A poll tax of $1 was levied from 1837 to 1845, when it became 50 cents. By the act of June 12, 1837, it was levied on all males, not slaves, between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five. The act of January 16, 1840, removed the upper age limit, but the act of February 4, 1841, made it forty-five years, that of February 3, 1845, fifty years. In 1841 in order to encourage the formation of a volunteer company in each of the frontier counties, exemption from the tax was extended to the members.3 Payment of the poll tax was not a prerequisite to the exercise of the suffrage, nor were there prescribed any penalties for failure to pay.