Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/331

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  • gan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma,

Washington, and Wisconsin exclude tribal Indians, or, what is perhaps the same, Indians not taxed.

All States exclude from the suffrage those who have been convicted of certain crimes; that is, those who may have served out their terms of imprisonment, but who have not been restored to their civil rights by the executive department of the State. Treason and felonies like embezzlement and bribery are the crimes most frequently mentioned. One finds here a possible race distinction. The Southern States have greatly added to the list of crimes which operate as an exclusion from the suffrage. By the Constitution of Alabama of 1875, for instance, the following were excluded from suffrage: Those convicted of treason, embezzlement of public funds, malfeasance in office, larceny, bribery, or ony other crime punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary. The last Constitution of Alabama is more specific; it mentions the following crimes as having the effect of excluding from the suffrage those convicted of them: Treason, murder, arson, embezzlement, malfeasance in office, larceny, receiving stolen property, obtaining property or money under false pretenses, perjury, subornation of perjury, robbery, assault with intent to rob, burglary, forgery, bribery, assault and battery on wife, bigamy, living in adultery, sodomy, incest, rape, miscegenation, crime against nature, or any crime punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, or of any infamous crime or crimes involving moral turpitude; also any person who shall be convicted as a vagrant or tramp, or of selling or offering to sell his vote or the vote of another, or of making or offering to make false