Illinois State Constitution Granting Suffrage to African American Men, Original Printing of the New Constitution, 1870

Illinois State Legislature

First Edition

[African American][Voting Rights] New Constitution for the State of Illinois. 1870 printing of the Illinois Constitution ratified after the Civil War documents Reconstruction-era legal reform in a Midwestern state that had previously enforced restrictive Black Codes despite its status as a free state. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the Illinois Constitution of 1848 had proven inadequate to address rapid railroad expansion, industrialization, immigration, and intensifying debates over suffrage. Illinois had been among the Midwestern states that denied voting rights to African American residents and had enforced statutes permitting the sale of free Black individuals unable to prove their status. Following the repeal of the state’s Black Code provisions after 1865, voters authorized a new constitutional convention in 1869. Meeting for ninety-five days with evenly divided Democratic and Republican delegations, the convention produced the 1870 Constitution, which granted voting rights to Black men and restructured state governance in response to wartime and postwar transformation.

New Constitution for the State of Illinois. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1870. Presented by the Sangamo Insurance Company. Octavo (approximately 5.5 x 8.5 inches). 32 pages. Printed gray wrappers. The 1870 Constitution expanded provisions governing public education, transportation infrastructure, taxation, and corporate regulation, particularly of railroads, reflecting the economic centrality of industrial capital and internal improvements in the postwar Midwest. It affirmed the property tax as the chief source of state revenue, strengthened gubernatorial authority, limited legislative power, and reformed the judicial system. The document remained the governing constitution of Illinois for a century, shaping state political structure through the Progressive Era and into the late twentieth century. Chipping to wrapper edges; front wrapper separated; rear wrapper attached; binding tight; interior clean. Overall good condition. Reconstruction-era state constitution marking the formal extension of Black male suffrage and the reorganization of Midwestern governance after the Civil War.

Item #19359

Price: $2,200.00