A question came up at the Henkel Square visit this weekend about the voting requirements in 1861. According to the state constitution of 1845, which is the constitution still in effect at the time of our event:
Every free male person who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall be a citizen of the United States, or who is at the time of the adoption of this Constitution by the Congress of the United States, a citizen of the Republic of Texas, and shall have resided in this State one year next preceding an election, and the last six months within the district, county, city or town, in which he offers to vote (Indians not taxes, Africans and descendants of Africans excepted), shall be deemed a qualified elector.