Nevada
Brodigan, George, ed., Election Laws of 1916, Pamphlet (Carson City, 1915).
New York
Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the 133rd Session of the Legislature, vol. 1 (Albany, 1910).
North Dakota
The Australian Ballot Act and Other Acts Constituting the Election Laws of North Dakota (Bismarck, 1891).
Supplement to the 1913 Compiled Laws of North Dakota 1913-1925 (Rochester, 1926).
Ohio
Bates, Clement, ed., The Annotated Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio, Including All Laws of a General Nature in Force January 1, 1900, 2d ed. (Cincinnati, 1899).
Daugherty, M. A., John Brasee, and George Okey, eds., The Revised Statutes and Other Acts of a General Nature of the State of Ohio in Force January 1, 1880, 2d ed. (Columbus, 1882).
Kinney, Charles, ed., The Election Laws of the State of Ohio and of the United States of America So Far as They Relate to the Conduct of Elections and the Duties of Officers in Connection Therewith (Columbus, 1898).
Smith, Rufus, and Alfred Benedict, eds., The Verified Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio Including All Laws of a General Nature in Force January 1st, 1890, 4th ed. (Cincinnati, 1891).
Thompson, Carmi, E. M. Fullington, and U. G. Denman, The General Code of the State of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1910).
Throckmorton, Archibald, et al., eds., The General Code of the State of Ohio, Revised to 1921 (Cleveland, 1921).
Oregon
General Laws of Oregon, 12th Regular Session (Salem, 1882).
Rhode Island
Election Laws of the State of Rhode Island (Providence, 1912).
Texas
Howard, George, ed., General and Special Laws of the State of Texas Passed by the 4th Called Session of the 35th Legislature (Austin, 1918).
Vermont
The Public Statutes of Vermont 1906 (Concord, 1907).
Washington
Howell, I. M., State of Washington. General Election Laws Including Laws for Commission Form of Government (Olympia, 1912).
Wisconsin
Cunningham, T. J., ed., The Registry and Election Laws of the State of Wisconsin with Forms and Instructions for the Use of County, City, Village and Town Officers (Madison, 1894).
Wyoming
Primary Registration and Election Laws of the State of Wyoming In Force From and After January 21, 1891 (Cheyenne, 1891).
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 Richard M. Scammon and Alice V. McGillivray, eds., America Votes, vol. 20 (Washington, DC, 1992): 9; Raymond E. Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosenstone, Who Votes (New Haven, 1980), 1; New York Times, 13 November 1988; Walter Dean Burnham, “The Turnout Problem,” in A. James Reichley, ed., Elections American Style (Washington, DC, 1987), 97-133. Other, more recent statistics are cited in the conclusion.
2 Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (1909; reprint, New York, 1964), 2, 6; Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise, 15 March 1965, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, vol. 1 (Washington, DC, 1965), 281-287. Cf. Robert Wiebe, Self Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy (Chicago, 1994), 1, 8.
3 Congressional Quarterly, Guide to U.S. Elections, 2d. ed. (Washington, DC, 1985), 324.
4 Among many discussions of the turnout problem, see the numerous and influential writings of Walter Dean Burnham (including “The Turnout Problem”), as well as Frances F. Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Why Americans Don’t Vote (New York, 1988).
5 See, e.g., J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910 (New Haven, 1974); Steven Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969 (New York, 1976); William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and the Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore, 1965). Numerous works on this subject are cited herein, Chapters 4, 7, and 8.
6 See Chapter 6.
7 Chilton Williamson, American Suffrage: From Property to Democracy, 1760-1860 (Princeton, 1960); Marchette G. Chute, The First Liberty: A History of the Right to Vote in America, 1619-1850 (New York, 1969). In recent years, historical studies of felon disfranchisement and the voting rights of noncitizens have also been published; they are cited later in this volume.
8 Dudley O. McGovney, The American Suffrage Medley: The Need for a National Uniform Suffrage (Chicago, 1949); Kirk H. Porter, A History of Suffrage in the United States (Chicago, 1918). One other useful, if dated, synthetic study is Albert J. McCulloch, Suffrage and Its Problems (Baltimore, 1929). J. Morgan Kousser has written a brief overview of the history of suffrage in Jack P. Greene, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Political History, vol. 3 (New York, 1984), 1236-1258. At a state level, see also Richard P. McCormick, The History of Voting in New Jersey: A Study of the Development of Election Machinery, 1664-1911 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953). Peter H. Argersinger’s work on Gilded Age elections and election laws is valuable but limited in chronological scope; see, e.g., “‘A Place on the Ballot’: Fusion Politics and Antifusion Laws,” American Historical Review 85 (1980): 287-306; “The Value of the Vote: Political Representation in the Gilded Age,” Journal of American History 76 ( June 1989): 59-90.
9 Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (New York, 1951). The term progressive is used here not to allude to Progressive historians, such as Charles Beard, but rather to capture the conviction that history represents progress.
10 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, J. P. Mayer and Max Lerner, eds., George Lawrence, trans. (New York, 1966), 52-53.
11 Cf. Robert J. Steinfeld, “Property and Suffrage in the Early American Republic,” Stanford Law Review 41 (January 1989): 335-337; Frank W. Blackmar, “History of Suffrage in Legislation in the United States,” The Chautauquan 22 (October 1895): 34.
12 William B. Munro, The Government of American Cities, 4th ed. (New York, 1928), 147-148. This quote appeared also in the 1926 edition of Munro’s book (but not in the 1912 or 1916 editions).
13 Mary Jo Adams, The History of Suffrage in Michigan, Publications of the Michigan Political Science Association, vol. 3, no. 1 (Ann Arbor, March 1898), 37.
14 James Schouler, “Evolution of the American Voter,” American Historical Review 2 (July 1897): 665-674; Francis N. Thorpe, “A Century’s Struggle for the Franchise in America,” Harper’s Magazine 94 (January 1897): 215.
15 Porter, Suffrage, vii, 4. The sense of conflict and contingency endured, among some analysts, into the 1920s and even later. See, e.g., Arthur W. Bromage, “Literacy and the Electorate: Expansion and Contraction of the Franchise,” American Political Science Review 24 (1930): 946; Harold F. Gosnell, Democracy: The Threshold of Freedom (New York, 1948).
16 E. E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (Hinsdale, IL, 1960), 100-101; Sidney Verba, Norman Nie, and Jaeon Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (New York, 1978), 5; Williamson, American Suffrage. For other examples of this view, see V. O. Key, Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 5th ed. (New York, 1964), 597; William H. Flanigan and Nancy H. Zingale, Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 4th ed. (Boston, 1979), 10-13; Jay A. Sigler, American Rights Policies (Homewood, IL, 1975), 111. Kousser (Shaping, 3) observes that political scientists interested in voting laws have tended to focus on extensions of the suffrage while ignoring contractions, and Steinfeld (“Property and Suffrage,” 336n) notes that constitutional law casebooks tend to contain implicit Whig histories of the suffrage. There are some exceptions, scholars who acknowledge that the road to a broader suffrage in the United States has been slow and uneven. See, e.g., Judith Shklar, American Citizenship—The Question for Inclusion (Cambridge, 1991), 13-14; William H. Riker, Democracy in the United States (New York, 1965), 50; Flanigan and Zingale (cited earlier on the other side of the issue), Political Behavior, 10.
17 Munro, Government, 134. The surprising lack of interest in the sub
ject is noted also by Peter Argersinger, “Regulating Democracy: Election Laws and Dakota Politics, 1889-1902,” Midwest Review 5 (Spring 1983): 1; see also James A. Morone, The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government (New York, 1990), 20.
18 The point that scholars from both the political right and left have tended to ignore this issue also is made in Göran Therborn, “The Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy,” New Left Review 103 (May-June 1977): 3-41.
19 See, e.g., Stein Rokkan, with Angus Campbell, Per Trosvik, and Henry Valen, Citizens, Elections, Parties: Approaches to the Comparative Study of the Processes of Development (New York, 1970); T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship, and Social Development (New York, 1964); Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” in Charles F. Cnudde and Deane E. Neubauer, eds., Empirical Democratic Theory (Chicago, 1969); Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship: Studies of Our Changing Social Order (Berkeley, 1977). See also Therborn, “Rule of Capital.”
20 On this theme, see Shklar, American Citizenship, esp. 28-29.
21 Frederick Jackson Turner, “Contributions of the West to American Democracy,” Atlantic Monthly 91 (January 1903): 83-96; Schattschneider, Semisovereign People: 100-101; Gosnell, Democracy: 20-23, 31; Flanigan and Zingale, Political Behavior: 9; Robert C. Brooks, Political Parties and Electoral Problems (New York, 1923): 361-362; Ronald P. Formisano, The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s-1840s (New York, 1983): 4.
22 A rare discussion of the role of war in the evolution of suffrage (albeit with different conclusions) is Manfred Berg, “Soldiers and Citizens: War and Voting Rights in American History,” in David K. Adams and Cornelis A. van Minnen, eds., Reflections on American Exceptionalism (Staffordshire, England, 1994), 188-225; the subject also is alluded to in Marc W. Kruman, “Legislatures and Political Rights,” in Joel H. Silbey, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System, vol. 3 (New York, 1994), 1235-1251.
23 See Chapter 5 for details regarding this incident.
24 Notions of American exceptionalism commonly are grounded in the claim that there is a uniquely weak relationship between class and politics in the United States. See also the conclusion to this volume.
25 For comparative and international perspectives on the history of suffrage, see Charles Seymour and Donald P. Frary, How the World Votes: The Story of Democratic Development in Elections (Springfield, MA, 1918); Gosnell, Democracy; Rokkan, Citizens; Therborn, “Rule of Capital”; see also the conclusion.
26 Schattschneider, Semisovereign People, 105; Raymond E. Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosenstone, Who Votes? (New Haven, 1980), 13-25; Burnham, “Turnout Problem,” 126.
PART ONE
1 Adams quoted in Charles Francis Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, vol. 9 (Boston, 1856), 377-378; Davis quoted in Arthur Charles Cole, ed., The Constitutional Debates of 1847 (Springfield, IL, 1919), 564. On the word democracy, see, e.g., Roy N. Lokken, “The Concept of Democracy in Colonial Political Thought,” William and Mary Quarterly 16 (October 1984): 571-573.
CHAPTER ONE
1 Franklin quote from The Casket, or Flowers of Literature, Wit and Sentiment, vol. 4 (Philadelphia, 1828), 181; this story is cited also in P. M. Zall, ed., Ben Franklin Laughing: Anecdotes from Original Sources by and About Benjamin Franklin (Berkeley, CA, 1980), 149-150. Jack N. Rakove, The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (New York, 1979), 361-399; idem, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (New York, 1996), 23-36.
2 Rakove, Original Meanings, 46, 58-59, 83; Wilbourn E. Benton, ed., 1787: Drafting the United States Constitution, vol. 1 (College Station, TX, 1986), 19-32; William G. Carr, The Oldest Delegate: Franklin in the Constitutional Convention (Newark, NJ, 1990), 169-171.
3 Kirk H. Porter, A History of Suffrage in the United States (Chicago, 1918), 12-13; Robert J. Dinkin, Voting in Provincial America (Westport, CT, 1977), 36; see also Robert J. Steinfeld, “Property and Suffrage in the Early American Republic,” Stanford Law Review 41 (January 1989): 339-340; Chilton Williamson, American Suffrage: From Property to Democracy 1760-1860 (Princeton, NJ, 1960), 12-19; Jack P. Greene, Imperatives, Behaviors, and Identities: Essays in Early American Cultural History (Charlottesville, VA, 1992), 246-248. Among the best monographic studies are those of Jack R. Pole, e.g., Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic (London, 1966); “Suffrage Reform and the American Revolution in New Jersey,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 74 ( July 1956): 181; “Suffrage and Representation in Maryland from 1776 to 1810: A Statistical Note and Some Reflections,” in Joel H. Silbey and Samuel T. McSeveney, eds., Voters, Parties, and Elections: Quantitative Essays in the History of American Popular Voting Behavior (Lexington, MA, 1972); see also Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1979).
4 Steinfeld, “Property,” 340; Charles Seymour and Donald P. Frary, How the World Votes: The Story of Democratic Development in Elections, vol. 1 (Springfield, MA, 1918), 210-211; Williamson, American Suffrage , 3-12; Greene, Imperatives, 248-257; Ireton quoted in Dinkin, Voting, 36-46, 251; Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People (New York, 1988), 68-69; Jack R. Pole, The Pursuit of Equality in American History (Berkeley, CA, 1978), 44-45; Nash, Urban Crucible, 367-368; Robert J. Dinkin, “The Suffrage,” in Jacob E. Cooke, ed., Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies, vol. 1 (New York, 1993), 369-370.
5 Dinkin, Voting, 34-35; Williamson, American Suffrage, 15; Richard P. McCormick, The History of Voting in New Jersey: A Study of the Development of Election Machinery, 1664-1911 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), 62.
6 Williamson, American Suffrage, 15; Dinkin, Voting, 34.
7 Dinkin, Voting, 33; Marc W. Kruman, Between Authority and Liberty: State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997), 104.
8 Greene, Imperatives, 249-250.
9 Ibid., 249; Dinkin, Voting, 31-32; there appears to be some scholarly disagreement regarding the number of colonies that excluded Jews. Richard Boeckel, Voting and Nonvoting in Elections (Washington, DC, 1928), 521; Jack R. Pole, “Representation and Authority in Virginia from Revolution to Reform,” Journal of Southern History 24 (February 1958): 18; Williamson, American Suffrage, 15-16.
10 Native Americans apparently voted in parts of New England, free blacks voted in North Carolina, and aliens voted in Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Dinkin, Voting, 32; James H. Kettner, The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1978), 122; Jamin B. Raskin, “Legal Aliens, Local Citizens: The Historical, Constitutional, and Theoretical Meanings of Alien Suffrage,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 141 (April 1993): 1399-1401.
11 Dinkin, Voting, 30; Greene, Imperatives, 249.
12 Julian A. C. Chandler, “The History of Suffrage in Virginia,” Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science Series, ed. Herbert B. Adams, no. 19 (Baltimore, MD, 1901), 15; Pole, “Representation and Authority,” 17; Pole, Political Representation, 141; Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA, 1988), 75-76.
13 Chandler, “Suffrage in Virginia,” 14, 19; Williamson, American Suffrage, 16-17, 18, 36-37; Pole, Political Representation, 48, 88-89, 142; Nash, Urban Crucible, 31-32; Pole, “Suffrage Reform,” 561-562; Jon C. Teaford, The Municipal Revolution in America: Origins of Modern Urban Government, 1650-1825 (Chicago, 1975), 30-32; Williamson notes that in some places municipalities gave their residents a broader franchise for voting in provincial as well as local elections (pp. 16-17). Indeed, as Pole suggests, qualifications for all elections may well have varied among communities within individual colonies (Political Representation , 142). Robert E. Brown, Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1691-1780 (Ithaca, NY, 1955), 79-80, 99.
/> 14 Dinkin, Voting, 31; Chandler, “Suffrage in Virginia,” 10-11, 23; B. Katherine Brown, “The Controversy over the Franchise in Puritan Massachusetts, 1954-1974,” William and Mary Quarterly 33 (April 1976): 213, 231, 233; Pole, Political Representation, 37, 138-139, 142-143; Teaford, Municipal Revolution, 30-32. Whether there was much public agitation against suffrage restrictions has been little investigated by historians, some of whom regard the absence of evidence of conflict as a sign of acquiescence on the part of the excluded. Dinkin, Voting, 37; Pole, Political Representation, 33; Chandler, “Suffrage in Virginia,” 23.
15 Chandler, “Suffrage in Virginia,” 10; Dinkin, Voting, 37; Pole, Political Representation, 88-89, 137-139, 143-145; Nash, Urban Crucible, 30; Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison, WI, 1966), 8-9; Steinfeld, “Property,” 339; Brown, “Controversy,” 216-222.
16 Pole, “Representation and Authority,” 17-18; Dinkin, Voting, 31, 33; Chandler, “Suffrage in Virginia,” 12-13.
17 Brown, “Controversy,” 232; Chandler, “Suffrage in Virginia,” 11.
18 For an excellent and judicious summary of the evidence, see Dinkin, Voting, 40-49; see also Williamson, American Suffrage, 20-39. On the debate among historians, see also Brown, “Controversy,” 216-222; Brown, Middle-Class Democracy, 19-20, 25-30, 37, 43-45, 60, 195; Carl Becker, The United States: An Experiment in Democracy (New York, 1920), 35-36; Pole, Political Representation, 141-147. Most of the available statistics and estimates are for the mid-eighteenth century.
19 Brown, “Controversy,” 223-241; Jack R. Pole, Paths to the American Past (New York, 1979), 233-234; idem, “Suffrage Reform,” 561; Williamson, American Suffrage, 38-39; Dinkin, Voting, 46-49; Nash, Urban Crucible, 29; Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (New York, 1976), 56-57.
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