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sand eight hundred and forty-eight, or obtained a certificate of naturalization, before any court of record in this state, prior to the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy, or who shall be a male citizen of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, shall be entitled to vote at such election.

§ 2. All votes shall be by ballot.

3. Electors shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at elections, and in going to and returning from the same. And no elector shall be obliged to do military duty on the days of election, except in time of war or public danger.

§ 4. No elector shall be deemed to have lost his residence in this state by reason of his absence on the business of the United States, or of this state, or in the military or naval service of the United States.

§ 5. No soldier, seaman or marine in the army or navy of the United States, shall be deemed a resident of this State in consequence of being stationed therein.

§ 6. No person shall be elected or appointed to any office in this State, civil or military, who is not a citizen of the United States, and who shall not have resided in this State one year next preceding the election or appointment.

§ 7. The general assembly shall pass laws excluding from the right of suffrage persons convicted of infamous crimes.

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§ 1. The general assembly shall provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools, whereby all children of this State may receive a good common school education.

§ 2. All lands, moneys, or other property, donated, granted or received for school, college, seminary or university pur

poses, and the proceeds thereof, shall be faithfully applied to the objects for which such gifts or grants were made.

§ 3. Neither the general assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the state, or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian purpose.

§ 4. No teacher, state, county, township, or district school officer shall be interested in the sale, proceeds or profits of any book, apparatus or furniture, used or to be used, in any school in this State, with which such officer or teacher may be connected, under such penalties as may be provided by the general assembly.

§ 5. There may be a county superintendent of schools in each county whose qualifications, powers, duties, compensation, and time and manner of election, and term of office, shall be prescribed by law.

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§ 1. The general assembly shall provide such revenue as may be needful by levying a tax, by valuation, so that every person and corporation shall pay a tax in proportion to the value of his, her, or its property-such value to be ascertained by some person or persons, to be elected or appointed in such manner as the general assembly shall direct, and not otherwise; but

the general assembly shall have power to tax pedlers, auctioneers, brokers, hawkers, merchants, commission merchants, showmen, jugglers, inn-keepers, grocery-keepers, liquor-dealers, toll-bridges, ferries, insurance, telegraph and express interests or business, venders of patents, and persons or corporations owning or using franchises and privileges, in such man ner as it shall, from time to time, direct by general law, uniform as to the class upon which it operates.

§ 2. The specification of the objects and subjects of taxation shall not deprive the general assembly of the power to require other subjects or objects to be taxed, in such manner as may be consistent with the principles of taxation fixed in this constitution.

8 3. The property of the state, counties, and other municipal corporations, both real and personal, and such other property, as may be used exclusively for agricultural and horticultural societies, for school, religious, cemetery and charitable purposes, may be exempted from taxation; but such exemption shall be only by general law. In the assessment of real estate incumbered by public easement, any depreciation occasioned by such easement may be deducted in the valuation of such property.

§ 4. The general assembly shall provide, in all cases where it may be necessary to sell real estate for the non-payment of taxes or special assessments, for state, county, municipal, or other purposes, that a return of such unpaid taxes or assessments shall be made to some general officer, of the county, having authority to receive state and county taxes; and there shall be no sale of said property for any of said taxes or assessments but by said officer, upon the order or judgment of some court of record.

§ 5. The right of redemption from all sales of real estate, for the non-payment of taxes or special assessments of any character, whatever, shall exist in favor of owners and persons interested in such real estate, for a period of not less than two years from such sales thereof. And the general assembly shall provide, by law, for reasonable notice to be given to the owners or parties interested, by publication or otherwise, of the

fact of the sale of the property for such taxes or assessments, and when the time of redemption shall expire: Provided, that occupants shall in all cases be served with personal notice before the time of redemption expires.

§ 6. The general assembly shall have no power to release or discharge any county, city, township, town or district, whatever, or the inhabitants thereof, or the property therein, from their or its proportionate share of taxes to be levied for state purposes, nor shall commutation for such taxes be authorized in any form whatsoever.

§ 7. All taxes levied for state purposes shall be paid into the state treasury.

§ 8. County authorities shall never assess taxes, the aggregate of which shall exceed seventy-five cents per one hundred dollars valuation, except for the payment of indebtedness existing at the adoption of this constitution, unless authorized by a vote of the people of the county.

§ 9. The general assembly may vest the corporate authorities of cities, towns, and villages, with power to make local improvements by special assessment or by special taxation of contiguous property, or otherwise. For all other corporate purposes, all municipal corporations may be vested with authority to assess and collect taxes; but such taxes shall be uniform in respect to persons and property, within the jurisdiction of the body imposing the same.

§ 10. The general assembly shall not impose taxes upon municipal corporations, or the inhabitants or property thereof, for corporate purposes, but shall require that all the taxable property within the limits of municipal corporations shall be taxed for the payment of debts contracted under authority of law, such taxes to be uniform in respect to persons and property, within the jurisdiction of the body imposing the same. Private property shall not be liable to be taken or sold for the payment of the corporate debts of a municipal corporation.

§ 11. No person who is in default, as collector or custodian of money or property belonging to a municipal corporation shall be eligible to any office in or under such corporation. The fees, salary or compensation of no municipal officer who

is elected or appointed for a definite term of office, shall be increased or diminished during such term.

§ 12. No county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall be allowed to become indebted in any manner or for any purpose, to an amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assessment for state and county taxes, previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. Any county, city, school district, or other municipal corporation, incurring any indebtedness as aforesaid, shall before, or at the time of doing so, provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on such debt, as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within twenty years from the time of contracting the same. This section shall not be construed to prevent any county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation, from issuing their bonds in compliance with any vote of the people which may have been had prior to the adoption of this constitution in pursuance of any law providing therefor.

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ARTICLE X.

COUNTIES.

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1. No new county shall be formed or established by the general assembly, which will reduce the county or counties, or either of them, from which it shall be taken, to less contents than four hundred square miles; nor shall any county be formed of less contents; nor shall any line thereof pass within less than ten miles of any county seat of the county or counties proposed to be divided.

§ 2. No county shall be divided, or have any part stricken therefrom, without submitting the question to a vote of the peo

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