Why was the 1868 constitution rejected by the voters?

The Constitution of the State of Mississippi, also known as the Mississippi Constitution, is the governing document for theU. S. state of Mississippi. It describes and enumerates the structures and functions of the Mississippian state government and lists the rights and privileges that are held by the state's residents and citizens. It was adopted on November 1, 1890.

Throughout its existence as a U. S. state, Mississippi has had four state-level constitutions. The first one was created in 1817, upon Mississippi's ascension from a U. S. territory to that of a U. S. state. It was used until 1832, when the second constitution was created and adopted to end property ownership as a prerequisite for voting, which was limited to white men in the state at the time. The third constitution, adopted in 1868 and ratified the following year, was the first Mississippian constitution to be approved and ratified by the people of the state at large and bestowed state citizenship to all of the state's residents, namely newly freed slaves. The fourth constitution was adopted in November 1890 and was created by a convention consisting mostly of Democratsin order to prevent the state's African American citizens from voting. The provisions preventing them from voting were repealed in 1975, after the United States Supreme Court in the 1960s had ruled them to have violated the tenets of the Constitution of the United States.

The current Mississippian state constitution has been amended and updated several times in the more than twelve decades since its original adoption in November 1890, with some sections being changed or repealed altogether. The most recent modification to have been made to the state's constitution occurred in June 2013.