The Constitution of the State of Mississippi, also known as
the Mississippi Constitution, is the governing document for theU.S.
state of Mississippi. It describes and enumerates the structures and
functions of the Mississippian state government and lists the rights and
privileges that are held by the state's residents and citizens. It was
adopted on November 1, 1890.
Throughout its existence as a U.S.
state, Mississippi has had four state-level constitutions. The first one
was created in 1817, upon Mississippi's ascension from a U.S. territory
to that of a U.S. state. It was used until 1832, when the second
constitution was created and adopted to end property ownership as a
prerequisite for voting, which was limited to white men in the state at
the time. The third constitution, adopted in 1868 and ratified the
following year, was the first Mississippian constitution to be approved
and ratified by the people of the state at large and bestowed state
citizenship to all of the state's residents, namely newly freed slaves.
The fourth constitution was adopted in November 1890 and was created by a
convention consisting mostly of Democratsin order to prevent the
state's African American citizens from voting. The provisions preventing
them from voting were repealed in 1975, after the United States Supreme
Court in the 1960s had ruled them to have violated the tenets of the
Constitution of the United States.
The current Mississippian state
constitution has been amended and updated several times in the more
than twelve decades since its original adoption in November 1890, with
some sections being changed or repealed altogether. The most recent
modification to have been made to the state's constitution occurred in
June 2013.
