UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
The constitution under which Mississippi came into the Union as a state was adopted on the 15th August, 1817, and by the first section of Article three thereof, the following provision is made: "Every free white male person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, who shall be a citizen of the United States and shall have resided in this state one year, next preceding an election, and the last six months within the county, city or town in which he offers to vote and shall be enrolled in the militia thereof except exempted by law from military service; or having the aforesaid qualifications of citizenship and residence, shall have paid a state or county tax, shall be deemed a qualified elector; but no elector shall be entitled to vote, except in the county, city or town (entitled to separate representation) in which he may reside at the time of election."
An analysis of this section shows that in order for a person to be a qualified state and county voter thereunder he must have been,
(1) Free,
(2) White,
(3) Male,
(4) Twenty-one years of age or upward,
(5) A citizen of the United States,
(6) A resident of the state for at least one year,
(7) A resident of the county, city or town at least six months,
(8) Enrolled in the militia unless exempt therefrom, or he
must have had the "aforesaid qualifications of citizenship and
residence" and have paid a state or county tax.
What our forefathers meant by alternate qualifications is hard at this day to find out. A literal construction would have authorized a free white male person having the qualifications of citizenship and residence to have voted irrespective of age, but there is no record of infants having exercised the right, nor is there in our books a judicial interpretation of the constitutional provision. It is notable, too, in respect to this section of the fundamental law that crimes did not disfranchise under the terms of the constitution itself and that the murderer, the thief et id omne genus are relegated to the legislature so far as voting was concerned by the 5th section of the sixth article which provides, "laws shall be made to exclude from office, and from suffrage, those who shall hereafter be convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery or other high crimes or misdemeanors." We find, however, that the legislature in 1822 undertook to perform its duty in this regard by providing that "no person shall vote at any election whatever in this state who shall have been convicted by the verdict of a jury, and the final judgment or sentence of a court of competent jurisdiction, of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crime or misdemeanor, unless the person so convicted shall receive a full pardon for such offense."
On the subject of pardons and its effect on the right of suffrage it may be stated here that the doctrine in this state until the adoption of the constitution of 1890 was in favor of the restoration of the right to vote; the constitution just named having made provision for a legislative restoration of the right to vote leaves the matter now an open question as concerns executive pardons.
It is worthy of note that by legislative act, approved February 10th, 1821, elections in this state were held viva voce, but this act remained in force only until June 13th, 1822, the date of the act repealing it, since which time they have been by ballot; since 1869 the constitutions have required them to be so. In truth there is no record of an election held viva voce under the law of 1821, though the election held on the 1st Monday of August, 1821, under Sec. 6, Art. 3 of the first constitution must have been so held. Of course the laws passed under the constitution of 1817 on the subject of state and county elections conformed their provisions, defining who should have the right of franchise to the terms fundamental law on the subject and, as we have seen, the legislature excluded criminals from the right to vote, but the lawmakers of that day by no means confined themselves to the constitutional qualifications when they came to prescribe who should be entitled to vote in municipal elections; for instance, we see that "citizens of the town" were made voters in Shieldsborough (Now Bay St. Louis) in 1818, in Greenville (Jefferson county) in 1819, and in Holmesville in 1820; and "citizens of one month's residence" were allowed to vote on the subject of the location of the Madison County court house by act approved 1829, and "free white male citizens of the town above the age of twenty-one years" were made voters by act incorporating Pearlington, passed in 1822, and in the same year "free citizens resident in the town" were made voters in Columbus. In 1821 "free white male inhabitants, resident of the town, twenty-one years of age and upwards" were authorized to vote in Monticello, and in 1831 in Warrenton; and in 1824 such residents of the county were authorized to vote on the location of the county seat of Warren County.
By act of 1821 "every free white male person, twenty-one years old or upwards, an inhabitant of the town for six months and who had been assessed and paid a town tax within a year," were allowed to vote in municipal election at Port Gibson, and so too were the owners of land in that town, if the land had been assessed and taxes paid on it, whether the owner resided in the corporate limits or elsewhere; and I am advised the law of that town so remained until after the war; the idea has been adopted by several municipalities of the state in later days. By the early charters of Vicksburg, approved 1825, and Rodney, approved 1828, suffrage was conferred on "landholders, householders, freeholders and such as shall have paid a town tax, being inhabitants and residents for three months in the town."
In 1830 "freeholders and householders" were made voters in Shieldsborough (now Bay St. Louis) and Raymond, and in 1825 "freeholders and householders," whether resident or not, were given the right to vote in the town of Washington, and in 1831 the right to elect a constable was given "actual citizens of Vicksburg, over twenty-one years of age," and in 1830 the "freeholders and householders" of the town of Washington were required to be males in order to vote after that date, and the only qualification of voters in the town of Liberty, according to the act of 1819, were that they should be "free white males, resident citizens of the town," and this is true under the first charter of Warrenton, approved in 1820. In all these instances the constitution of 1817 was not regarded as establishing a rule to be applied to municipal suffrage. By several acts passed while this constitution was operative the constitutional rule was, however, adopted in defining who should vote in municipal elections. Thus in 1821, in respect to the town of Washington the language is "persons entitled to vote for members of the general assembly," and the same language is used in the charter of Clinton, passed in 1830, and to the same language is added the words, "and who shall have resided in the town three months" in the charters of Meadville and Brandon passed in 1830 and 1831 respectively. In the amendment to the charter of Liberty, passed in 1828, suffrage is limited to "inhabitants of the town under the restrictions prescribed by the constitution of the state," and the same language substantially is to be found in the act incorporating Gallatin approved in 1829.
"The qualified electors" of Jackson county voted on the subject of the location of their court house under the provisions of an act passed in December, 1830. The "free white male inhabitants, residing within the town entitled to vote for members of the general assembly" were made the electors of the city of Jackson by the first act of incorporation passed in 1823, and by legislative grant approved in 1830 incorporating Manchester (now Yazoo City) the "inhabitants entitled to vote according to the constitution and laws of the state" were given the right to participate in municipal elections, and the same language is used in the charter of Athens, approved in the same year.
An analysis of all this will show that under the constitution of 1817 "color" was not a qualification or a disqualification in eight of the towns of the state legislated upon, viz: Shieldsborough (now Bay St. Louis), Greenville (Jefferson County), Holmesville, Columbus, Vicksburg, Rodney, Raymond and Washington. Of course slaves were not freeholders or citizens, but free men of color were frequently freeholders and before the Dred Scott decision were regarded by many as citizens. It will be noted, too, that sex was not made a qualification or a disqualification for voting in seven of the towns whose charters were passed or amended during the period in which the first state constitution was operative, viz: those, except Washington, just enumerated. There is no evidence, however, that women ever voted in any of these towns, and all that can be learned on the subject leads to the belief that they not only never did but the right seems never to have been claimed for or by them. Free persons of color, however, as I learn, did claim the right in some of these towns and it was generally conceded by those of the white men whose interest was on the side of the claimant's political preference, but was generally denied by the opposition, and it is doubtful if a negro ever voted in any of them until after the war. On the whole it is not so clear but that the failure to exclude women and free persons of color in the early legislation on the subject of voting in municipalities was but the result of legislative awkwardness and a want of exactness in statutory exclusion and inclusion.