The provisions of the new constitution of Mississippi on the subject of suffrage are as follows:

ARTICLE 12.

FRANCHISE.

Section 240. All elections by the people shall be by ballot.

Section 241. Every male inhabitant of this state, except idiots, insane persons, and Indians not taxed, who is a citizen of the United States, twenty-one years old and upwards, who has resided in this state two years, and one year in the election district, or in the incorporated city or town in which he offers to vote, and who is duly registered as provided in this article, and who has never been convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretenses, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, or bigamy, and who has paid, on or before the first of February of the year in which he shall offer to vote, all taxes which may have been legally required of him, and which he has had an opportunity of paying according to law for the two preceding years, and who shall produce to the officers holding the election satisfactory evidence that he has paid said taxes, is declared to be a qualified elector; but any minister of the gospel in charge of an organized church shall be entitled to vote after six months' residence in the election district, if otherwise qualified.

Section 244. On and after the first day of January, A. D. 1892, every elector shall, in addition to the foregoing qualifications, be able to read any section of the constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation thereof. A new registration shall be made before the next ensuing election after January the first, A. D. 1892.

The qualifications at the present time, therefore, of an elector are:

1. Male,
2. Inhabitant of the state, excluding idiots, insane persons and Indians not taxed,
3. Citizen of the United States,
4. Twenty-one years old or upwards,
5. Resident of the state for two years,
6. Resident for one year in the election district, or city or town, except ministers of the gospel who may vote on six months' residence,
7. Duly registered,
8. Never convicted of bribery and other enumerated crimes,
9. Has paid two years' taxes,
10. Able to read any section of the constitution of the state; or able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation thereof.

1. Male,
2. Inhabitant of the state, excluding idiots, insane persons and Indians not taxed,
3. Citizen of the United States,
4. Twenty-one years old or upwards,
5. Resident of the state for two years,
6. Resident for one year in the election district, or city or town, except ministers of the gospel who may vote on six months' residence,
7. Duly registered,
8. Never convicted of bribery and other enumerated crimes,
9. Has paid two years' taxes,
10. Able to read any section of the constitution of the state; or able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation thereof.

It will be noted that these constitutional qualifications, unlike the provisions of former fundamental laws, are by the section above quoted made to apply to electors in municipal elections; the legislature, however, is authorized to prescribe additional qualifications. And it has prescribed as such additional qualifications, by the section on that subject in the chapter of the new Code on Municipalities, that the voter must have resided within the corporate limits for one year next before he offers to register and he must not be in default for taxes due the municipality for the two preceding years.

Much has been said about this constitution, both for and against it; especially has the "understanding clause," the tenth qualification as enumerated above, been severely criticised. Thus we find in the American Law Review of January-February, 1892, the following: "It is quite apparent that this clause was never intended to be carried out faithfully. It will be so administered as to exclude the negro voters, hardly one of whom will be eligible under it, and so as not to exclude the ignorant white voter. The last qualification, the ability to give a reasonable interpretation of any clause of the constitution of the state, would exclude nearly all the lawyers and judges in the state. In this manner the people of Mississippi endeavor to solve the appalling problem of carrying on civil government with a mass of voters easily corrupted and so stolid and ignorant as not to be able to understand the first principles of their political institutions."

And we find in the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1892, the following statement in reference to it:

"That it may, and probably will, be put into operation so as to preclude the negro from voting, while his equally ignorant white neighbor is allowed the privilege, appears from the fact that the inability to read does not constitute an absolute basis of exclusion; for the inspectors may allow a person to vote who can understand or give a reasonable interpretation of a section of the constitution when read to him. It is apparent that an inspector may very easily reject as unreasonable an interpretation from a colored man, and accept one no whit better from a white man. Such discrimination in practice would be very hard to discover."

And Mr. John F. Dillon, one of the most distinguished of American lawyers, in his address as President of the American Bar Association, at Saratoga, August, 1892, speaking of this section of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890, says:

"It has been supposed that this clause was a concession made in the interest of illiterate whites; but whether this be so or not, a general and indiscriminate requirement that all voters shall be able to read and write is, in my judgment, not contrary to the fundamental principles of American government, but in accordance with the principles on which such government must securely rest, namely, the intelligence and virtue of the people."

I have heard attributed to a distinguished United States Senator, who would have been glad to have come to a different conclusion, that this constitution demonstrated that Anglo-Saxon ingenuity could accomplish anything; that the provisions of it on the subject of the suffrage was a practical repeal of the fifteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, and yet the result was effected in such a way that its legality could not be successfully denied.