Answer:
Explanation:
The Court, speaking through Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, unanimously rejected the argument that the political question doctrine barred the Court from deciding the case. The argument, said the Court, was "little more than a play upon words". While the injury which the plaintiff alleged "involved political action", his suit "allege[d] and s[ought] to recover for private damage".
The Court then turned to the merits of the suit. It said that it was unnecessary to discuss whether the statute violated the Fifteenth Amendment, "because it seems to us hard to imagine a more direct and obvious infringement of the Fourteenth". The Court continued:
The [Fourteenth Amendment] ... was passed, as we know, with a special intent to protect the blacks from discrimination against them. ... The statute of Texas ... assumes to forbid negroes to take part in a primary election the importance of which we have indicated, discriminating against them by the distinction of color alone. States may do a good deal of classifying that it is difficult to believe rational, but there are limits, and it is too clear for extended argument that color cannot be made the basis of a statutory classification affecting the right set up in this case.
The Court reversed the district court's dismissal of the suit.
