This last stage in the disfranchisement process--the disqualification of negroes by ingenious constitutional and statutory provisions--was hastened by the rise during the eighties and nineties of the radical or Populist party in the South, which evenly balanced the Democratic party in many places and threatened for a time to disintegrate the older organization. In this contest between the white factions a small number of active negroes secured an extraordinary influence in holding the balance of power; and both white parties sought to secure predominance by purchasing the venal negro vote which was as large as, or perhaps larger than, the venal white vote in such northern states as Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Indiana. The conservative wing of the white population was happy to take advantage of the prevailing race prejudice to secure the enactment of legislation disfranchising a considerable number of the propertyless whites as well as the negroes; and the radicals grew tired of buying negro voters. Out of this condition of affairs came a series of constitutional conventions which devised all sorts of restrictions to exclude the negroes and large numbers of the "lower classes" from voting altogether, without directly violating the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution providing against disfranchisement on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The series of conventions opened in Mississippi in 1890, where the Populistic whites were perhaps numerically fewest. At that time Mississippi was governed under the constitution of 1868, which provided that no property or educational test should be required of voters, at least not before 1885, and also stipulated that no amendment should be made except by legislative proposal ratified by the voters. Notwithstanding this provision, the legislature in February, 1890, called a convention to amend the constitution "or enact a new constitution." This convention proceeded to "ordain and establish" a new frame of government, without referring it to the voters for ratification; and the courts of the state set judicial sanction on the procedure, saying that popular ratification was not necessary. This constitution provides that every elector shall, in addition to possessing other qualifications, "be able to read any section of the constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same when read to him or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof." Under such a general provision everything depends upon the attitude of the election officials toward the applicants for registration, for it is possible to disfranchise any person, no matter how well educated, by requiring the "interpretation" of some obscure and technical legal point.