Five years later South Carolina followed the example of Mississippi, and by means of a state convention enacted a new constitution disfranchising negroes; and put it into force without submitting it to popular ratification.[2] The next year (1896) the legislature of Louisiana called a convention empowered to frame a new constitution and to put it into effect without popular approval. This movement was opposed by the Populists, one of whom declared in the legislature that it was "a step in the direction of taking the government of this state out of the hands of the masses and putting it in the hands of the classes." In spite of the opposition, which was rather formidable, the convention was assembled, and ordained a new frame of government (1898) disfranchising negroes and many whites. The Hon. T. J. Symmes, addressing the convention at the close, frankly stated that their purpose was to establish the supremacy of the Democratic party as the white man's party. Four principal devices are now employed in the several constitutional provisions disfranchising negroes: (1) a small property qualification, (2) a prerequisite that the voter must be able to read any section of the state constitution or explain it, when read, to the satisfaction of the registering officers, (3) the "grandfather clause," as in Louisiana where any person, who voted on or before 1867 or the son or grandson of such person, may vote, even if he does not possess the other qualifications; and (4) the wide extension of disfranchisement for crimes by including such offenses as obtaining money under false pretenses, adultery, wife-beating, petit larceny, fraudulent breach of trust, among those which work deprivation of the suffrage. The effect of these limitations on the colored vote has been to reduce it seriously in the far South. If the negro has the amount of taxable property required by the constitution, he is caught by the provision which requires him to explain a section of the state constitution to the satisfaction of the white registering officers. The meanest white, however, can usually get through the net with the aid of his grandfather, or by showing his expertness in constitutional law. Mr. J. C. Rose has published the election statistics for South Carolina and Mississippi;[3] it appears that in those states there were, in 1900, about 350,796 adult male negroes and that the total Republican vote in both commonwealths in the national election of that year was only 5443. At a rough guess perhaps 2000 votes of this number were cast by white men, and the conclusion must be that about ninety-nine out of every hundred negroes failed to vote for President in those states. It is fair to state, however, that indifference on the part of the negroes was to some extent responsible for the small vote.