made electors, namely: all male inhabitants of full age, personally resident in one of the counties of the State for six months immediately preceding the day of election, if during that time possessed of a freehold of the value of twenty pounds within said county, or of a leasehold interest of the yearly value of forty shillings, and if they had been rated and actually paid taxes to the State; with a reservation of a right to vote, within their places of residence, to the freemen of the cities of Albany and New York made such before the 14th of October, 1775.

The Act of Assembly of March 13, 1821, calling the Convention of that year, made essential changes in the qualifications of electors, by authorizing to vote for delegates to that body all free male citizens of the State, of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, who should possess a freehold within the State; or who should have been rated and paid taxes to the State; or who should have been actually enrolled in the militia of the State, or in a legal volunteer or uniform corps, and should have served therein either as an officer or private; or who should have been or then were by law exempt from taxation; or who should have been assessed to work on the public roads and highways, and should have worked thereon, or should have paid a commutation therefor, according to law.

The effect of this act was considerably to increase the body of the electors authorized to vote for delegates, beyond those given the right of suffrage by the existing Constitution, although it deprived of it negro slaves, to whom, if possessed of the requisite property qualification, that Constitution had given the right.

§ 265. The next instance of exceptional legislation in the matter of electing delegates to Conventions occurred in Rhode Island.

By the charter of Charles II., in force in Rhode Island until 1842, the right to determine the qualifications of voters was committed to the General Assembly. We have already seen that, at the date mentioned, in consequence of changes of the population not attended by corresponding changes in the basis of representation, or in the qualifications for the suffrage, great inequalities had arisen in the political power enjoyed by different parts of the State and by different classes of the population. As a consequence, the suffrage movement was set on foot, culminating, as already explained, in the formation of the so-called

People's Constitution, the election of State officers under it, and in an attempt by the pretended Governor, Dorr, to establish the new government, in the place of that existing under the Charter, by military force. This revolutionary attempt was easily suppressed, but the legitimate government did not confine itself to forcible measures to maintain its own supremacy, and to restore the public tranquillity. The Constitution framed by the legiti mate Convention, called by the General Assembly in 1841, having, through the efforts mainly of the suffrage party, been rejected, another Convention was called by the same body in the following year, by which the present Constitution of the State was framed. To appease the discontent of the " People's Party," the General Assembly, in calling this Convention, extended the right of suffrage for the election of delegates, repealing the clauses of existing laws making property, payment of taxes, and military service qualifications for the exercise of that function, and retaining as the only requisite for it three years' residence in the State, and authorized to vote for delegates all persons qualified by existing laws to vote for general officers, and all native male citizens of the United States (except Narragansett Indians, convicts, paupers, persons under guardianship and non compos mentis), who were of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, and who should have had their permanent residence or home within the State for the period of three years next preceding their voting, and in the town or city wherein they should offer to vote for the period of one year next preceding such voting, and who should have had their names recorded with the town or city clerk of the town or city in which they should offer to vote, in a proper book to be kept for that purpose, at least ten days before the day of voting.2

§ 265 a. Several other instances of a departure from the principles generally recognized in calling Conventions have occurred since that in Rhode Island. In calling the New Jersey Conven1 See ante, §§ 227, 228.

2 Considerations on the Questions of the Adoption of a Constitution and Extension of Suffrage in Rhode Island, by E. R. Potter, p. 21. The persons authorized to vote for delegates to the People's Convention were as follows: "All male American citizens (natives and foreigners, and without distinction of color) aged twenty-one years, and who had resided in the State one year." These qualifications were fixed by the committee of citizens calling the Con

vention.

tion of 1844, the legislature authorized to vote for delegates every white male citizen of the United States above the age of twentyone years resident in the State one year, and in the township three months, next preceding said election. The Constitution then in force, that of 1776, contained no provision of any kind for amending that instrument, or for calling a Convention, and it gave the right of suffrage for Representatives in Council and Assembly, and for all other public officers elected by the people of the county at large, to all inhabitants of the colony, of full age, who were worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and who had resided within the county in which they claimed a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election. So the act under which the Maryland Convention of 1867 assembled, provided for the election of delegates to that body by the registered voters of the State. The last Constitution, that of 1864, had given the right of suffrage to the white male citizens of the United States, twenty-one years old and upwards, resident in the State one year, and in any county or legislative district of the city of Baltimore, six months next preceding the election. It also provided for a registration of voters, under an act of the Assembly, and excluded from voting persons convicted of larceny or other infamous crimes, and all rebels and rebel sympathizers. To this clause, however, was appended a proviso, that persons thus disqualified by disloyalty might be restored to the full rights of citizenship by an act of the General Assembly, passed by a two thirds vote of all the members elected to each house. The Constitution further provided (Art. XII., sec. 2) that, should a Convention be called to revise or amend that instrument, it should "consist of as many members as both houses of the General Assembly," to be "chosen in the same manner." With a view, it was claimed, to place the State of Maryland in the hands of the sympathizers with, and participators in the late rebellion, the legislature in 1867 "enfranchised," and caused to be registered, "all white men, no matter what treason they had committed, and thus added to the voting population about 30,000 persons who had only lately ceased an armed resistance to the government." This was charged to have been done "by a 1 Sec. IV., New Jersey Constitution, 1776.

2 See Article I., secs. 1-4, of the Maryland Constitution of 1864.

8 Memorial of Republican members of the Maryland Legislature to Con

doubtful construction of a clause of the Constitution," but the legislature proceeded further to acts more clearly violative of that instrument. The basis of representation being the white population, less those disfranchised for rebellion and not reinstated in their rights by the legislature, the latter, in its call for the Convention of 1867, gave to certain old counties, the seat of a large rebel population, an increased representation, by which the oppressor was "to represent the oppressed against his will, and by which a minority of the people of the State" were "to hold in their proposed Convention the same power as the majority."1 This action was claimed to be in violation of the clause of the Constitution relating to the mode of choosing members of Conventions, quoted above, that they should be chosen "in the same manner as members of both houses of the General Assembly,— that is, upon the same basis of representation."

Another instance of departure from principle is that of the Act calling the Tennessee Convention of 1870. Article IV. of the Constitution of 1834, which contained no provision for calling a Convention, had given the right of suffrage to every free white man, etc., but provided that no person should be disqualified from voting in any election, on account of color, "who is now, by the laws of this State, a competent witness in a court of justice against a white man." In calling the Convention of 1870, the legislature authorized to vote for delegates "every male person not convicted and rendered infamous for crime," thus admitting colored votes, and extending the suffrage established by the Constitution.

§ 266. To the instances referred to in the last section must be added those of the second series of Reconstruction Conventions, called under the authority of Congress in 1867 and 1868. The enabling Acts of March 2d and 23d and July 19, 1867, by which the Constitutions and governments established under the first series of Reconstruction Conventions were declared to be illegal, and new Constitutions and governments were authorized to be established in the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, provided that the Conventions called

gress, presented to that body March 25, 1867. McPherson's History of the Reconstruction, p. 246.

1 Memorial, etc., above referred to.

under those acts should be elected by the male citizens of those
States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, of whatever race,
color, or previous condition, resident one year in the State, ex-
cept such as were disfranchised for participation in the rebellion,
or for felony at common law; provided, that no person excluded
from holding office by the XIV. admendment should vote. The
persons thus excluded were those who, having previously taken
an oath, as a member of Congress or of any State legislature,
or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the
Constitution of the United States, should have engaged in insur-
rection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to
the enemies thereof. By all the Constitutions in force in those
States before the rebellion, or framed for them by the first series
of Reconstruction Conventions, the right of suffrage was confined
to the free white male citizens of the United States. The Fed-
eral statutes referred to, therefore, by enfranchising the blacks,
extended the right to vote for delegates much beyond the circle
of the electors under existing laws. They also narrowed that
circle, very properly, by the clauses disfranchising persons for
rebellion or felony at common law.
A careful search among
the Constitutions and Convention Acts, prescribing the qualifi-
cations of voters for delegates to Conventions, reveals only the
few departures from what we regard as the principle that ought
to govern in such cases, explained in the last three sections.
And it is remarkable that, in every instance but three, those
of Georgia, 1788, Rhode Island, November, 1841, and perhaps
Maryland, 1867, the departure was upon this side or that of
what we may call the "color line" in our politics, and resulted
from efforts on the one side to disfranchise, and on the other to
enfranchise, the negro race. The enlargement beyond, or the
restriction within, the limits fixed for the suffrage by the several
Constitutions, was in these cases, therefore, but the working of
the old leaven of revolution, which finally burst forth in the war
of secession, and is not properly a precedent for other times.
This remark applies equally to the Conventions called by the
States and those called under the Reconstruction Acts by Con-
gress, or by its authority.

The case of the Georgia Convention of 1788, to which the delegates were chosen directly by the legislature, it need not be said, was a violation of all principle, and as a precedent