that a given districting decision has a purpose and effect falling within one of those categories. If a cognizable harm like dilution or the abridgment of the right to participate in the electoral process is shown, the districting plan violates the Fourteenth Amendment. If not, it does not. Under this approach, in the absence of an allegation of such cognizable harm, there is no need for further scrutiny because a gerrymandering claim cannot be proven without the element of harm. Nor if dilution is proven is there any need for further constitutional scrutiny; there has never been a suggestion that such use of race could be justified under any type of scrutiny, since the dilution of the right to vote can not be said to serve any legitimate governmental purpose.

There is thus no theoretical inconsistency in having two distinct approaches to equal protection analysis, one for *687cases of electoral districting and one for most other types of state governmental decisions. Nor, because of the distinctions between the two categories, is there any risk that Fourteenth Amendment districting law as such will be taken to imply anything for purposes of general Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny about “benign” racial discrimination, or about group entitlement as distinct from individual protection, or about the appropriateness of strict or other heightened scrutiny.7

Ill

The Court appears to accept this, and it does not purport to disturb the law of vote dilution in any way. See ante, at 652 (acknowledging that “UJO set forth a standard under which white voters can establish unconstitutional vote dilution”). Instead, the Court creates a new “analytically distinct,” ibid., cause of action, the principal element of which is that a districting plan be “so bizarre on its face,” ante, at 644, or “irrational on its face,” ante, at 652, or “extremely irregular on its face,” ante, at 642, that it “rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate citizens into separate voting districts on the basis of race without sufficient justification,” ante, at 652. Pleading such an element, the Court holds, suffices without a further allegation of harm, to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under the Fourteenth Amendment. See ante, at 649.

It may be that the terms for pleading this cause of action will be met so rarely that this case will wind up an aberra*688tion. The shape of the district at issue in this case is indeed so bizarre that few other examples are ever likely to carry the unequivocal implication of impermissible use of race that the Court finds here. It may therefore be that few electoral districting cases are ever likely to employ the strict scrutiny the Court holds to be applicable on remand if appellants’ allegations are “not contradicted.” Ante, at 653; see also ante, at 658.8

Nonetheless, in those cases where this cause of action is sufficiently pleaded, the State will have to justify its decision to consider race as being required by a compelling state interest, and its use of race as narrowly tailored to that interest. Meanwhile, in other districting cases, specific consequential harm will still need to be pleaded and proven, in the absence of which the use of race may be invalidated only if it is shown to serve no legitimate state purpose. Cf. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 500 (1954).

The Court offers no adequate justification for treating the narrow category of bizarrely shaped district claims differently from other districting claims.9 The only justification I *689can imagine would be the preservation of “sound districting principles,” UJO, 430 U. S., at 168, such as compactness and contiguity. But as Justice White points out, see ante, at 672 (dissenting opinion), and as the Court acknowledges, see ante, at 647, we have held that such principles are not constitutionally required, with the consequence that their absence cannot justify the distinct constitutional regime put in place by the Court today. Since there is no justification for the departure here from the principles that continue to govern electoral districting cases generally in accordance with our prior decisions, I would not respond to the seeming egregiousness of the redistricting now before us by untethering the concept of racial gerrymander in such a case from the concept of harm exemplified by dilution. In the absence of an allegation of such harm, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court. I respectfully dissent.

1

“Bloc racial voting is an unfortunate phenomenon, but we are repeatedly faced with the findings of knowledgeable district courts that it is a fact of life. Where it exists, most often the result is that neither white nor black can be elected from a district in which his race is in the minority.” Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 144 (1976) (White, J., dissenting).

2

Recognition of actual commonality of interest and racially polarized bloc voting cannot be equated with the “ ‘invocation of race stereotypes’ ” described by the Court, ante, at 648 (quoting Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991)), and forbiddeli by our case law.

3

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires a covered jurisdiction to demonstrate either to the Attorney General or to the District Court that each new districting plan “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race[,] color, or [membership in a language minority.]” 42 U. S. C. § 1973c; see also § 1973b(f)(2). Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids districting plans that will have a discriminatory effect on minority groups. § 1973.

4

The majority’s use of “segregation” to describe the effect of districting here may suggest that it carries effects comparable to school segregation making it subject to like scrutiny. But a principal consequence of school segregation was inequality in educational opportunity provided, whereas use of race (or any other group characteristic) in districting does not, without more, deny equality of political participation. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 495 (1954). And while Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 500 (1954), held that requiring segregation in public education served no legitimate public purpose, consideration of race may be constitutionally appropriate in electoral districting decisions in racially mixed political units. See supra, at 680-681.

5

See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493-495 (1989) (plurality opinion of O’Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White and Kennedy, JJ.) (referring variously to “strict scrutiny,” “the standard of review employed in Wygant," and “heightened scrutiny”); id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (“strict scrutiny”); id., at 535 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (classifications “ ‘must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives’ ” (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 359 (1978) (Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part)); 488 U. S., at 514-516 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (undertaking close examination of the characteristics of the advantaged and disadvantaged racial groups said to justify the disparate treatment although declining to articulate different standards of review); see also Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 279-280 (1986) (plurality opinion of Powell, J.) (equating various articulations of standards of review “more stringent” than “ ‘reasonableness’ ” with “strict scrutiny”). Of course the Court has not held that the disadvantaging effect of these uses of race can never be justified by a sufficiently close relationship to a sufficiently strong state interest. See, e. g., Croson, supra, at 509 (plurality opinion).

6

In this regard, I agree with Justice White’s assessment of the difficulty the white plaintiffs would have here in showing that their opportunity to participate equally in North Carolina’s electoral process has been unconstitutionally diminished. See ante, at 666-667, and n. 6 (dissenting opinion).

7

The Court accuses me of treating the use of race in electoral redistricting as a “benign” form of discrimination. Ante, at 653. What I am saying is that in electoral districting there frequently are permissible uses of race, such as its use to comply with the Voting Rights Act, as well as impermissible ones. In determining whether a use of race is permissible in cases in which there is a bizarrely shaped district, we can readily look to its effects, just as we would in evaluating any other electoral districting scheme.

8

While the Court “expressfes] no view as to whether ‘the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more,’ always gives rise to an equal protection claim,” ante, at 649 (quoting ante, at 668 (White, J., dissenting)), it repeatedly emphasizes that there is some reason to believe that a configuration devised with reference to traditional districting principles would present a case falling outside the cause of action recognized today. See ante, at 642, 649, 652, 657-658.

9

The Court says its new cause of action is justified by what I understand to be some ingredients of stigmatic harm, see ante, at 647-648, and by a “threa[t] to . . . our system of representative democracy,” ante, at 650, both caused by the mere adoption of a districting plan with the elements I have described in the text, supra, at 685. To begin with, the complaint nowhere alleges any type of stigmatic harm. See App. to Juris. Statement 67a-100a (Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction and For Temporary Restraining Order). Putting that to one side, it seems utterly implausible to me to presume, as the Court does, that North Carolina’s creation of this strangely shaped majority-minority district “generates” within the white plaintiffs here anything comparable to “a feeling of inferí*689ority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S., at 494. As for representative democracy, I have difficulty seeing how it is threatened (indeed why it is not, rather, enhanced) by districts that are not even alleged to dilute anyone’s vote.