SEC. 1. The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same, and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever. SEC. 2. The legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or without paying the owners previous to their emancipation a full equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to the state from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States or territories, so long as any person of the same age or description shall be continued in slavery by the laws of this state: _Provided_, That such person or slave be the bona fide property of such emigrants: _And provided, also_, That laws may be passed to prohibit the introduction into this state of slaves who have committed high crimes in other states or territories. They shall have power to pass laws to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them, saving the rights of creditors, and preventing them from becoming a public charge. They shall have power to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide for them necessary food and clothing, to abstain from all injuries to them extending to life or limb, and, in case of their neglect or refusal to comply with the direction of such laws, to have such slave or slaves sold for the benefit of the owner or owners. SEC. 3. In the prosecution of slaves for crimes of higher grade than petit larceny, the legislature shall have no power to deprive them of an impartial trial by a petit jury. SEC. 4. Any person who shall maliciously dismember, or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offence had been committed on a free white person, and on the like proof, except in case of insurrection of such slave. _Free Negroes._ _Bill of Rights_, SEC. 23. Free negroes shall not be allowed to live in this state under any circumstances. ARTICLE VIII.—_Elections and Rights of Suffrage._ SEC. 1. Every male citizen of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in this state one year, and in the county, city, or town in which he may offer to vote, three months next preceding any election, shall have the qualifications of an elector, and be entitled to vote at all elections. And every male citizen of the United States, above the age aforesaid, who may be a resident of the state at the time this constitution shall be adopted, shall have the right of voting as aforesaid; but no such citizen or inhabitant shall be entitled to vote except in the county in which he shall actually reside at the time of the election. The Topeka Constitution. The following are the political features of the Topeka constitution: