The year 1875 marked an epoch in Negro education in Missouri. That year a new State constitution was adopted. This meant the beginning of a critical period in the school history of the State. In order to understand the educational trend of this period it is necessary to consider the political history of this and the preceding period. During the Civil War the State had been almost equally divided between the Union and the Confederate sympathizers; but the Union forces held control of the government. At the close of the war and while the feeling between the two factions was still very bitter, there were enacted very harsh laws[78] by which those who had sided with the South were not only disfranchised, but were also deprived of the right to practice law, to preach, or to teach. As the intense bitterness of the war died out there was strong agitation to restore the right of suffrage to the disfranchised citizens. In 1870[79] the Liberal Republicans gained control of the State with the result that there was passed the next year a law removing the restriction placed upon the southern element. In 1872 the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats united to defeat the Radical Republicans, and at the next election which took place in 1874 the Democratic Party came into full power. One of the first acts of the new administration was to call a constitutional convention which drew up a new State constitution which was ratified by the people in 1875. With the return to power of a party[80] which strongly favored local self-government, and which was supported to a great extent by those who but a few years before had been reported to have been opposed to the extension of their public school rights, it is not surprising that the progress of the public school system was for a time checked. In many districts the people had accepted the public schools but they had not become thoroughly reconciled to the system. In 1870 the local district school boards[81] were subordinate to the township boards of education. The clerk of the township board was both treasurer and recording secretary of all the school districts within his township. He was responsible to the county school superintendent and he made statistical reports to him as well as to the county clerks. The county school superintendents and the county clerks were in turn responsible to the State Superintendent of Schools. In 1874 the legislature[82] so changed the old statutes as to do away with county and township supervision. The office of county superintendent was abolished and each district became independent. Even the district board was deprived of some of its power and the right which it had to extend the school term and to levy money for new buildings was vested in the voters of the district. The new State constitution sanctioned tendency toward decentralization by providing[83] that the right of the people to local self-government should not be impaired.