The contest over disfranchising the free negro in the convention of 1834 presents the final phase of the suffrage problem. Amendments to the constitution of 1796, favoring and opposing negro suffrage, were introduced in the convention and by June 26 were being debated in the committee of the whole. One of the strongest advocates of suffrage for the negro was Mr. Cahall, who said he was “unwilling to disfranchise any man black or white, who had enjoyed the right of suffrage under the present constitution.”[60]
Mr. Cahall’s position was as follows: first, he would let the free negroes then in the state continue to vote; second, he believed that an unqualified suffrage for free negroes would make the state an asylum for free negroes; third, he contended that the suffrage was a conventional and not a natural right. He said that our government was a “constitutional and not a natural one.”[61]
Mr. Allen, June 27, speaking of the third article of the constitution, in the committee of the whole, said: “I am against inserting the word white before the word freeman, in this clause of the constitution, because it goes to exclude a description of persons from the right of voting, that has exercised it for thirty-eight years under the present constitution, without any evil ever having grown out of it.”
On June 27, the following resolution was introduced into the committee of the whole:
That every free male person of color, being an inhabitant six months previous to the day of election, of any county in this State six months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote in said county in which he has so resided, for Governor, members of Congress, members of General Assembly, and other officers.
Mr. Purdy introduced the following amendment to the above motion:
That every free man of color possessing in his own right in the county in which he may reside and propose to vote, a freehold or personal property of $200, on which he has paid a tax that has been assessed at least six months previous to the day of election, and being an inhabitant of this State at least twelve months previous to the day of election, shall be entitled to vote for members to the General Assembly for the county or district in which he shall reside provided no free person emigrating to this State after the adoption of this Constitution, shall be entitled to exercise the right of suffrage.[62]
This amendment was rejected.
Mr. Marr offered the following amendment to the motion: