Our library got me a copy of Behrens, Uggen & Manza, "Ballot
Manipulation and the 'Menace of Negro Domination': Racial Threat and
Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850-2002," and this led
me to a question that I thought some on this list might answer.

	The paper lists the years of first felon disenfranchisement
laws.  Many -- for instance, in Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland,
and Virginia (focusing only on the slave states) -- were enacted before
the Civil War

	As to quite a few of the laws that were enacted right after the
Civil War, the article has a footnote stating that "The first state
constitution gave the state legislature the power to restrict suffrage
for criminal activity"; Alabama, Florida, Missouri, and Texas fall into
this category.  The article seems to erroneously omit such a footnote as
to Mississippi (see Miss. Const. 1817, art. VI, sec. 5).  It also
doesn't note that Tennessee had a similar provision in its 1834
Constitution, though not in its original constitution.  It also doesn't
note (this is an understandable omission, but I think the circumstance I
mention is still worth noting) that the South Carolina Constitution of
1865, which *explicitly* disqualified blacks as voters also gave the
legislature the power to "impose disqualification to vote as a
punishment for crime," which suggests that the drafters of that
particular constitution saw disqualification of felons as valuable
itself, independently of its effect on blacks voters.

	Now here is what puzzles me:  The earlier Alabama, Florida,
Mississippi, and Texas constitutions not only gave the legislature such
power, but actually seemed to *order* the legislature to do this:  "Laws
shall be made by the general assembly to exclude from office, and from
suffrage, those who shall have been, or may thereafter be, convicted of
bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crime or misdemeanor (Fla.
Const. 1838, art. VI, sec. 13; see also Alabama Const. 1819, art. VI,
sec. 5; Miss. Const. 1817, art. VI, sec. 5; Texas Const. 1845, art. VII,
sec. 4.)  Only two, the Missouri Constitution of 1820 (art. III, sec.
14), and the Tennessee Constitution of 1834 (art. IV, sec. 2) spoke of
legislative discretion ("The general assembly shall have power to
exclude . . . from the right of suffrage, all persons convicted of
bribery, perjury, or other infamous crime," to quote the Missouri
provision).

	So the question:  Did the Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and
Texas legislatures indeed fail to comply with the constitutional command
until after the Civil War, and did the Missouri and Tennessee
legislatures fail to exercise their powers?

	And a supplementary question:  The 1835 amendments to the North
Carolina Constitution, sec. 4, part Four, say that the legislature
"shall not have power to pass any private law . . . to restore to the
rights of citizenship, any person convicted of an infamous crime; but
shall have power to pass general laws regulating the same."  This
suggests that felons might have lost the vote by having more generally
lost the rights of citizenship, even before the Civil War (the Behrens
et al. article lists the first felon disenfranchisement law as 1876, but
I wonder whether this might therefore be mistaken).  State v. Surles,
230 N.C. 272 (1949), notes that in 1854 the North Carolina legislature
in fact passed a law providing for a procedure for restoring the rights
of citizenship, but doesn't specifically discuss the right to vote.  Any
thoughts on whether North Carolina may in fact have disqualified felons
from voting before the Civil War?

	I realize, of course, that we may want to also investigate the
situation in nonslave states; I just decided to start with the slave
states, rather than doing the work for all 50.

	Thanks,

	Eugene