Joint Resolution No. 42 of 1869

Article IV

Sec. 3: The House of Representatives shall consist of not less than sixty-four, nor more than one hundred members. Representatives shall be chosen for two years, and by single districts. Each representative district shall contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of white inhabitants, and civilized persons of Indian descent, not exclusive of persons of Indian descent, who are not civilized, or are members of any tribe, and shall consist of convenient and contiguous territory.; but no township or city shall be divided in the formation of a representative district. When any township or city shall contain a population which entitles it to more than one representative, then such township or city shall elect, by general ticket, the number of representatives to which it is entitled. Each county hereafter organized, with such territory as may be attached thereto, shall be entitled to a separate representative, when it has attained a population equal to a moiety of the ratio of representation. In every county entitled to more than one representative, the board of supervisors shall assemble at such time and place as the Legislature shall prescribe, and divide the same into representative districts, equal to the number of representatives to which such county is entitled by law, and shall cause to be filed in the offices of the Secretary of State and clerk of such county, a description of such representative districts, specifying the number of each district, and the population thereof, according to the last preceding enumeration.

Sec. 4: The Legislature shall provide by law for an enumeration of the inhabitants in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-four, and every ten years thereafter; and at the first session after each enumeration so made, and also at the first session after each enumeration by the authority of the United States, the Legislature shall re-arrange the Senate districts, and apportion anew the representatives among the counties and districts, according to the number of white inhabitants, and civilized persons of Indian descent, not exclusive of persons of Indian descent, who are not civilized, or are members of any tribe. Each apportionment, and the division into representative districts, by any board of supervisors, shall remain unaltered until the return of another enumeration.

Article VII

Sec. 1: In all elections, every white male citizen, every white male inhabitant, residing in the State on the twenty-fourth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five; every white male inhabitant residing in the State on the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, who has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, pursuant to the laws thereof, six months preceding an election, or who has resided in the this State two years and six months, and declared his intention as aforesaid, and every civilized male inhabitant of Indian descent, a native of the United States, and not a member of any tribe, shall be an elector and entitled to vote; but no citizen or inhabitant shall be an elector, or entitled to vote at any election, unless he shall be above the age of twenty-one years, and has resided in the this State three months, and in the township or ward in which he offers to vote, ten days next preceding such election: Provided, That in time of war, insurrection or rebellion, no qualified elector in the actual military service of the United States, or of this State, in the army or navy thereof, shall be deprived of his vote by reason of his absence from the township, ward or State in which he resides; and the Legislature shall have the power, and shall provide the manner in which, and the time and place at which such absent electors may vote, and for the canvass and return of their votes to the township, or ward election district, in which they respectively reside, or otherwise.

Article XVII

Sec. 1: The militia shall be composed of all able -bodied white male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, except such as are exempted by the laws of the United States, or of this State; but all such citizens, of any religious denomination whatever, who, from scruples of conscience, may be averse to bearing arms, shall be excused therefrom, upon such conditions as shall be prescribed by law.

Sources

• Joint Resolution No. 42 of 1869 (PDF)
• Acts of the Legislature of the State of Michigan Passed at the Regular Session of 1869, pp. 425–428 (HathiTrust)
• Michigan Official Directory and Legislative Manual, 1909-1910, p. 553 (HathiTrust)