And by section two, article twelfth thereof, the legislature was required to pass laws to exclude from suffrage "those who shall hereafter be convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery or other high crime or misdemeanor."
The public laws of the state, on the subject of state and county elections, of course conformed to the constitutional provisions; the section thereof found in the code of 1871 on the subject of criminals excluded from the right to register and vote "persons convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery or infamous crime;" that of 1880 denied suffrage to persons convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, grand larceny or any felony.
Under this constitution (1869) of course the negroes were voters. Much has been said of late years to the effect that the grant of the right to vote on the negroes by the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States was a mistake; perhaps the adoption of that amendment was an error in statecraft; certainly it proved a party mistake to the Republican party. But every thoughtful and candid man will doubt the proposition that the grant of suffrage to the negro was a mistake when viewed from the standpoint of the negro's welfare. Would his rights as a citizen have been as soon respected had he remained deprived of political power? Of course this is a question that can never be settled. We can only speculate upon it.
The provisions of this constitution, like that of the preceding ones, were construed by the legislature as applying only to state and county elections; hence we find that in municipal matters the provisions of the acts of the legislature passed under it defining who should vote in city, town and village elections are variant. It is sufficient to extract from the numerous municipal charters any governing principle. It is apparent, however, that the tendency was, perhaps from convenience of expression, to adopt the constitutional rule, simply adding that the voter should be a resident of the municipality. In a few instances persons having "permanent business" in the town were permitted to vote at municipal elections even though their citizenship and residence were elsewhere.
This was the case in Bolton, 1871; Quitman, 1880; Laurel, 1886; Scooba, 1886; and non-resident freeholders of the town were permitted to vote in Senatobia in 1882 and Tunica, 1888.
In a majority of cases the provision was that the voter should be a qualified elector of the state, or state and county, and that he should have resided within the municipal limits a specified time. This time varied greatly, from ten days, the shortest, to two years. Of the various acts of legislation on this subject I find thirteen in which the length of residence was required to be only ten days; one in which the time is fifteen days; eight fixing twenty days; forty-five prescribing one month; nine fixing two months; fifteen naming three months; nine prescribing four months; one fixing five months; twenty-one naming six months; three fixing one year, and four prescribing two years. The municipalities in which one year's residence was required are Pass Christian (a seashore resort), the purpose evidently being to exclude summer visitors, 1882; Rosedale, 1890; and Durant, 1890. Those in which two years' residence was prescribed are Eureka Springs, 1880; Seven Pines, 1882; Pass Christian, 1890; and Jackson, 1890. The principal purpose in each, except the summer resort, was to exclude the transient negro voter.
During this period it was not unusual for the legislature to provide that there should be a separate registration of municipal voters. This was the case with Natchez, 1870; Columbus, 1884; Senatobia, 1884; Macon, 1884; Yazoo City, 1884; Ellisville, 1884; Bolton, 1886; Bay St. Louis, 1886; Brooksville, 1886; Fulton, 1886; Pass Christian, 1886; Scooba, 1886; Biloxi, 1888; Terry, 1888; Potts Camp, 1888; Tunica, 1888; Water Valley, 1888; Rosedale, 1890; Clarksdale, 1890; Jackson, 1890; Durant, 1890 Indianola, 1890.
The prepayment of a municipal tax was in several instances made a requisite qualification: This was the case as to a street tax in Brookhaven, 1884; Greenville, 1884 and 1886; Vicksburg, 1886; Vaiden, 1886; and as to street tax and poll tax, Jackson, 1890; Durant, 1890.
In but one instance during the period, 1869 to 1890, do we find the "householders and freeholders" made voters, the case of Greenwood Springs, 1871, though, as we have seen, this was a favorite idea in the early days of the state. In 1882 the spirit of liberality was given full scope by the act providing that "all persons residing within the town limits" should have the right to vote in Columbia; again we will make the suggestion of a skeptic and express doubt whether the girl babies exercised the right.