Voting by Land Owners

Prior to 1812 in order to vote you had to be a property owner. See the following info about voting regulation history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States

Abolition of property qualifications for white men, 1812-1860 — see: Jacksonian democracy

"Election by the "Common Man"

"An important movement in the period from 1800 to 1830—before the Jacksonians were organized—was the expansion of the right to vote to include all white men.[9] Those older states that had property restrictions all dropped them; new states never had them."

Was the U.S. Constitution or other legal mechanic used to prohibit the requirement of land ownership to vote?

The constitution neither endorsed nor prohibited property qualifications for the franchise. Those requirements came from the states. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, there was significant unrest, especially in the frontier areas of states, and often at least obliquely related to proptery qualifications, c.f. Shays' Rebellion. Many states coopted the rebellious attitudes by expanding the franchise or eliminating the property qualifications altogether.

So the answer to your initial question is yes, however, property qualifications were never addressed by the constitution.

Thank you.

So, if a today a State enacted a land ownership requirement for voting would it go into effect?

It might--but two cautions here; property requirements were not land ownership requirements, so if you meant that specifically, the answer to your first question is no. Property requirements can be satisfied by a bank account or a warehouse inventory rather than just ownership of real estate--otherwise, merchants would likely not have been franchised.

The second caveat is that i am not exhaustively familiar with the Voting Rights Act, which is not a constitutional amendment, but which is the law.

Realistically--come on, no state would try that, there's too many voters who would react badly, maybe even violently.

OK--looing at the OP again, the answer is no.

NC created a law last year that said that property owners could petition to overturn annexation proposals from a city. The courts overturned the law because only property owners were counted.