I was wondering how the USA kept blacks, people without property and women from voting, because I can't see them going: "Black people can't vote." What were the exact wordings and did people try to get around it with creative interpretations?
It varied in place and time. One popular trick was to put a difficult barrier like a literacy test in the way, and then to put in a clause that would allow you to vote if you had been a voter prior to a certain date, or later if your father or grandfather had been a voter.
Here is a copy of the voting rules from the Louisiana Constitution of 1898. And I've excerpted some of the key pieces below:
He shall be able to read and write, and shall demonstrate his ability to do so when he applies for registration...
If he be not able to read and write, as provided by Section three of this article, then he shall be entitled to register and vote if he shall, at the time he offers to register, be the bona fide owner of property assessed to him in this State at a valuation of not less than three hundred dollars...
No male person who was on January 1st, 1867, or at any date prior thereto, entitled to vote under the Constitution or statutes of any State of the United States, wherein he then resided, and no son or grandson of any such person not less than twenty-one years of age at the date of the adoption of this Constitution, and no male person of foreign birth, who was naturalized prior to the first day of January, 1898; shall be denied the right to register and vote in this State by reason of his failure to possess the educational or property qualifications prescribed by this Constitution
So the rules in Louisiana were, literacy (to the satisfaction of the registrar), property ownership, or descent from a voter in 1867. Well few to no blacks were going to qualify under that. And there was a generally feeling that if they disenfranchised a few poor whites as well, I'm not sure the richer whites were too worried about that.
Louisiana's literacy test 1898 was a simple signature. But they later got pretty elaborate. And some would have word problems or math, and would have multiple trick gotta questions in them. And then they would have outs for white applicants where people who were "known" to be literate wouldn't have to take the tests.
In South Carolina at least, before the literacy tests, people who weren't citizens before Jan. 1, 1864 (when the Emancipation Proclamation went into affect) were banned from voting. Extremely unfair "literacy" tests were also put into place, but those who were citizens before Jan 1, 1864 (whites) could fail the test and still were able to vote. Another strategy were poll taxes that were too expensive for the average freedman to afford.