Page:The Federal and state constitutions vol1.djvu/375

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Arkansas—1874
333

a qualified elector and entitled to vote, if registered, unless disqualified by some one of the clauses of section one of this article.

Sec. 3. In all elections by the people the electors shall vote by ballot. The secrecy of the ballot shall be preserved inviolate, and the General Assembly shall provide laws for that purpose. On the day of an election held by the people no elector shall be subject to arrest or any civil process. The General Assembly shall pass adequate laws to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors on the day on which any election by the people may be held.

[Submitted to the people for ratification March 3, 1873, and declared ratified by proclamation of the Governor April 19, 1873. The act of January 23, 1873, providing for the submission of the amendment, declared that if the amendment should be ratified, it should be substituted and known as Article VIII.]


CONSTITUTION OF ARKANSAS—1874[1][2]

PREAMBLE

We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of Government; for our civil and religious liberty; and desiring to perpetuate its blessings and secure the same to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.

Article I
BOUNDARIES

We do declare and establish, ratify and confirm the following as the permanent boundaries of the State of Arkansas, that is to say: Beginning at the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi River, on the parallel of thirty-six degrees of north latitude, running thence west with said parallel of latitude to the middle of the main channel of the Saint Francis River; thence up the main channel of said last-named river to the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes of north latitude; thence west with the southern boundary-line of the State of Missouri to the southwest corner of said last-named State; thence to be bounded on the west to the north bank of Red River, as by act of Congress and treaties existing January 1, eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, defining the western limits of the Territory of Arkansas, and to be bounded across and south of Red River by the boundary-line of the State of Texas as far as to the northwest corner of the State of Louisiana; thence easterly with the northern boundary-line of said last-named State to the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi River; thence up the middle of the main channel of said last-named river, including an island in said river known as “Belle Point Island,” and all other land originally surveyed and included as a part of the Territory or State of Arkansas to the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude, the place of beginning.


  1. Verified from Judge Rose’s edition of the Constitution of Arkansas, 1836, pp. 18–144.
  2. This constitution was framed by a convention which assembled July 14, 1874. It was submitted to the people and ratified October 13, 1874. See bibliography.
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