The suffrage clauses are of particular interest, as they accomplish the practical disfranchisement of the negroes. The constitution requires that a voter must (in addition to other qualifications) either be able to show conclusively ability to read and write, or be the owner of property within the state assessed at not less than $300, on which, if personalty, all taxes are paid. But it excepts from these requirements--thus letting down the bars for illiterate whites excluded with negroes by the foregoing clauses--persons who were entitled to vote in some state on or before the 1st of January 1867 (i.e. before the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution); also the sons or grandsons of such voters, not under 21 years of age, on the 12th of May 1898; and males of foreign birth who have resided in the state for five years next preceding the date of application for registration and who were naturalized prior to 1898. The constitution provides that no person less than 60 years of age shall be permitted to vote unless he has paid an annual poll-tax of one dollar for the two years next preceding the year in which he offers to vote. Convicts not pardoned with an explicit restoration of suffrage privileges are disfranchised--a rare clause in the United States. Suffrage was by this constitution first extended to women tax-payers in questions "submitted to the tax-payers, as such." The creation of a railroad commission was ordered and the preparation of a code of criminal law.