North Carolina History

nchistory

The Immigrant Voting Project and
New York University Law Students for Human Rights


Resident Noncitizen Voting in North Carolina:
A History

North Carolina, like many other early states, did not use the language of citizenship in her original suffrage provisions.  The Revolution-era Constitution of 1776 defined suffrage rights by reference to gender and property ownership, requiring a fifty-acre freehold in order to vote for state senators, and tax payment in order to vote for representatives to the state House of Commons:

“That all freemen, of the age of twenty-one years, who have been inhabitants of any one county within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election and possessed of a freehold within the same county of fifty acres of land for six months next before, and at the day of election, shall be entitled to vote for a member of the Senate…. That all freemen of the age of twenty-one Years, who have been inhabitants of any one county within this State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes shall be entitled to vote for members of the House of Commons for the county in which he resides…. That all persons possessed of a freehold in any town in this State, having a right of representation and also all freemen who have been inhabitants of any such town twelve mouths next before and at the day of election, and shall have paid public taxes, shall be entitled to vote for a member to represent such town in the House of Commons.”[1] 

During the early 19th century, North Carolina amended its Constitution to ensure that the vote would remain restricted to white men, adding a clause in 1835 providing that: “No free negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood, descended from negro ancestors, to the fourth generation inclusive, (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person,) shall vote for members of the senate or house of commons.”[2]  Not until 1856 did the state exhibit a concern with United States citizenship, amending the suffrage provisions of the Constitution again to read:

“Every free white man at the age of twenty-one years, being a native or naturalized citizen of the United States, and who has been an inhabitant of the State for twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes, shall be entitled to vote for a member of the senate for the district in which he resides.”[3]

 

 After 1856, North Carolina retained its U.S. citizenship requirement in subsequent Constitutions.[4]  The current suffrage provision derives from the Constitution of 1868, which eliminated the formal racial requirement, but retained the citizenship requirement, providing that, “Every male person born in the United States, and every male person who has been naturalized, twenty-one years old or upward, who shall have resided in this State twelve months next preceding the election, and thirty days in the county in which he offers to vote, shall be deemed an elector.”[5]  The current version, amended to include women, reads: “Every person born in the United States and every person who has been naturalized, 18 years of age, and possessing the qualifications set out in this Article, shall be entitled to vote at any election by the people of the State, except as herein otherwise provided.”[6] 

 

References 

[1] NORTH CAROLINA Const. of 1776, Art. VII-IX.

[2] NC Const of 1776, Amendment of 1835, Art. 1, Sec. 3.  Reproduced in Francis Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, 2796 (1909).

[3] NC Const of 1776, Amendment of 1856, Art. 1, Sec. 3.  Reproduced in Francis Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, 2799 (1909).

[4] It is unclear if there were pre-1856 statutes restricting suffrage on the basis of citizenship. 

[5] NC Const. of 1868, Art. VI, § 1.  Reproduced in Francis Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, 2814 (1909).

[6] NC Const. Art. VI, § 1.