derived its authority from the first Constitution of the State.

The act recommending a convention of the people of this State,
passed March 13, 1821. Session Laws of 1821, act 90, page 83,
sec. 1. "Persons entitled to vote":

All free male citizens, of the age of twenty-one years or
upward, who shall possess a freehold in this State, or who
shall have been actually rated and paid taxes to this State,
or who shall have been actually enrolled in the militia of
this State, or in a legal, volunteer, or uniform corps, and
shall have served therein either as an officer or private,
or who shall have been or now are, by law, exempt from
taxation or militia duty, or who shall have been assessed to
work on the public roads and highways, and shall have worked
thereon, or shall have paid a commutation therefor according
to law, shall be allowed during the three days of such
election to vote by ballot as aforesaid in the town or ward
in which they shall actually reside.

Extract from Sec. 6th, Act 90:

And be it further enacted, that the number of delegates to
be chosen shall be the same as the number of Members of
Assembly from the respective cities and counties of this
State, and that the same qualification for voters shall be
required on the election for delegates, as is prescribed in
the first section of this act, and none other.... And that
all persons entitled to vote by this law for delegates,
shall be eligible to be elected.

Extracts from the first Constitution of the State of New York,
under and by virtue of which the Legislatures sat, which passed
the acts of 1801 and 1821, from which the extracts above are
taken. Sec. 7. Qualification of electors:

That every male inhabitant of full age, who shall have
personally resided for six months within one of the counties
of this State, immediately preceding the day of election,
shall at such election be entitled to vote for
representatives of the said county in Assembly, if during
the time aforesaid, he shall have been a freeholder
possessing a freehold of the value of L20, within the said
county, or have rented a tenement therein of a yearly valu