That portion of the present State of Mississippi and that part of Alabama lying between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee rivers, and bounded on the south by the thirty-first parallel of latitude and on the north by a line drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo river, was organized into the Mississippi Territory in pursuance of an act of Congress, approved April 7, 1798. Afterwards, in 1804, the country lying south of the State of Tennessee and north of the original Mississippi Territory was added; and in 1812 that portion of the present States of Alabama and Mississippi lying south of the thirty-first degree of latitude was annexed. Mississippi became a state in 1817 and Alabama was then separated from it. This historic statement at the outset will explain why several matters pertaining to suffrage in municipalities not now in the state, are hereafter mentioned. The organic law of the Territory enacted that the people thereof should "be entitled to and enjoy all and singular the rights, privileges and advantages granted to the people of the territory of the United States, northwest of the river Ohio in and by the ordinance of the thirteenth day of July in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, in as full and ample a manner as the same are possessed and enjoyed by the people of the said last mentioned Territory," and thus in our investigation of the subject we are led to examine the ordinance referred to, and which we find in the statutes entitled, "An ordinance for the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio," to see if it contains any provision relative to suffrage. We find it, and the words of this celebrated ordinance are as follows. "So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age, in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships, to represent them in the general assembly; provided that for every five hundred free male inhabitants, there shall be one representative, and so on progressively with the number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representation increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five; after which the number, and proportion of representatives shall be regulated by the legislature; Provided that no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative, unless he shall have been a citizen of the United States three years, and be a resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the district three years, and in either case, shall likewise hold in his own right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of land within the same; Provided also, that a freehold of fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the states, and being resident in the district, or the like freehold, and two years residence in the district shall be necessary to qualify a man as an