Читать книгу The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy - Robert Elliott Flickinger - Страница 55

During the seventies and eighties the Freedmen were to a considerable extent disfranchised by means of "election devices, practices and intimidations."

Since 1890, when Mississippi took the lead, a number of the states have passed laws restricting the right of suffrage on their part to such tests as the payment of their annual taxes, previous to a certain date; ownership of a certain amount of land or personal property, the ability to read and write the constitution of the state or of the United States, and the "Grandfather Clause" which permits one unable to meet the educational or property tests to continue to vote, if he enjoyed that privilege, or is a lineal descendant of one that did so, previous to the date mentioned therein, usually 1867.

The following states have enacted laws containing the "Grandfather Clause:" South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and in 1910, Oklahoma. This part of the Oklahoma statute reads as follows:

"But no person who was on January 1, 1866, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal descendant of such person shall be denied the right to register and vote because of his inability to so read and write such Constitution."