ratification, whereas the 1868 one was: Citizenship The very first section of the state constitution's Bill of Rights section determined who was a citizen of the state. The section declared that "all persons" who lived within the borders of the State of Mississippi were its citizens. This extended citizenship to all persons who lived in the state, regardless of their gender or color: Slavery With the defeat of the Confederacy at the hands of the Union in the American Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified to outlaw slavery throughout the United States. As a result, the 1868 constitution of Mississippi was the state's first one to ban slavery throughout the state: History The current constitution of Mississippi was adopted on November 1, 1890, having replaced the 1868 constitution that had been adopted and ratified following the end of the American Civil War to bestow freedoms and civil rights upon newly freed slaves. Drafting On February 5, 1890, the Democratic-dominated Mississippi Legislature voted to call a convention to replace the 1868 constitution. On March 11, 1890, Mississippi's Democratic governor, John M. Stone, declared that on July 29 an election was to be held to select delegates to attend the constitutional convention, which would begin in August. However, as the state government was solidly controlled by the Democrats by this point, the result of the delegate election was that of the constitutional convention's 134 delegates that were elected, 133 were white, and only one was African American, despite the state having a majority African-American population of 58 percent. During the convention, which took place in Jackson and began on August 12, 1890, running through November 1, several issues were discussed, ranging from the construction of levees in the flood-prone Mississippi Delta to the regulations of railroads. However, the most important issue, indeed, the primary cause, catalyst and reasoning for why the convention had been called into being in the first place, were the implementation of "literacy tests" and "poll taxes" as prerequisites for voting, the intended subjective enforcement of which would disenfranchise virtually nearly every African American in the state for decades. This was something that did not exist under the 1868 constitution. Although the wording mandating the tests ostensibly implied that they were to be applied equally to all persons, the convention desired to subjectively enforce these literacy tests and poll taxes to prevent African Americans voters from casting ballots.