Constitution of Rhode Island

At nearly two centuries old, the document essentially restricted voting rights to a very small population of elite, rural, landowning native-born white males.

Although the rebellion was led by middle-class urban white males, it forced conservative leaders in Rhode Island to consider the larger question of expansion of suffrage.

They were joined by whites including Crawford Allan, future governor James Y. Smith, reformer Thomas Robinson Hazard, and The Providence Journal editor Henry Bowen Anthony.

[citation needed] Article II, Section 1 of the 1842 constitution continued the requirement of the royal charter which held that only landowners with $134 in property could vote.

[6] In 1984, Rhode Island voters approved a referendum proposal to call a new Constitutional Convention, which was elected in November 1985 and convened in January 1986.

The 1984 constitution begins by declaring that the people of the state are "grateful to Almighty God" and are "looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors to secure and to transmit the same, unimpaired, to succeeding generations".