grandfather clause

Definition

A clause or section, especially in a law, granting exceptions for people or organisations who were affected by previous conditions.

Etymology

From late 19th-century legislation and constitutional amendments passed by a number of U.S. Southern states, which created new literacy and property restrictions on voting, but exempted those whose grandfathers had the right to vote before the American Civil War. The intent and effect of such rules was to prevent poor and illiterate African American former slaves and their descendants from voting, but without denying poor and illiterate whites the right to vote.

Example Sentences

• "Many building codes include a grandfather clause exempting older buildings until some amount of remodeling occurs."
• "The “grandfather clause” provides that no man whose grandfather could not vote, can exercise the right of franchise. It will thus disenfranchise many negroes, whose grandfathers were slaves."
• "Under the Fifteenth Amendment there is little political legislation, except the effort in Southern States by educational or property qualifications, and most questionably by the so-called "grandfather clause," to exclude most negroes from the right of suffrage."