Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History & Culture Enduring Connections: Exploring Delmarva's Black History

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Voting Rights Laws and Legislation in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia

Number of Records
9

Date Added
June 20, 2023

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All Records in Voting Rights Laws and Legislation in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia

Law Name 13th Amendment
Date Passed December 3rd, 1865
State federal
Description "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party sh…
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Law Name 13th Amendment
Date Passed December 3rd, 1865
State federal
Classification law
Description "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction"
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Law Name 14th Amendment
Date Passed July 9th, 1868
State federal
Description "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, a…
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Law Name 14th Amendment
Date Passed July 9th, 1868
State federal
Classification law
Description "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"
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Law Name 15th Amendment
Date Passed Feburary 3rd, 1870
State federal
Description "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United…
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Law Name 15th Amendment
Date Passed Feburary 3rd, 1870
State federal
Classification law
Description "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"
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Law Name An Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees
Date Passed March 3rd. 1965
State federal
Description "And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, cloth…
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Law Name An Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees
Date Passed March 3rd. 1965
State federal
Classification law
Description "And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children" "And be it further enacted, That the commissioner, under the direction of the President, shall have authority to set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary [rebellious] states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land, and the person to whom it was so assigned shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the land for the term of three years. . . . At the end of said term, or at any time during said term, the occupants of any parcels so assigned may purchase the land and receive such title thereto as the United States can convey"
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Law Name The Civil Rights Act of 1866
Date Passed April 9th, 1866
State federal
Description "Be it enacted . . . , That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign …
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Law Name The Civil Rights Act of 1866
Date Passed April 9th, 1866
State federal
Classification law
Description "Be it enacted . . . , That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding"
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Law Name An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States
Date Passed March 2nd, 1867
State federal
Description "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Cong…
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Law Name An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States
Date Passed March 2nd, 1867
State federal
Classification law
Description "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district" "And be it further enacted, That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when such article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State: Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall be eligible to election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention"
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Law Name Sec. 20, Article II, Virginia Constitution of 1902
Date Passed July 15th, 1901
State Virginia
Description "Sec. 20. After the first day of January, nineteen hundred and four, every male citizen of the Un…
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Law Name Sec. 20, Article II, Virginia Constitution of 1902
Date Passed July 15th, 1901
State Virginia
Classification law
Description "Sec. 20. After the first day of January, nineteen hundred and four, every male citizen of the United States, having the qualifications of age and residence required in section Eighteen, shall be entitled to register, provided: First. That he has personally paid to the proper officer all state poll taxes assessed or assessable against him, under this or the former Constitution, for the three years next preceding that in which he offers to register; or, if he come of age at such time that nopoll tax shall have been assessable against him for the year preceding the year in which he offers to register, has paid one dollar and fifty cents, in satisfaction of the first year's poll tax assessable against him; and, Second. That, unless physically unable, he make application to register in his own hand-writing, without aid, suggestion, or memorandum, in the presence of the registration officers, stating therein his name, age, date and place of birth, residence and occupation at the time and for the two years next preceding, and whether he has previously voted, and, if so, the state, county, and precinct in which he voted last; and, Third. That he answer on oath any and all questions affecting his qualifications as an elector, submitted, to him by the officers of registration, which questions, and his answers thereto, shall be reduced to writing, certified by the said officers, and preserved as a part of their official records"
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Law Name The Poe Amendment of 1905
Date Passed April 4th, 1905
State Maryland
Description "The Poe Amendment proposes to substitute for this section the fol-lowing: All elections by the p…
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Law Name The Poe Amendment of 1905
Date Passed April 4th, 1905
State Maryland
Classification bill
Description "The Poe Amendment proposes to substitute for this section the fol-lowing:
All elections by the people shall be by ballot.
Every male citizen
of the United States, whether native born or naturalized, of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, who has resided in this State for one year and in the Legislative District of Baltimore City, or in the County in which he may offer to vote for six months next preceding the elec-tion, and who, moreover, is duly reginered as a qualified voter as provided in this Article, shall be entitled to vote in the Ward or Election District in which he resides. at all clections hereafter to be held in this State; and in case any County or City shall be so divided as to form portions of different electoral districts for the election of Representatives in Congress, Senators, Delegates or other Officers, then to entitle a person to yote for such officer, he must have been a resident of that part of the County or City which shall form a part of the electoral district in which he offers to vote for six months next preceding the elec-tion, but a person who shall have acquired a residence in such County or City, entitling him to vote at any such election, shall be entitled to vote in the election district from which he removed until he shall have acquired a residence in the part of the County or City to which he has removed.
Every such male citizen of the United States having the
above prescribed qualifications of age and residence shall be entitled to be registered so as to become a qualified voter if he be
First.
A person able to read any section of the Constitution of this
State submitted to him by the Officers of Registration and to give a reasonable explanation of the same; or if unable to read such section is able to understand and give explanation thereof when read to him by the registration officers; or Second.
A person who on the first day of January, 1869, or prior
thereto, was entitled to vote under the laws of this State or of any other State in the United States wherein he then resided; or Third.
Any male lineal descendant of such last mentioned person
who may be twenty-one (21) years of age or over in the year 1906.
No person not thus qualified by coming under some one of the above descriptions shall be entitled to be registered as a qualified voter, nor be entitled to vote.
It will observed that the proposed new section differs from the present provision, first, in some changes of language, which probably do not materially modify the sense; and, secondly, by restricting the sut-frage to persons possessing qualifications of birth, descent or capacity; this restriction alters gravely, even fundamentally, existing provisions of our Constitution on this subjeot."
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Law Name Digges Amendment of 1910-11
Date Passed April 11th, 1910
State Maryland
Description "AN ACT to propose an amendment to Article 1, of the Constitution of this State, by adding theret…
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Law Name Digges Amendment of 1910-11
Date Passed April 11th, 1910
State Maryland
Classification bill
Description "AN ACT to propose an amendment to Article 1, of the Constitution of this State, by adding thereto a new section, to be known as Section 8, to follow Section 7, and to provide for the submission of said amendment to the qualified voters or this State for adoption or rejection.
SECTION 1.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland (three-fifths of all members of each of the two houses concurring), That the following section be and the same is hereby proposed as an amendment to Article 1, of the Constitution of this State, which said section, if adopted by the qualified voters of this State, shall stand as an additional section to said Article 1, to be known as Section 8, to follow Section 7, of said Article:
SEC. 8. All State and municipal elections shall be conducted by the system commonly known as the Australian ballot system, and it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law for a form of ballot, uniform throughout the State, for use at all State elections in this State, and to provide that on said ballot, after the name of each candidate thereon who may have been duly nominated as the candidate of any political party or organization, there shall be printed the legal name of said party or organization. Equal representation of the minority party among the judges and clerks of election, registrars, or other officers performing similar functions, shall not be abolished by the General Assembly unless by a vote of four-Afths of all the members of each house. The right to be registered as a qualified voter and the right to vote at any State or municipal election in this State shall be limited to the following persons: first, every male white citizen not disqualified by the Second or Third Section of this Article possessing the qualifications as to age and residence mentioned in Section 1 of this Article; second, every other male citizen not disqualified by the Second or Third Sections of this Article possessing the qualifications as to age and residence mentioned in Section 1 of this Article, who at the time of his application for registration is the bona-fide owner of real or personal property, or both, in an amount of not less than five hundred dollars, is assessed therefor on the tax books of the City of Baltimore or of one of the counties of this State, has been such owner and so assessed for two years next preceding his application for regis-tration, shall have paid and shall produce receipts for the taxes on said property for said two years, and shall at the time of his application make affidavit before the officers of registration that he is the bona-fide owner of the property so assessed to him, and that he has been such owner for two years next preceding his application.
If any persons other than
those herein mentioned shall be or become legally entitled to be registered as voters at State elections in this State, then this section shall be null and void, and the General Assembly shall possess the same powers as if this section had never been adopted, and the laws of this State, including the local laws applicable to certain counties thereot, relating to the form of ballot to be used at elections, in force on the first day of July in the year nineteen hundred and ten, shall revive or continue in force until altered by the General Assembly, notwithstanding any acts to the contrary which may have been passed while the terms of this section shall have been in force or while the General Assembly shall have belived or assumed the provisions of this section to be valid.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That the aforesaid section hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution shall be, at the next general election held in this State, submitted to the legal and qualified voters thereof for their adoption or rejection in pursuance of the directions contained in Article 14 of the Constitution of this State, and at the said general election the vote on the said proposed amendment to the Constitution shall be by ballot, and upon each ballot shall be printed the words, "For Constitutional Amendment" and "Against Constitutional Amendment," as now provided by law, and immediately after said election due return shall be made to the Governor of the vote for and against said proposed amendment as directed by said Fourteenth Article of the Constitution."
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