At the beginning of the 20th century, the President of the Alabama Constitutional Convention, John B. Knox, stated in his inaugural address that the intention of the convention was "to establish white supremacy in this State", "within the limits imposed by the Federal Constitution" The convention was following a model established by Mississippi, whose 1890 constitution with similar provisions had already survived federal court challenges, with the United States Supreme Court permitting literacy tests and poll taxes despite a challenge based on the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in Williams v. Mississippi (1898).