Chapter IX: Section 1: That all men are by nature equally free and (4)

(c) Private family burying grounds not exceeding one acre in area, reserved as such by will or deed or shown by other sufficient evidence to be reserved as such, and so exclusively used, and public burying grounds and lots therein exclusively used for burial purposes, and not conducted for profit, whether owned or managed by local authorities or by private corporations.

(d) Buildings with the land they actually occupy and the furniture, furnishings, books and instruments therein, wholly devoted to educational purposes, belonging to, and actually and exclusively occupied and used by churches, public libraries, incorporated colleges, academies, industrial schools, seminaries, or other incorporated institutions of learning, including the Virginia Historical Society, which are not corporations having shares of stock or otherwise owned by individuals or other corporations, together with such additional adjacent land owned by such churches, libraries and educational institutions as may be reasonably necessary for the convenient use of such buildings, respectively, and also the buildings thereon used as residences by the officers or instructors of such educational institutions, and also the permanent endowment funds held by such libraries and educational institutions directly or in trust, and not invested in real estate provided, that such libraries and educational institutions are not conducted for profit of any person or persons, natural or corporate directly or under any guise or pretence whatsoever. But the exemption mentioned in this sub section shall not apply to any industrial school, individual or corporate, not the property of the State, which does work for compensation, or manufactures and sells articles, in the community in which such school is located; provided, that nothing herein contained shall restrict any such school from doing work for or selling its own products or any other articles to any of its students or employees.

(e) Real estate belonging to, actually and exclusively occupied, and used by, and personal property, including endowment funds, belonging to Young Men's Christian Associations, and other similar religious associations, orphan or other asylums, reformatories, hospitals and nunneries, which are not conducted for profit, but purely and completely as charities.

(f) Buildings with the land they actually occupy, and the furniture and furnishings therein, belonging to any benevolent or charitable association and used exclusively for lodge purposes or meeting rooms by such association, together with such additional adjacent land as may be necessary for the convenient rise of the buildings for such purposes; and

(g) Property belonging to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union.

No inheritance tax shall be charged, directly or indirectly, against any legacy or devise made according to law for the benefit of any institution or other body or any natural or corporate person whose property is exempt from taxation as hereinbefore mentioned in this section.

Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to exempt from taxation the property of any person, firm, association or corporation, who shall, expressly or impliedly, directly or indirectly, contract or promise to pay any sum of money or other benefit, on account of death, sickness, or accident to any of its members or any other person; and whenever any building or land, or part thereof, mentioned in this section and not belonging to the State, shall be leased or shall be a source of revenue or profit, all of such buildings and land shall be liable to taxation as other land and buildings in the same county, city, or town; and nothing herein contained shall be construed as authorizing or requiring any county, city, or town to tax for county, city or town purposes, in violation of the rights of the lessees thereof existing under any lawful contract heretofore made, any real estate owned by such county, city or town, and heretofore leased by it.

Obligations issued by counties, cities, or towns may be exempted by the authorities of such localities from local taxation.

SEC. 184. No debt shall be contracted by the State except to meet casual deficits in the revenue, to redeem a previous liability of the State, to suppress insurrection, repel invasion, or defend the State in time of war. No scrip, certificate, or other evidence of state indebtedness, shall be issued except for the transfer or redemption of stock previously issued, or for such debts as are expressly authorized in this Constitution.

SEC. 185. Neither the credit of the State, nor of any county, city, or town, shall be, directly or indirectly, under any device or pretence whatsoever, granted to or in aid of any person, association, or corporation; nor shall the State, or any county, city, or town subscribe to or become interested in the stock or obligations of any company, association, or corporation, for the purpose of aiding in the construction or maintenance of its work; nor shall the State become a party to or become interested in any work of internal improvement, except public roads, or engaged in carrying on any such work; nor assume any indebtedness of any county, city, or town, nor lend its credit to the same; but this section shall not prevent a county, city or town from perfecting a subscription to the capital stock of a railroad company authorized by existing charter conditioned upon the affirmative vote of the voters and freeholders of such county, city or town in favor of such subscription: provided, that such vote be had prior to July first, nineteen hundred and three.

SEC. 186. All taxes, licenses, and other revenue of the State, shall be collected by its proper officers and paid into the state treasury. No money shall be paid out of the state treasury except in pursuance of appropriations made by law; and no such appropriation shall be made which is payable more than two years after the end of the session of the General Assembly, at which the law is enacted authorizing the same; and no appropriation shall be made for the payment of any debt or obligation created in the name of the State during the war between the Confederate States and the United States. Nor shall any county, city, or town pay any debt or obligation created by such county, city, or town in aid of said war.

SEC. 187. The General Assembly shall provide and maintain a sinking fund in accordance with the provisions of section Ten of the act, approved February the twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, entitled "an act to provide for the settlement of the public debt of Virginia not funded under the provisions of an act entitled an act to ascertain and declare Virginia's equitable share of the debt created before, and actually existing at the time of the partition of her territory and resources, and to provide for the issuance of bonds covering the same, and the regular and prompt payment of the interest theron, approved February the fourteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-two." Every law hereafter enacted by the General Assembly, creating a debt or authorizing a loan, shall provide for the creation and maintenance of a sinking fund for the payment or redemption of the same.

SEC. 188. No other or greater amount of tax or revenue shall, at any time, be levied than may be required for the necessary expenses of the government, or to pay the indebtedness of the State.

SEC. 189. On all lands and the improvements thereon, and on all tangible personal property, not exempt from taxation by the provision of this article, the rate of state taxation shall be twenty cents on every hundred dollars of the assessed value thereof, the proceeds of which shall be applied to the expenses of the government and the indebtedness of the State, and a further tax of ten cents on every hundred dollars of the assessed value thereof, which shall be applied to the support of the public free schools of the State: provided, that after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and seven, the tax rate upon said real and personal property, for such purposes shall be prescribed by law. But the General Assembly during such period of four years, in addition to making annually an appropriation for pensions not to exceed the last appropriation made for such purpose prior to September the thirtieth, nineteen hundred and one, may levy annually, a special tax for pensions, on such real and personal property of not exceeding five cents on the hundred dollars of the assessed value therof.

ARTICLE XIV.

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS.

HOMESTEAD AND OTHER EXEMPTIONS.

SEC. 190. Every householder or head of a family shall be entitled, in addition to the articles now exempt from levy or distress for rent, to hold exempt from levy, seizure, garnishment, or sale under any execution, order, or other process issued on any demand for a debt hereafter contracted, his real and personal property, or either, including money and debts due him, to the value of not exceeding two thousand dollars, to be selected by him: provided, that such exemption shall not extend to any execution, order, or other process issued on any demand in the following cases:

First. For the purchase price of said property, or any part thereof. If the property purchased, and not paid for, be exchanged for, or converted into, other property by the debtor, such last- named property shall not be exempted from the payment of such unpaid purchase money under the provisions of this article;

Second. For services rendered by a laboring person or mechanic;

Third. For liabilities incurred by any public officer, or officer of a court, or any fiduciary, or any attorney-at-law for money collected;

Fourth. For a lawful claim for any taxes, levies, or assessments accruing after the first day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty- six;

Fifth. For rent;

Sixth. For the legal or taxable fees of any public officer or officer of a court.

SEC. 191. The said exemption shall not be claimed or held in a shifting stock of merchandise, or in any property, the conveyance of which by the homestead claimant has been set aside on the ground of fraud or want of consideration.

SEC. 192. The General Assembly shall prescribe the manner and the conditions on which a householder or head of a family shall set apart and hold for himself and family a homestead in any of the property hereinbefore mentioned. But this section shall not be construed as authorizing the General Assembly to defeat or impair the benefits intended to be conferred by the provisions of this article.

SEC. 193. Nothing contained in this article shall invalidate any homestead exemption heretofore claimed under the provisions of the former Constitution; or impair in any manner the right of any householder or head of a family existing at the time that this Constitution goes into effect, to select the exemption, or any part thereof, to which he was entitled under the former Constitution; provided that such right, if hereafter exercised, be not in conflict with the exemptions set forth in sections One Hundred and Ninety and One Hundred and Ninety-one. But no person who has selected and received the full exemption allowed by the former Constitution shall be entitled to select an additional exemption under this Constitution; and no person who has selected and received part of the exemption allowed by the former Constitution shall be entitled to select an additional exemption beyond the difference between the value of such part and a total valuation of two thousand dollars. So far as necessary to accomplish the purposes of this section the provisions of chapter One Hundred and Seventy-eight of the Code of Virginia, and the acts amendatory thereof, shall remain in force until repealed by the General Assembly. The provisions of this article shall be liberally construed.

SEC. 194. The General Assembly is hereby prohibited from passing any law staying the collection of debts, commonly known as "stay laws"; but this section shall not be construed as prohibiting any legislation which the General Assembly may deem necessary to fully carry out the provisions of this article.

HEIRS OF PROPERTY.

SEC. 195. The children of parents, one or both of whom were slaves at and during the period of cohabitation, and who were recognized by the father as his children, and whose mother was recognized by such father as his wife, and was cohabited with as such, shall be as capable of inheriting any estate whereof such father may have died seized, or possessed, or to which he was entitled, as though they had been born in lawful wedlock.

ARTICLE XV.

FUTURE CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION.

SEC. 196. Any amendment or amendments to the Constitution may be proposed in the Senate or House of Delegates, and if the same shall be agreed it by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be entered on their journals, with the ayes and noes taken thereon, and referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates, and shall be published for three months previous to the time of such election. If, at such regular session the proposed amendment or amendments shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to each house, then it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to submit such proposed amendment or amendments to the people, in such manner and at such times as it shall prescribe; and if the people shall approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of the electors, qualified to vote for members of the General Assembly, noting thereon, such Amendment or amendments shall become part of the Constitution.

SEC. 197. At such time as the General Assembly may provide, a majority of the members elected to each house being recorded in the affirmative, the question, "shall there be a convention to revise the Constitution and amend the same?" shall be submitted to the electors qualified to vote for members of the General Assembly; and in case a majority of the electors so qualified, voting thereon, shall vote in favor of a convention for such purpose, the General Assembly, at its next session, shall provide for the election of delegates to such convention; and no convention for such purpose shall be otherwise called.

SCHEDULE.

That no inconvenience may arise from the adoption of this Constitution, and in order to provide for carrying it into complete operation, it is hereby ordained that: