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To: ZGuy
Following is excerpted from a book I bought lately:

Table 3. Race Requirement for Suffrage, 1790-18551
State Year of
Statehood2
Year of
Requirement
Race
Alabama 1819 1819 White
Arkansas 1836 1836 White
California 1850 1849 White
Connecticut 1788 1715
1818
No Requirement
White
Delaware 1787 1737
1792
No Requirement
White
Florida 1845 1838 White
Georgia 1788 1789 No Requirement3
Illinois 1818 1818 White
Indiana 1816 1816 White
Iowa 1846 1846 White
Kentucky 1792 1792
1799
No Requirement
White
Louisiana 1812 1812 White
Maine 1820 1819 No Requirement
Maryland 1788 1776
1801
No Requirement
White
Massachusetts 1788 1780
1821
No Requirement
No Requirement
Michigan 1837 1835 White
Mississippi 1817 1817 White
Missouri 1821 1820 White
New Hampshire 1788 1792 No Requirement
New Jersey 1787 1776
1807
No Requirement
White
New York 1788 1777
1821
No Requirement
White, or "Man of Color, meeting property/tax requirements.
North Carolina 1789 1776
1835
No Requirement
White
Ohio 1803 1802 White
Pennsylvania 1787 1790
1838
No Requirement
White
Rhode Island 1790 1762
1842
No Requirement
No Requirement
South Carolina 1788 1790 White
Tennessee 1796 1796
1834
No Requirement
White4
Texas 1845 1845 "Africans, and descendants of Africans" excluded
Vermont 1791 1786 No Requirement
Virginia 1788 1762 White
Wisconsin 1848 1848 White

1Source = The Right to Vote; The contested History of Democracy in the United States, by Alexander Keyssar, Basic Books, New York, 2000. The above is an abbreviated version of a Table which also lists citizenship and "Native American" requirements. Cases where a state changed their original requirement are indicated, with date, in the Table; there were also many cases where a state reiterated their original requirement, at a later date, by statute or constitutional change, but these are omitted for brevity.
2Or date admitted to Union for original 13.
3Georgia's 1777 constitution explicitly limited the franchise to whites, but their constitutions of 1789 and 1798 did not. All secondary sources agree that blacks could not vote, but a very extensive search has not turned up a clear legal basis for that exclusion.
4White, "provided that no person shall 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".


6 posted on 02/05/2004 8:28:57 AM PST by FairWitness
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To: FairWitness
more progress was made to end slavery and achieve civil rights for blacks in America at that time than was made in any other nation in the world.

Not true. Slavery was banned outright in Upper Canada (now Ontario) in the early 1790s. Additionally, the laws of Upper Canada made no racial distinctions at all- blacks could vote and hold office.

10 posted on 02/05/2004 8:37:52 AM PST by Squawk 8888 (Earth first! We can mine the other planets later.)
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