Florida's Post-Reconstruction Constitution
Journal of the Proceeding of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Florida
Notes: This revision to the Florida constitution undid many of the provisions of the "Carpetbagger" constitution of 1868, shifting power from the governor to the counties, with rural areas given disproportionate representation in the legislature. This shift enabled some of the creeping segregation, Jim Crow, and anti-Black laws gradually being passed by the legislature and local governments to be enshrined in the Constitution.
The poll tax (Article VI, section 8: "The Legislature shall have the power to make the payment of the capitation tax a prerequisite for voting") disenfranchised Black voters. Article XII, section 12, required racially segregated schools ("White and colored children shall not be taught in the same school"), and Article XVI, section 24, prohibited interracial marriage ("All marriages between a white person and a negro or between a white person and a person of negro descent to the fourth generation, inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited").
This volume includes the minutes of the 46-day convention, "convened at the Capitol, at Tallahassee, on Tuesday, June 9, 1885," and concludes with the adopted constitution. This constitution remained in place until 1968.
631 pages.
Edition + Condition: Front cover (self wrapper) LACKING; contents otherwise generally very good. Finely bound in three-quarter's leather and marbled paper-covered boards. The spine has raised bands and is stamped in gilt. A truly lovely period-style binding.
Publication: Tallahassee, FL: N. M. Bowen, State Printer, 1885.
Item No: #361632
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