constitutions, extended citizenship, the right of voting and bearing arms to black men, established public schools for all children in the state for the first time in its history, prohibited double jeopardy in legal proceedings, and protected the rights of property ownership for married women. Despite this, Southern Democrats, supported by the Northern Democratic Party, were vehemently opposed to any basic civil rights for black Mississippians (indeed, for black Southerners in general) regardless of their level of education or professional credentials. However, they acquiesced to the enactment of the 1868 constitution on the proviso that the U.S. Army's occupation of Mississippi, which prevented a violent Democratic takeover of the state, would end following a Democrat ascending to the U.S. presidency later in the year. However, this deal fell through as the Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant, won the U.S. presidential election of 1868 and was re-elected in 1872. When Mississippi was fully readmitted back into the United States in February 1870, it did so on the prerequisite specified by the U.S. Congress in the 1870 Act to admit the State of Mississippi, that the state not change or replace its 1868 constitution for the purpose of disenfranchising segments of its voting population, such as freed slaves. However, this agreement eventually went unheeded. In 1876, the Democrats regained the governorship and state legislature of Mississippi. In 1890, the 1868 constitution was replaced by a new constitution by a convention consisting overwhelmingly of white Democrats, which effectively disenfranchised African-American voters in the State of Mississippi for the next eight decades. The very first article of the post-war 1868 constitution was Article 1, also known as the Bill of Rights. Borrowing many tenets from the United States Bill of Rights, it specified the rights that all residents of the state held. Preamble The 1868 constitution's preamble stated the purpose of the constitution's creation and adoption, which was given as, the establishment and perpetuation of "justice", "public order", "right", "liberty" and "freedom": This differed from the wording of the 1890 state constitution that replaced it, in which any and all references to "justice", "public order", "liberty", "right" and "freedom" were completely and utterly removed from the preamble by the convention's delegates. The words "in Convention assembled" appear after "the people of Mississippi", to represent the fact that the constitution was not sent to the people of the state at large for their approval and