African American Suffrage in The Constitution of 1851
On August 4, 1851, Indiana voters ratified the new constitution in a referendum. Article 2, Section 5, as approved, read: "No Negro or Mulatto shall have the right of suffrage." The 1851 document also contained an article, adopted as a separate question by voters in the referendum, barring new African American immigration into the state. May opposed the immigration ban and May's home county of Steuben was one of only three of Indiana's 92 counties to vote against excluding African Americans from the state.
Read more about this topic: Edward Ralph May
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