Virginia was inconsistent and uncandid. By the Declaration of Rights prefixed to her Constitution it was announced that “ALL MEN, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with and attachment to the community, have the right of suffrage,” without distinction of color; and it is added, that they “_cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent_ or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner assented for the public good.” This was entirely worthy of the eminent citizens who adorned that State. But a subsequent provision of the Constitution preserved the right of suffrage “as exercised at present”: thus embodying, without naming, the legislative exclusion of free negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, “although such persons be freeholders.” This discreditable manœuvre becomes more notable in view of an incident in the early history of Virginia, curious and important, and also applicable to all the States during their colonial existence. It was on the enactment of a statute in 1723, “that no free negro, mulatto, or Indian whatsoever shall hereafter have any vote at the election of burgesses, or any other election whatsoever,”[158] when the tyranny here manifest was rebuked with unexpected plainness. The legal authority in England, to whom this colonial statute was submitted for review and approval, reported, in admirable words:-- “I cannot see why one freeman should be used worse than another _merely upon account of his complexion_.… To vote at elections of officers, either for a county or parish, &c., is incident to every freeman who is possessed of a certain amount of property.”[159] Georgia was fitful. By her Constitution of 1777, in existence immediately anterior to the National Constitution, suffrage was confined to “male _white_ inhabitants.” But a Constitution adopted May 6, 1789, and another adopted May 30, 1798, accorded suffrage to “citizens and inhabitants,” with certain specified qualifications, but without the word “white.”