Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James
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STEPHENSON, Mathew, statesman, born in Buckingham county, Virginia, about 1776; died after 1834. He removed to Washington county, Tennessee, and engaged in farming. The constitution of Tennessee, adopted in 1797, gave the right of suffrage to all free men. Under it free colored men voted until 1834, when a convention was called and a new constitution adopted, which deprived them of the right. In that convention the party in favor of restricting the suffrage was boldly opposed by twenty members; thirty-eight voted for the restriction. Mathew Stephenson led the liberal element. All those that voted with him were natives of slave states, while every native of a free state voted against every proposition looking toward the freedom of the slave. The friends of liberty sought to have fixed by the constitution a period beyond which slavery should not exist in the state, placing the period in 1866. The points that they made were defended by the Liberals with great power and earnestness, and the journal of the convention shows an advanced sentiment among these men, of whom Mr. Stephenson was the admitted leader.
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