Page:The Federal and state constitutions v5.djvu/309

Rh instruments, or any other personal property, to a value not exceeding three hundred dollars.

The taxes levied by the commissioners of the several counties for county purposes shall be levied in like manner with the State taxes, and shall never exceed the double of the State tax, except for a special purpose, and with the special approval of the General Assembly.

Every act of the General Assembly levying a tax shall state the special object to which it is to be applied, and it shall be applied to no other purpose.

Every male person born in the United States, and every male person who has been naturalized, twenty-one years of age, and possessing the qualifications set out in this Article, shall be entitled to vote at any election by the people in the State, except as herein otherwise provided.

He shall have resided in the State of North Carolina for two years, in the county six months, and in the precinct, ward or other election district, in which he offers to vote, four months next preceding the election: Provided, that removal from one precinct, ward or other election district, to another in the same county, shall not operate to deprive any person of the right to vote in the precinct, ward or other election district from which he has removed until four months after such removal. No person who has been convicted, or who has confessed his guilt in open Court upon indictment, of any crime, the punishment of which now is, or may hereafter be imprisonment in the State's Prison shall be permitted to vote unless the said person shall be first restored to citizenship in the manner prescribed by law.

Every person offering to vote shall be at the time a legally registered voter as herein prescribed and in the manner hereafter provided by law, and the General Assembly of North Carolina shall enact general registration laws to carry into effect the provisions of this article.

Every person presenting himself for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language; and before he shall be entitled to vote, he shall have paid, on or before the first day of May of the year in which he proposes to vote, his poll tax for the previous year as prescribed by Article V, sec. 1, of the Constitution. But no male person who was on January 1, 1867, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under the laws of any State in the United States wherein he then resided, and no lineal descendant of any such person shall be denied the right to register and vote at any election in this State by reason of his failure to possess the educational qualifications herein prescribed: Provided, he shall have registered in accordance with the terms of this section prior to December 1, 1908. The General Assembly shall provide for the registration of all persons entitled to vote without the educational qualifications herein prescribed, and shall, on or before November 1,