2. He said that he knew of free colored men of respectability, probity, and merit, but that particular cases of merit did not justify a policy of letting free negroes vote. 3. He said some gentlemen contended that Tennessee should let them vote because North Carolina did. He pointed out in this connection that North Carolina and Tennessee were the only states in the Union that let the negroes vote, and that North Carolina was calling a convention that would disfranchise them. 4. He thought that the suffrage, being a conventional right, should be in the hands of those who possess the greatest degree of moral and intellectual cultivation. 5. He pointed out that the same argument that was being made in behalf of the free negroes would give the suffrage to women and children. 6. He did not think that because some negroes fought for American Independence in 1776, they were entitled to the suffrage.[64] July 15, Mr. Marr opposed giving the free negro the suffrage for the following reasons: 1. He did not think the convention of 1796 intended to give him the suffrage, and he opposed it now for that reason. 2. He maintained that black and white men could not live together on terms of equality; they must separate or one rule the other. 3. He contended that Tennessee did not have the power to emancipate her slaves; the Constitution of the United States prevented it. 4. He concluded that the voice of the people, the admonitions of prudence and the want of power, all directed that this convention should not give, nor attempt to give, negroes, mulattoes, or Indians the suffrage.[65] Mr. Newton Cannon of Williamson County, who was chairman of the committee of the whole, reported the constitution in its first form to the convention, July 25, 1834. Article II, Section 1, said: Every free man of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, being a citizen of the United States, and an inhabitant of the county of this state wherein he may offer his vote, six months immediately preceding the day of election, shall be entitled to vote for members of the General Assembly and other civil officers, for the county in which he may reside.[66] It is noticed that at this time the forces for suffrage for the free negro had won.