It is worthy of note that by legislative act, approved February 10th, 1821, elections in this state were held _viva voce_, but this act remained in force only until June 13th, 1822, the date of the act repealing it, since which time they have been by ballot; since 1869 the constitutions have required them to be so. In truth there is no record of an election held _viva voce_ under the law of 1821, though the election held on the 1st Monday of August, 1821, under Sec. 6, Art. 3 of the first constitution must have been so held. Of course the laws passed under the constitution of 1817 on the subject of state and county elections conformed their provisions, defining who should have the right of franchise to the terms fundamental law on the subject and, as we have seen, the legislature excluded criminals from the right to vote, but the lawmakers of that day by no means confined themselves to the constitutional qualifications when they came to prescribe who should be entitled to vote in municipal elections; for instance, we see that "citizens of the town" were made voters in Shieldsborough (Now Bay St. Louis) in 1818, in Greenville (Jefferson county) in 1819, and in Holmesville in 1820; and "citizens of one month's residence" were allowed to vote on the subject of the location of the Madison County court house by act approved 1829, and "free white male citizens of the town above the age of twenty-one years" were made voters by act incorporating Pearlington, passed in 1822, and in the same year "free citizens resident in the town" were made voters in Columbus. In 1821 "free white male inhabitants, resident of the town, twenty-one years of age and upwards" were authorized to vote in Monticello, and in 1831 in Warrenton; and in 1824 such residents of the county were authorized to vote on the location of the county seat of Warren County. By act of 1821 "every free white male person, twenty-one years old or upwards, an inhabitant of the town for six months and who had been assessed and paid a town tax within a year," were allowed to vote in municipal election at Port Gibson, and so too were the owners of land in that town, if the land had been assessed and taxes paid on it, whether the owner resided in the corporate limits or elsewhere; and I am advised the law of that town so remained until after the war; the idea has been adopted by several municipalities of the state in later days. By the early charters of Vicksburg, approved 1825, and Rodney, approved 1828, suffrage was conferred on "landholders, householders, freeholders and such as shall have paid a town tax, being inhabitants and residents for three months in the town."