ignorant and immoral and incapable of improvement, voting, as being detrimental to their party's interests and the well-being of the state. In addition, the Democrats did not want to adjust their policies to better suit the interests of the state's African American constituents, nor did they desire to abandon their bigoted views and see them treated with dignity and respect on an equal footing. As a result, total and massive African American disenfranchisement was the only option that the state's Democrats saw as being preferable to their party's interests. As J.B. Chrisman, a judge from Lincoln County, Mississippi remarked, in salutatory praise of the 1890 constitution, marginalizing and disenfranchising African Americans was seen as a kind of social badge of honor for Southern Democratic men: The State of Mississippi was not alone at the time for creating adopting entirely new constitutions specifically for the purpose of disenfranchising and marginalizing African-American voters. Other Southern U.S. states, such as South Carolina, under its Democratic governor Benjamin Ryan Tillman, created and adopted a new state constitution in 1895, five years after Mississippi did the same. As with Mississippi's 1890 constitution, the South Carolina constitution of 1895 is still in effect today. Oklahoma, which was not a state until 1907 (but where slavery had been practiced before the Thirteenth Amendment) adopted similar laws upon statehood. The convention that created the 1890 constitution consisted of 134 delegates, of which 133 were white. The fact there was only one black delegate was in stark contrast with the state population of Mississippi, which was nearly 58 percent African American. Convention president The convention's president was Sol S. Calhoon, a judge from Hinds County, Mississippi who was a member of the state's supreme court. Born in January 1838, Calhoon had been a newspaper editor before the American Civil War started. When the war broke out over the expansion of slavery into western U.S. territories, Calhoon joined the Confederate army and ultimately became a lieutenant colonel. Like most former Confederates and Democrats at the time, Calhoon was a fervent believer in patriarchal white supremacy and was vehemently opposed to any basic civil rights for African Americans. In 1890, Calhoon wrote a pamphlet entitled Negro Suffrage, where he outlined his opinions regarding African American voting in the state. Regarding African Americans, Calhoon stated his conviction that they had: Regarding African Americans voting in elections, Calhoon stated his firm opinion that: