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Table of contents :
Cover
Brief Contents
Detailed Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 - The State of African American Election Data
Chapter 2 - The Literature on the African American Electorate
Chapter 3 - The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773
Chapter 4 - The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789
Chapter 5 - The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861: The Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause
Chapter 6 - The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867
Chapter 7 - The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870
Chapter 8 - Suffrage Referenda Prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870
Chapter 9 - Voting Behavior of the African American Electorate prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870
Chapter 10 - The First African American Nominees and Public Office Holders, 1776–1870
Chapter 11 - The National Equal Rights League: An African American Suffrage Organization during and after the Civil War
Chapter 12 - The Civil War Election and the African American Soldiers’ Vote, 1864
Chapter 13 - African American Voter Registration and Turnout in 1867 Southern State Elections: The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Military Reconstruction Acts
Chapter 14 - African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the South, 1868 and 1872
Chapter 15 - African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the Border, Midwest, and Far West States, 1868 and 1872
Chapter 16 - African American Voting Behavior in Subsequent Elections through Disenfranchisement, 1868–1920
Chapter 17 - African American Voting and Non-Voting Behavior in the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1908) and Beyond
Chapter 18 - The Lodge Bill and Beyond: Proposed Federal Supervision of Federal Elections in the South, 1861–1921
Chapter 19 - African American Voters and Electoral Empowerment in the North, 1876–1944: A Mobilizer of the Re-enfranchisement Drive in the South
Chapter 20 - The Enfranchisement of African American Women, 1669–1921
Chapter 21 - The Electoral Revolt of African American Voters in 1920–1921 and Beyond
Chapter 22 - African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1920–1944
Chapter 23 - African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1944–1965
Chapter 24 - Rare African American Registration and Voting Data: Episodic Events from the 1920s–1964
Chapter 25 - The 1965 Voting Rights Act, Expansions and Renewals, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006
Chapter 26 - Felon and Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement: The Newest Technique of Vote Dilution and Candidate Diminution
Chapter 27 - African American Voting Rights in a Historic Presidential Election: The 2008 Election of President Barack Obama
Chapter 28 - Summary and Conclusions
Appendices
Cumulative Bibliography
Copyright Acknowledgments
Index
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The African American Electorate

We would like to dedicate this book to family and friends, and most especially to election scholars and academicians, who with their brilliant and memorable teaching, research, and studies have expanded our intellectual imagination with insights that have provided clues, visions, and perspectives on extant, fugitive, and new empirical registration and voting data of the African American electorate. From Hanes Walton, Jr. Professor Robert H. Brisbane Professor Tobe Johnson Professor Samuel DuBois Cook Professor Emmett Dorsey Professor Harold Gosnell Professor V. O. Key, Jr. Professor Robert Martin Professor Ralph Bunche Professor Leslie B. McLemore Professor Matthew Holden Fannie Lou Hamer Gloria Richardson Sojourner Truth Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Reverend Dr. Benjamin E. Mays From Sherman C. Puckett Rosetta, Cheryl, Ann, Wanda, Jamal, Monet, Che’Rai, and Blake Professor Darlene Puckett Simmons Lois Deskins Mrs. Crippens Minerva Hawkins Professor Brice Carnahan Professor Gary Fowler Professor John Nystuen Mayor Coleman A. Young From Donald R. Deskins, Jr. Lois, Sharon, Sharlene, Sheila, Edward, James, Ryan, Selia, Jason, and Justin Professor John D. Nystuen Professor L.A.P. Gosling Professor George Kish Professor Charles M. Davis Professor Robert B. Hall Professor Waldo R. Tobler Professor Otis D. Duncan Professor Amos H. Hawley Professor Angus Campbell Professor Harold M. Rose

The African American Electorate A Statistical History Hanes Walton, Jr. University of Michigan Sherman C. Puckett University of Michigan Donald R. Deskins, Jr. University of Michigan

FOR INFORMATION:

CQ Press An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 E-mail: [email protected] SAGE Publications Ltd.

Copyright © 2012 by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional Quarterly Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The credit lines for material in this book that is used with permission are listed in the copyright acknowledgments section at the end of Volume 2.

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B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 India SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. 3 Church Street #10-04 Samsung Hub Singapore 049483

Walton, Hanes, 1941The African American electorate: a statistical history/Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett, Donald R. Deskins. v. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87289-508-9 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. African Americans—Suffrage—History—Statistics. I. Puckett, Sherman C., 1948- II. Deskins, Donald Richard. III. Title. JK1924.W36 2012 324.9730089′96073—dc23   2012018400

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Acquisitions Editor:  January Layman-Wood Development Editor:  John Martino Production Editor:  Laureen Gleason Copy Editor:  Jay Powers Typesetter:  C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.  Proofreader:  Kate Macomber Stern Indexer:  Wendy Allex Cover Designer:  Matthew Simmons, www.MyselfIncluded.com

12 13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Brief Contents VOLUME 1 Preface xxix Introduction 1 Chapter 1. The State of African American Election Data

9

Chapter 2. The Literature on the African American Electorate

25

Chapter 3. The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773

43

Chapter 4. The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

79

Chapter 5. The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861: The Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause

95

Chapter 6. The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867

117

Chapter 7. The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870

133

Chapter 8. Suffrage Referenda Prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870

145

Chapter 9. Voting Behavior of the African American Electorate prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870

161

Chapter 10. The First African American Nominees and Public Office Holders, 1776–1870

179

Chapter 11. The National Equal Rights League

191

Chapter 12. The Civil War Election and the African American Soldiers’ Vote, 1864

217

Chapter 13. African American Voter Registration and Turnout in 1867 Southern State Elections: The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Military Reconstruction Acts

231

Chapter 14. African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the South, 1868 and 1872

255

Chapter 15. African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the Border, Midwest, and Far West States, 1868 and 1872

279

Chapter 16. African American Voting Behavior in Subsequent Elections through Disenfranchisement, 1868–1920

297

Chapter 17. African American Voting and Non-Voting Behavior in the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1908) and Beyond

321

Chapter 18. The Lodge Bill and Beyond: Proposed Federal Supervision of Federal Elections in the South, 1861–1921

363

Chapter 19. African American Voters and Electoral Empowerment in the North, 1876–1944: A Mobilizer of the Re-enfranchisement Drive in the South

387

Chapter 20. The Enfranchisement of African American Women, 1669–1921

411

Chapter 21. The Electoral Revolt of African American Voters in 1920–1921 and Beyond

441

VOLUME 2 Chapter 22. African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1920–1944

459

Chapter 23. African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1944–1965

481

Chapter 24. Rare African American Registration and Voting Data: Episodic Events from the 1920s–1964

545

Chapter 25. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, Expansions and Renewals, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006

605

Chapter 26. Felon and Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement: The Newest Technique of Vote Dilution and Candidate Diminution

649

Chapter 27. African American Voting Rights in a Historic Presidential Election: The 2008 Election of President Barack Obama

673

Chapter 28. Summary and Conclusions

711

Appendices 731 Cumulative Bibliography

903

Copyright Acknowledgments

917

Index I-1

Detailed Contents VOLUME 1 Preface: The Genesis of This Work in the Journeys of Its Authors

xxix

Hanes Walton, Jr. xxix Sherman C. Puckett xxx Donald R. Deskins, Jr. xxxi Acknowledgments xxxi Notes xxxii

Introduction 1 Uniqueness of This Work 2 Methodology of This Study 4 Notes 7

Chapter 1. The State of African American Election Data

9

The African American Electorate in Colonial and Revolutionary America

10

Table 1.1 Voting Rights of Free-Men-of-Color in the Thirteen Original Colonies: Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum Eras Map 1.1 States with Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color, 1855

11 12

Election Data: From National and State Collections to the Commercial and Scholarly Sources Finding Historical Election Data for African American Candidates: Monroe N. Work, W. E. B. DuBois, and Ralph Bunche

13

Table 1.2 Seven Categories of Political Data and Statistics in the Negro Year Book, 1912–1952

17

The State of African American Election Data: A Summary

20

Conclusion on the State of African American Election Data

21

15

Notes 22

Chapter 2. The Literature on the African American Electorate

25

The Separation Phenomenon in the Reporting of Election Return Data Examining the Suffrage Literature

26 27

Table 2.1 Constitutional Convention and Referenda Votes on Equal Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color in States and Federal Territories of the United States, 1790–1870

31

The Registration, Turnout, and Voting Data Literature

33

Table 2.2 Percent and Number of Registered Voters in Counties of Arkansas by Race, 1867 Map 2.1 Arkansas Counties with African American vs. White Voting Majorities, 1867 Table 2.3 Percent Ratio of Registered African American Voters to Eligible African American Voters in Arkansas, 1867–1990 Table 2.4 Number and Percent of Counties in Georgia that Reported Separately on Black Voters, 1944–1954

35 36 37 37

The Balance of Power Theory Literature

38

Conclusions on the Literature Concerning the African American Electorate

39

Notes 40

Chapter 3. The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773

43

The Demography of African Americans in Colonial America

45

Table 3.1 Numbers of Censuses during the American Colonial Period, 1624–1773

47

Table 3.2 African American Populations and Population Growth in Regions of Colonial America, 1610–1770

48

Figure 3.1 African American Share of Population in Colonial Virginia, 1610–1770

49

Figure 3.2 African American Share of Population in Colonial Maryland, 1610–1770

49

Figure 3.3 Distribution of African American Population in Colonial America Regions, 1610–1770

49

Table 3.3 Population by Census or Estimate during the American Colonial Period, 1624–1773

50

Figure 3.4 Percent Change in White and African American Populations, Seventeenth-Century Colonial America

54

Figure 3.5 Percent Change in White and African American Populations, Eighteenth-Century Colonial America

54

Potential African American Voters in Colonial America

54

Table 3.4 African American Populations of “Voting Age” in Colonial America, 1624–1625 to 1773

55

Table 3.5 Voting Rights, Population, and Population Change of African Americans in the Thirteen Original Colonies in the Colonial Era

56

Table 3.6 “Voting Age” African American Populations in Maryland, 1704–1755

58

Table 3.7 Taxable and Untaxable African American Populations in Maryland, 1704–1755

58

Table 3.8 Estimated African American Electorate by Colony, 1703–1773

59

Table 3.9 Local-Level Population Censuses and Enumerations of African Americans, 1624–1773

60

Table 3.10 Settlement-Level Demography for Virginia, Census of 1624

61

Table 3.11 County-Level Demography of Slaves in Massachusetts, Census of 1754

62

Table 3.12 County-Level Demography of Massachusetts, Census of 1764

63

Table 3.13 County-Level Demography of Connecticut, Census of 1756

63

Table 3.14 County-Level Demography of New Hampshire, Census of 1773

64

Table 3.15 Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1708

64

Table 3.16 Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1748–1749

64

Table 3.17 Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1755

65

Table 3.18 County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1726

66

Table 3.19 County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1738

66

Table 3.20 County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1745

67

Table 3.21 County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1704

67

Table 3.22 County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1710

68

Table 3.23 County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1712

68

Table 3.24 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1712

69

Figure 3.6 African Americans as Percentage of Total Population in New York, 1703–1773

69

Table 3.25 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1703

70

Table 3.26 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1712

70

Table 3.27 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1723

71

Table 3.28 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1731

71

Table 3.29 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1737

72

Table 3.30 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1746

72

Table 3.31 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1749

73

Table 3.32 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1756

73

Table 3.33 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1771

74





Figure 3.7 African Americans as Percentage of Total Electorate in New York, 1703–1773 Figure 3.8 African American Men as Percentage of Male Electorate in New York, 1703–1773 Figure 3.9 African American Share of Taxable Population in North Carolina, 1754 –1773 Table 3.34 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1754 Table 3.35 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1755 Table 3.36 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1756 Table 3.37 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1765 Table 3.38 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1766 Table 3.39 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1767

74 74 75 75 75 76 76 77 77

Conclusions on the African American Electorate in the Colonial Era

78

Notes 78

Chapter 4. The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

79

The Demography of African Americans in Revolutionary America

80

Table 4.1 Numbers of Censuses in the Thirteen Original States, 1774–1789

81

Table 4.2 Populations by Census or Estimate, 1774–1789

82

Potential African American Voters in Revolutionary America

84

Table 4.3 African American Populations in the Thirteen Original States, 1774–1789

85

Table 4.4 Voting Rights, Population, and Population Change of African Americans in the Thirteen Original States: The Revolutionary Era

86

County-Level Election Data in the Revolutionary Era

87

Table 4.5 Town-Level Demography for Rhode Island, Census of 1774 Table 4.6 Town-Level Demography for Rhode Island, Census of 1783 Table 4.7 County-Level Demography for Connecticut, Census of 1774 Table 4.8 County-Level Demography for Connecticut, Census of 1782 Table 4.9 County-Level Demography for New Hampshire, Census of 1775 Table 4.10 County-Level Demography for New Hampshire, Census of 1786 Table 4.11 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1786 Table 4.12 County-Level Demography for Massachusetts, Census of 1776 Table 4.13 County-Level Demography for North Carolina, Incomplete Census of 1786 Table 4.14 Local-Level Population Censuses and Enumerations of African Americans during the Period of the American Revolution

87 88 89 89 89 90 90 91 91 92

Conclusions on the African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Period

92

Notes 92

Chapter 5. The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861: The Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause 95 The Demography of African Americans in Antebellum America Table 5.1 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1788–1789 Elections Table 5.2 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1790 Census Table 5.3 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1800 Census Table 5.4 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1810 Census Table 5.5 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1820 Census Table 5.6 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1830 Census Table 5.7 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1840 Census Table 5.8 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1850 Census Table 5.9 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1860 Census Figure 5.1 Number of States Admitted to the United States by Decade, 1787–1860s Figure 5.2 Numerical Parity of Free and Slave States in the United States by Decade, 1787–1860s

96 98 99 100 101 102 104 105 107 108 109 109

Longitudinal Analysis of the Three-Fifths Clause

109

Table 5.10 States Admitted to the Union of the United States, Founding–1870 Figure 5.3 Number of House of Representatives Seats Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s Figure 5.4 Percentage of House of Representatives Seats Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s Figure 5.5 Percentage of Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s Figure 5.6 Total Electoral Votes and Number of Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s Figure 5.7 African American Population Growth in the United States by Slavery Status, 1790–1860 Figure 5.8 White Population Growth in the United States by Slavery Status of Residence, 1790–1860 Figure 5.9 African American and White Population Growth in the United States, 1790–1860 Figure 5.10 Number of Electoral Votes by Slavery Status Grouping of States, 1787–1860s Figure 5.11 Two-Fifths of African American Slave Population as a Share of Total U.S. Population, 1790–1860 Table 5.11 Number of Seats in the House of Representatives Held by the Slave States during and after the Period of the Three-Fifths Clause, 1860, 1872, and 1882

109 110 110 111

Summary and Conclusions on the Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause

115

112 112 112 113 113 114 115

Notes 115

Chapter 6. The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867

117

Potential African American Voters in Antebellum and Civil War America

118

Table 6.1 Suffrage Rights of Free-Men-of-Color in the New States, 1791–1867

118

Table 6.2 Year of Eventual Suffrage Exclusion for Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color in the Thirteen Original States

119

Table 6.3 Free African American Population in States that Provided Suffrage Rights to African Americans, 1790–1867

120

African American Partisanship in State Elections, 1788–1866

120

African American Voting in Federal Elections, 1788–1866

126

Table 6.4 Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates in Massachusetts and New York, 1828–1860

129

Table 6.5 Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, 1828–1860

130

Table 6.6 Partial Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates, 1828–1860

130

Summary and Conclusions on the African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America

131



Notes 131

Chapter 7. The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870

133

The Politics of Total Reversals: Denial of Suffrage Rights in Eight States during the Antebellum and Civil War Eras

134

Table 7.1 Number of Petitions For and Against African American Suffrage Rights in Pennsylvania: Selected Counties by Submission to the 1837–1838 State Constitutional Convention

136

The Politics of Partial Reversals: The Abridgement of Suffrage Rights in New York and Rhode Island

137

The Politics of Reversal: Granting Suffrage Rights in Louisiana: 1838–1860

139

Map 7.1 Rapides Parish, Louisiana 1840

139

Table 7.2 Presidential Election Vote and Voting Age African American Male Population in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, 1828–1860

140

Figure 7.1 Percentage of Presidential Vote in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, for the Major and Third Political Parties, 1836–1860

141

Summary and Conclusions on the Reversals of African American Suffrage Rights

141

Map 7.2 States that Reversed Suffrage Rights for African Americans during the Antebellum Era

141

Notes 142

Chapter 8. Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870

145

The Nature and Scope of the Statewide Referenda, 1846–1870

146

Figure 8.1 Number of Referenda on Suffrage Rights for African Americans in States and Territories, 1846–1870

147

Table 8.1 Referenda on Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color in States and Federal Territories, 1846–1870

147

States with Multiple Statewide Referenda for Suffrage Rights, 1846–1870

148

Table 8.2 Results of Four Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Wisconsin, 1846, 1849, 1857, and 1870

149

Figure 8.2 Results of Four Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Wisconsin, 1847–1865

150

Table 8.3 Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in New York, 1846, 1860, and 1869

151

Figure 8.3 Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in New York, 1846–1869

151

Table 8.4 Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Minnesota, 1865, 1867, and 1868

151

Figure 8.4 Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Minnesota, 1865–1868

152

Table 8.5 Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Michigan, 1850, 1868, and 1870

153

Figure 8.5 Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Michigan, 1850–1870

154

Table 8.6 Results of Two Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Iowa, 1857 and 1868

155

Figure 8.6 Results of Two Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Iowa, 1857–1868

156

States with Single Statewide Referenda for Suffrage Rights, 1862–1868

156

Table 8.7 Results of Five Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Illinois (1862), Connecticut (1865), Kansas (1867), Ohio (1867), and Missouri (1868)

157

Figure 8.7 Results of Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Illinois, Connecticut, Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri, 1862–1868

157

The Failure of Suffrage Rights Referenda in Federal Territories after the Civil War, 1865–1868: Congress Steps In

157

Table 8.8 Results of Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Six Federal Territories and the District of Columbia, 1865–1868

157

Summary and Conclusions on African American Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

158

Map 8.1 States and Territories that Held Referenda on Suffrage Rights for African Americans, 1846–1870

159

Notes 159

Chapter 9. Voting Behavior of the African American Electorate prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870

161

The Evidentiary Sources for Inferences about African American Voting and Partisan Behavior prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

162

Table 9.1 Three Evidentiary Sources Used to Estimate African American Voting Behavior in Presidential Elections, 1789–1868

163

The Number and Percentage of States Allowing Popular and African American Voting prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

164

Table 9.2 Number of African American Suffrage States by Popular Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1789–1868

165

Figure 9.1 Number of African American Suffrage States in Presidential Elections with and without Popular Voting before the Fifteenth Amendment, 1789–1868

166

Figure 9.2 Percent of States in Presidential Elections Having African American Suffrage with and without Popular Voting Before the Fifteenth Amendment, 1789–1868

166

Table 9.3 Number of African American Suffrage States Making Use of Popular and Non-Popular Voting in Presidential Elections, 1789–1868

167

African American Partisanship and Voting Behavior in Presidential Elections prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

167

Figure 9.3 Number of African American Suffrage States Making Use of Popular and Non-Popular Voting in Presidential Elections, 1789–1868

168

Table 9.4 Three Categories of African American State Party Voting prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

170

Summary and Conclusions on African American Partisanship prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

171

Map 9.1 States Permitting African American Suffrage before the Fifteenth Amendment, 1789–1868

172

Table 9.5 Free African American Male Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1789–1868

173

Notes 177

Chapter 10. The First African American Nominees and Public Office Holders, 1776–1870

179

African American Delegates at the National Conventions of the Anti-Slavery Political Parties

180

Table 10.1 African American Delegates at Anti-Slavery Political Party National Conventions

181

The Anti-Slavery Parties and African American Presidential Nominees

184

Table 10.2 African American Nominees for President and Vice President, 1847–1888

184

Table 10.3 Nominating Votes and Percentages for Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates at Selected National Conventions of the Liberty and Republican Parties, 1848–1888

185

African American Candidates for Local and State Offices: Before and Immediately after the Civil War

185

Table 10.4 African American Candidates for Local, State, and National Offices, 1792–1866

185

Summary and Conclusions on African American Elected Officials prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

186

Map 10.1 States with African American Candidates for Local, State, and National Offices, 1776–1866

187

Notes 189

Chapter 11. The National Equal Rights League

191

The Rise of African American Political Agency: Individual and Small Group Protests

192

The Birth and Evolution of the National Convention Movement: The Forerunner of the National Equal Rights League

193

Figure 11.1 Number of African American National and State Conventions in Antebellum America, 1830–1865

194

Table 11.1 Number of Delegates and Honorary Members Participating in the Founding National Negro Convention by State, 1830 194 Map 11.1 States and Numbers of Delegates and Honorary Members at the National Negro Convention, 1830

195

Table 11.2 Numbers of States, Cities, and Delegates Participating in the National Negro Convention Movement, 1831–1855 196

The Rise and Evolution of the National Equal Rights League, 1864–1865

197

Table 11.3 Numbers of Cities and Delegates, by Region and State, Participating in the Founding Convention of the National Equal Rights League, 1864 198 Map 11.2 States of the Founding Convention of the National Equal Rights League, 1864

199

Figure 11.2 The Cover of a Model Constitution Pamphlet Used by Local Branches of the National Equal Rights League

199

Diagram 11.1 The Standing Committees of the National Equal Rights League

201

Table 11.4 Leadership and Organizational Structure of the National Equal Rights League at the First Annual Meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, October 19–21, 1865 201 Map 11.3 Branch States of the National Equal Rights League, 1865

202

The NERL, Congress, and the Elective Franchise for Southern Freedmen: The Four Military Reconstruction Acts of 1867

206

Table 11.5 Delegate States and Number of Delegates to the National Convention of Colored Men of America, 1869 208 Map 11.4 Delegate States and Number of Delegates to the National Convention of Colored Men of America, 1869

209

Figure 11.3 Number of Delegates to the National Convention of Colored Men by State, 1869

210

Diagram 11.2 The Rise, Evolution, and Demise of the Three Different National Equal Rights Leagues, 1864–1915

212

Summary and Conclusions on the National Equal Rights League

213

Notes 214

Chapter 12. The Civil War Election and the African American Soldiers’ Vote, 1864

217

The Partisan and Political Debates over Soldiers Voting

218

The Demography and Deployment of African American Soldiers in the Civil War

220

Table 12.1 Civil War African American Troops as Percentage of Total Union Troops by State

221

African American Soldiers’ Field Voting Behavior in the 1864 Presidential Election

222

Table 12.2 Reported Soldier’s Field Vote in the 1864 Presidential Election, Ranked in Order of the Number of Votes for Lincoln-Johnson by State

222

Map 12.1 The Reported Soldiers’ Field Vote in the 1864 Presidential Election for Lincoln vs. McClellan 223 Figure 12.1 Reported Soldiers’ Field Vote in the 1864 Presidential Election for Lincoln vs. McClellan 224 Table 12.3 African American Soldiers’ Field Vote in the 1864 Presidential Election

224

Map 12.2 The African American Soldiers’ Vote in the 1864 Presidential Election 225 Table 12.4 Comparing the Number of the African American Troops to the Difference in Popular Votes between Candidates of the 1864 Presidential Election by State

226

Figure 12.2 African American Soldiers’ Field Vote in the 1864 Presidential Election 227 Table 12.5 Popular Vote, Soldiers’ Vote, and Electoral Vote in the Presidential Election of 1864

228

Summary and Conclusions on the African American Soldiers’ Vote

229

Notes 230

Chapter 13. African American Voter Registration and Turnout in 1867 Southern State Elections: The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Military Reconstruction Acts

231

The Four Military Reconstruction Acts: An Overview

233

Table 13.1 Nature, Scope, and Power of the Four Military Reconstructions Acts

233

The Sources of Political Antagonism and Tension: Southern States Legislatures’ Votes on the Fourteenth Amendment

234

Table 13.2 Voting of Southern White State Legislators For and Against the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 1866–1867

235

State Constitutional Conventions in the South: Voter Registration in 1867 and Delegates

237

Table 13.3 Number and Percentage of African American and White Registered Voters in the South, 1867 (Original Senate Report) Figure 13.1 Percentage of Registered Voters, African American and White, in States of the South in 1867 (Original Senate Report) Table 13.4 Number and Percentage of African Americans and Whites Voting for State Constitutional Conventions in the South, 1867 Figure 13.2 Percentage of Voters for Constitutional Conventions, African Americans and Whites, in States of the South, 1867 Table 13.5 Number and Percentage of African American and White Voters against State Constitutional Conventions in the South, 1867 Figure 13.3 Percentage of Voters against Constitutional Conventions, African Americans and Whites, in States of the South, 1867 Table 13.6 Number and Percentage of African American and White Registered Non-Voters on State Constitutional Conventions in the South, 1867 Figure 13.4 Percentage of Non-Voters, African Americans and Whites, in Elections for State Constitutional Conventions in the South, 1867 Table 13.7 Number and Percentage of African American and White Voters Disenfranchised by the Military Reconstruction Acts Figure 13.5 Percentage of African American and White Voters Disenfranchised by the Military Reconstruction Acts Table 13.8 Number and Percentage of Registered and Disenfranchised Voters by Race, Southern State Constitutional Convention Referenda, 1867

239 239 240 241 242 242 243 243 244 244 245

Table 13.9 Number and Percentage of African American and White Registered Voters in the South, 1867–1869 (Senate Report Revised and Updated with New Scholarship)

246

Map 13.1 States in the South Differentiated by Median Percentage of African American Registered Voters, 1867

247

Figure 13.6 Percentage of Registered Voters, African American and White, in States of the South, 1867 (Updated Senate Report)

247

Table 13.10 Initial and Supplemental Registrations: The Increase in New Voters

248

The Relationship between the Initial Freedmen Voters and the Number of Freedmen Elected as Delegates to the State Constitutional Conventions, 1867–1868

248

Table 13.11 Number and Percentage of Freedmen and Whites at the State Constitutional Conventions, 1867–1868 Table 13.12 African American Shares of Registered Voters and State Convention Delegations in the South, 1867–1869

248 249

The First African American Federal Registrars: The Case of Georgia

249

Table 13.13 Demographic Characteristics of African American Registrars in Georgia, 1867–1868

250

Map 13.2 Geographic Distribution by County of Residence of African American Federal Reistrars for Georgia, 1867

250

Summary and Conclusions on African American Voters of 1867

251

Table 13.14 Composite Table of Total Voters Ranked by Percentage of Registered Voters

252

Table 13.15 Voters by Race in the Electorate of the Reconstructed South

252

Figure 13.7 Total Voters by Race in States of the Reconstructed South, 1867–1868

253

Notes 253

Chapter 14. African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the South, 1868 and 1872

255

The African American 1868 Presidential Vote in Seven Southern States

257

Map 14.1 Majority African American Counties in the Southern States of the 1868 Presidential Election

258

Figure 14.1 Number of Southern Counties by Census Racial Majorities, 1860–2000

258

Table 14.1 Number of Southern Counties by Census Racial Majorities, 1860–2000

259

Table 14.2 Number of Majority African American Counties by Census, 1860–2000

259

Table 14.3 Number and Percentage of African American Majority Counties in the Seven Southern States of the 1868 Presidential and Congressional Elections: A Rank Ordering

260

Table 14.4 Popular and Electoral Votes in the Seven Southern States, 1868 Presidential Election

260

Table 14.5 Gain and Loss of Majority African American Counties Voting for the Republican Party in the South in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

261

Table 14.6 Gain and Loss of Majority White Counties Voting for the Republican Party in the South in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

262

Table 14.7 Gain and Loss of Votes in Majority African American Counties Voting for the Republican Party in the South in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

262

Table 14.8 Gain and Loss of Votes in Majority White Counties Voting for the Republican Party in the South in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

263

Figure 14.2 Percentage of Racial Majority Counties in the South Voting for the Republican Party in the 1868 Presidential Election

264

The African American 1872 Presidential Vote in the Eleven Southern States

264

Map 14.2 Majority African American Counties in the Southern States of the 1872 Presidential Election

265

Table 14.9 Comparing the Vote of the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections in the South for the Major Political Parties

266

Figure 14.3 Percentage of Racial Majority Counties in the South Voting for the Republican Party in the 1872 Presidential Election

268

The Democratic Presidential Vote in the African American and White Majority Counties in 1868 and 1872

268

Figure 14.4 Percentage of Racial Majority Counties in the South Voting for the Democratic Party in the 1868 Presidential Election

269

Figure 14.5 Percentage of Racial Majority Counties in the South Voting for the Democratic Party in the 1872 Presidential Election

270



The Comparative Portrait of Party Voting in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

270

Table 14.10 Gain and Loss of Counties Voting for the Republican Party in Majority African American Counties of the Original Seven Southern States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

271

Table 14.11 Gain and Loss of Counties Voting for the Republican Party in Majority White Counties of the Original Seven Southern States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

272

Table 14.12 Gain and Loss of Votes in Majority African American Counties Voting for the Republican Party in the Original Seven Southern States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

272

Table 14.13 Gain and Loss of Votes in Majority White Counties Voting for the Republican Party in the Original Seven Southern States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

273

The African American Congressional Vote in the 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1872 Elections

273

Table 14.14 Vote for African American Republican Congressional Candidates, 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1872

274

Summary and Conclusions on African American Voting Behavior in 1868 and 1872

275

Figure 14.6 Scatter Plot of Republican Party Percentage of Vote and African American Percentage of Population in the South for the 1868 Presidential Election

276

Figure 14.7 Scatter Plot of Republican Party Percentage of Vote and African American Percentage of Population in the South for the 1872 Presidential Election

277

Notes 277

Chapter 15. African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the Border, Midwest, and Far West States, 1868 and 1872

279

The African American Presidential Vote in the Border States, 1868 and 1872

280

Map 15.1 Border States, Midwest States, and Far West States with Noteworthy African American Voting Behavior, 1868, 1872, and Beyond

281

Map 15.2 Majority African American Counties in the Border States, 1860 Census

282

Table 15.1 Comparing the Vote of the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections in the Border States for the Major Political Parties

282

Table 15.2 Comparing the Vote of the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections in Border State Counties with Majority African American Populations

283

Table 15.3 Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in the Border States

283

Table 15.4 Border States and the Potential African American Vote, 1868

283

Figure 15.1 Comparing the Republican Party Percentage of the Vote in Majority African American Counties of the Border States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections 285 Figure 15.2 Comparing the Democratic Party Percentage of the Vote in Majority African American Counties of the Border States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections 286 Figure 15.3 Comparing Votes and Percent of Votes for the Democratic Party Presidential Candidate in Majority African American Counties of the Border States in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections 286 Table 15.5 Counties of West Virginia Ranked by Number of African American Registered Voters, 1870

287

Table 15.6 Partial Correlations between African American Registered Voters in West Virginia, 1870, and the Percentage of Votes for the Major Political Parties in the 1868 and 1872 Presidential Elections

289

A Comparative Regional Portrait of the African American Voter in the Southern and Border State Regions

290

The African American Vote and Partisanship in the Midwest and Far West: The Historical Evidence

291

Summary and Conclusions on African American Voting in 1868 and 1872 outside the South

293

Notes 294

Chapter 16. African American Voting Behavior in Subsequent Elections through Disenfranchisement, 1868–1920

297

Map 16.1 Electoral Vote by State, Presidential Election of 1876

300

The 1876 Presidential Vote of African Americans in the South and the Border States Table 16.1 1876 Presidential Election Results and 1870 Census Information for the African American Majority Counties of the Border and Southern States Table 16.2 1876 Presidential Election Results and 1870 Census Information for the White Majority Counties of the Border and Southern States Figure 16.1 Support of Racial Majority Counties for the Republican Party in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina Presidential Elections of 1868, 1872, and 1876 Figure 16.2 Support of Racial Majority Counties for the Democratic Party in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina Presidential Elections of 1868, 1872, and 1876 Table 16.3 Election Results for Rapides Parish, Louisiana, 1868–1920 Figure 16.3 Support for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, Presidential Elections of 1868–1920 Figure 16.4 Support of Racial Majority Counties for the Republican Party in the Border States Presidential Elections of 1868, 1872, and 1876 Figure 16.5 Support of Racial Majority Counties for the Democratic Party in the Border States Presidential Elections of 1868, 1872, and 1876

301 301 302 303 304 305 306 306 307

The Voting Behavior of African Americans in Presidential Elections from 1868–1920 in the Southern and Border States

307

Figure 16.6 Mean Support for Democratic and Republican Parties in African American Majority Counties of the South, 1868–1920

308

Figure 16.7 Mean Support for Democratic and Republican Parties in Majority White Counties of the South, 1868–1920

309

Figure 16.8 Mean Support for Democratic and Republican Parties in Racial Majority Counties of the South, 1868–1920

310

Figure 16.9 Mean Support for Democratic and Republican Parties in Racial Majority Counties of the Border States, 1868–1920

310

County-Level Analysis for 1868–1920 Southern and Border States Elections

311

Table 16.4 Counties with the Largest Black Majorities in Each State of the South, 1860–1920 Censuses

311

Figure 16.10 Mean Support for the Democratic and Republican Parties in Largest Majority African American Counties of the South, Presidential Elections, 1868–1920

312

Table 16.5 Counties with the Largest White Majorities in Each State of the South, 1860–1920 Censuses

313

Figure 16.11 Mean Support for the Democratic and Republican Parties in Largest Majority White Counties of the South, Presidential Elections, 1868–1920

314

Table 16.6 Number of All-White Counties in the South and Border States, 1860–1920

314

Table 16.7 Counties with the Largest Black Majorities in Each of the Border States, 1860–1920 Censuses

315

Table 16.8 Counties with the Largest White Majorities in Each of the Border States, 1860–1920 Censuses

315

Summary and Conclusions Concerning African American Voting from 1868–1920

316

Figure 16.12 Mean Support for the Democratic and Republican Parties, by Race, in Largest Majority Counties of the Border States, Presidential Elections, 1868–1920

316

Figure 16.13 Support for the Democratic Party in the Southern States, 1868–1920

317

Figure 16.14 Support for the Republican Party in the Southern States, 1868–1920

318

Figure 16.15 Support for the Democratic Party in the Border States, 1868–1920

318

Figure 16.16 Support for the Republican Party in the Border States, 1868–1920

319

Notes 319

Chapter 17. African American Voting and Non-Voting Behavior in the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1908) and Beyond

321

The Literature on the Redemption Movement: A New Linkage to the Era of Disenfranchisement

325

Figure 17.1 Passage of Separate-Coach Laws in the Redeemed Southern States

326

Table 17.1 Elapsed Years from Southern Redemption to New State Constitutions

327

The Era of Disenfranchisement: Elimination of Freedmen Voting Rights

327

Map 17.1 Southern and Border States by Category of Disenfranchisement, 1888–1908

328

Table 17.2 Enactment Years of the Poll Tax, Literacy Test, Grandfather Clause, and Segregation Laws in the South and Border States

329

Table 17.3 Characteristics of Poll Tax Laws in the South, 1890–1918

330

Table 17.4 Characteristics of Literacy Test Laws and Their Alternatives in the South, 1890–1918

331

Table 17.5 Classification of Southern and Border States Grouped by the Stringency of Disenfranchisement Laws, 1890–1920

332

Table 17.6 Presidential Election Turnout Means of Non-Poll Tax and Poll Tax Counties for the South and Border States

332

Figure 17.2 Impact of the Poll Tax in Racial Majority Counties of the Southern and Border States, 1892–1920

333

Table 17.7 Presidential Election Turnout Means of Non-Literacy Test and Literacy Test Counties for the Southern and Border States

333

Figure 17.3 Impact of Literacy Tests in Racial Majority Counties of the South and Border States, 1892–1920

334

Table 17.8 Presidential Election Turnout Means of Non-Grandfather Clause and Grandfather Clause Counties for the South and Border States

334

Figure 17.4 Impact of the Grandfather Clause in Racial Majority Counties of the South and Border States, 1892–1920

335

Table 17.9 Presidential Election Voter Turnout in Non-Poll Tax and Poll Tax Black Counties of the South and Border States, 1892–1920

335

Figure 17.5 Presidential Election Turnout Means of Non-Poll Tax and Poll Tax Black Counties in the South and Border States

336

Table 17.10 Presidential Election Voter Turnout in Non-Literacy Test and Literacy Test Black Counties of the South and Border States, 1892–1920

336

Figure 17.6 Presidential Election Turnout Means of Non-Literacy Test and Literacy Test Black Counties in the South and Border States

337

Table 17.11 Presidential Election Voter Turnout in Non-Grandfather Clause and Grandfather Clause Black Counties of the South and Border States, 1892–1920

337

Figure 17.7 Presidential Election Turnout Means of Non-Grandfather Clause and Grandfather Clause Black Counties in the South and Border States

338

Table 17.12 Voter Turnout in Southern Counties Imposing the Poll Tax, Literacy Tests, and the Grandfather Clause, 1892–1920

339

Figure 17.8 Comparing the Effects of the Poll Tax, Literacy Tests, and the Grandfather Clause on Voter Turnout in Southern Counties, 1892–1920

340

Figure 17.9 African American and White Voter Registration in Louisiana, 1867–1964

341

Figure 17.10 African Americans as Percentage of Registered Voters in Louisiana, 1900–1948

341

Table 17.13 Longitudinal Analyses of African American Disfranchisement in Louisiana, 1867–1964

342

Table 17.14 Effect of Understanding Clause on Voters in White Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1892

344

Figure 17.11 Understanding Clause Effect on Registering Black and White Voters in Black and White Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1892

345

Maintaining the Era of Disenfranchisement: The White Primaries and Run-Off Primaries in the South

345

Table 17.15 Effect of Understanding Clause on Voters in African American Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1892

346

Table 17.16 Enactment Years of the Direct and White Primaries in the South and Border States, 1888–1915

347

Table 17.17 Year of Run-Off Primary Law Adoption in the South

347

Map 17.2 Southern States that Implemented the White Primary, 1888–1915

348

Rare Data in Georgia, North Carolina, and Oklahoma

349

Table 17.18 Results of Disenfranchisement Referendum in North Carolina by County and Racial Majority, 1900

350

Figure 17.12 Number of Counties by Racial Majority Voting For or Against Disenfranchisement Referendum in North Carolina, 1900

351

Figure 17.13 Percent of Counties by Racial Majority Voting For or Against Disenfranchisement Referendum in North Carolina, 1900

351

Map 17.3 Racial Majority Counties of North Carolina, 1900

352

Figure 17.14 Number of Counties by Racial Majority Voting For or Against Disenfranchisement Referendum in Georgia, 1908

354

Figure 17.15 Percent of Counties by Racial Majority Voting For or Against Disenfranchisement Referendum in Georgia, 1908 Table 17.19 Results of Disenfranchisement Referendum in Georgia by County and Racial Majority, 1908 Map 17.4 Racial Majority Counties of Georgia, 1908

354 355 357

Summary and Conclusions on the Era of Disenfranchisement

359

Table 17.20 Gain or Loss in Number of African American Registered Voters in the South from 1867 to after Disenfranchisement (1888–1908) Figure 17.16 Loss in Number of African American Registered Voters in the South from 1867 to after Disenfranchisement

360 360

Notes 360

Chapter 18. The Lodge Bill and Beyond: Proposed Federal Supervision of Federal Elections in the South, 1861–1921

363

Political Parties, Congress, and the Legislation before the Lodge Bill

364

Figure 18.1 Republican and Democratic Party Majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1860–1920 Figure 18.2 Republican and Democratic Party Majorities in the U.S. Senate, 1860–1920 Figure 18.3 Republican and Democratic Party Majorities in the U.S. Congress, 1860–1920 Table 18.1 Political Party in Control of the Presidency and Congress, 1860–1920

365 366 367 367

Republicans, Democrats, and the Politics of Enforcement of Suffrage Rights

368

Figure 18.4 Number of Convictions under the Enforcement Acts by Region and Year, 1870–1894 Figure 18.5 Number of Dismissals under the Enforcement Acts by Region and Year, 1870–1894 Figure 18.6 Number of Criminal Prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts in the South, 1870–1894 Figure 18.7 Number of Criminal Prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts in the Border States, 1870–1894 Table 18.2 Number of Criminal Cases in the Enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment in the South and Border States, 1870–1877 Figure 18.8 Number of Enforcement Cases for the Fifteenth Amendment in Southern States, 1870–1877 Figure 18.9 Number of Enforcement Cases for the Fifteenth Amendment in Border States, 1870–1877 Figure 18.10 Percentage of Enforcement Cases for the Fifteenth Amendment in Southern and Border States, 1870–1877

368 369 370 370

The Republican Party’s Lodge Bill: The Failure to Pass the New Enforcement Act

373

Figure 18.11 House of Representatives Vote of the Major Political Parties in the 51st Congress for H.R. 11045 (the Lodge Bill), 1890 Figure 18.12 Senate Vote of the Major Political Parties in the 51st Congress for Wolcott’s Motion (1891) Figure 18.13 Republican and Democratic Party Majorities in the U.S. Congress during the Administrations of President Grover Cleveland, 1885–1889 and 1893–1897

371 371 372 372

374 375 376

The Senate Popular Election Bill and the Women’s Suffrage Bill: The Republican Party’s New Political Opportunities

376

Table 18.3 House of Representatives Vote for Congressional Investigations of Suffrage Restrictions (the Burleigh Bill), 56th Congress, 1st Session, 1900 Figure 18.14 Number of Repealed Sections from the Enforcement Acts by Year and Political Party in Control of Congress

378 379

Summary and Conclusions on the Lodge Bill and Beyond

380

Diagram 18.1 The Lodge Bill in the Political Context of the Era of Disenfranchisement, 1877–1920 Table 18.4 Historical Composition of the United States Congress by Session, 1861–1921 Table 18.5 Criminal Prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts, by Region and Year, 1870–1894

381 381 383

Map 18.1 Fifteenth Amendment Enforcement Cases in the South and Border States, 1870–1877

384

Notes 384

Chapter 19. African American Voters and Electoral Empowerment in the North, 1876–1944: A Mobilizer of the Re-enfranchisement Drive in the South

387

The 1876 Chicago, Illinois, Electoral Symbol for African American Electoral Empowerment: North and South

389

Table 19.1 Illinois Legislature Election Outcomes with African American Candidates, 1868–1944

392

Beyond Illinois: Pioneer African American Multistate Legislative Empowerment in the North: An Additional Mobilizer

394

Figure 19.1 Votes for African American State Legislative Candidates in Illinois, 1876–1944

395

Figure 19.2 Number of African Americans Running for and Elected to the Illinois State Legislature, 1876–1944

395

Table 19.2 Early Elections of African American State Legislators, 1868–1944 397 Map 19.1 African American State Legislators, 1868–1944

401

Table 19.3 Pioneering African American Women State Legislative Candidates, 1868–1944

401

Map 19.2 African American Women State Legislative Candidates, 1868–1944

402

Beyond State Legislative Empowerment—Pioneer African American Congressional Empowerment in the North: A New Mobilizer

402

Table 19.4 Election Results Statistics for the First Congressional District of Illinois, 1920–1944

404

Figure 19.3 Votes for Democratic and Republican Candidates in the First Congressional District of Illinois, 1920–1944

405

Figure 19.4 Percentage of the Vote for Democratic and Republican Candidates in the First Congressional District of Illinois, 1920–1944 405

The Roots and Rising of the Northern African American Electorate in Presidential Elections: Another Mobilizer

406

Figure 19.5 Percentage of African American Voters Voting Democratic for President in Selected Wards of Chicago and Philadelphia, 1932–1960

407

Summary and Conclusions on African American Voters and Electoral Empowerment in the North

407

Notes 409

Chapter 20. The Enfranchisement of African American Women, 1669–1921

411

Long before the Women Suffrage Movement: Free Women of Color Voting in Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum America

412

Table 20.1 Inferred and Actual Female Populations in Colonial Virginia Including Years of African American Suffrage Denials

414

Table 20.2 Inferred and Actual Female Populations in Revolutionary and Early Antebellum New Jersey Including Years of Federal Censuses, Presidential Elections, and the Denial of African American and Women Suffrage

415

Table 20.3 Potential African American Female Voters in Colonial Virginia and Revolutionary/Antebellum New Jersey

416

The Struggle for the Re-Acquisition of Voting Rights for African American Women

416

Table 20.4 Potential Women Voters in States and Territories Fully Enfranchising Women Prior to the Nineteenth Amendment

420

Table 20.5 Potential Women Voters in States Enfranchising Women for Votes in Municipal Elections or on Tax and Bond Issues Prior to the Nineteenth Amendment (Exclusive of States Granting Full Suffrage to Women)

421

Table 20.6 Potential Women Voters in States Enfranchising Women to Vote in Elections Dealing with Schools prior to the Nineteenth Amendment (Exclusive of States Granting Full Suffrage to Women)

422

The Nineteenth Amendment: African American Women Suffrage Granted and Restricted in the South

424

Map 20.1 States and Territories that Fully Enfranchised Women prior to the Nineteenth Amendment

425

Table 20.7 Potential Women Voters in States that Enacted Statutes Permitting Women to Vote in Presidential Elections before the Nineteenth Amendment

426

Table 20.8 Distribution of African American Voters by Region and State, Census of 1910

427

Figure 20.1 Distribution of Eligible African American Women Voters by Region, 1910–1930

429

Table 20.9 Distribution of African American Voters by Region and State, Census of 1920

430

Table 20.10 Distribution of African American Voters by Region and State, Census of 1930

431

Table 20.11 Number and Percentage of African American Women Disenfranchised in the 1920 Presidential Election—The NAACP Investigations

434

Map 20.2 States and Cities in which the NAACP Investigated Disenfranchisement of African American Women in the 1920 Presidential Election

435

Table 20.12 1920 Voter Registration of African American Women (and Men) in Selected Cities of North Carolina

435

Table 20.13 African American Registered Voters in Jacksonville, Florida, by Gender, Marital Status, and Occupation: Paul Ortiz Data, 1920 437 Table 20.14 Summary of Election Results by County and Racial Majority for Superintendent of Public Instruction in Virginia, 1921

438

Summary and Conclusions on the Enfranchisement of African American Women

438

Notes 439

Chapter 21. The Electoral Revolt of African American Voters in 1920–1921 and Beyond

441

Motives and Strategies for African American Satellite Parties

442

The Roots and Rising of the Black and Tan Republicans

443

The African American Electoral Revolt in the 1920 Elections: State and National Elections

445

Table 21.1 Votes and Percentages for the Black and Tan Republican Candidates and Opposition Parties in Arkansas, Florida, Texas, and Virginia, 1920–1928

447

Table 21.2 Votes and Percentages for the Black and Tan Republican Candidates and Opposition Parties in Black and White Majority Counties, 1920–1921

448

The Longitudinal Voting Behavior of the Black and Tan Republicans: Mississippi and South Carolina

449

Table 21.3 Comparing the Republican Vote of the Black and Tans vs. Lily-Whites in Racial Majority Counties, 1920–1921 Table 21.4 Total and Factional Republican Vote in Mississippi for the Presidential Elections of 1928–1956 Figure 21.1 Black and Tan vs. Lily-White Vote Percentages for Republican Presidential Candidates in Mississippi, 1928–1956 Figure 21.2 Black and Tan vs. Lily-White Vote Percentages for Republican Presidential Candidates in African American Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1928–1956 Figure 21.3 Black and Tan vs. Lily-White Vote Percentages for Republican Presidential Candidates in White Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1928–1956 Figure 21.4 Black and Tan Vote Percentages for Republican Presidential Candidates in African American vs. White Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1928–1956 Table 21.5 Vote of Republican Factions in South Carolina for Selected Presidential, Senatorial, and Gubernatorial Elections, 1920–1952 Figure 21.5 Percentages of Republican Presidential Votes for Black and Tans vs. Lily-Whites in South Carolina, 1920, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1952

450 451

Summary and Conclusions on the Electoral Revolt of the Black and Tan Republicans

456

Map 21.1 States with Black and Tan Gubernatorial and Senatorial Candidates in the African American Electoral Revolt of 1920–1921

457

452 452 453 453 454 455

Notes 457

VOLUME 2 Chapter 22. African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1920–1944

459

Legal Battles for African American Voting Rights

460

African American Voters in the Urban Areas of the South, 1920–1940s

461

Table 22.1 First Generation Voting Rights Cases Table 22.2 Total Votes and Percentages for Candidates in Three San Antonio Mayoral Elections, 1939–1941 Table 22.3 African American Votes and Percentages in the Mayoral Election of San Antonio, Texas, 1939 Table 22.4 African American Votes and Percentages in the Mayoral Election of San Antonio, Texas, 1941 Table 22.5 African American Votes and Percentages in the Mayoral Run-Off Election of San Antonio, Texas, 1941 Figure 22.1 African American and Other Votes in San Antonio, Texas, Mayoral Elections, 1939–1941 Table 22.6 Comparing Literate Voting-Age Black Population and Estimated Black Voting Population in Selected Cities and Counties of the Southern States, 1920 Table 22.7 Summary of Voting-Age Blacks and Voting Black Populations in Selected Cities and Counties of the Southern States, 1920

462 464 465 465 465 466 467 468

Table 22.8 Official Louisiana Voter Registration for the State by Race and for New Orleans African Americans, 1896–1928

468

Figure 22.2 Registered Black Voters in New Orleans as a Percent of Registered Black Voters in Louisiana, 1896–1928

469

Changing the Rules: The Elimination of the Poll Tax by Southern States

469

Map 22.1 Southern Cities and Urban Areas that Allowed the African American Electorate to Vote 1896–1930

470

Table 22.9 Southern States that Voted For or Against Repeal or Reduction of the Poll Tax, 1920–1963

471

Federal Elimination of the Poll Tax: Causes and Effects

473

Map 22.2 Southern States For and Against Repeal of the Poll Tax, 1920–1963

474

Figure 22.3 Results of State Referenda to Repeal or Reduce the Poll Tax, 1920–1963

475

Table 22.10 Analysis of the Vote in the House of Representatives on Final Passage of the Anti-Poll Tax Bills

475

Table 22.11 Analysis of the Vote in the Senate on Cloture Applicable to the Anti-Poll Tax Bills

476

Table 22.12 Ratification of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment by the Southern and Border States

476

Table 22.13 African American Voting-Age Population in the Southern States by Poll Tax Repeal, 1920s–1950s

478

Figure 22.4 African American Voting-Age Population and Southern States by Repeal of the Poll Tax, 1920s–1950s

478

Summary and Conclusions on African American Registration and Voting, 1920–1944

479

Notes 479

Chapter 23. African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1944–1965

481

The Legal Stages in Dismantling the Democratic Party’s White Primary on the Road to Re-enfranchisement

484

Diagram 23.1 The Legal Stages and Cases in Dismantling the Democratic Party’s White Primary: 1921–1953

485

The African American Electorate before the 1965 Voting Rights Act: An Empirical Overview and Case Study Portrait

487

Table 23.1 Estimated Number of African Americans Registered to Vote in the South, 1940–1956

488

Figure 23.1 Percentage Increase in African Americans Registered to Vote in the South, 1940–1956

488

Table 23.2 Estimated Number of African Americans Registered to Vote in the South before and after Smith v. Allwright, 1940–1947

489

Figure 23.2 Top Ten Counties of Alabama by Number of Registered African American Voters, 1956

489

Figure 23.3 Top Ten Counties of Alabama by Percent of Eligible Black Voters Registered to Vote, 1956

490

Figure 23.4 Percentage of Black Voter Registrations in the Top Ten Counties of Alabama by Eligible Black Voter Population, 1956

490

Figure 23.5 Scatter Plot of Eligible Black Voters by Percent of Eligible Black Voters Registed to Vote in Counties of Alabama, 1956

491

Figure 23.6 Number of and Percent Change in African American Voter Registrations in Arkansas, 1930–1956

492

Figure 23.7 Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote in Arkansas and Alabama by African American Share of County Population, 1958

492

Table 23.3 African American Major Party Registration in Florida, 1944–1956 493 Figure 23.8 Major Party African American Voter Registration in Florida, 1944–1956

493

Table 23.4 Top and Bottom Ten Counties of Florida in Number of African American Registered Voters in 1956, and Change Since 1946 494 Figure 23.9 Top Ten Counties of Florida in Number of Registered African American Voters in 1956 and Change from 1946 to 1956

494

Figure 23.10 Bottom Ten Counties of Florida in Number of Registered African American Voters in 1956 and Change from 1946 to 1956

495

Table 23.5 Purged Voters and Hypothetical Impact of African American Voters in Georgia by County, 1946 Gubernatorial Primary

496

Map 23.1 Counties Won by Talmadge Where Registered and Purged African American Voters Exceeded His Margin of Victory, 1946 Georgia Gubernatorial Primary

498

Table 23.6 African American Voter Registration in the State of Georgia and in the Cities of Atlanta and Macon, 1920–1964

499

Figure 23.11 African American Voter Registration in the State of Georgia and in the Cities of Atlanta and Macon, 1920–1964

500

Figure 23.12 Votes in Predominantly African American Precincts Ranked by Percent Turnout, Atlanta, Georgia, Mayoral Primary Election, May 18, 1957

500

Figure 23.13 African American Voter Registration in Louisiana, March 1940–October 1956

501

Figure 23.14 Number of Louisiana Parishes by Percentage of Registered African American Voters, 1956

501

Figure 23.15 Relation between African Americans in Parish Population and African American Voter Registration, Louisiana, 1956

502

Table 23.7 African American Voter Registration by Religio-Cultural Sections of Louisiana, 1956

502

Figure 23.16 African American Voting Behavior, Louisiana Democratic Primary, 1956

503

Figure 23.17 Percentage of African American Vote for the Long Ticket Inside and Outside New Orleans, Louisiana Democratic Primary, 1956

504

Figure 23.18 Percentage of African American Vote in New Orleans for the Long Ticket vs. Morrison Ticket, Louisiana Democratic Primary, 1956

504

Table 23.8 African American Voter Registration and Voting Behavior in Selected Counties of Mississippi, 1946 505 Table 23.9 African American Registration and Voting Behavior in African American Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1954

505

Table 23.10 African American Registration and Voting Behavior in White Majority Counties of Mississippi, 1954

506

Table 23.11 African American Voting Behavior in Selected Counties of Mississippi by Racial Majority, 1946–1954

507

Table 23.12 African American Voter Registration in North Carolina, 1940–1964

508

Table 23.13 Population, VAP, and African American Voter Registration in Sampled Counties of North Carolina, Grouped by Racial Majority, 1956–1958

508

Table 23.14 African American Voter Registration in Tuskegee, Alabama; Macon County, Alabama; Durham County, North Carolina; and Memphis, Tennessee, 1919–1966

510

Table 23.15 Votes for U.S. Senator in South Carolina by County, Ranked by the Progressive Democratic Party Vote, 1944

512

Table 23.16 African American Voter Registration in South Carolina, 1940–1964 514 Table 23.17 African American Voter Registration in South Carolina, by Racial Majority of the County, 1957–1958

515

Table 23.18 African American Voters in Tennessee, 1940–1962 516 Figure 23.19 Number of Eligible and Registered African American Voters in Tennessee, 1940–1952

517

Figure 23.20 Regional Distribution of African American Registered Voters in Texas, 1956

517

Figure 23.21 Percentage of Registered African Americans in Texas Who Voted, by Urban Status, 1956

518

Figure 23.22 Percentage of Registered African Americans Who Voted in Selected Urban Counties of Texas, 1956

518

Map 23.2 African American Voting and Poll Tax Payment in Selected Urban Counties of Texas, 1956

519

Table 23.19 African American Voter Registration in Sampled Counties of Texas, Grouped by Racial Majority Populations, 1956

520

Figure 23.23 Distribution of African American Registered Voters in Cities and Counties of Virginia, 1952 and 1956

521

Table 23.20 Comparison of African American Voter Registration with African American Population and Literacy, Virginia, 1920–1930 521 Table 23.21 African American Voter Registration in Sampled Counties of Virginia, Grouped by Racial Majority Populations, 1958

522

African American Voting Behavior in the 1952 and 1956 Presidential Elections

523

The Rise of Federal Election Statistics on African American Voters, 1959, 1961, 1963, and 1965

523

Table 23.22 Vote of African American Precincts in Southern Cities, Presidential Elections 1952 and 1956

524

Map 23.3 Non-White Population by County in the Southern and Border States, 1950

525

Map 23.4 Non-White Population in the Southern and Border States, 1950

526



Table 23.23 Attempted and Accepted African American Voter Registrations in Macon County, Alabama, 1951–1958 526 Table 23.24 African American Population and Voter Registration in African American Majority Counties of the Southern States, 1958

528

Figure 23.24 Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote Compared to African American Population in African American Majority Counties in the Southern States, 1958

528

Figure 23.25 Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote Compared to African American Percentage of Total Population in the Southern States, 1958 Figure 23.26 Number of African American Voter Registrations in the South by State, 1956 and 1962 Table 23.25 Voter Registration Statistics by County in Mississippi, 1962 and 1964

529 530 531

Using the Commission on Civil Rights Reports to Analyze the V. O. Key Thesis

532

Table 23.26 Percentage of African Americans in County Populations of Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi Compared to Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote, 1958

533

Figure 23.27 Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote by Percentage of African Americans in County Populations of Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, 1958

534

Table 23.27 Percentage of African Americans in County Populations of Florida and Georgia Compared to Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote, 1958

534

Figure 23.28 Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote by Percentage of African Americans in County Populations of Florida and Georgia, 1958

535

Table 23.28 Percentage of African Americans in County Populations of Louisiana and Texas Compared to Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote, 1956, 1958, and 1959

536

Figure 23.29 Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote by African American Share of County Populations, Louisiana (1956 and 1959) and Texas (1958)

536

Table 23.29 Percentage of African Americans in County Populations of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia Compared to Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote, 1958

537

Figure 23.30 Percentage of Eligible African Americans Registered to Vote by African American Share of County Populations in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, 1958

537

Map 23.5 African American Voting Behavior in Selected African American Majority Counties, 1950

538

Table 23.30 Voting Behavior of African Americans in Selected African American Majority Counties, 1950 539 Table 23.31 African American Voter Registration in Selected Louisiana Parishes, Using Permanent and Periodic Registrations, March 1956–November 1958

540

Conclusions on African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1944–1965

541

Notes 542

Chapter 24. Rare African American Registration and Voting Data: Episodic Events from the 1920s–1964 545 The Nature and Types of African American Electoral Events, 1915–1964

547

Table 24.1 Place and Type of Rare Electoral Events in the South and a Border State, 1896–1964

547

Map 24.1 States and Counties of Rare African American Registration and Voting Data, 1896–1964

548

Table 24.2 African American Statewide Voter Registration Organizations, 1940s–1960s

549

The Socio-Demographic Characteristics of African American Voters: Registrants in Savannah, Georgia: 1915–1916, 1920–1921, and 1924–1926

550

Document 24.1 Original “Oath of Voter” Documents from Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia

551

Document 24.2 Original “Oath of Voter” Documents from Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia

552

Table 24.3 African American Voter Registration by Gender in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1915–1926

553

Table 24.4 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1915–1926

554

Figure 24.1 Percentage Distribution of African American Registered Voters by Year and Gender in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1915–1926

555

Figure 24.2 Number of African American Registered Voters by District in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1920

556

Figure 24.3 Age Distribution of African American Voters Registered in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1915–1926

556

Table 24.5 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1915

557

Table 24.6 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1916

557

Table 24.7 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1920

558

Table 24.8 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1921

559

Table 24.9 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1924

559

Table 24.10 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1925

560

Table 24.11 Oath of Voter Statistics for African American Voters in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1926

561

Table 24.12 African American Voter Registrations and Presidential Election Results in Chatham County (Savannah), Georgia, 1916, 1920, and 1924

561

African American Farmers’ Voting Behavior in the Carolinas’ Cotton and Tobacco Referenda, 1938–1946

563

Table 24.13 States and Counties of the Cotton Control Program Referendum, 1938

564

Table 24.14 The States and Counties in which Ralph Bunche Field Investigator George Stoney Conducted Interviews on the 1938 AAA Cotton Referenda

566

Table 24.15 Regional and State Summary of Cotton Referendum Votes, March 12, 1938 567 Table 24.16 Voter Participation in the Cotton and Tobacco Referenda of North Carolina and South Carolina, 1938–1946 568 Table 24.17 Populations of Wilson County, North Carolina, and Darlington County, South Carolina, 1940 568 Table 24.18 Distribution of Farm Operators by Race and Tenure in Wilson County, North Carolina, and Darlington County, South Carolina, 1940

568

Table 24.19 Numbers of Farm Operators and Interviewed Farmers in Wilson County, North Carolina, and Darlington County, South Carolina

569

Table 24.20 Participation in the AAA Referenda by Tenure and Race in Wilson County, North Carolina, and Darlington County, South Carolina

570

The African American Statewide Candidates in Louisiana’s 1952 and 1956 Elections

570

Table 24.21 Tabulation of Interview Responses to the Question of White Farmers’ Feelings About Black Farmers Voting

571

Table 24.22 Tabulation of Responses by White Farmers in Wilson County, North Carolina, and Darlington County, South Carolina

572

Table 24.23 Tabulation of Interview Responses Regarding African American Voting in Wilson County, North Carolina, and Darlington County, South Carolina

573

Table 24.24 Democratic Party Primary Election for Governor of Louisiana, January 15, 1952

575



Table 24.25 Democratic Party Primary Election for Attorney General of Louisiana, January 17, 1956

578

The Mississippi “Freedom Elections” for Governor, Congress, and the Presidency, 1963 and 1964

579

Table 24.26 Comparison of Votes for Parker and Amedee in the Louisiana Democratic Primaries and African American Voter Registrations in 1956

580

Table 24.27 Pioneering African American Congressional Candidates of Mississippi, 1962

582

Map 24.2 Counties of the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts of Mississippi, 1962

583







Table 24.28 Freedom Vote of Mississippi Cities Cast with State Affidavits in the 1963 Democratic Primary

584



Table 24.29 Democratic Primary Election for Governor of Mississippi and the Freedom Vote, 1963

585

Table 24.30 Democratic Run-Off Election for Governor of Mississippi and the Freedom Vote, 1963

587



Table 24.31 Freedom Vote and Official Results of the 1963 Mississippi Gubernatorial Election, by Racial Majority Counties and Ranked by the Freedom Vote

589

Table 24.32 Comparing the Mississippi Freedom Vote of 1963 with African American Voter Registrations in 1962 and 1964

593

Table 24.33 Official Primary and Unofficial General Election Votes for Freedom Vote Candidates in Mississippi, 1964

595

Table 24.34 Unofficial Results for the Mississippi Freedom Vote in the 1964 Presidential Election

595

Rare Data in a Border State: West Virginia

596

Table 24.35 Counties of West Virginia Ranked by Number of African American Registered Voters, 1870

596

Table 24.36 Number of African American Eligible Voters by County in West Virginia, 1920

597

Table 24.37 Voting for African American Candidates to the West Virginia State Legislature, 1896–1952

599

Map 24.3 Counties of African American Candidates for the West Virginia State Legislature, 1896–1952

600

Summary and Conclusions on Rare African American Registration and Voting Data

601





Notes 601

Chapter 25. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, Expansions and Renewals, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006

605

The Rise of the Voting Rights Issue to National Prominence

607

The Legislative Voting Behavior of Southern Members of Congress on Voting Rights Acts, 1957–2006

609

Table 25.1 Congressional Votes for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964 and for the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006

610

Figure 25.1 Number of Northern and Southern Democrats Voting For and Against Civil Rights and Voting Rights Legislation in the House of Representatives, 1957–2006

612

Figure 25.2 Number of Northern and Southern Democrats Voting For and Against Civil Rights and Voting Rights Legislation in the Senate, 1957–2006

612

Figure 25.3 Number of Southern Democrats Voting For and Against Civil Rights and Voting Rights Legislation in the House and Senate, 1957–2006

613

Figure 25.4 Percentage of Northern and Southern Democrats Voting For Civil Rights and Voting Rights Legislation in the House and Senate, 1957–2006

614

Figure 25.5 Number of Southern Republicans Voting For and Against Civil Rights and Voting Rights Legislation in the House and Senate, 1957–2006

614

Figure 25.6 Percentage of Southern Republicans Voting For and Against Civil Rights and Voting Rights Legislation in the House and Senate, 1957–2006

615

Table 25.2 Presidents and Republican Party Strength during Passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006

615

Assessing the 1965 Voting Rights Act: Reports of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

616

Table 25.3 Commission on Civil Rights and Academic Studies and Reports on the Impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

616

Table 25.4 Comparing African American Voter Registrations in Counties under Federal Examination for the Voting Rights Act with Nearby Counties Not Examined

617

Map 25.1 Counties Selected by the United States Commission on Civil Rights for Evaluation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

618

Figure 25.7 Comparing African American Voter Registrations in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi Immediately after Passage of the Voting Rights Act

619

Table 25.5 Cumulative Totals of Federal Examinations for Voter Registration in Selected Southern States, by County, Following Passage of the Voting Rights Act, August 6–October 30, 1965

620

Figure 25.8 Cumulative Voter Registration Applicants Listed under Voting Rights Examining by Race Immediately Following Passage of the Voting Rights Act

621

Figure 25.9 Cumulative Voter Registration Applicants Rejected under Voting Rights Examining by Race Immediately Following Passage of the Voting Rights Act

621

Table 25.6 Voter Registration Totals in Selected Counties of Selected Southern States Following Passage of the Voting Rights Act, August 6–October 30, 1965

621

Map 25.2 New Voters Registered by Race Following Implementation of the Voting Rights Act, August 6–October 30, 1965

622

Figure 25.10 Accepted Voter Registration Applications in Selected Southern States by Race Following Passage of the Voting Rights Act, 1965

622

Figure 25.11 Rejected Voter Registration Applications in Selected Southern States by Race Following Passage of the Voting Rights Act, 1965

623

Table 25.7 Gains in Ratio of Registered Voters to Eligible Voters by Race before and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965

625

Figure 25.12 Percentage Point Gains in Ratio of Registered Voters to Eligible Voters in Examiner Counties by Race before and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965

626

Figure 25.13 Percentage Point Gains in Ratio of African American Registered Voters to Eligible Voters before and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965

627

Table 25.8 Impact of Federal Examiners for the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Comparison of Voter Registrations by State in Examiner and Non-Examiner Counties

627

Figure 25.14 Impact of the Voting Rights Act on African American Voter Registrations: A Comparison of Examined and Non-Examined Counties, 1965

628

Figure 25.15 Numbers of Counties with VRA Federal Examiners and Persons Listed for Registration, 1974

629

Table 25.9 Voter Turnout in the Presidential Elections of 1964, 1968, and 1972 in Southern States Covered by the Voting Rights Act 629 Figure 25.16 Percentage Point Changes in Voter Turnout for the Presidential Elections of 1964, 1968, and 1972 in Southern States Covered by the Voting Rights Act

630

Table 25.10 Estimated Gap in Voter Registration between Blacks and Whites in Southern States Covered by the Voting Rights Act, 1971–1972

630

Table 25.11 Voter Registration Shares by Race in Southern States Covered by the Voting Rights Act, 1971–1972

631

Figure 25.17 Percentage Point Difference in Voting Age Population Registered to Vote among Blacks and Whites in Southern States Covered by the Voting Rights Act, 1971–1972

631

The Long-Term Impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act: The Fourth Report, 1981

631

Table 25.12 Counties Designated for Federal Examiners and Number of Persons Listed by Examiners, 1980 Table 25.13 Election Observation Assignments under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 1966–1980 Table 25.14 Percentage of Voting Age Population Reported Registered to Vote in Jurisdictions Covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, by Race and Ethnicity, 1976 Table 25.15 Voting Age Population and Voter Registration in Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina, 1971–1980

632 633

The Major Literature on the 1965 Voting Rights Act and Renewals

635

Table 25.16 Categorization of the Major Literature on the 1965 Voting Rights Act

636

Summary and Conclusions on the Voting Rights Act and Its Renewals

643

Table 25.17 Counties in the 1963 Department of Justice Lawsuit, Examined and Observed under the Voting Rights Act, as of 1980

644

634 634

Notes 645

Chapter 26. Felon and Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement: The Newest Technique of Vote Dilution and Candidate Diminution

649

The Historical Genesis of African American Felon Disenfranchisement: The Slave and Black Codes

650

Before Mass Incarceration: Segregation as a Criminalization System

652

Table 26.1 Number of African American and White Prisoners Sent to State and Federal Prisons and Reformatories, 1939 Table 26.2 Number of African American and White Male Felony Prisoners Sent to State and Federal Prisons and Reformatories, 1939 Table 26.3 Rank Ordered Distribution of Arrests by Race According to Type of Offense, 1940

654

African American Felons and Ex-Felons During Mass Incarceration

655

654 655

Figure 26.1 Rank Order Distribution of Non-Violent Offense Arrests of African Americans, 1940 656 Table 26.4 Statehood, Changes to Felon Disenfranchisement Laws, and Comparison to Adoption of Universal White Suffrage 657 Table 26.5 Disenfranchised Felons by Region and State, 2004 659 Table 26.6 Disenfranchised African American Felons by Region and State, 2004 660 Table 26.7 Race and Gender of Persons Convicted of Felonies in State Courts, by Offense, 2006 662 Table 26.8 Types of Felony Sentences Imposed in State Courts, by Race of Felons and Offense, 2006 662 Table 26.9 Mean Length (in Months) of Felony Sentences Imposed in State Courts, by Race, Gender, and Offense, 2006 663 Table 26.10 Corrections and Felony Disenfranchised Populations by Region and State, 2004–2008 664 Figure 26.2 Number of African Americans Disenfranchised by Felony Convictions in the South and Border States, 2004 666 Figure 26.3 African Americans by Felony Disenfranchisement in the South and Border States as a Share of the Total African American Population in the State, 2004 666 Figure 26.4 African Americans by Felony Disenfranchisement in the South and Border States as a Share of the Total Felony Disenfranchised Population in the State, 2004 667

National Coalition on Black Voter Participation (NCBVP) Report

667

Table 26.11 Procedure for the Restoration of Voting Rights to Ex-Felons and Ex-Convicts in Selected States, 1995 669

Summary and Conclusions on Felon Disenfranchisement

670

Notes 671

Chapter 27. African American Voting Rights in a Historic Presidential Election: The 2008 Election of President Barack Obama

673

Invoking the Voting Rights Act in the 2008 Presidential Election: The Role of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

676

Table 27.1 Federal Election Observations (1966–1980) and Federal Examiner and Observer Assignments (July 1, 1982–June 30, 2004)

678

Table 27.2 Statutory Provisions Enforced by the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Fiscal Years 2001–2007

679

U.S. Senator Barack Obama, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and Other Voting Rights Legislation

680

Demography and the 2008 Election: State- and Individual-Level Results

682

The Long-Term Influence of Disenfranchisement on the 2008 Obama Presidential Election

685

Table 27.3 Number and Percentage of African American Majority Counties Lost during the Disenfranchisement Era until 2000 and the Relationship to Coverage by the Voting Rights Act

686

Map 27.1 Past and Present African American Majority Counties in the South

687

Figure 27.1 Coverage of States by the Voting Rights Act and Number of African American Majority Counties Lost

688

Figure 27.2 Coverage of States by the Voting Rights Act and Percentage of African American Majority Counties Lost

689

Table 27.4 2008 Presidential Election in the Southern and Border States

689

Figure 27.3 Difference in Votes between Obama and McCain in the South, Presidential Election of 2008

691

Figure 27.4 Percentage Point Difference in the Vote between Obama and McCain in the South, Presidential Election of 2008

691

Table 27.5 Counties Won by the Democratic Party by Racial Majority, U.S. Presidential Elections 2000–2008

692

Figure 27.5 Percent of Racial Majority Counties Won in the South and Border States by the Democratic Party, 2000–2008

694

Table 27.6 Republican Party Vote and Percent of Total Vote in Racial Majority Counties of the South and Border States in U.S. Presidential Elections, 2000–2008

695

Figure 27.6 Percent of White Majority Counties in the South and Border States Won by the Republican Party, 2000–2008

697

Figure 27.7 Number of Votes Gained or Lost in White Majority Counties Won by the Republican Party in the South and Border States, 2004–2008

698

Table 27.7 2008 Presidential Election in the Southern States by Past and Present Black Majority Counties

699

Table 27.8 2008 Presidential Election in the Southern States by Past and Present Black Majority Counties and by Counties in the VRA Implementation

700

Table 27.9 Projecting Same Support in Former Black Majority Counties as in Current Black Majority Counties Won by Obama in the South in 2008 Presidential Election

702

The Short-Term Influence of Disenfranchisement on the 2008 Obama Presidential Election

703

Table 27.10 Comparing the Actual Outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election in the South with a Model that Awards the Votes of Former Black Majority Counties to Barack Obama 703 Table 27.11 Support for Barack Obama in the South by Race and Coverage under the Voting Rights Act, 2008 Presidential Election 704 Table 27.12 Percentage of the Vote for Obama by Region and Race in the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Primary Elections 704 Table 27.13 Percentage of the Vote for Obama in the Presidential Election of 2008 by Region, Race, and Coverage under the Voting Rights Act in the South 705 Table 27.14 Percentage Gain or Loss in White Support for Obama From the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Primary Elections to the General Election 706 Figure 27.8 Percentage Point Gain or Loss in White Support for Obama in the South From the 2008 Democratic Party Primary Elections to the General Election 707

Summary and Conclusions on the 2008 Obama Election

707

Notes 708

Chapter 28. Summary and Conclusions

711

King’s Voting Rights Activism and Policy Agenda: An Additional Perspective on the Relationship between Civil and Voting Rights

712

Diagram 28.1 The Voting Rights Activism of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Public Policy Results, 1957–1965

715

The Origins of Voting Rights Activists and Activism as Variables in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

715

Geography (Political Context) as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

716

The Origin of Opponents and Opposition as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

717

The Origin of Party Competition as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

720

The Origins of Public Sentiment and Mass Public Opinion as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

721

Figure 28.1 Percent of the Vote Against and For African American Suffrage Rights in Three Statewide Referenda of New York, 1846, 1860, and 1869

722

Figure 28.2 Percent of the Vote For or Against the Imposition or Repeal of Poll Taxes in Three Statewide Referenda of Texas, 1902, 1949, and 1963

723

Map 28.1 Southern States Holding Referenda on Poll Taxes and African American Suffrage Rights, 1900–1963

723

The Origins of States and Localities as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

724

The Courts and Liberal Jurisprudence as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

725

African American Election Data as a Variable in the Struggle for African American Suffrage Rights

726

Conclusion of The African American Electorate: A Statistical History 726 Diagram 28.2 The Empirically Based Determinative Variables in the African American Voting Rights Struggle

727

Notes 727

Appendices 731 Introductory Remarks

731

Cumulative Bibliography

903

Copyright Acknowledgments

917

Index I-1

Preface The Genesis of This Work in the Journeys of Its Authors

T

he three authors of this study come from different disciplinary backgrounds. In addition to collaborating on a previous book of county-level presidential election data,1 each of the authors had a different journey to this project. To share their stories is to illuminate both how this study came to be and the individuals whose prior work led to its creation.

Hanes Walton, Jr. Hanes Walton, Jr., the senior co-author on this project, initially heard about African American voters in his hometown of Athens, Georgia, during the 1950s. At the time, he was in high school, and although the White Primary had been outlawed in Georgia, for African Americans to register and vote was still difficult in this city. The state had habitually ignored and defied the Supreme Court in its ruling of Smith v. Allwright in 1944 and delayed their response in defiance of the federal district court ruling in King v. Chapman, a case brought in Georgia in 1946 to outlaw the White Primary there. The African American electorate was—to put it mildly—discouraged from registering and voting. One example of this discouragement and intimidation was the terrible lynching of several African Americans in Monroe, Georgia, when they had neglected to disperse from a sidewalk during the 1946 gubernatorial election. Whispered discussions carried information that well before the 1944 ruling a few handpicked African Americans were allowed to vote. In the research of co-author Walton for his Black Politics book in 1972, he utilized a master’s thesis that had found that “in 1930, for example, thirty blacks voted in the municipal election in Athens, Georgia,” despite the fact that in 1908 African Americans had been disenfranchised from voting in the state.2 Some of those in this group usually spoke at Walton’s church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, West, on Men’s Day and Youth Day about how leading whites in Athens liked their demeanor, political attitude, and behavior and rewarded them with this right. These chosen African American voters would close their addresses with the conclusion that other African American citizenry of the congregations could achieve the same thing if their example was followed of so-called circumspect civic behavior. The official data source, the Clarke County voter registration and voting records, contains very few references to the African American electorate in Athens, Georgia, during and before

1930.3 Of course, at the time Walton did not realize that this data and documentation of these experiences were quietly being omitted from most academic and scholarly studies. At this time Walton was unable to register to vote due to his age, although Georgia was then the only southern state where an eighteenyear-old could register. Walton’s first year at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, 1959, coincided with the beginning of the desegregation sit-ins. Professor of Political Science Robert H. Brisbane in his Introduction to Social Science course discussed with his class the electoral power of the African American electorate in the “balance-of-power” voting strategy as well as such African American political innovations as black political parties.4 During Walton’s second year Professor Brisbane in his American Government classes noted the numerous ways that the African American electorate had been creative and imaginative both in trying to vote and in trying to evade, avoid, and bypass white efforts to disenfranchise them. In his lectures and books Professor Brisbane offered places where data existed about these innovative efforts.5 Walton began his own voting rights activism in the 1962 congressional election in Atlanta, Georgia, concerning the Democratic incumbent James Davis, a rabid segregationist. Davis was in charge of the House of Representatives’ District of Columbia Committee and ensured that the national capitol was tightly segregated, even though this had become an international embarrassment because black ambassadors and diplomats from third-world countries had been forced to endure rigid racial segregation. The African American communities of D.C. and Atlanta protested against Congressman Davis, and the Kennedy administration decided to try to unseat him in hopes that the next chairman would not continue with these tradition-based segregation policies. The challenger to Congressman Davis was a moderate liberal Georgian, Charles Weltner. In order to assist in Davis’s defeat, in a newly reapportioned congressional district, many Morehouse students, including Walton, were recruited to mobilize the African American electorate through door-to-door canvassing and driving African American voters to the polls. This initial “get-out-the-vote” effort succeeded, and Charles Weltner upset the long-serving segregationist to represent this congressional district in Georgia.6

xxx

The African American Electorate

Professor Tobe Johnson arrived during Walton’s third year at Morehouse. Johnson’s Public Administration class provided Walton and his classmates with vividly detailed analyses of public and private bureaucracies and, thereby, state and county voter registration administrative offices in the South; the class also showed how regional and individual personnel policies of these agencies permitted their prejudicial biases to limit and circumscribe the democratic implementation of the suffrage laws of the nation. Johnson’s careful analysis in his lectures on public bureaucracies, especially in this era of the 1960s, was both poignant and significant, as his students tried to make sense of the regional systemic reaction to the civil and voting rights laws of 1957 and 1960 and the 1963 Freedom Vote Campaign and its emphasis on voter registration in Mississippi.7 Thus, in this period of significant African American voting rights activists and activism, one needed to know how values and beliefs of the dominant political behavioral culture influenced a scientific discipline, which declared that values and beliefs had nothing to do with understanding political behavior and public bureaucracies. Professor Johnson provided the necessary intellectual insights.8 After graduating from Morehouse in 1963, Walton began a master’s degree at Atlanta University. In his first year, Professor Samuel DuBois Cook offered a class on the American Political Process, including an astounding lecture on the relationship between the African American electorate in Georgia and the Tom Watson–led Populist Party there and in the nation. It not only was personally electrifying for Walton but also became the motivation for his first book, The Negro in Third Party Politics,9 and for this joint effort. Professor Cook not only brought the African American electorate off the intellectual sidelines in this course but also showed the roles and functions that they played in the political process via their political innovations.10 According to Professor Cook, these roles and functions could be understood through the rare empirical data on the African American electorate, which in turn offered new perspectives on the American political experience. Another major intellectual contribution of Professor Cook was his use of stellar and classic works in the discipline, including those of V.O. Key, Jr. (e.g., his Southern Politics and his textbook, Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups), and those of Professor Key’s mentor, Professor Harold Gosnell (e.g., his Negro Politicians: The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago). In both authors’ works were new data sources on the African American electorate. Professor Key’s work Southern Politics in State and Nation contained a chapter on the Negro Republicans, particularly the Black-and-Tan Republican satellite parties, while Professor Gosnell’s work had Appendix Table XVIII, which listed all of the pioneering African American state legislators of Illinois from 1876 through 1932. Also assisting Professor Key was another political scientist, Alexander Heard, who went on to gather and publish election returns data on some of the African American political parties and independent candidacies that Professor Cook brought to our attention.11 Here was previously unseen and unused empirical data on the African American electorate. In addition to providing literature that covered little known factual information, Professor Cook left his students with a terrific moral compass to guide them through the civil rights movement, led by

his Morehouse classmate, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who had by then become a national figure. At the doctoral level, Walton’s experience at Howard University included department chairman and Professor Emmett Dorsey and Professor Harold Gosnell, as well as the late Robert Martin and Bernard Fall. At the University of Chicago, Professor Gosnell had taught not only Key but Martin as well and became a co-author with Martin of works on African American elected officials. While several things stand out in this intellectual sojourn, one of particular mention is Professor Gosnell’s discussions and dialogues about the use of homogeneous precinct analysis in studying the African American electorate, which led to its innovative use in this volume. Professor Walton gratefully acknowledges his intellectual debt to these giants in the study of electoral politics and especially to their expertise on the African American electorate when few were paying attention or believed the topic to be worthy of intellectual concern. Their talents, skills, and publications have clearly helped make this volume possible. And Walton would also like to acknowledge his two co-authors, Sherman C. Puckett and Donald R. Deskins, Jr. Having co-authored an earlier volume with them, Walton knew that their superb computer and mapping skills would be essential to producing this volume on the African American electorate, and he is quite pleased that they agreed to join him on this major breakthrough study.

Sherman C. Puckett Co-author Sherman C. Puckett also has southern roots that helped shape him, having grown up in Nashville, Tennessee. He began his collegiate experience at the historic Fisk University, where he majored in mathematics and American history. Despite the pride within his community for classmates who had achieved an undefeated high school basketball season and state championship, there was a certain degree of timidity, unexplained at least to Puckett, surrounding the issue of civil rights. In Puckett’s first year at Fisk, an unannounced visit to the campus by African American activist Stokely Carmichael was met with hostility by school administrators. At the end of his second and last year at Fisk, the assassination of the great civil rights leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., induced rioting in African American communities throughout the nation, including Nashville, leading to nighttime curfews for all residents of the community surrounding Fisk University and Tennessee State University, a couple of miles away. The next year Puckett transferred to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to study electrical and computer engineering. After his first year Puckett had one of his most important experiences while at Michigan when he learned computer programming from, and worked for, engineering Professor Brice Carnahan. Like many other African American students, Puckett became politicized by isolation as a member within an “out” group at Michigan. In his senior year, just when the one protest in which he participated had seemed to fail, a large host of other students joined in an unforgettably dramatic fashion and the university accepted the single demand for increased diversity.

Two of his most rewarding experiences as an engineering student bracketed his senior year. After a period at Cummins Engine Company in Indiana (running a computer laboratory for testing diesel engines), Puckett returned to graduate school in Ann Arbor. Several professors at Michigan left strong impressions upon Puckett: Professor Gary Fowler (statistics), Professor Donald R. Deskins, Jr. (sociology), one of very few African American professors on campus at that time, and Professor John Nystuen (geography). And Thomas Anton, a professor of political science, taught that African American politics had become a practical reality in some of the largest urban areas such as Atlanta, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit. After earning a PhD in urban and regional planning, Puckett was employed as a political appointee of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. Puckett had previously assisted a fellow graduate student in conducting and analyzing political surveys during the mayor’s first reelection. As an appointee Puckett also traversed the city on patrols against the arsons of “Devil’s Night,” in sweeps to encourage citizens to come forward for census counts, and, of course, to support various political campaigns. Professor Deskins suggested to Puckett that he could present survey results geographically with choropleth maps of Detroit. Rather than specialized commercial software, only a little computer programming was necessary to produce the spatial polygons and patterns that represented Detroit’s twenty-four community districts. Like the continental United States, the shape of Detroit overall fits comfortably on the screen or landscaped on a sheet of paper. The mayor was thrilled with the results. Convincing the Detroit Elections Commission to report city election results using maps has not been, to this point, successful. The Commission did eventually produce a digital map of its more than 600 precincts, but Puckett could not persuade the then-director to share his vision of the value of showing election results on the map, immediately after any election and to the general public. The current mayor has announced a policy of triage for the delivery of services to the neighborhoods of Detroit, a city with a greater than 80% African American population, and in the fall election of 2011, the city charter was amended to henceforth elect a super-majority of city council members by district.12 Perhaps that outcome coupled with reception of this work will convince the Commission to help its citizenry to realize the potential of all of its neighborhood electorates and even to preserve the legacy of its past elections in the records that it should and can retain, organize, and exploit with current and future mapping technologies.

Donald R. Deskins, Jr. The third co-author of this study, Donald R. Deskins, Jr., is a noted former athlete as well as continuing scholar. His journey to this effort has been long and eventful. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and he served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He was later a member of both the All-Marine and Michigan Wolverine football teams, and he was a first-round draft choice and member of the Oakland

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Raiders professional football team. He returned to the University of Michigan to earn his baccalaureate degree, master’s degree, and PhD and to become a professor of geography and sociology. To these accomplishments he has added several academic publications and awards, as well as the mentorship of numerous former students to noteworthy professional lives and academia. This is the third collaboration of Walton, Puckett, and Deskins. The second to appear, which began as their first, is the forthcoming Presidential Elections 1789–2008, to be published by the University of Michigan Press. We credit Deskins as the inspiration for that project and for bringing us together as a team. His vision and what both Walton and Puckett learned from it have made this current project possible.

Acknowledgments In closing Professor Walton would like to acknowledge the assistance of his sons, Brandon M. Walton and Brent M. Walton, Professor Josephine Allen of Cornell and Binghamton University, his typist and all-around troubleshooter, Margaret Hunter, and diagram maker Greta Blake for their numerous efforts in data collection and continual encouragement during this more than three-decade research and writing process. In particular, Brent Walton made several special trips to the Illinois State Archives to collect the election return data as well as the names of those African American state legislators who came after the ones listed by Professor Gosnell. Moreover, both Brent Walton and all three co-authors would like to acknowledge the excellent help and assistance of the Director of the Illinois State Archives, Dr. David A. Joens, in gathering this rare data. Another gatherer of rare election data, on the two state elections in the Louisiana State Archives, was a former student and native of Louisiana, Tanya Isom. On this same matter, Walton would like to acknowledge the assistance of Archivist Debra Basham in his data-collecting trip to the West Virginia Division of Culture and History in Charleston. At the University of Michigan graduate library, Multicultural Studies Librarian Charles Ransom was of immense help in tracking down fugitive books, monographs, and documents on the African American electorate. Ransom’s great skills and talent in ferreting out vital background works was certainly much appreciated over the three decades of research. He was always gracious in his help and assistance. In addition to Ransom, the rare book and manuscript division in the Hatcher Graduate Library had the complete issues of the elusive and short-lived newspaper, Mississippi Free Press, which contained county-level “Freedom Vote” election return data for the 1963 statewide election in Mississippi. African American voting rights activists chose their own gubernatorial candidates to run in this election. After two trips and numerous written queries to the state of Mississippi, said data was not collected by the Secretary of State nor does it exist in the State Archives, simply because it was not official data. Most books, articles, and doctoral dissertations on this election merely mention grand totals but do not give a countyby-county breakdown. The librarians in the rare book and manuscript division were quite helpful in reading and copying this fragile and rare data. As a consequence of this extant newspaper,

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The African American Electorate

readers will now have easy access to this data. At the University of Michigan Buhr Library storage facility reading room, two individuals deserve mention for their excellent assistance, Andrew Perez, Information Resources Senior Assistant, and Anne Elias, Information Resources Assistant Intern. Besides these individuals, Professor Walton would like to acknowledge his brother, Thomas N. Walton, and his always lovely wife and children, who provided kind words of support and great meals; cousins Edna and Pope Lane and Maxie, Katie, and Geneva Foster. These are a just a few of the people to whom the authors are grateful for assistance with this study. Dr. Puckett would like to acknowledge first of all the help and assistance of his wife, Cheryl, for her encouragement, love, support, and patience. She helped him with typing the input of several large data sets and she has been very tolerant of his sometimes working until the early hours of the morning. He is also grateful to the Boston Athenaeum for the sale of the model constitution for branches of the National Equal Rights League, the cover of which is presented in Chapter 11; to the many state archives, historical societies, libraries, and legislative organizations that are acknowledged in Chapter 19 for providing information on their earliest elected African American legislators; and to his co-authors, Professors Hanes Walton, Jr., and Donald R. Deskins, Jr., for the honor of working alongside them and allowing him to be a part of this journey and accomplishment. Each of the co-authors who signed a contract in August 2006 to write this two-volume work would like to express their sincere appreciation to the individuals who lent their skills, talents, and brilliant insights to this pioneering work and made it possible to complete it in such an informative and scholarly manner. Of the CQ Press acquisitions editors with whom we worked, Mary Carpenter assisted us in the initial overall conceptualization of the work. Later, when she took maternity leave, our new editor, January Layman-Wood, with telephone calls, emails, lunches, and personal conversations guided the work with wonderful patience and insight through several editors and organizational transformations. With her help David Arthur assisted us on the project through several chapters, and in 2009 he was joined by Professor Steven Danver, who provided diligent assistance and editorial changes through the end of the summer. Next came our final development editor, John Martino, who spent the most time with us and produced careful editorial work on both the structure and organization of the two volumes as well as the narrative, tabular, and map presentations. His skillful hands and talented eyes helped us develop a comprehensive bibliography and clear source notes for all of the visual statistical presentations. And most importantly, he made sure that the narrative and the visual statistical work reenforced and effectively complemented each other. This was quite important in a subject matter area where so much of the extant literature and election data was so fragmentary and sketchy. Finally, the work reached the copyediting stage, and CQ Press and SAGE provided us with production editor Gwenda Larsen, project editor Laureen Gleason, and a fine copy editor, Jay Powers.

Their judicious editing, production capabilities, and cooperation helped us reach our deadline with a quite polished manuscript. We salute each and every one of these outstanding individuals. We could not have asked to work with a better group of people. Hanes Walton, Jr., University of Michigan Sherman C. Puckett, University of Michigan Donald R. Deskins, Jr., University of Michigan

Notes   1. Donald R. Deskins, Jr., Hanes Walton, Jr., and Sherman C. Puckett, Presidential Elections, 1789–2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming).   2. Quoted in Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Politics: A Theoretical and Structural Analysis (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1972), p. 33.   3. A detailed analysis of two works on the state that covers the African American electorate in this period do not show any references. See John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900–1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977); and Laughlin McDonald, A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). However, the Dittmer book does reveal that “[v]oter registration lists on microfilm at the Georgia Archives document the decline of black voting both before and after disfranchisement,” p. 214.   4. Robert H. Brisbane, “The Negro Vote as a Balance of Power Factor in the National Elections,” Quarterly Review of Higher Education Among Negroes (July 1952), pp. 97–110. For more on this subject see Hanes Walton, Jr., and William H. Boone, “Black Political Parties: A Demographic Analysis,” Journal of Black Studies Vol. 5 (1974), pp. 86–95.   5. See Robert H. Brisbane, The Black Vanguard: Origins of the Negro Social Revolution, 1900–1960 (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1970) and his Black Activism: Racial Revolution in the United States, 1954–1970 (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1974). See also Hanes Walton, Jr., “Review of Black Activism: Racial Revolution in the United States, 1954–1970,” Journal of Negro History (July 1975), pp. 437–438.   6. Charles L. Weltner, Southerner (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966). For a limited scholarly analysis of this 1962 midterm election see L. Harmon Ziegler and M. Kent Jennings, “Electoral Strategies and Voting Patterns in a Southern Congressional District,” in M. Kent Jennings and L. Harmon Ziegler (eds.), The Electoral Process (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), chapter 7.   7. Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 36–38.   8. Hanes Walton, Jr., Invisible Politics: Black Political Behavior (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), pp. 1–19.   9. Hanes Walton, Jr., The Negro in Third Party Politics (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1969). 10. Samuel DuBois Cook, “Introduction: The Politics of the Success of Failure,” in Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Political Parties: An Historical and Political Analysis (New York: Free Press, 1972), pp. 1–8. 11. See Alexander Heard and Donald Strong, Southern Primaries and Elections, 1920–1949 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1950). This volume is one of the very few reliable election-return data sources that contains significant information on the African American electorate, but it has been rarely if ever used. 12. “Bing’s Neighborhood Plans Draw both Optimism, Fear,” The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/article/20110728/METRO/107280377, accessed July 28, 2011; “Detroit Services to Depend on Neighborhood Condition,” The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/article/20110728/ METRO/107280418, accessed July 28, 2011; “Revised City Charter Closer to Going before Voters,” The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/ article/20110811/METRO01/108110375, accessed August 11, 2011; and “Detroit City Charter Revisions Win Voter Approval,” The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/article/20111109/METRO01/111090390, accessed November 9, 2011.

Introduction Uniqueness of This Work

2

Methodology of This Study

4

Notes 7

2

T

Introduction

his pioneering study offers the first systematic and comprehensive longitudinal analysis of the African American electorate in America. This study describes and then explains both commonly known and newly discovered rare registration and voting data on the African American electorate. Using this empirical data, this study tells the story from the Colonial Era through the Revolutionary, Antebellum, and Civil War eras, through Reconstruction to the Disenfranchisement, pre-White Primary, and Poll Tax eras, to the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and finally to the historic presidential election of African American Senator Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., in 2008. This new study on the African American electorate has a conceptualized dimension that completely distinguishes it from all other works on this electorate, including VRA reports and studies, voting behavior studies, and documentary and compendium volumes, i.e., longitudinal empirical registration, turnout, and voting data. This pioneering study contains detailed chapters on each major era; rare data on the more than twenty statewide suffrage referenda before, during, and after the Civil War; county- and state-level registration, turnout, and voting data on the freedmen in 1867 and 1868 using basically unused Senate and House of Representative reports; and white and African American voting data for African American congressmen from Reconstruction through the enfranchisement of African American women. This study also contains voting data on the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of African American women and on the African American electoral revolt in the 1920s. Rare data have been gathered and presented on southern urban areas as well as on the federal government’s Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) Cotton and Tobacco referenda, in which African American farmers in the rural South were given the right to vote with white farmers in the 1930s and 1940s.1 This public policy biracial voting experiment predated the 1965 VRA and was also successful. In addition, one will find new and fresh voting data on the sundry African American political and electoral innovations of the 1960s and 1970s. And there are additional empirical data on the Border States and northern states, especially enumerating the earliest African American statewide elected officials. And all of these established, neophyte, and rare data are presented in such a way that laypersons, academics, and scholars can use the data in their own historical or contemporary studies. As of this writing, this wealth of data on the African American electorate can be found nowhere else without extensive effort to track it down. The data presented here is the fruit of a detective effort that required more than three decades of research and data collection. Presentation of these established and rare election data is not just tabular in nature and scope. This study uses visual statistics to assist with its descriptions and explanations. Tabular data have been supplemented and/or supported with graphs, figures, charts, histograms, and maps. These visual statistics allow the reader to compare and contrast the southern states with the neighboring Border States and beyond to other states. Presentations within this new data-rich study aid further analyses and allow differently designed portraits of this electorate to emerge.

Uniqueness of This Work Unlike previous works on this electorate that have focused on different categories of periodizations, which inevitably causes numerous epistemic and conceptual problems by slicing and dicing this electorate into limited segments of American history, this study has sought linkage, unity, continuity, and connectivity. Although some chapters cover a particular period in time, others span a longer time frame (such as Chapter 20 on African American women in the electorate). This approach of continuity is essential to capture the dynamism of the African American electorate as it moved from the electoral empowerment of Free-Women-and-Men-of-Color in Colonial America to their electoral disenfranchisement in the same era and into subsequent eras. This dynamism continued in the post–Civil War era when Congress, via its Four Military Reconstruction Acts in 1867–1868, electorally empowered the former slaves and shortly thereafter, in 1870 via the Fifteenth Amendment, empowered all of the other African American males living outside of the South and the Border States who had not yet acquired the right to vote.

A Dynamic History of Disenfranchisement Disenfranchisement (and its counterpart enfranchisement) as a central characteristic and feature of the dynamism that surrounds and activates the African American electorate did not begin—as the majority of history books would have one believe— after the collapse of Black Reconstruction (1866–1876) and shortly after the questionable Compromise of 1877.2 Moreover, disenfranchisement is not just a southern phenomenon. Colonial Virginia, as you will see, disenfranchised Free-Women-of-Color in 1699 and Free-Men-of-Color in 1723, while Antebellum New Jersey disenfranchised both groups in 1807. And numerous statewide referenda between 1800 and 1869 either disenfranchised the African American electorate or refused to enfranchise them. Thus, although the southern states of Virginia and South Carolina disenfranchised Free-Women-and-Men-of-Color during the Colonial Era, several states, North and South, disenfranchised them during the Revolutionary and Antebellum eras. Hence, when the South began the process after Reconstruction, they were following a procedure in which northern and midwestern states had already engaged.3 Due to their periodization methodology previous studies have failed to pick up these linkages and continuities and therefore never became aware of the dynamic characteristic of the African American electorate. Conceptualized dynamism is a unique aspect of this study.

Voting Rights Activism Distinct from Civil Rights Activism Hence, once one conceptualizes the dynamism inherent in the African American electorate’s trek through American history and politics, another unique characteristic and feature surfaces. Not just civil rights leaders and organizations have stepped forward against the suppression, intimidation, and disenfranchisement of African American voters, and against the refusal of the white majority to grant, consider, or even acknowledge



Introduction 3

the possible right to vote of these men and women. Other African American leaders and organizations have emerged with a singular focus on voting rights. There are and have been among the African American electorate a cadre of voting rights activists. There are individuals, men and women, and organizations that act either individually or organizationally to begin the protest and lobbying for the vote, to begin the protest and lobbying against disenfranchisement—and these have operated from Colonial America to the present. Perhaps most importantly, they have operated both separately from the traditional Civil Rights organizations as well as in conjunction with them. The National Equal Rights League (NERL), essentially a voting rights organization, was created by a civil rights organization, the Negro Convention Movement, in 1864. Or in the 1898–1908 period, the National Afro-American Council (NAAC) began legal activism against disenfranchisement.4 After that organization’s demise, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) used the same approach and won an initial victory in 1915 against the grand­father clause and, in 1944, a victory against the White Primary law in Texas. By 1957, another rising civil rights leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference gave a voting rights speech at the Prayer Pilgrimage in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. King’s speech helped to generate both the 1957 Civil Rights Act and the 1960 Civil Rights Act; although both pieces of new legislation were called civil rights bills, they primarily dealt with voting rights. In 1965, King would lead another march in Selma, Alabama, which led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Secondly, prior to the 1965 Selma March, President John F. Kennedy and his staff met with most of the civil rights leaders at the White House and suggested that they work together via the Voter Education Project (VEP) of the Southern Regional Council to electorally empower the African American electorate in the South.5 With the advent of the VRA and its subsequent renewals, the VEP eventually closed its doors. But it was another prime example of the relationship and the distinction between civil rights leaders with their organizations on the one hand and their voting rights activism on the other hand, which demonstrated that the two things were not one and the same thing. This voting rights activism is and has been a fundamental feature and characteristic of the African American electorate longitudinally. And it has helped, as have civil rights organizations, to continue the dynamism, as have white groups and organizations in favor of African American suffrage, as well as presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Barack Obama. The history of African American voting rights activism is another unique aspect of this study.

innovations and creative lobbying and political and electoral protest vehicles that the African American electorate implemented and institutionalized in the American political process. African American voting rights did not just materialize out of thin air and/or overnight. Disenfranchisement did not just halt on its own and/or die a sudden and quick political or legal death. Systemic forces, which enacted and implemented these electoral and political realities, had to be confronted, contested, as well as politically and legally challenged. Nor did the systemic disenfranchisement forces halt because they met resistance from the African American electorate. They had to be challenged and confronted. This study makes clear that the African American electorate at numerous points in American electoral history had no alliances, few political friends, and/or barely any semblance of political goodwill from the white majority. Hence, they had to proceed alone, and their electoral protest results were, at many points in American history, considered minuscule or worthless. Few states, their political leadership, and/or academics or scholars recorded these efforts, and the identities of brave members of the African American electorate in these events were discarded along with their electoral efforts and the resulting empirical data. And much of the electoral data that has not been lost simply has slipped through the political and academic net, despite the fact that it reveals interesting stories of the African American electorate’s attempts to empower themselves and become either enfranchised or re-enfranchised. This study highlights oft-overlooked sources of data: political and electoral inventions like the NERL; state-based NERL chapters like the one in Boston led by newspaperman William Monroe Trotter, which lobbied Congress in 1920 against legislation sponsored by southern congressmen; the NAACP, which lobbied Congress in 1921 after African American women were denied their voting rights in Florida and elsewhere; independent political candidates, independent third parties, and minor African American political parties; satellite political parties like the South Carolina Progressive Democratic Party, the “Black and Tan” Republican parties, the Freedom Elections, the Freedom Vote and Freedom Candidates, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Party of Alabama; national major party convention seating challenges, congressional seating challenges; and the southern urban and rural areas of the nation that allowed neither slaves nor the segregated free African American electorate to vote. These omitted data sources carry a wealth of empirical registration and voting data on the African American electorate during periods when most scholars have taken for granted that this electorate could not or did not participate. This was a poor assumption.

The Role of Protest Organizations and Votes

At the party and the partisanship levels nationally, the Republican Party took up the mantle first (before, during, and after the Civil War) to support the African American electorate; only since the 1960s has the Democratic Party joined in to support this right for the African American electorate. Prior to the 1960s, the Democratic Party was fundamentally and nearly unalterably opposed to voting rights for African Americans. In fact, it is one of the

This lack of focus on the dynamism and its inherent African American voting rights activism longitudinally, together with the failure to conceptually separate the voting rights movement when necessary from the civil rights movement, have obscured another key aspect of the whole picture that we describe in this study. This critical omission rendered a huge number of political

Partisanship and the African American Electorate

4

Introduction

most distinguishing factors that defined the two major political parties for both the African American and southern white electorates over time. Although the Republican Party since the 1960s has not called for full disenfranchisement, as its party strength has grown in the South it has opposed the extension of the VRA, promoted felony disenfranchisement, and in other ways aligned itself against at least part of the African American electorate. To be sure, there have been a few periods of bipartisanship on behalf of this electorate, notably during the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA, but they have been brief. This major public policy difference between the Republicans and Democrats has had its greatest influence and impact in the South. The South and its White Supremacy Democrats led the fight for disenfranchisement. Recently, however, this struggle has seen dynamism as regionalism, and this type of dynamism has been transformed into an ideological variable and factor in the South, as well as elsewhere in the nation, as seen with the 2008 presidential election. This debate and dialogue about race in the historic 2008 election has generated a rising body of academic and scholarly literature.

Presenting Data over Time on the African American Electorate But looming over all of these characteristics, and emerging when one includes the dynamism surrounding the African American electorate, is the failure of the academic and scholarly community to focus on this electorate, especially in a period of hyperintense election data gathering during the discipline’s major effort to study and analyze electoral behavior. Launched with the publication in 1960 of The American Voter and the political behavioral movement in the political science discipline, the data gathering and analyses of both aggregate and survey-based voting data have generated a voluminous literature in political science,6 history, sociology, and political psychology.7 Yet, despite this huge research effort in this and other disciplines, the African American electorate was in the main passed over. There are only a few works on the African American electorate, voting rights, voting rights activism, voter registration, turnout, voting, voter intimidation and suppression, and the VRA. Essentially, studies, popular and scholarly, have focused on crises, crisis periods, and crisis legislation, such as the often-noted VRA. And in these crises-based studies there has been little data gathering, and almost none of the works attempted longitudinal data gathering. This study is one of the very first works to get beyond this major failure in the literature. This is not to say that limited and partial and scattered efforts have not been made. But there is little linkage and connectivity. And this has long been needed on such a continuing reality as the African American electorate’s sojourn in the American political experience. Thus, linkage and unity are unique to this study. To get beyond this failure in the popular and academic literature on the African American electorate, we began our research and data gathering in Colonial America and continued through to the present. Moreover, as noted above, this study turned to a variety of sources that heretofore had never been used, or were merely omitted due to bad assumptions and poor conceptualization. Some

of these omitted and bypassed research and data sources contain unique and rare data; other researchers often ignored efforts made by the African American voting rights activists, including their political and electoral inventions that were recorded but felt by many not to be significant enough to examine and link to a greater perspective. Here, we turned to fugitive works and sources to gather this bypassed empirical election data on the African American electorate for a greater empirical electoral portrait. And next our conceptualization sought to answer a question never asked in the voluminous literature on voting behavior and the VRA: what about the political and electoral context?

Beyond a South-Only Approach The literature on the African American electorate shows a great and general tendency: a focus almost always on the South. Although one occasionally finds a study that deals with Chicago, beginning with Professor Harold Gosnell’s pioneering Negro Politician in 1935, and a host of articles and some monographs on other northern urban areas such as Philadelphia, New York, and Detroit, most of these voting studies and studies of the VRA focus primarily on the South. This is a single political context and it can only provide a very narrow electoral and political perspective on the African American electorate. Perhaps even more important is the fact that the South was neither the only region of the country with slaves nor the only region where slaves were granted their voting rights during the same time period. Freedmen in the Border States (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) received their voting rights via the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 (about three years after the freedmen in the South got theirs). But how did disenfranchisement proceed in the Border States? Are there parallels in terms of trends and patterns in these states with those in the South? Were there similarities and dissimilarities? Are there empirical data to help to draw comparisons and contrasts between these two different regions in regard to the African Americans residing there? Clearly, to simply leave out the Border States leaves out a significant part of the story of the African American electorate. And the very same question can and should be raised about the northern and midwestern states. Even more so, did the rise of African American elected officials elsewhere in the country have no effect on the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement movements in the South? Thus, to tell the story of the African American electorate from only a southern perspective is to tell the story in a one-dimensional manner, which inhibits a collective and holistic portrait of the African American electorate in America. Hence, another unique feature of this study is that it goes beyond this limited research to display the continual presence and influence of the political context variable on the African American electorate longitudinally.8

Methodology of This Study The methodology for this study derives from its conceptualization. Conceived of and designed as a longitudinal research study of the African American electorate that would be both comprehensive and systematic, even though the election data might be spotty, fragmentary, piecemeal, as well as elusive and fugitive, it was

essential that our methodology include case studies and be integrative in nature and scope. In the past, the dominant and hegemonic periodization approach has fractionalized even the limited registration and voting data on the African American electorate.

Periodization’s Focus on Isolated Events A perfect example of the prevailing approach is found in Steven Lawson’s two books: (1) Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 and (2) In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965–1982. Although there is some overlapping in Lawson’s periodization approach, the two break points are (1) 1944, when the Supreme Court ruling in the Smith v. Allwright outlawed the White Primary as a disenfranchising technique, and (2) 1965, the year in which Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. Thus, Lawson’s study focused on pivotal events, like Supreme Court rulings, congressional legislation or reauthorization, the political inventions and innovations like the “Freedom Vote,” and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party national convention seating challenge, the southern and Border states disenfranchisement techniques or procedures, and African Americans’ capture of certain elective offices for the very first time. All of these political and electoral events constitute periodization. And because these events emerge as a fractionalized portrait of the African American electorate, they also allow the spotty, fragmentary, and piecemeal data to continue to prevail as the only available data extant on the African American electorate. But that was just the problem—periodization that obfuscated extant registration and voting data on the African American electorate, causing it to be omitted and remain fugitive. Clearly, a new methodology was and is needed.

Periodization Ignores the Pre–Civil War Time Period The second main epistemic problem with the periodization approach is there was no exploration of registration and voting data before the Civil War. The best data on the pre–Civil War period came from a minimalist research effort to provide a list of the colonies and states, which permitted Free-Women-andMen-of-Color to vote. Even this primary and dominant preoccupation and focus was quite limited and only came into view with the publication of Alexander Keyssar’s book The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, which first appeared in 2000, despite the existence of several scholarly journal articles and book chapters on this reality. Even in the most recent book-length study, Christopher Malone’s Between Freedom and Bondage: Race, Party, and Voting Rights in the Antebellum North, published in 2008, there is only an analysis of four of the six states that allowed Free-Men-of-Color to vote and no coverage of the states that allowed Free-Women-of-Color to vote. Hence, what one is left with is a very thin and truncated coverage of the African American electorate before the Civil War and very little or next to nothing on the huge number of statewide referenda on African American suffrage rights before, during, and after the Civil War. Said empirical data provide the reader with a starting point—the actual beginning in the Colonial Era—and provide continuity from this departure point through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and beyond. A linkage and

Introduction 5 relationship has been made, which distinguishes this study from all previous studies which rely heavily on periodization.

Periodization Ignores Government Reports and Archives The third problem with the periodization approach is the non-use and/or limited recovery of national, state, and local registration data that are embedded in Senate and House documents, state and local archives, as well as data recovered in master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. Much of this empirical information has simply been undisturbed and underexplored. Thus, it could not be linked and/or related to already known and currently used and reported data. An exception is the two volumes done on southern primaries and general elections by two different groups of authors. First, there is the compendia by Alexander Heard and Donald Strong, Southern Primaries and Elections, 1920–1949. The second and follow-up volume is by Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Elections: County and Precinct Data, 1950–1972. But these two data compendia are not comparable, especially in terms of their information on the African American electorate.9 The first volume includes categories of data on the African American electorate and political candidates and disenfranchisement that do not appear in the second volume. Unique to the second volume is precinct data in addition to county-level data. Comparability in these two volumes would have been an immense and staggering contribution to a portrait of the African American electorate. As they are now constituted, one volume becomes even more important than the other. However, if the empirical data in these two volumes are merged and used with the study that appears in Lawrence Hanks’ 1990 book, The Struggle for Black Political Empowerment in Three Georgia Counties (Clay, Hancock, and Peach), at least one could develop a longitudinal analysis of these three counties from 1920 through 1980.10 As their separation now stands, here are three periodization studies that are unlinked and distinct. Such is the case with much of the extant data on the African American electorate, and this must be recognized and dealt with so that a more holistic portrait can be made.

Periodization Excludes the Freedmen’s Voting Data The third problem of periodization—limited recovery of national, state, and local registration data—brings us to the fourth problem in this previous methodological approach, the almost universal exclusion of empirical registration and voting data on the southern African American electorate after the Civil War, i.e., the freedmen, generated by the Senate and House of Representatives executive documents.11 The Four Military Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 empowered the military commanders in the field in the South to register the freedmen in ten of the eleven southern states (Tennessee was excluded because three days before the first of these four acts was implemented, the state’s new constitution granted voting rights to the freedmen) and to permit them to vote. In addition, committees in both houses of Congress required these military commanders to collect registration and voting data by race. These empirical

6

Introduction

compilations appeared in Senate Executive Document 53, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, pages 1–14, and in House Executive Document 342, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, pages 1–208. Embedded in these official government documents are the numbers of registered freedmen voters county-by-county in each of these ten southern states, the number who actually voted, as well as the number of non-voters. Similar data are available for white voters in each state, county by county. And today, there are scholarly publications of these initial registrants by race in Texas and North Carolina. But very few scholarly and academic works have made any use of these official documents in terms of mapping the nature, scope, and significance of these initial racial voters. A lone exception is Richard L. Hume and Jerry B. Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction. Nor has exploration of this initial data at the state level generated any major works on this southern African American electorate. Needless to say, some historical works have used the grand total of the freedmen registered in these ten states of the South vis-àvis the white electorate but little beyond that. In its place most historical studies used the official racial registration data kept in the state of Louisiana at the parish level from Reconstruction to the present time. This approach left out the other nine states, plus whatever data that were available on Tennessee. Thus, a partial portrait was drawn of the African American electorate in this period and through the Disenfranchisement Era until 1920, when African American women got the vote and joined those few freedmen who had not been stripped of their right to vote. Hence, this exclusion problem was exemplified by the general prohibition of official voting data inherent in both federal and state documents, with the lone exception of Louisiana. This led to questionable interpretations of freedmen voting and political participation in the Reconstruction Era. Unique to this volume is the use of those empirical data that allow continuity and linkage with the data before, during, and after the Civil War, as well as better quantitative assessment of the impact and influence of the techniques of disenfranchisement. And more importantly, it allows continuity and linkage with those data that were generated when African American women became enfranchised.

Longitudinal Data at the Group Level Therefore, once our conceptualization for this volume was developed as a longitudinal one, our integrative approach became to merge, link, and relationally combine all the known, recovered, and new data that we could find. More than thirty years of researching and data collecting for this project yielded the rich treasure trove of new registration, turnout, and voting data on the African American electorate that readers will find in this volume. To continue our longitudinal study even when empirical data no longer existed, as in the state of Louisiana, we have used a surrogate variable: the existence of African American majority counties along with the white majority counties. Examination of racial majority counties has allowed coverage across time and a continuous description of the African American electorate, particularly in presidential elections. Using homogenous county-level data made it possible to trace and evaluate the

African American electorate at the group level longitudinally. Since the county became our unit of political analysis, we could not and did not attempt to describe and explain the African American electorate at the individual level. Thus, the majority of our descriptions and explanations in this volume are at the group level simply because public opinion polls and surveys, especially the former, did not begin until the mid-1930s, while our analysis begins in Colonial America and proceeds to the present. Therefore, our portrait of the African American electorate in this volume is a group-level one and nothing else.

Integrating a Case-Study Approach Beyond our integrative approach for this volume is our casestudy approach. The research for this study did not always turn up longitudinal data. At times it turned up data in great detail and specificity. Hence, we did not discard this new and revelatory electoral information. This study uses these new data in a case-study manner. Embedded in several of our chapter narratives, alongside or in the absence of longitudinal data, one will find in-depth studies of unique and rare events like the Mississippi “Freedom Vote” in 1963 or the electoral revolt of the African American electorate in 1920 and 1921, when African American women joined with the remaining few African American males who had not been disenfranchised to vote for African American political candidates. Hence, the case-study approach allowed this volume to utilize the singular electoral events that happened in the African American community from time to time rather than to dismiss them as unsuccessful efforts. These were not really epiphenomena because in the African American suffrage struggle all of these unusual events originated in the creative aspirations of the African American voting rights activists and their meaningful and linked attempts to get the right to vote in America, successful or not. The case-study approach has helped to preserve these efforts.

Data Sources Our approach links demographic data to electoral data on presidential contests.12 We utilize several datasets of the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), combining them at the county- and election-year levels. Our intent is to provide the reader with a vivid view of the historical journey that has shaped the African American struggle for suffrage rights, to see not only the resistance to these aspirations but also the reactions that have made African Americans a part of the American experience. We began first by determining the population counts of slaves and Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color during colonial and pre-federal periods, from 1624 to 1790, in various colonies and states, using official data from the United States Census Bureau.13 The methods and data sources for this presentation of presidential elections are given in our appendix. We relied on Michael Dubin for county-level data covering the elections from 1789 to 1824, ICPSR datasets for elections from 1828 to 1988, and the Dave Leip Web site for all elections since 1992.14 The ICPSR Study No. 2896 is our primary source for determining the census population counts of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color, slaves,

and whites by age, gender, and county in the federal period from 1790 to 1870 and the racial majority counties, including component breakdowns by age and gender, in census data since 1870.15 Census data in the studies indicated above provide the group-level foundation for establishing how the partitioning and extent of slave and free populations affected congressional apportionment and representation in the Colonial and Antebellum periods. Census data further provide information on the eligibility of the electorate, including African Americans, based on gender and age in periods after the Civil War: from the initial election of several African Americans to Congress, to the decimation of the African American electorate in the Disenfranchisement Era, to the re-emergence of local and state-level African American legislators and officeholders marked by the Electoral Revolt of 1920 and the enfranchisement of African American women, and to the modern era of political re-enfranchisement with the Smith v. Allwright court decision, the passage and renewals of the Voting Rights Act, and the election of President Barack Obama. Grouping and associating the presidential election results with census data then extends this logical structure by constructing the evolutionary timeline for the political innovations and alignments within the African American electorate and reactions from without to it, especially in making group-level comparisons in and between the geographic regions, and in and between the racial majority counties. Overall, our use of census data from the Colonial and Revolutionary eras combined with that of the Antebellum and more recent eras allows this volume to situate our electoral and political data within the official demographic and geographical contexts of the nation from its founding to the present. And such a methodological and research approach keeps this rare data on the African American electorate within the national and state political contexts across all of the nation’s epochs. This is the dominant feature of this pioneering study.

Presenting the Data Finally, with our integrative and case-study data, there is the matter of presentation. To assist readers we have employed both descriptive and visual statistics for the presentation of our data. We have used not only the traditional tabular presentation method but the newer styled presentations so prevalent in this new media age with its visual technology. These new visuals will allow a greater descriptive analysis and hopefully more useful interpretations of the longitudinal data on the African American electorate, in terms of greater depth and specificity. Such a data-rich study with so much new data needs the kind of summarization that only graphic elements can provide. Embracing visualization technology as this volume does sets it apart from all of the other studies on the African American electorate up to this point in time. Using county-level data, newly found data, in both a longitudinal and case-study format, with a visualization presentation, all in a carefully written narrative thoroughly differentiates this volume from any other work on the African American electorate. We hope that our work sets the stage for new empirical data analyses and future approaches to reforms in the American electoral process.

Introduction 7

Notes   1. For a discussion of African American farmers’ political participation in the AAA Cotton referenda see Ralph Bunche, The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR, Edited and with an Introduction by Dewey Grantham (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 505–515.   2. On this point about Professor C. Vann Woodward’s concept of the “Compromise of 1877” see Allan Peskin, “Was There a Compromise of 1877?” in John Herbert Roper (ed.), C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), pp. 150–164. For another work on another one of Professor Woodward’s concepts that relates to the African American electorate see Hanes Walton, Jr., Josephine A. V. Allen, Sherman C. Puckett, and Donald R. Deskins, Jr., “Beyond the Second Reconstruction: C. Vann Woodward’s Concept of the Third Reconstruction in the South,” American Review of Politics Vol. 32 (Spring & Summer 2011), pp. 105–130.   3. For the most recent and updated study on disenfranchisement, with new data on the beginning and ending dates, see Michael Perman, Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).   4. See this new study, which focuses on the efforts of the NAAC that most earlier works simply ignored or omitted, R. Volney Riser, Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890–1908 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010). And for the first major scholarly work on the NAAC, see Benjamin Justesen, Broken Brotherhood: The Rise and Fall of the National Afro-American Council (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008).   5. Pat Watters and Reese Cleghorn, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Arrival of Negroes in Southern Politics (New York: Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich, 1967).   6. Jack Dennis, “The Study of Electoral Behavior,” in William Crotty (ed.), Political Science: Looking into the Future, Volume Three: Political Behavior (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991), pp. 51–89.   7. For a pathbreaking work on a new subfield in this discipline see Tasha Philpot and Ismail White (eds.), African-American Political Psychology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).   8. For a pioneering work on the political context variable in African American politics see Hanes Walton, Jr., African American Power and Politics: The Political Context Variable (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).   9. See Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Elections: County and Precinct Data, 1950–1972 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978). 10. See Lawrence J. Hanks, The Struggle for Black Political Empowerment in Three Georgia Counties (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987). 11. One of the very few historical studies of the Reconstruction Era to make use of the quantitative voting data collected by Senate and House of Representatives committees is the recent work by Richard L. Hume and Jerry Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008). 12. Donald R. Deskins, Jr., Hanes Walton, Jr., and Sherman Puckett, Presidential Elections, 1789–2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming). 13. United States Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975), Chapter Z. See specifically the Series Z tables 1–19 and 24–132, pp. 1168–1171. 14. Michael J. Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788– 1860: The Official Results by County and State (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002). Data from Dubin were used to augment results up through the election of 1860 from the following ICPSR studies: for the presidential elections of 1828 to 1836 ICPSR Study No. 1, United States Historical Election Returns, 1824–1968 [Computer File] http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ ICPSR00001, accessed September 19, 2002; the elections of 1840 to 1972 were covered using Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale, ICPSR Study No. 8611, Election Data for Counties in the United

8

Introduction

States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840–1972 [Computer File] http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08611, accessed December 26, 2002; and the data source for the elections of 1976 to 1988 was ICPSR Study No. 13, Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790–1970 [Computer File] http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR00013, accessed December 5, 2002. Data for the elections of 1992–2000 were obtained from Dave Leip, U.S. Election Atlas, http://uselectionatlas.org/ myatlas.php, accessed April 26, 2004; for the 2004 election, results were accessed on November 21, 2005; and for the election of 2008, October 26, 2009.

15. Michael R. Haines, ICPSR Study No. 2896, Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790–2000 [Computer File] http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02896, accessed April 28, 2005. For 2010 data see the Census Web site http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/ nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml. For book references of census data that identify racial majority counties from 1880 to 1930 see United States Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States, 1790 to 1915 (New York: Arno Press, 1968), pp. 776–797, and United States Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920–1932 (New York: Arno Press, 1969), pp. 683–762.

CHAPTER 1

The State of African American Election Data The African American Electorate in Colonial and Revolutionary America

10

Table 1.1 Voting Rights of Free-Men-of-Color in the Thirteen Original Colonies: Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum Eras

11

Map 1.1 States with Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color, 1855

12

Election Data: From National and State Collections to the Commercial and Scholarly Sources

13

Finding Historical Election Data for African American Candidates: Monroe N. Work, W. E. B. DuBois, and Ralph Bunche

15

Table 1.2 Seven Categories of Political Data and Statistics in the Negro Year Book, 1912–1952 17

The State of African American Election Data: A Summary

20

Conclusion on the State of African American Election Data

21

Notes 22

10

P

Chapter 1

opular elections have always been a central feature of the American Republic, and African American voters have, at least to a limited extent, participated in these elections throughout the country’s history. The extent of popular voting in federal elections has itself developed and expanded over the years. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the founding fathers created a democratic republic where one of the central elements was the right of citizens to vote for the president and the members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The appointment of U.S. senators was left to the legislatures of the thirteen states. Article I, Sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution set out the requirements for the election of members of Congress and the appointment of senators, while Article II, Section 1 sets out the requirements for election of the president. In the presidential election of 1800, two Democratic-Republican Party candidates, Thomas Jefferson and his vice presidential running mate Aaron Burr, ended up with the same number of electoral votes. One defect of the Constitution was that it did not distinguish between electoral votes for president and vice president, meaning that when states voted for the Jefferson-Burr ticket, both men received electoral votes. To prevent the reoccurrence of this situation, the Twelfth Amendment, ratified on June 15, 1804, requires that Electoral College electors cast separate ballots for president and vice president, thereby eliminating the possibility of a tie between these two positions and a repeat of the controversial thirty-six ballots that it took to finally break the deadlock. On April 8, 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified; this took the power to elect senators away from the state legislatures, where deadlocks and corruption had prevented some senators from being appointed for upwards of two years, and gave it to the people.1 Thus, with these essential changes, popular elections became the true centerpiece of the United States. Nevertheless, constitutional changes to the electoral system did not alter the nature of the voting populace. New amendments had to be added over time to expand the electorate, which had originally consisted mainly but not exclusively of propertyowning white males. Long before the Constitutional Convention or even the Declaration of Independence eleven years before, each of the thirteen colonies created its own legislative body. For example, Virginia created the House of Burgesses in 1655 so elected representatives could help the Royal Governor run the colony. Each colony set formal qualifications for candidates running for seats in legislative bodies. The Virginia colony stipulated that all candidates for the House of Burgesses had to be “Persons of knowne integrity and of good conversation and of age one and twenty years,” and that each member of the electorate had to be a white “gentleman and freeholder [property owner].”2 In fact, all of the colonies modeled their suffrage requirements upon those in their English homeland, requiring that a member of the electorate be a “stakeholder” in society.3 Non-property owners were considered unfit to participate in colonial government, as they were thought to be beholden to the political views of their landlords. Property holdings supposedly gave citizens personal independence and related virtues that entitled them to political participation and power. Even in the Northwest Territory,

“the largest piece of terrain directly controlled by the federal government, citizens and aliens alike had to own fifty acres of land in order to vote.”4 Therefore, early in the colonial period (1610–1773), voting became a defining characteristic of American political life, and the colonies themselves set the criteria and formal qualifications of the electorate. As the historian Alexander Keyssar noted, “The Constitution adopted in 1787 left the federal government without any clear power or mechanism, other than through constitutional amendment, to institute a national conception of voting rights, to express a national vision of democracy.”5 In addition, “By making the franchise in national elections dependent on state suffrage laws, the authors of the Constitution compromised their substantive disagreements to solve a potentially explosive political problem,” which left the nation with “a long and sometimes problematic legacy.”6 States, both then and now, have retained the power to shape the electorate using various criteria—including race, sex, age, citizenship, criminal status, and class—to define who has the right to vote.

The African American Electorate in Colonial and Revolutionary America In Colonial America, “requirements for voting were far more numerous than at present and were related not only to age, residence, and citizenship, but also to race, sex, religion and the holding of property.”7 Of suffrage rights in this era (1610–1773), political scientist Robert Dinkins found that: Just as voting restrictions against religious minorities were not all encompassing, so too were those instituted on the basis of race. Suffrage laws excluding Negroes and Indians were far from universal. In the Southern colonies, where the majority of black, red and mulatto populations resided, disfranchisement came rather late, while farther north no statute ever eliminated nonwhites from the ballot.8 Table 1.1 provides empirical evidence for Professor Dinkins’ observation about the Colonial Era. No colony denied these voting rights from the outset, but three would eventually deny them, while ten never denied them in the Colonial Era. However, as the colonies transitioned into states during the Revolutionary Era (1774–1789), two states—South Carolina and Virginia—denied the right of free blacks to vote from the outset in their state constitutions; only one state, Maryland, would later deny the right; and ten states, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island, would never deny the right. Map 1.1 (p. 12) provides a snapshot of the national status as of 1855. Keyssar found that “by 1855, only five states (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island) did not discriminate against African Americans, and these states contained only 4 percent of the nation’s free black population. Notably, the federal government also prohibited blacks from voting in the territories it controlled.”9 Recent historical evidence



The State of African American Election Data 11 Table 1.1  Voting Rights of Free-Men-of-Color in the Thirteen Original Colonies: Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum Eras Era

Colony

Denied from the Outset

Eventually Denied

Never Denied

Colonial Era (1610–1773)

Massachusetts

 

 

X

Royal

New Hampshire

 

X

Royal

Rhode Island

 

X

Self-governing

Connecticut

 

X

Self-governing

New York

 

X

Royal

Pennsylvania

 

X

Self-governing

New Jersey

 

X

Royal

Delawarea

 

X

Self-governing

Maryland

 

 

X

Self-governing

Virginia

 

X

 

Royal

North Carolina

 

X

 

Royal

South Carolina

 

X

 

Royal

Georgia

 

 

X

Royal

Total

0

3

10

 

Massachusetts

 

 

X

 

New Hampshire

 

Rhode Island

 

Connecticut

 

New Yorkb

 

Pennsylvania

 

New Jersey

 

Delawarea

 

Maryland

 

Virginia

X

a

Revolutionary Era (1774–1789)c

Antebellum and Civil War Eras (1790–1870)

     

Colonial Status

X  

X X

 

X X

 

X X

X

   

North Carolina

 

South Carolina

X

 

X

Georgiaa

 

X

 

Total

2

2

9

 

Massachusetts

 

 

X

 

New Hampshire

 

Rhode Islandd

 

 

Connecticut

 

X

 

New York

 

 

X

Pennsylvania

 

X

 

New Jersey

 

X

 

Delawarea

 

X

 

Maryland

X

 

 

Virginia

X

North Carolina

 

South Carolina

X

Georgiaa Total

 

X X

  X

 

 

 

X

3

5

5

   

Sources: Hanes Walton Jr., African American Power and Politics: The Political Context Variable (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 16. The table has been upated with data from Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 349–353, Table A4. Data updates were found for Georgia and Delaware. Of Georgia upon statehood, Keyssar informs that "all secondary sources agree that blacks could not vote, but a very extensive research effort has not turned up a clear legal basis for that exclusion." (Keyssar, p. 353, footnote 5). In 1777 with the initial formulation of its state constitution Georgia disenfranchised African Americans, but later this exclusion was removed in revisions that were instituted in 1789 and 1798. a

b

New York, in several constitutional conventions, voted to restrict the voting rights of free blacks.

c

Formally beginning with the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

d

In Rhode Island African Americans were disenfranchised by statute in 1822 but re-enfranchised by the state constitution that was rewritten in 1843.

Louisiana

Arkansas

Missouri

Illinois

Wisconsin

Mississippi

Alabama

Tennessee

Kentucky

Indiana

Michigan

Ohio

Florida Florida

0

Georgia *

South South Carolina Carolina

North Carolina

Virginia

Pennsylvania

New York

Vermont

miles

100

200

Maryland

Delaware

New Jersey

Connecticut

Rhode Island **

Never Denied Denied and Reinstated Restricted

Massachusetts

New Hampshire

Maine

(5) (1) (1)

0

100 miles

200

** In Rhode Island the suffrage rights of Free-Men-of-Color were denied by statute in 1822 but reinstated by the revised constitution in 1843.

* Though no evidence has surfaced that African Americans ever voted in pre–Civil War Georgia, there was also no exclusion of their suffrage rights after the year of Georgia statehood (1789).

Sources: Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 55 and 349–353, Table A4, and Adrian B. Ettlinger, The AniMap Plus County Boundary Historical Atlas, Version 3, Release 2, http://www.goldbug.com (Alamo, California: Goldbug Software, 1991–2008).

Texas

Indian Territory

Kansas Territory

Nebraska Territory

Iowa

Minnesota Territory

Map 1.1  States with Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color, 1855

provided by Professor Keyssar in his book The Right to Vote adds Georgia to the list of states that granted suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color. Georgia, in its state constitutions of 1789 and 1798, did not exclude Free-Men-of-Color from voting as they had excluded them during the Revolutionary Era (1777). Although they were not legally excluded by these state constitutions, no evidence has surfaced that Free-Men-of-Color actually cast ballots in state and local elections in Georgia.10 In addition to the five states (plus Georgia) where the right to vote remained on the eve of the Civil War, there were several states like Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey where the right of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color to vote had been rescinded. New Jersey denied the right to vote to African American females and males in 1807,11 Tennessee to African American males in 1834,12 North Carolina in 1835,13 and Pennsylvania in 1838.14 To date, none of the election statistics on the free blacks who could vote in the other eight states have surfaced in any systematic manner. Scattered throughout a few studies are some conjectures, hints, and an estimate for New York, but nothing else. In fact, prior to the Civil War, these data were not collected, much less maintained. Although state election data are thin and incomplete in this early period of national existence, some gaps in the information can be filled by information inferred from federal data. At the Constitutional Convention, the founding fathers adopted the Three-Fifths Clause for counting slaves as a way to determine the number of seats that slave-holding states would get in the House of Representatives as well as the number of electoral votes they would cast in presidential elections. It was not until the celebration of the bicentennial of the nation in 1976 that a document was uncovered from a delegate to the 1787 Convention that showed the actual impact of the Three-Fifths Clause, and accordingly, the slave vote in the congressional and presidential elections.15 This document, together with other original documents from the Constitutional Convention, showed that the Convention developed a consensus on how to count the slave population in each state so that the number of seats for each slave state in the House of Representatives could be determined. The first session of Congress after the Convention occurred was during 1788–1790—before the first national census was taken in 1790—and this first session was the year that the Three-Fifths Clause went into effect. Thus, with this estimated slave population data from the first session of Congress and the census slave population data for the second session of Congress and every ten years afterward, one can develop estimates of the slave “electorate” from the initial Congress in 1788 until the last antebellum session in 1860. The Three-Fifths Clause became a dead letter when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, abolishing slavery. Using this federal data, this study will examine the impact and influence of the non-voting slave population vis-à-vis the Free-Men-of-Color voting population. Such an effort has never before been undertaken. And in the end, sole reliance should not be placed upon state election data because state censuses in the Revolutionary Era were not coordinated, standardized, or consistent.16

The State of African American Election Data 13

Election Data: From National and State Collections to the Commercial and Scholarly Sources It is not only the data for the African American electorate that are thin in the years before and after the American Revolution; the data for the electorate as a whole are problematic. The individual colonies were in charge of collecting and maintaining election return data. Although Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution calls for the federal government to conduct a census of the population every ten years, it does not specify that this census collect election data, only population data. Thus, the collection and maintenance of election return data, even for federal offices, was left up to the states. Of these states’ collection and maintenance efforts, political scientist Walter Dean Burnham wrote: “The variation in the quality, extensiveness and general availability of such official reporting has been enormous throughout American political history, and remains so to the present day. Moreover, mass electoral politics in the United States goes back to a much earlier time . . . indeed, to a time in which social statistics were in their infancy.”17 He added: “Particularly before about 1840, reporting of the most essential political data was correspondingly primitive in vast parts of the country. . . .”18 Some colonies, and later states, stored their election data in their state archives’ manuscript returns collections. Very few states required election returns to be published in public documents, such as newspapers.19 Some states issued official manuals, registers, executive documents, state legislative journals, secretary of state reports, and executive minutes. However, in at least one state, Arkansas, there are no known manuscripts of election returns.20 Overall, there was no uniform or standard format for the maintenance and publication of national, state, or local election statistics. Hence, in this maze of sources and lack of standardization, information about the Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color electorate was, quite literally, lost, and the prevailing sentiment of later commercial publishers and scholars looking back on Colonial (1610–1773) and Revolutionary America (1774–1789) seemed to be that it was not worth untangling the knot of inconsistent documents. None of this plethora of documents was readily available to either the public or the scholarly community. But things were about to change. In 1811, the first commercial venture to provide presidential and other election data appeared, Niles’ Register (1811–1849), published in Baltimore and Philadelphia. This annual publication was quickly followed by another, The Whig Almanac and Politician’s Register (1838–1855), which later became known as The Tribune Almanac (1856–1914). The Whig/Tribune provided both the scholarly and lay communities with “county-level presidential coverage . . . (and) . . . extensive reporting at this level for other offices.”21 Next came the World Almanac, The Chicago Daily News Almanac, and the American Almanac. Although these commercial publications were limited and scattered, they set off scholarly activity intent on making sense of the data. Geographers were the first scholars to take the published election statistics and combine them with maps of the nation, states, regions, and districts. Fletcher Hewes and Henry

14

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Gannett’s Scribner’s Statistical Atlas of the United States, Showing Their Present Condition and their Political, Social and Industrial Development appeared in 1883, while Hewes’ The Citizen’s Atlas of American Elections followed in 1888. In 1932, historian Charles Paullin and geographer John Wright collaborated on the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. These pioneering works were followed by two others by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1920 and 1935 that the importance of geographic sectionalism in American electoral behavior and politics. Following these efforts by geographers and historians, political scientists entered the picture. In 1934, Edgar Robinson published The Presidential Vote, 1896–1932, and Walter Dean Burnham in 1955 published the data for the earlier years with his Presidential Ballots, 1836–1892. Now scholars had countylevel election records for most years of the presidential elections. However, data were still missing. Writing in 2002, elections scholar Michael J. Dubin stated: “generally accepted compilations of the popular vote for presidential election date back to 1824. Curiously little is known about the election returns before then.”22 In launching his research to acquire these data, he “found that no definitive set of returns by county exists for the elections from 1824 through 1832.”23 The main reason for the missing presidential election data, as Dubin saw it, was as follows: The number and percentage of states that provided for the popular election of [presidential] electors changed with every election. In 1800, only five states provided for this type of election of [presidential] electors. . . . Not until 1820 did the trend move in an upward direction with 15 states providing for popular elections; 18 did in 1824; and by 1828, all but two chose [presidential] electors by popular vote.24 Put differently, the Constitution left it up to the states to determine how they wanted to choose presidential electors. Some states did it with popular voting, some let the state legislatures do it, while still others used a combination of these two methods. Eventually popular voting would come to dominate, but before 1836 this widely diverse set of procedures became such a barrier and obstacle that scholars and commercial publishers simply didn’t gather these data at all. For instance, South Carolina did not gather this type of data between 1788 and 1860. Dubin collected these data where they existed and made them available. Both prior to and following the commercial and scholarly works, federal agencies began to issue pamphlets and compendia with national election return data. The Bureau of the Census issued Vote Cast in Presidential and Congressional Elections, 1928–1944, and after each biennial election the clerk of the House of Representatives released reports like the Statistics of Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1944 and Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 7, 1950. The Government Printing Office publishes the Congressional Directory for each session of Congress, which includes vote returns. Lastly, the Census Bureau’s Historical Statistics of the United

States: Colonial Times to 1970 and Statistical Abstract of the United States are generally available, as is the Federal Election Commission’s Federal Elections, 1982–2006: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives. Presently, there are a number of major reference works including the America Votes series, the Guide to U.S. Elections, Presidential Elections, A Statistical History of the American Electorate, and the Student’s Atlas of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1996. To make election return data available in the computer age, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) in the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan offers Data Set 0001, “United States Historical Election Returns, 1824–1968” and Data Set 0019, “State-Level Presidential Election Data for the United States, 1824–1972.” Thus, slowly over time, the systematic collection and retrieval efforts of many scholars have been quite successful, resulting in a set of historical election return data that is nearly comprehensive. This material has been made available for dissemination to scholars, academics, political consultants, and the general public. Much can now be found out about voting history in the American past, going back almost to the first elections in the new republic. But this gathering and recording and dissemination have essentially been an endeavor to capture the mainstream. Almost none of these data sources kept track of the African American electorate. Despite the acknowledged fact that race has been a major feature of America’s political life and process, these governmental, commercial, and scholarly compendia have not collected, recorded, and made available for dissemination the nature and scope of the African American electorate. As a consequence, knowledge and scholarship about the African American electorate that are based on empirical interpretations of this incomplete historical election return data are, at best, questionable, if not misleading. Until recently there was thought to have been only one African American who served as a publicly elected official before the Civil War. John Mercer Langston was elected to the post of township clerk in Lorain County, Ohio, in 1854. After the Civil War he would move to Virginia to become the first African American member of Congress from that state.25 However, in 1992 it was discovered that prior to the election of Langston another African American was elected to public office, in the state legislature of Vermont. Regardless of whether the number was one or two, the paucity of African American elected officials before the Civil War suggested even to skilled researchers like political scientist Harold Gosnell “that the direct political importance of the Negro prior to the Civil War was very slight.”26 Indeed, historians until recently considered taking notice of African American elected officials to be of little value in the collection and maintenance of election return statistics for African Americans prior to the Civil War. Despite the fact that the collection and maintenance of election return data gradually became easier, the use of social statistics improved, and the number of African Americans elected to political office increased after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, the tendency to omit, ignore, dismiss, and generally exclude records of African American voting during the Colonial,

Revolutionary, Antebellum, and Civil War eras continued apace. Simply put, African American voting records were not kept even after African Americans were more fully enfranchised and began holding public office in significant numbers during the Reconstruction Era.

Finding Historical Election Data for African American Candidates: Monroe N. Work, W. E. B. DuBois, and Ralph Bunche To extract election returns for African American voters—past or present—one needs a comprehensive list of African American elected officials for every state, and the years of their election and reelections. African American voters, because of race consciousness in the community, have always tended to vote for African American candidates in high numbers. Hence, the existence of these candidates always suggests that if the African American electorate could vote, they voted for candidates of their own race. Thus, where actual voting data do not exist and/or did not get collected, the presence of African American candidates allows researchers to pinpoint areas of possible and potential voters. Without a list of African American candidates and officeholders for purposes of cross-referencing and comparison, governmental collections, commercial compendia, and scholarly reports have little value for the study of the African American electorate. Sadly, no such list exists. There are several reasons why. Racial prejudice and white supremacy are the dominant factors that help to explain both the small number of colonies and later states that allowed Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color to vote and the small number of African Americans who held elected office during the Early Republic, as compared with the large numbers of officeholders during Reconstruction. Racial prejudice and the ideology of White Supremacy prevented widespread enfranchisement as well as a significant number of African American officeholders. One of the first scholars to address this issue was an African American named Monroe N. Work. Writing in the January 1920 issue of the Journal of Negro History, he described the problem and its relationship to regional, if not national, attitudes and sentiments: “No systematic effort has hitherto been made to save the records of the Negro during the Reconstruction period. American public opinion has been so prejudiced against the Negroes because of their elevation to prominence in southern politics that it has been considered sufficient to destroy their regime and forget it.”27 Work was not alone in understanding this reality. Howard Dodson, longtime librarian and curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, made the following remarks about the problem: “Until recently, little was known about black Reconstruction lawmakers. . . . Vilified as ignorant, lazy, illiterate buffoons and gross incompetents, black officials were characterized as unfit to vote, much less to hold elective office. . . . [Thus] they were denied their proper place in the history of our country. Ignored by historians, the vast majority of them remained faceless, voiceless men.”28 Eric Foner, the noted present-day scholar of African American elected officials in the Reconstruction Era, observed that “to

The State of African American Election Data 15 Reconstruction’s opponents, black officeholding symbolized the fatal ‘error’ of national policy after the Civil War. . . . The Democratic press described [state] constitutional conventions and [state] legislatures with black members as ‘menageries’ and ‘monkey houses’ that made a travesty of democratic government. . . .”29 Foner continued: “. . . some opponents of Reconstruction tried to erase black officials from the historical record altogether.” Soon after Democrats regained control of Georgia’s government, Alexander St. Clair Abrams, who compiled the state’s legislative manual, decided to omit black lawmakers from the volume’s biographical sketches. It would be absurd, he wrote, to record “the lives of men who were but yesterday our slaves, and whose past careers, probably, embraced such menial occupations as boot-blacking, shaving, table-waiting, and the like.”30 “These judgments,” noted Foner, “stemmed from a combination of racism and an apparent unwillingness to do simple research about black officeholders,”31 in this time period or before. He concludes by saying that “the lives of most black officials have remained shrouded in obscurity. Many disappeared entirely from the historical record after leaving public office,” if not before. Thus, “available sources are sometimes contradictory or manifestly inaccurate. It is even impossible to ascertain whether certain individuals were in fact black or white.”32 Work noted that the initial problem facing researchers interested in African American electoral, appointive, and participatory politics in the Reconstruction period was one of simple identification. He wrote: “It has been extremely difficult to determine the race of the members of the various Reconstruction bodies. The list of members as published in the Journals of the legislatures does not indicate the race.”33 Work indicated that a rare exception was the state of North Carolina. “The Negro members of the North Carolina General Assembly . . . were indicated by the figure 37 in the State Manual listing all persons who had been in the Assembly. Where no such information could be obtained from printed matter, it has been necessary to rely upon information obtained from individuals who participated in the Reconstruction”34 or from contemporaries who were still living at the moment. Work first attempted a comprehensive identification and listing of the African American members of Reconstruction Conventions and southern state legislatures in 1920. Another major attempt was not made until 1993, some 73 years later. And even this publication, Eric Foner’s Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction, despite the time and expertise that went into looking for these officials, is still incomplete. Work had begun this task of political identification long before his 1920 article. The publication in which Work collected, recorded, and disseminated his research on political identification and later electoral data was the Negro Year Book. Work, who took bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Chicago, began his research at Georgia State College (later Savannah State College) in Savannah, Georgia, resigning on June 29, 1908, to take a job at the Tuskegee Institute, eventually to become head of the Department of Records and Research. When Booker T. Washington interviewed Work for the job at Tuskegee in his private railroad car on May 29, 1908, Washington indicated that

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he wanted Work to consider teaching a course on history and sociology. Washington was concerned that the many speeches he gave around the nation “sometimes contained errors with reference to dates, names, places, and figures. It seemed important to his friends that he correct these deficiencies.”35 Work had been recommended to him to provide this service, yet “Work did no formal classroom teaching during the thirty-seven years he was connected with the institution.”36 Rather, his time at Tuskegee was devoted to gathering and publishing research on the African American experience. The publication of the Negro Year Book largely came about as a result of Andrew Carnegie’s establishment and funding of the Committee of Twelve in 1904 to disseminate publicity relating to the Negro. Washington and his fellow committee members used most of their funding to publish and distribute pamphlets. By the summer of 1910, only $1,000 remained. “In July, Washington wrote Work about the possibility of compiling a yearbook of Negro progress to mark the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation in 1913.”37 Work responded positively. Whereas Washington had envisioned a pamphlet, Work wanted a book and told Washington that the income from the sale of the book “would replenish the fund, providing money for future projects.”38 Shortly thereafter, the Negro Year Book Publishing Company was formed with the Tuskegee Institute, with Work and University of Chicago sociologist Robert E. Park as joint owners. As Work envisioned the Year Book, it would be an annual encyclopedia that would provide “in a condensed form facts in regard to the present and past of the negro in America. It was a new and valuable attempt to register the progress of a race. The volume soon was used as a standard reference in public as well as in private libraries in the United States and abroad.”39 In fact, the “first edition was accepted with such enthusiasm that Monroe edited nine editions during his lifetime.”40 While the Year Book had no peers and quickly established itself as the dominant reference work in the field, “In 1928 it became necessary for Tuskegee Institute to assume the ownership of the Negro Year Book and pay its back debts.”41 While the rate of publication slowed, eleven editions appeared between 1912 and 1952. There is a simple reason for the lack of annual editions after the 1921–1922 edition: finances. There was never enough money to run the Tuskegee Department of Records and Research and meet the demands made on it. Work’s biographer and successor, Jessie Guzman, declared: “He was often beset with financial difficulties. More than once his work was threatened with curtailment because of lack of funds, and it was necessary for him to secure special grants for its continuation. . . . Between 1921 and 1938, mainly through his personal efforts . . . [several foundations] came to his rescue. . . .”42 Even with this help Work still did not have enough funds for an annual publication of the Negro Year Book. Thus, there are significant gaps in its publication. In addition to financial shortfalls, the Great Depression hit both the black community and its colleges very hard, which also contributed to the gaps in the annual publication of this one-ofa-kind reference work. Still, what editions did appear continued to carry excellent, if not the only, materials on African Americans

elections and politics. This body of political and electoral facts served everyone from scholars to laypeople. Table 1.2 summarizes the political identification features inherent in each of the eleven volumes of the Negro Year Book. Using an intensive content analysis of each volume, we were able to discern seven distinct categories of political, statistical, and electoral data. As shown at the top of the table, the first category, “Current Politics,” described all of those African American electoral and appointive candidates who won offices at the state and local levels for the years of that particular Year Book. All eleven editions of the Year Book carried this information. The second category, “Past Politics,” described “Negro Officeholders” during Reconstruction at the national, state, and local levels. Six and a half of the Year Books carried this information. The half-year is the 1941–1946 edition, the first edition not edited by Work, which carried only very limited and brief information about past officeholders. It devoted most of its coverage to current officeholders. This was a departure from the pattern created by Work. The third category, “Suffrage Rights,” described when and where African Americans could exercise their voting rights before the Civil War, after the Civil War, and during the Era of Disenfranchisement. Eight of the nine editions that Work edited carried this information. For some unknown reason, Work dropped this category starting with the 1937–1938 edition. However, this category was transformed into a discussion of poll taxes in the tenth edition and combined in the eleventh edition with a limited discussion of suffrage rights. Thus, ten of the eleven editions dealt with this electoral matter. The fourth category, “Civil Rights,” discussed and noted those civil liberties exercised by African Americans beyond mere voting rights, such as jury duty and accommodation in public transportation. And the fifth category, “Negro Officeholding,” carried information about the locations and terms of African American candidates in state and local positions, particularly in current election years. In this section, Work identifies both African American females and males. All eleven editions of the Year Book carried the fourth and fifth categories. However, only six of the eleven editions carried the sixth category, the number of “Negro Delegates” elected to the Democratic and Republican national conventions, where party nominees for the presidency and vice presidency were nominated. This information contains the names and states of each delegate. From this information, one can discern that African American party behavior was underway to different degrees in different places. Although this information was not published until the fourth edition, it was collected for the earlier years. In the two editions that Guzman edited, this vital party information was dropped. Finally, the seventh category, data on the “Negro Voting Age Population” by gender in each of the states from 1860 through 1950, is unique and quite insightful. These data appear to have been collected from the Bureau of the Census population studies. Work began compiling these data in the second edition, but the information was dropped entirely in the ninth edition, the last one that Work edited before his death. In the second through



The State of African American Election Data 17

Table 1.2  Seven Categories of Political Data and Statistics in the Negro Year Book, 1912–1952 Negro Delegates to National Conventions

Negro Voting Age Population

Year

Current Politics

Past Politics

Suffrage Rights

Civil Rights

Negro Officeholding

1912

X

 

X

X

X

 

 

1913

X

 

X

X

X

 

X

1914–1915

X

 

X

X

X

 

X

1916–1917

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

1918–1919

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

1921–1922

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

1925–1926

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

1931–1932

X

X

X

X

X

Xa

X

1937–1938

X

X

 

X

X

X

 

1941–1946

X

X

X

X

X

 

Xb

1952

X

 

X

X

X

 

X

b d

b

c c

Sources: Data adapted from all eleven editions of the Negro Year Book. a

This volume of the Negro Year Book offers a rich source of voter participation data.

b

In these years the Negro Year Book offers a limited amount of data.

c

In these years the Negro Year Book shifts from a historical discussion of suffrage rights to a focus on poll taxes.

d

In this year the Negro Year Book provides data on United Nations participation.

eighth editions, Work offered a detailed analysis of the voting age population in the African American community. When the eighth edition appeared just before the election of Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this suggested to both Roosevelt and the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover, the size, location, and potential significance of the African American electorate. Such an empirical message was also available to the mobilizers and party activists in the African American community, but in the next edition, the ninth, this unique information was dropped by Work. However, following Work’s departure, Guzman continued to amass this information, although not in the detail provided in the eighth volume. When seen collectively, the first three editions did not carry all seven categories, but the next five editions did. Beginning with Work’s last edition, the ninth one, the number of categories dropped back to five. Overall, six of the eleven editions have fewer than seven categories while five of the eleven editions carry all of the seven categories. Clearly, part of the reason that a majority of the volumes didn’t carry all of the categories is that in the initial volumes, Work had not developed all of the features and characteristics of African American politics that he wanted to display and reveal. In sum, it took a little time before this annual encyclopedia of the Negro matured and redirected itself. Despite all of its limitations, the Year Book stands as the only major reference work to describe the African American electorate in the Colonial, Revolutionary, Antebellum, Reconstruction, Disenfranchisement, and Modern American periods, albeit in a limited and partial manner. With these eleven volumes, one has

a point of departure for the serious study of the African American electorate. For even though limited, these eleven volumes with their multiple factual categories can, when these data are integrated, offer bold new insights into the nature, scope, and significance of African American political behavior in the American political process. These eleven volumes compiled by Work and Guzman are invaluable and nearly all that is needed to construct a holistic portrait of the African American electorate alone. But when the data in these eleven volumes are used as the groundwork and combined with other scarce data-based works, a whole new reality is possible. Work (and later Guzman) provided the foundation for this epistemological exploration. Despite the quality of these yearbooks, they have been very little used. Work’s biographer, historian Linda McMurry, indicates, “he became a virtually unknown figure after his death . . . [due in part] to his affiliation with Tuskegee . . . as that school became an object of contempt for many later twentieth century scholars.”43 She continues: “The focus of later scholars on the shortcomings of Washington and Tuskegee has obscured their successes,”44 one of which is clearly, the Negro Year Book. Secondly, with the rise of the “behavioralism revolution” in political science in the 1960s, with its focus on the individual and dismissal of political context, election return data took a backseat in the discipline’s research focus. Emphasis on psychological variables at the expense of the state and institutional variables left history out of the conceptualization of politics. Work’s yearbooks simply didn’t surface because data from polls and surveys displaced election returns data as the unit of analysis and measurement. Empirical and quantitative

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political science studies simply ignored and/or dismissed election return data. Finally, it is not just the political identification data that Work generated in the different editions of the Negro Year Book that is so invaluable to scholars, politicians, laypersons, and think tanks then and now; it is equally valuable to those he influenced to build upon his record and take the next steps. Chief among these collectors, recorders, and disseminators of the African American political experience was the first African American political scientist, Ralph Bunche.45 Yet in between Work and Bunche, one finds the contributions of W. E. B. DuBois, who served in part as a link between these two scholarly retrievers. Even before DuBois or Work, the American Negro Academy (ANA) made a limited, almost fleeting, effort as a retriever. The ANA was a learned society founded on “March 5, 1897 in Washington, D.C.” that held its last meeting on “December 28, 1928.”46 During its existence, the ANA “published twenty-two occasional papers on subjects related to the culture, history, religion, civil and social rights, and the social institutions of black Americans.”47 Among these occasional papers, which addressed the major issues of the day, four of the twenty-two papers (18.2%) dealt with disenfranchisement (number 6), the African American elective franchise (number 11), the lost ballot of African Americans in the one-party South (number 16), and the necessity of enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment (number 22).48 Unique among these four occasional papers was number 11, entitled “The Negro and the Elective Franchise.” It was more of a pamphlet with some six different articles, all of which had been written in 1905 by different scholars and men of distinction. Of these six papers, the one written by Professor Kelly Miller of Howard University, entitled “Migration and Distribution of the Negro Population as Affecting the Elective Franchise,” proved to be unlike the others because it included not only an argument but voting statistics as well. And it “was more significant for its statistical tables than for its arguments. The tables contained statistics on the growth of the black population from 1790 to 1900; on the number of blacks living in the South and in the North; on the number of black males of voting age in the northern states; and on the number of black males of voting age in the northern cities.”49 Thus, this paper by Professor Miller pointed to the importance of demographic census data as a tool to understanding potential black political power in the northern states—the destination for most African Americans migrating out of the South. And with this election data Professor Miller might have given the ANA a role in the African American community: promoting the collection of such data to measure the growth of African American political power in the North and the decrease of political power in the South. But it was a moment and role that got lost because it was not promoted as such. At best it was a harbinger of things to come for lone individuals like Monroe Work, W. E. B. DuBois, and others. This fleeting and indirect effort at promoting an effort to collect election data on the African American electorate did not get any support from the last occasional paper written on the subject by the ANA, which was issued in 1924. Entitled “The Challenge of the Disfranchised: A Plea for the Enforcement of

the 15th Amendment,” it devoted more attention to the issue of disenfranchisement but eschewed the need for simple election data collection, even though such data might have helped in motivating and activating the federal government to intervene in the South. This paper emphasized getting the federal courts involved. Thus, this last paper did not build on the lead proffered by Professor Miller. And this turned out to be one of the limitations of the ANA: its work on the disfranchisement of the African American electorate did not build on its groundwork efforts, at least at the statistical level. But after its demise, DuBois did see the necessity of collecting election data and did do so via the The Crisis magazine, which he edited from 1912–1934. Beginning in 1911 until his forced retirement from the NAACP and the editorship of the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine in 1934, DuBois reported all of the names and places of the newly elected African American officeholders at the local, state, and national levels in the United States.50 Despite the disenfranchisement of the African American southern electorate, in the northern, midwestern, western, and Border states African Americans were being elected to city councils, state legislatures, and eventually to Congress in 1928. DuBois’s major contribution is not the simple recordkeeping and the political identification of these pioneering African American political officeholders, but his use of these political successes to motivate and politically socialize the African American middle class into acquiring or regaining the ballot in the places where it had been denied. In addition, DuBois’s work popularized what Work and other African American historians and academics had offered essentially to the educated elite. Now those laypersons in the African American community could hear and read about the meaning, the output, and the influence of having the ballot. African American elected officials were not just theoretical; they were visible and real. Yet of all of the evaluations and assessments made of DuBois’s impact and influence, this aspect of his work is the least known. Nevertheless, Bunche would later gather this African American officeholding data from the DuBois compilations for the Myrdal study. This tabular list is at this writing the very best one in existence. Taking his PhD from Harvard University in 1934, Bunche founded and chaired the Government Department at Howard University. But unlike Work, he was politically involved in the Carnegie Foundation–sponsored study headed by Gunnar Myrdal that was released as a two-volume work, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Bunche was asked to join the study so as to prevent him from becoming the main critic of the study after it was released.51 Myrdal, when he asked Bunche to join the project and to travel with him around the South, commissioned him “to prepare four memoranda as working papers for the Myrdal study. In fact, of all of the forty-four research monographs prepared for the Myrdal study, ‘the most substantial’ and most important was Bunche’s ‘Political Status of the Negro.’ ”52 This memorandum “consisted of 1,662 typewritten pages,” and was “made up of 19 chapters, three appendices and a preface.”53 Bunche then subdivided these nineteen chapters into seven books. More importantly, the three appendices and thirty-three tables, charts, and graphs in “The Political Status of the Negro”

contained the political identification of African American elected officials past and present, some of which were taken from the sundry listings in Work’s Negro Year Book, while others were found by Bunche’s field researchers. However, one of the major tables in his study was a table containing all of the African American officeholders reported in The Crisis magazine from 1911 until 1934.54 Also unique to this research memorandum is the way that Bunche used his field researchers to get African American voter registration estimates, particularly in southern states and cities during the late 1930s. Prior to Bunche’s field work for the Myrdal study, a major pioneering effort was made by the white historian Paul Lewinson for his work Race, Class, and Party: A History of Negro Suffrage and White Politics in the South in 1932. Bunche’s attempt to find out about African American voter registration in the South after the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1901) set him apart from Work.55 However, Work had based his facts on newspaper clippings and on information sent to him by interested volunteers, as well as responses from state and local government officials. In terms of this voter registration data alone, Bunche’s memorandum is a treasure trove and one of the only places this voter registration information can be found. Yet up to the point in time of this writing, this one-of-a-kind type of data had not yet been used in any systematic fashion. Nevertheless, it still exists, albeit in a fairly difficult format to access. Currently, this Bunche memorandum exists in two forms. First, the original memoranda exist on microfilm at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library in Harlem. A microfilm copy can be purchased from the Center.56 Secondly, an edited copy, with an introduction to the memorandum, has been published by historian Dewey Grantham, entitled The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR. Bunche’s memorandum, as Grantham admits in the section “A Note on the Editing,” has been reshaped, reorganized, restructured, divided, and combined in such a manner that some of the pioneering political identification, voter registration, and selected voting data are not included and/or are only partially included; in fact, when the edited volume is compared and contrasted with the original memorandum, they look like two very different documents. Researchers would be well advised to get the original, though limited access to the original memorandum has hampered and hindered its use. Recently, another of Bunche’s memoranda, “A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership,” has been published. However, this one does not suffer from the numerous problems that beset the first published work. The editor, historian Jonathan Scott Holloway, tells us in the section entitled “Note on Editorial Policy and Formatting” that “the content of the memo remains unchanged,”57 unlike the first memo. In it Bunche identifies national, state, and local African American leaders and politicians, along with their party affiliation. In fact, in his two appendixes as well as in the narrative of the book, Bunche uncovers African American leaders who are not found in any other source, making it quite useful for the years under analysis (1800–1939).

The State of African American Election Data 19 Lastly, Bunche in his published article, “Disenfranchisement of the Negro,” provides the reader with the electoral cost to the African American community of the southern Democratic Party’s legal policies to strip the African American electorate of its Fifteenth Amendment right to vote.58 It is a quite learned piece and notable for its insights into the rescission of voting rights. The other two unpublished memoranda are also useful to the study and analysis of the African American electorate and ought to be used in conjunction with the two published ones. Within a decade after his death, Work’s activities had influenced and motivated a new generation of African American scholars. In 1957, the Journal of Negro Education devoted a special edition to “The Negro Voter,” where a variety of African American and white scholars provided systematic analysis of the African American electorate in nearly all of the eleven states that constituted the Confederacy. They looked at voter registration, voter turnout, voting, and political participation. This volume built upon the publications of Work and Bunche. Although single scholars had followed in these leaders’ footsteps and used their groundwork, this special issue of the Journal brought a host of scholars together in one volume to explore and assess the African American electorate.59 Finally, there was one other influence: the federal govern­ ment. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, created in 1957, published a study of the African American electorate in its first official report, entitled Report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1959. This report provided voter registration data in each of the eleven states that had constituted the Confederacy, using official as well as estimated registration data on the African American electorate. Following this official government report, the Bureau of the Census in its Current Population Reports (CPS), Series P–23, No. 14, gave the number of persons of voting age in 1960 and the votes cast for president in the elections of 1964 and 1960 by race.60 However, starting in 1964, the Bureau of the Census has released all of this information in Series P–20, No. 143. Thus, the Bureau of the Census in 1964, 174 years after the first Census, finally began collecting data on the African American electorate. This development was made possible by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. These government reports do help to supplement the compendia data and studies made available by scholars and research organizations. In addition to scholars and government agencies, at least one African American think tank and one southern civil rights organization were also indirectly influenced by Work’s vision. The first of these private sector organizations to appear was the Southern Regional Council (SRC). From the late 1940s through the 1960s, through its publication The New South and its Voter Education Project (VEP), the SRC published several articles and pamphlets on African American voter registration and voting before and after the reports by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Bureau of the Census. Moreover, it was the VEP that went into various southern states and conducted voter registration drives. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank, published an annual Roster of Black Elected Officials from 1970 through 1993, as well as

20

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numerous monographs on different aspects of African American politics throughout the nation and in particular in the South. The annual Roster sought to identify every African American elected official in the nation. Prior to the Joint Center’s annual publication, the SRC-VEP issued such publications. With the rise of the annual Roster, the SRC-VEP publication ceased. Since the discontinuation of the annual Roster, the Joint Center’s newsletter, Focus, and its Web site attempt to continue the tradition of identifying African American elected officials throughout the nation. However, one major flaw with the Joint Center’s two publications is that neither included racial voter registration data nor the number of votes each African American candidate got in the primaries and general election vis-à-vis their opponents. Only their monographs on past Democratic and Republican national conventions contain the total number of African American delegates from each state. Indeed, these publications are the only places where such delegate information can be found. Previously, this information could be found only in the Negro Year Book. In other Joint Center publications, such as its monograph on Reverend Jesse Jackson’s run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1984, there are some primary voting data. Other Joint Center publications on black state legislators and the Congressional Black Caucus contain useful quantitative information. While the publications of these two private organizations do not contain a substantial number of references to Work, they make use of his analytical techniques: (1) political identification at all levels of the political system—national, state, and local; (2) the study of African American delegates to the national Democratic and Republican conventions each presidential year; and (3) the presentation of votes and voting from the African American community in selected races and contests. Finally, these publications contain little analysis and/or interpretation of these voting data. This procedure came directly from Work, who always wanted the “facts”—in this instance, the “electoral facts”—to speak for themselves. Collectively, the data collection, recording, and dissemination launched by Work and Bunche and now enriched and enhanced by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Bureau of the Census and private organizations like VEP and the Joint Center make it quite possible to appraise and evaluate the African American electorate for patterns, trends, and tendencies in the American political process. Although these data sources still leave a lot to be desired, they have moved the nation and its people a long way from a troubled past of racial inequality. And they have made it a bit easier to make additional progress.

The State of African American Election Data: A Summary Emerging from our overview analysis is a sobering portrait of the state of African American election data. Said data, where they exist, are scattered, piecemeal, fragmented, and inconsistent. Historically, no one kept consistent, systematic, or comprehensive records. Although there were attempts, as the publications of Work attest, the lack of funding and national economic

downturns forced gaps into the collection, recording, and dissemination of election return data. But that was not the only problem. The White Supremacist ideology of past eras pervaded the mindset of archivists and the public alike and prevented the accurate recording and collection of electoral information about African Americas. Even many academics were similarly influenced and bitterly opposed to the archiving of such information. Historian Eric Foner takes one example, University of Georgia history professor E. Merton Coulter, and follows him through time. Foner begins by quoting Coulter’s 1947 work, The South During Reconstruction: “The Negroes were fearfully unprepared to occupy positions of rulership” and black officeholding was “the most spectacular and exotic development in government in the history of white civilization . . . [and the] longest to be remembered, shuddered at, and execrated.”61 Foner continues: As late as 1968, Coulter . . . described Georgia’s most prominent Reconstruction black officials as swindlers and “scamps,” and suggested that whatever positive qualities they possessed were inherited from white ancestors.62 Echoing the racially biased remarks of white ReconstructionEra politicians, Coulter declared without any hesitation that African American congressmen of the 1960s like Adam Clayton Powell, Charles Diggs, Robert Nix, and William Dawson were similarly unfit for office. Coulter’s book carrying these white supremacist remarks, Negro Legislators in Georgia During the Reconstruction Period, was published in 1968. No one knows how these ideas may have stymied and crippled the collection and archiving of data on the African American political experience. However, in the 1968 Georgia Official and Statistical Register, the African American senatorial candidate, attorney Maynard Jackson, was labeled in bold letters, as “Colored.”63 He was the first such candidate to run statewide in Georgia. Like money, ideology was a barrier to the archiving of African American election data. This failure to archive and disseminate data on the African American electorate is not just a southern problem, nor one solely of ideology. In some areas outside of the South the obligation to archive comprehensively has become little more than an afterthought to the election event. Though African Americans now constitute a significant part of the electorate in many major urban areas like Detroit, Michigan, and often have direct responsibility for the conduct of the election process, they may still fail to preserve election information in all of its available dimensions. African Americans are increasingly in a position to contribute significantly to a more complete understanding of themselves and other constituent electorates just by preserving the election return data records of their communities. This recordkeeping should include not only the various election reports of who won and who lost a given election in each precinct but also descriptions by election of precinct and district boundaries, enumerations of the population and registered voters by precinct, polling place locations, assigned precincts and relationships to other representation geographies such as school board and municipal, county, state, and congressional districts.

Moreover, outside of the South where such data are archived, the problem was and is simply the matter of racial identification. Where the data exist and have existed, usually the racial identification of voters and candidates is unrecognizable. No one without a comprehensive and systematic list knows if the elected officials are white, black, or otherwise. Lists of officeholders and their votes are undifferentiated except by party affiliation. This is a central weakness of existing archival data. Only occasionally are African Americans delineated from other racial and ethnic groups. Currently, even the best attempts at master lists have proven to be incomplete and/or inaccurate. Researchers faced with such a daunting task simply omit this variable and/or elected official from their study and interpretation. Thus, nothing is learned about the racial identities of voters and candidates. If one of the dominant characteristics of the data on the African American electorate is that only a smattering of archival data exists, the other characteristic is that a great deal of information has been lost. The data on Free-Men-andWomen-of-Color in Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum America do not exist in any comprehensive manner. This entire period, from about 1610 to 1870, is something of a mystery. In dealing with African American voter registration after the Civil War, J. Morgan Kousser used linear regression analysis to estimate the number of voters, simply because none of the southern states except Louisiana kept voting registration records by race.64 Hence, the data for this period from 1868 until the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1908) are also shadowy and unknown. And in the period from 1901 until the work of Bunche in 1940 and the Civil Rights Commission Reports in the late 1950s, the data are scattered, unorganized, and in some instances uncollected. Since 1964 the data have been produced, but they too are fairly widely scattered. Simply put, in some periods the data are not there while in others they exist, but it requires a careful and systematic hunt to find the data and put them in a useable and accessible form. Thus, the current state of the data does not lend itself to easy access for researchers. Again, as noted above, one of the reasons that the existing data have not been gathered is the nature of research in contemporary political science. Survey and polling data are the keys to publication and career advancement. They have literally displaced aggregate election return data. Since the latter are collected for political units like states, congressional districts, counties, precincts, and wards, they cannot effectively speak to individual-level behavior, which is the area of focus in the premier academic journals in the discipline. Time spent collecting, recording, and using aggregate election data returns for analyses will not generate access to the discipline’s most prestigious journals and publications. Thus, such time is seen as wasted and poorly used. Hence, scholars in search of tenure cannot afford the time spent undertaking such collections despite the fact that such work is much needed. Therefore, the task of improving the state of African American election data goes undone. It is not a high priority nor is it a road to prestige and tenure.

The State of African American Election Data 21 In most cases, the task is simply left to the federal agencies, primarily the Bureau of the Census Current Population Reports Series P–20 that are currently organized to collect the racial registration and voting data, but such agencies are not concerned with the past. Hence, data on the past never get dealt with, and neither academic nor federal researchers are inclined to address the situation. We hope that this volume provides a long-overdue remedy to the lack of comprehensive African American election data, and that it will stimulate renewed interest in analyzing these data.

Conclusion on the State of African American Election Data Clearly, some data exist on the African American electorate in each of the different eras of the American political experience. Although not all data are easily accessible, they nevertheless exist in some form or another. Careful historical detective work and investigations have uncovered some of the more obscure information. Over the years, some of these data have been used to provide contextual background information on voter registration and voting behavior in the African American community. At other times selected bits of these electoral data have appeared in sundry reports of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Often, these reports have been generated to support requests for government intervention, particularly in the South, to support legislative efforts to eliminate the poll tax, white primaries, and other barriers to the voting rights of African Americans, which have been constantly under siege since the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1908). The fragmentary data that exist require a more holistic assessment. There is a great need to move beyond the current incomplete and sparse political portrait of the African American electorate. The need for a more complete and well-rounded understanding means that these spotty areas of data must be linked so that continuity and a longitudinal frame of reference can be achieved. Previously, not only has the retrieval of this deficient data not taken place, but nothing has been done to connect the dots between the years of the incomplete data to unite them into a coherent whole. In fact, it is this disconnect between the different periods where data on the African American electorate exist that helps to sustain and perpetuate this fragmentary and uneven portrait. Thus, one of the central tasks of this study is to move beyond the simple retrieval of data and to link together data from different periods to create a holistic portrait. Yet the problem here is not simply one of retrieval and linkage. There is the matter of the indirect influence of the African American population during the years when they could not vote. Here inferential (derivative) data can be extracted from the techniques and procedures created to suppress the African American electorate, such as poll taxes, white primaries, and voting experiments like the cotton referendums for black and white farmers during the New Deal. These data show why these electoral barriers were created—namely, due to concern about the potential size of the black electorate in these areas—while

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the cotton referendums show us that blacks wanted to vote and how many took advantage of the opportunity. This participation flies in the face of assertions from southern white politicians that blacks were apathetic and not interested in voting or that they were not “mature” enough to vote on issues. Up to this point, we have discussed the limited existence of data for this electorate, but one must keep in mind the long periods where participation in the electoral process was prohibited by law. Election data from these periods are quite important in generating a complete portrait, and techniques must be employed so that some types of data can be generated to fill in the gaps. Since such election data do not exist and therefore cannot be retrieved, they must be generated indirectly from such factual records of these periods, such as the use of the Three-Fifths Clause in determining seats in the House of Representatives and electoral votes for the presidential candidates of each of the political parties; as well as the identification of “black belt” counties in presidential elections and the use of votes from these counties to suggest how the group, instead of individuals, voted during and after the Reconstruction Era. The existence of poll tax referendums can also be helpful. Another indirect resource would be testing V.O. Key Jr.’s thesis in Southern Politics that voter registration and voting in these same counties decreased with the rise in the size of the black population and increased with the decrease in the size of the black population. Harry Holloway’s thesis in The Politics of the Southern Negro that voter registration and voting was greater in urban areas than in rural areas can also be tested to reveal insights about this electorate. Finally, there are a few monographs released around the time of the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, 1970, 1975, and 1982 that will help to fill in the gaps in the existing data. The point here is that inferential (derivative) data can be extrapolated from existing factual data about the American electoral process, both that designed to exclude as well as that meant to assist the African American electorate, particularly if such information is used in an imaginative and thoughtful manner. Rarely have such data been used, primarily because the lessthan-democratic operation of the electoral machinery is such an embarrassment to a proudly democratic nation. We hope that the combination of retrieval, linkage, and inferential data will establish for the very first time a comprehensive and systematic portrayal of the African American electorate. We also hope to set the stage through subsequent data analyses for useful insights about political participation and voting behavior of a racial group in a modern democratic society. And we hope that the insights generated via this book will, like all of the electoral data found in the sundry compendia and archives, serve policy makers, academics, scholars, politicians, and laypeople, as well as enrich and enhance the intellectual knowledge base of not only the United States but also the global community.

Notes   1. Karen O’Connor and Larry Sabato, American Government: Continuity and Change, 2008 Edition (New York: Longman, 2008), pp. 66–88.   2. John Kolp, Gentlemen and Freeholders: Electoral Politics in Colonial Virginia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 15.   3. Ibid., p. 40.

  4. Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 23.   5. Ibid., p. 25.   6. Ibid., p. 24.   7. Robert Dinkins, Voting in Provincial America: A Study of Elections in the Thirteen Colonies, 1689–1776 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), p. 28.   8. Ibid., p. 32.   9. Keyssar, p. 55. 10. Ibid., p. 353, footnote 5. Even a recent analysis concerning an African American slave who was literate and wrote pamphlets before and after the Civil War and became a Republican during Reconstruction in Georgia does not allude to and/or provide evidence of voting by FreeMen-of-Color in the state. See Clarence Mohr, “Harrison Berry: A Black Pamphleteer in Georgia During Slavery and Freedom,” Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 67 (Summer 1983), pp. 189–205. 11. Keyssar, p. 351. 12. Ibid., p. 352. 13. Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Political Parties (New York: Free Press, 1972), p. 22. 14. Ibid. 15. Eric Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. xii. 16. See Chapters 3 and 4. 17. Walter Dean Burnham, “Printed Sources,” in Jerome M. Clubb, William Flanigan, and Nancy Zingale (eds.), Analyzing Electoral History (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981), p. 40. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., pp. 45–70. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., pp. 44. 22. Michael J. Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2002), p. ix. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., p. xi. 25. William Cheek, “A Negro Runs for Congress: John Mercer Langston and the Virginia Campaign of 1888,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 52 (1967), pp. 14–34. 26. Harold Gosnell, Negro Politicians: The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 3. 27. Monroe N. Work, “Some Negro Members of Reconstruction Conventions and Legislatures and of Congress,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 5 (January 1920), pp. 63–125. Cited in Linda McMurry, Recorder of the Black Experience: A Biography of Monroe Nathan Work (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), p. 63. 28. Foner, p. vii. 29. Ibid., p. xi. 30. Ibid., p. xii. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., p. xiii. 33. Work, p. 63. 34. Ibid. 35. Jessie Guzman, “Monroe Nathan Work and His Contributions,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 34 (October 1949), p. 436; Vernon Williams, Jr., “Monroe N. Work’s Contribution to Booker T. Washington’s Nationalistic Legacy,” Western Journal of Black Studies Vol. 21 (Summer 1997), pp. 85–91. 36. Guzman, p. 437. 37. McMurry, p. 75. 38. Ibid. 39. Guzman, pp. 447–448. 40. Ibid., p. 447. 41. McCurry, p. 76. 42. Guzman, p. 446. 43. McCurry, p. 144. 44. Ibid., p. 146.

45. Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Southern Politics: The Influences of Bunche, Martin, and Key,” in Hanes Walton, Jr. (ed.), Black Politics and Black Political Behavior: A Linkage Analysis (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), pp. 19–38. 46. Alfred Moss, Jr., The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), pp. 1 and 288. 47. Ibid., p. 2. 48. Ibid., pp. 308–309. 49. Ibid., p. 155. 50. For a list of some of the sundry articles that appeared on these officeholders see W.E.B. DuBois (ed.), Selections from The Crisis (Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson, 1983). See also the endnotes for Chapter 19 of this volume. 51. Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America’s Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938–1987 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 111 and 129. 52. Ibid., p. 22. 53. Ibid. 54. Ralph Bunche, The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR, Edited and with an Introduction by Dewey Grantham (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. 97, footnote 8. This extensive and

The State of African American Election Data 23 unique compilation of data was not included in the book. In fact, little use has ever been made of it. 55. Ralph Bunche, “Disenfranchisement of the Negro,” in Sterling Brown (ed.), The Negro Caravan (New York: Dryden Press, 1941), pp. 48–59. 56. Walton, “Black Southern Politics: The Influences of Bunche, Martin, and Key,” p. 36, footnote 14. 57. Ralph Bunche, A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership. Edited and with an introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway (New York: New York University Press, 2005), p. xiii. 58. Bunche, “Disenfranchisement of the Negro,” pp. 48–59. 59. “The Negro Voter,” Journal of Negro Education Vol. 26 (Summer 1957). 60. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Population Characteristics P–20, “Voter Participation in the National Election, November 1966” (October 25, 1968), p. 5. 61. Foner, p. xii. 62. Ibid. 63. The Georgia Official and Statistical Register 1968 (Atlanta: Secretary of State, 1969), p. 153. 64. J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restrictions and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).

CHAPTER 2

The Literature on the African American Electorate The Separation Phenomenon in the Reporting of Election Return Data

26

Examining the Suffrage Literature

27

Table 2.1 Constitutional Convention and Referenda Votes on Equal Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color in States and Federal Territories of the United States, 1790–1870

31

The Registration, Turnout, and Voting Data Literature

33

Table 2.2 Percent and Number of Registered Voters in Counties of Arkansas by Race, 1867

35

Map 2.1 Arkansas Counties with African American vs. White Voting Majorities, 1867

36

Table 2.3 Percent Ratio of Registered African American Voters to Eligible African American Voters in Arkansas, 1867–1990

37

Table 2.4 Number and Percent of Counties in Georgia That Reported Separately on Black Voters, 1944–1954

37

The Balance of Power Theory Literature

38

Conclusions on the Literature Concerning the African American Electorate

39

Notes 40

26

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Chapter 2

xisting published scholarship on the African American electorate from Colonial times to the present is quite like the nature and scope of the election return data: spotty, scattered, and piecemeal. Most existing literature falls into two distinct categories: the first analyzes the question of suffrage rights, while the second analyzes and interprets African American voter participation. Neither of the categories is comprehensive or systematic in its coverage of the African American electorate, nor are both the only categories, just the major ones. The suffrage literature is focused heavily on the period from the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1908) to the present. Also addressed in the modern literature is the matter of felony disenfranchisement, where state laws deny voting rights to former incarcerated persons who have been convicted of felony crimes. Such laws fall disproportionately on members of the African American community.1 In short, for many in the African American civil rights community, felony disenfranchisement means racial disenfranchisement. But while this literature is heaviest in the time frame of 1890–2007, suffrage literature—though spare and spotty—also exists for the Colonial, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods of American political history. Both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections generated even more suffrage literature as scholars sought to analyze the treatment of African Americans in the contested Bush v. Gore election in Florida in 2000 and Bush v. Kerry in Ohio during the 2004 vote.2 In Florida, where Republican candidate George W. Bush won the state with 530 votes, there were a number of voting irregularities that disenfranchised more than fifteen percent of the African American voters. The United States Commission on Civil Rights held public hearings on this matter on January 11–12, 2001, and found that: (1) the state employed a private contractor to develop a “purge list” of ineligible voters and sent the “purge list” to each one of the county directors of elections; the list turned out to be highly inaccurate, and hundreds of eligible persons were wrongfully turned away on election day; (2) these voters not on the rolls had no mechanism for any type of appeal; (3) polling places closed too early, leaving hundreds in lines, unable to vote; (4) polling places were moved without voters in the area being notified; (5) spoiled ballots that were rejected outright were highest in African American precincts; (6) police were an intimidating presence near polling places in African American precincts; and (7) absentee ballots were denied some African American voters, and when other African American voters went to vote they were denied because records showed that they had been sent absentee ballots. The Commission found that all of these different techniques seriously disenfranchised members of the African American community in the 2000 presidential election.3 In 2004 voter irregularities appeared in the African American communities of Ohio. This time a report on the problems was produced not by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights but by the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. Eleven members of the committee, all Democrats because the Republican members boycotted the hearing, investigated the problem of racial disenfranchisement in Ohio. Published by the Government Printing

Office in January 2005, the report pinpointed the negative role played by the Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, an African American who co-chaired the Bush-Cheney Reelection Campaign in Ohio. He deliberately misallocated the number of voting machines for the heavily African American precincts in the urban areas of the state, which, in turn, caused delays of three to four hours and left hundreds of voters unable to vote when the polls closed. In addition, there was illegal purging of the voter rolls. Finally, Republican monitors showed up at these urban precincts and challenged 97 percent of new African American voters, creating further delays. This is a process called “caging,” and it is illegal in the state.4 Events in both Florida and Ohio, in 2000 and 2004, respectively, continued the concern over the long-standing matter of racial discrimination in voting in presidential and state elections. The problems in Florida led Congress to pass new voter legislation to help states acquire electronic voting machines and, subsequently, to renew the Voting Rights Act (VRA), this time by a Republican Congress. The other main body of literature, voter participation literature, tends to focus primarily on those periods of American political history where African Americans registered, turned out, and voted in large numbers. The first period of high African American voter activity was during Reconstruction, in 1868–1876, while the period from the first Voting Rights Act in 1965 to the present has now been called the “Second Reconstruction.”5 While many in the academic and scholarly community object to and are opposed to the term “Second Reconstruction” and do not see the linkage, the vast literature on African American voting behavior in this period outstrips that on any other period in America’s political history. Although a few articles have appeared on voting behavior in the African American community both before and after the VRA in 1965, the promise for study in the future within this field is quite staggering given that more African Americans than ever are running for offices such as governor, senator, and president. In the past such positions were not contested by African American candidates as frequently as they are now.6 In point of fact, the growth potential for this literature is such that it may soon outstrip the suffrage literature and become the dominant body of work about the African American electorate. At the moment, though, study of the suffrage problem predominates.

The Separation Phenomenon in the Reporting of Election Return Data A problematic characteristic of voting literature, including that specific to African Americans, is created by the so-called separation phenomenon, the tendency to split institutional variables (registration and turnout data) from voting variables (the vote and election return data). This tendency brings with it a problem. Unlike the two aforementioned categories with their different foci, the separation phenomenon splits electoral variables that should be connected in order to craft a holistic portrait of any electorate, whether it be African American, white, Latino, or Asian. Only occasionally does one find a pamphlet or monograph that provides complete coverage, including voting age

population, voter registration, voter turnout (entire population) data, and election return data. Even those works that examine African American political candidates—votes cast for them or for their opponents in primaries, runoffs, and general elections—tend to miss some portion of the vital election data. This basic information, which can be found in different degrees of completeness in the Negro Year Book series, tends to be separated except for some selected electoral races.7 However, the separation of voting age population and voter registration data from actual election return data is the central characteristic of most compendia on the American electorate. In fact, the dominant method of reporting electoral information is to list the office, the candidates, the numbers of votes, and the percentages of the total vote that each candidate in that particular race received. Voter registration and turnout information are usually summarized in journalistic accounts. In an era when polling and surveys are the main tools used to predict and explain individual-level vote choice in elections, election return data are rarely used simply because they are collected for aggregate political units like precincts, wards, counties, legislative and congressional districts, and states. Thus, rarely are election return data used and/or reported in poll and survey-based analyses. Hence, separation is maintained in part by the methodological techniques and approaches used in studies. Separation is also maintained because state election manuals have traditionally simply reported offices, parties, candidates, votes, and sometimes the vote percentages received in elections. Voter registration and turnout information are not carried in these state manuals, registers, and reports in any standardized fashion. As the secretaries of state have transitioned to Web sites to replace print publications, some states have begun to provide additional information on registration and turnout, but again, it is not standardized. And most important, these Web site election return data do not go back far in time. Currently, most secretary of state Web sites only carry election data back to the 1990s, making it difficult to overcome the separation pattern. Here, separation was institutionalized by state governmental agencies, and when federal governmental agencies began their own reporting, they copied and continued the pattern set in place by colonial governments, antebellum state governments, and the Bureau of the Census’s Statistical Abstracts series. Separation was inherent in the pioneering academic and scholarly studies. Edgar E. Robinson’s The Presidential Vote, 1896–1932 and W. Dean Burnham’s Presidential Ballots, 1836– 1892 began the pattern in political science, followed by recent studies like Svend Petersen’s A Statistical History of the American Presidential Elections and Michael Dubin’s United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860. A major exception to this separation approach is Jerrold Rusk’s A Statistical History of the American Electorate, published in 2001. Rusk’s unique volume sought to address the questions of voter registration and turnout with far more precision in terms of definition and measurement than had ever been done before. New election return data had been discovered for 1788–1860, along with new information on state constitutional law related to voting. Crucial among these new data were economic and property requirements that had not

The Literature on the African American Electorate 27 been taken into account when earlier scholars had conceptualized “voter turnout” and measured it. Rusk has written: Without accurate knowledge of economic criteria for voting (landed and personal property, taxpaying), the definitive history of the eligibility and vote turnout of early American state electorates is missing. There are good estimates for eligibility and voting turnout after this period. For the early period, however, recourse to mobilization values and comparison of these values across time in a state’s history may be the best way to gauge voter participation trends longitudinally, especially for the original thirteen states.8 Therefore, to get beyond the limitations of the voter registration and voter turnout concepts, Rusk used two new concepts to make voter turnout much more reliable and understandable in relationship to the suffrage laws of each state at any given time in America’s political history. The first concept is voter eligibility, which he defined as “the percentage of a state’s adult population that is legally allowed to vote according to a state’s suffrage laws at any given point in time. Empirically, its formula is E/A, where E refers to the number eligible to vote and A refers to the total number of adults in a state in a particular year.”9 He continued by noting that voter mobilization is: the percentage of people who actually voted in a particular political race in a state in any given year compared to the state’s entire adult population. . . . Empirically, the formula for voter mobilization is V/A, where V refers to the number of people who actually voted in a given political race in a particular election year and A is the number of adults in the total population in a state in that year.10 Thus, with these refined and precisely measured concepts that help to analyze voter turnout, Rusk could then more precisely estimate voter turnout as V/E. Therefore, with this pioneering volume, the separation phenomenon has come full circle and is now integrated in the literature, at least in this one volume. It is unclear whether others will follow this path. Yet at this moment, separation prevails and impacts the study of all portions of the electorate, including African Americans. Hence, in the small amount of literature that provides election return data on the African American electorate, one will find a separation of the institutional from the voting variables. And while it is essential to acknowledge this major characteristic in all of the literature on the American electorate, this study will, where possible, make adjustments and linkages so that a more holistic portrait can be developed.

Examining the Suffrage Literature There are two great periods covered by suffrage literature on the African American electorate. The first period, from 1800 to 1869, generated a literature about Free-Men-of-Color and the

28

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different statewide referenda that sought to expand or contract their suffrage rights in Antebellum America. (Although the 1869 date is slightly past the Antebellum period, Free-Men-of-Color in several northern states did not get the right to vote until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in March 1870.) The second period, from 1890 to 1964, dealt with the disfranchisement of the African American electorate and its possible restoration via the elimination of poll taxes and government intervention. Finally, beyond these two great periods covered by the literature, there has been a devolution in the focus of this literature from an all-encompassing perspective to a narrower one dealing first with poll taxes, then with minority vote dilution, and most recently with felony disenfranchisement. To be sure, other literature has surfaced over this long period of African American electoral politics. Such literature has been overshadowed by the various works concerning these two large eras in American political history. No matter the origin of the quantities of literature on the African American electorate, the study of this group of voters has been greatly improved by literature examining the statewide suffrage referenda and the narrower literature on the poll tax, vote dilution, and felony disenfranchisement. Embedded in this literature are newly discovered voter registration and election return data that will enhance and enrich what is available, so as to enable us to develop as complete and holistic a portrait of this group electorate as possible. For instance, in the recently discovered speech of Isaiah T. Montgomery, we have uncovered information concerning the number of African American registered voters in Mississippi in 1890 and the number left after the state constitutional convention. Outside of the South and before the Civil War, the numerous northern, western, and eastern statewide suffrage referenda provide us with some heretofore unknown insights and factual knowledge about the potential electorate and voting behavior of Free-Men-of-Color. Each of these bodies of suffrage literature gives us a better window on an electorate where few official records and holdings now exist. This literature will help us fill in the gaps and the missing data.

Suffrage Literature from Colonial America to the Fifteenth Amendment There is a paucity of literature on the African American electorate in Colonial America. The few articles and monographs that exist on suffrage rights in this era offer only a brief overview of the colonies that made suffrage rights available to this population. The pioneering article on this matter, S.B. Weeks’s “The History of Negro Suffrage in the South,” which appeared in the Political Science Quarterly in 1894, devotes just two and a half pages to the topic, while the initial monograph on the subject, Emil Olbrich’s The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860, which appeared in 1912, covered this period in one chapter. Both works stood for years as the authoritative word on the topic and were much quoted. Eventually, these works were superseded in 1978 by Robert J. Dinkin’s Voting in Provincial America: A Study of Elections in the Thirteen Colonies, 1689– 1776. In 2000, all of these works were surpassed by Alexander Keyssar’s well-researched and comprehensive work The Right to

Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, which devotes a section of chapter 3 and more than two appendixes to the topic. Yet the coverage is not greatly detailed, nor could it be, given the spotty recordkeeping in that period. Once the time frame changes to the Antebellum Era, which saw the rise of state governments, the literature expands. Led by African American historian Charles Wesley’s two major scholarly articles, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of ConstitutionMaking, 1787–1865” and “The Participation of Negroes in AntiSlavery Political Parties,” both of which appeared in the Journal of Negro History, studies on the suffrage issue blossomed. More importantly, specialized articles appeared that explored the topic in New York,11 New Jersey,12 Pennsylvania,13 Maine,14 Rhode Island,15 Michigan,16 and Wisconsin.17 Three articles appeared on both New York and Pennsylvania, two on Wisconsin, and at least one each on the other states. Eventually, a book emerged on the African American suffrage struggle in New York not only because the state held three statewide referenda on suffrage rights for African Americans but also because in 1821 the state added a $250 dollar propertyholding qualification in order for Free-Men-of-Color to continue to vote in the state.18 To date, historian Phyllis Field’s The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era, which appeared in 1982, stands as the best suffrage work yet to surface. It precisely measured suffrage voting in three statewide referenda using electoral data gathered at the county level. Besides the unique New York situation, which has attracted scholarly attention, there is the matter of Pennsylvania. In the Quaker-dominated state, Free-Men-of-Color had not been denied suffrage rights, but in 1837–1838 a controversy arose when “A decision of the State Supreme Court declared that the Negro was not a freeman, and accordingly was not entitled to vote. In 1837, a candidate for office in Bucks County, who was defeated, claimed his opponent’s seat because Negroes had been permitted to vote for him and that such an action was contrary to the law. . . . In December the court decided that the election was legal. . . .”19 That same year, the state’s constitutional convention “discussed the question of Negro suffrage and decided on January 27, 1838, by a vote of 77–45 that the suffrage should be limited to whites. The constitution with this provision was ratified in October [1838].”20 On June 5, 1837, prior to the passage of this disenfranchisement amendment, two African American activists in Philadelphia, Frederick Hinton and Reverend Charles Gardner, held a mass meeting at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and wrote a letter to protest the disenfranchisement politics they anticipated at the convention. The title of this document is “Memorial To the Honorable, The Delegates of The People of Pennsylvania In Convention at Philadelphia Assembled.” Both men signed the document and “presented it to the convention in January 1838.”21 Occurring almost simultaneously with the Hinton and Gardner effort was another led by Free-Men-of-Color in Pittsburgh, who drafted their memorial entitled “Memorial of The Free Citizens of Color in Pittsburg, 1837 and Its Vicinity Relative To The Right of Suffrage Read In Convention, 8 July, 1837.”22 Then, several weeks later, after the disenfranchisement amendment was passed, Gardner spearheaded another mass



The Literature on the African American Electorate 29

meeting on March 14, 1838, at the First African Presbyterian Church, to draft an appeal petition “to dissuade Pennsylvania voters from ratifying the anti-black suffrage amendment.”23 This well-known historical document is entitled “The Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened With Disenfranchisement, To the People of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1838.”24 Neither of the two Memorials, which were addressed to the constitutional convention delegates, nor the Appeal, which was addressed to the white voters of the state, stopped the disenfranchisement amendment from being passed and ratified. Other protest petitions followed these, including in 1853 “The Memorial of Black Philadelphians and the Right to Vote,” which was addressed to the “Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania . . . [and] appealed to conscience, to good will, and to a spirit of justice.”25 Yet each of these memorials, pamphlets, circulars, and proclamations “failed in accomplishing . . . [their] purpose—restoring the right to vote.”26 Thus, “after 1838 no blacks voted until the state’s constitution was changed in 1873 to include all male citizens regardless of color.”27 As a result, it took more than thirty-five years for Free-Men-of-Color to regain their suffrage rights despite the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. Although this unique situation produced two original pamphlets, several articles, and a dissertation, no book-length study has surfaced. Nevertheless it is, like the New York suffrage efforts, an illuminating example of African American suffrage in Antebellum America. Besides this detailed literature on New York and Pennsylvania, a book published in 2008 analyzes the suffrage struggles in four states: New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.28 Although this is the first book-length study to attempt a detailed comparative analysis of these four suffrage struggles, it misses the three additional suffrage referenda in New York and elsewhere. This literature raises a major question: were there other state suffrage referenda for Free-Men-of-Color in this period of American political history? Political scientists Robert Dykstra and Harlan Hahn, in analyzing the suffrage referendum vote in Iowa in 1868, have answered the question in this manner: “Between Appomattox and the promulgation of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, proposals that would allow Negroes to vote became burning political issues in several Northern states.”29 They continued: Between 1865 and 1870 proposals for Negro suffrage were defeated in at least 14 Northern states. In addition, Colorado Territory jeopardized its admission to the Union in 1865 by a favorable referendum vote on a constitution restricting the franchise to “every white male citizen of the age of twenty-one and upward.” In New Jersey, the question of Negro suffrage was never submitted to a referendum, although the state legislators rejected it decisively by a vote in 1867, and by a subsequent resolution denouncing Negro enfranchisement.30 Historian William Gillette answered the same question from his analysis of the politics involved in the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment by noting the following:

Voters in the North, in referendum after referendum, rejected Negro suffrage by a generally substantial vote. . . . During 1865 five jurisdictions voted down Negro suffrage in popular referendums. . . . Unfortunately, there was no ground swell of popular support or any great decisive change in public opinion between 1865 and 1868 as registered in referendums on Negro suffrage. Instead, white Americans resented and resisted it.31 Gillette concluded after looking at how white historians had treated the African American voter in post–Civil War America by finding that: It has long been considered a commonplace fact that there was a sturdy, steady, and increasing progress toward enfranchisement of the Negro after 1865. In fact, this was not the case. Rather than witnessing inevitable progress and invulnerable principle, there were hard starts and abrupt stops. Indeed, it often appeared that for any step forward there were two steps backward.32 From 1800 to 1869, the very eve of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, the historical and factual record shows a host of statewide referenda in the North, Midwest, and East that went down to defeat almost every time. Two passed after the Civil War and just prior to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. In the one article that analyzes these suffrage fights in a longitudinal manner (numerous articles analyze these suffrage referendums in single states), historian Tom McLaughlin has written: An examination of the state referenda reveals that (1) proposals for black rights were defeated by northerners in nineteen of the twenty-two referenda; (2) each of the twelve northern states under study rejected a black rights measure at least once; (3) 63 percent of all votes cast in all referenda were against black advancement; (4) of the 668 counties, 507 [76 percent] voted against Black rights.33 Using a correlational analysis, McLaughlin was able to find some interesting relationships between political party variables and the African American suffrage vote. He asserted “the correlation between popular voting on black rights referenda and political party preferences show that nearly all (94 percent in 1836–1848; 98 percent in 1848–1860) of the counties which gave a majority to Democratic candidates in presidential elections also gave a majority vote against black rights.”34 But this major finding showed just the reverse for other political parties. Again, he remarked, “Although a majority of the Whig and Republican counties in Presidential elections (76 percent in 1836–1848; 66 percent in 1848–1860) voted against black rights, the great majority of votes favoring blacks in the twenty-two referenda were cast in those Whig and Republican counties.”35 Since McLaughlin’s article combines both suffrage and exclusion (anti-immigration) referenda in his count of twentytwo ballots, and since he begins his analysis in 1846, we have created our own Table 2.1 (p. 31) that only uses suffrage referenda

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and begins in 1790 and ends in 1869. Thus, by narrowing our focus and expanding the time period to capture those referenda and/or constitutional votes before 1846, we can offer a more systematic and comprehensive analysis of the African American suffrage referenda for the very first time. Table 2.1 shows that after the formation of the federal government, votes on equal suffrage rights for the Free-Men-andWomen-of-Color occurred in three different arenas: (1) state constitutional conventions, (2) statewide referenda, and (3) referenda in territories owned by the federal government. Of the new states to enter the Union that considered extending the right to vote to African Americans, only two, Vermont and Maine, approved this right, while thirteen states denied it. The state of New York had extended the right to vote to Free-Men-of-Color but instead of denying the right, they placed restrictions on it in 1811, 1814, and 1821. Tennessee, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, which had extended that right in the Colonial Era, voted to deny that right in their new state constitutions during the so-called Era of Jacksonian Democracy, when President Andrew Jackson espoused extending suffrage rights to the “common man.” Moving from state constitutions, some nine states decided to put the question to the people via statewide referenda. Five of these nine states—New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Iowa—held multiple statewide referenda. Counting both multiple and single referenda, some eighteen states held them. In these eighteen statewide referenda, only two states, Minnesota and Iowa, approved of granting voting rights to African Americans. And these approvals came just prior to the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Referenda voting also occurred in some of the federal territories, such as Colorado, District of Columbia, and Nebraska. In each of these territories the right to vote was denied. Only in Nebraska did the referendum come close to passing. Combining the states with the territories, eighteen places held suffrage referenda and all of these referenda took place between 1846 and 1869. While this works out to nearly one state or territory referendum per year, only one territory allegedly approved of the right to vote for African Americans. It has been claimed that the Dakota territories voted to grant this right, but at present, there are no corroborating data. Table 2.1 provides us with some collective insight. Using the mean from the extant data for each of the three arenas, we can postulate that more than three-quarters of the white political elites in the state constitutional conventions strongly opposed giving equal suffrage rights, while three-fifths (60.1 percent) of the white electorate as a whole in the states opposed granting this right. Extrapolating again from the extant data, in the federal territories nearly 80 percent of the electorate as a whole opposed granting voting rights. Between the political elites and the electorate in statewide referenda, the electorate came closer to granting the right to vote than did elected state convention leaders, but in the territories where there were very few African Americans, there was very strong opposition. William Gillette summed up the matter by saying, “In retrospect, the postwar movement to enfranchise the Negro was neither steady nor progressive nor inevitable.”36 In the end, the Fifteenth Amendment was needed to rectify this appalling situation.

The Fifteenth Amendment was also needed outside the South, especially in the Border States of West Virginia and Delaware. On the dismal situation in Delaware, see Amy Hiller, “The Disfranchisement of Delaware Negroes in the Late Nineteenth Century”; Harold Hancock, “The Status of the Negro in Delaware After the Civil War, 1865–1875”; Harold Livesay, ”Delaware Negroes, 1865–1915”; and John Munroe, “The Negro in Delaware”; as well as the unique article by Charles Ambler, “Disfranchisement in West Virginia, Part I and Part II,” which contains the only extant official county-level African American voter registration data for 1869. Collectively, these articles provide historical data that strongly support the need for the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment.37

Suffrage Literature from the Era of Disenfranchisement to the Dawn of the Modern Civil Rights Movement The body of literature written on African American suffrage reaches its zenith around the time of passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and rise of Black Reconstruction, but it has never looked beyond the 1877 Compromise, which resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election. This compromise arranged for the remaining federal troops to be withdrawn from the South, and subsequent election events transformed the literature from one focused on suffrage to a new literature focused on fraud, violence, corruption, and intimidation against the African American electorate. This literature and the incidents described led not only to congressional hearings but also to proposed congressional legislation for the protection of African American suffrage rights in the South. On June 26, 1890, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican from Massachusetts, introduced in the House of Representatives “a bill for federal supervision of federal elections. Although opponents of the bill skillfully labeled it a ‘Force Bill’— a term which some contemporary historians still use without the quotation marks—it clearly did not provide for the use of force.”38 According to historian Rayford Logan: In any election district where a specified number of voters petitioned the federal authorities, federal supervisors representing both parties were to be appointed. These supervisors were to have the power to pass on the qualifications of any voter challenged in a federal election. They also were to be given the power to receive ballots, which were wrongfully refused by local officers, and to place such ballots in the ballot box.39 “After a great deal of parliamentary maneuvering, a vote was taken on July 2nd. The bill managed to squeak through by the slim margin of 155 to 149, with 24 not voting. The bill was sent to the Senate on July 7th.”40 Such action “spurred Southern Democrats to take effective action designed to offset federal legislation in support of Negro suffrage.”41 Despite the fact that the Senate had not yet taken up the bill, the first southern state to take action was Mississippi. In fact, Mississippi’s actions were designed to preempt those of the Senate.



The Literature on the African American Electorate 31 Table 2.1  Constitutional Convention and Referenda Votes on Equal Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color in States and Federal Territories of the United States, 1790–1870

Referenda Votes in the Federal Territories

Votes of Statewide Constitutional Conventions Against Year State

Votes

Percent

Against

In Favor Votes

Percent

Outcome

In Favor

Year State

Votes

Percent

1865 Colorado

4,192

89.8%

 476

10.2%

Denied

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Denied

1865 District of Columbia

7,333

99.5%

  36

 0.5%

Denied

1802 Ohio

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Denied

1866 Nebraska

3,938

50.6%

3,838

49.4%

Denied

1807 New Jersey

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Denied

1867 Dakotas

(.......... Data not found ..........)

Approved

1811 New York

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Restricteda

1868 Washington

(.......... Data not found ..........)

Denied

1814 New York

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Restricteda

1868 Idaho

(.......... Data not found ..........)

Denied

1818 Connecticut

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Denied

1868 Montana

(.......... Data not found ..........)

Denied

1819 Maine

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Approved

1821 New York

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Restricteda

1834 Tennessee

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Denied

1790 Vermont

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Approved

1799 Kentucky

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) Denied

1801 Maryland

1835 North Carolina

66

52.0%

61

48.0%

Denied

1838 Pennsylvania

77

63.1%

45

36.9%

Denied

1847 Illinois 1849 California 1850 Indiana 1851 Ohio 1857 Oregon Totals

137 94.5% 8 5.5% (........................... Votes not given ...........................)

Denied Denied

122

99.2%

1

 0.8%

Denied

66

84.6%

12

15.4%

Denied

(........................... Votes not given ...........................) 468

78.7%

127

Denied

21.3%

Referenda Votes in the States Against Votes

1846 New York

224,336

72.4%

85,406

27.6%

Denied

1860

345,791

63.6%

197,889

36.4%

Denied

1869

282,403

53.1%

249,802

46.9%

Denied

1847 Wisconsin

Percent

In Favor

Year

Votes

Percent

Outcome

14,615

65.9%

7,564

34.1%

Denied

1849

4,075

43.6%

5,265

56.4%

Approvedb

1857

45,157

58.6%

31,964

41.4%

Denied

1865

55,454

54.3%

46,629

45.7%

Denied

1850 Michigan

32,026

71.4%

12,840

28.6%

Denied

1868

110,582

60.7%

71,733

39.3%

Denied

1870

50,598

48.3%

54,105

51.7%

Approved

1857 Iowa

49,387

85.3%

8,489

14.7%

Denied

1868

81,119

43.5%

105,384

56.5%

Approved

1865 Minnesota

14,838

54.9%

12,170

45.1%

Denied

1867

28,759

51.2%

27,461

48.8%

Denied

1868

29,906

43.2%

39,322

56.8%

Approved

211,405

84.9%

37,548

15.1%

Denied

33,489

55.2%

27,217

44.8%

Denied

1862 Illinois 1865 Connecticut 1867 Kansas

19,600

65.1%

10,529

34.9%

Denied

1867 Ohio

255,340

54.1%

216,987

45.9%

Denied

1867 New Jersey

(…………. No referendum held ………….)

Deniedc

1868 Missouri Totals

74,053

57.3%

55,236

42.7%

1,962,933

60.1%

1,303,540

39.9%

Denied

Totals

15,463

78.0%

Votes

4,350

Percent

Outcome

22.0%

Sources: Adapted from Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912); William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969); Phyllis Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982); John Mohr (ed.), Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics During Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976); and Richard Curry (ed.), Radicalism, Racism, and Party Realignment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962). Referendum data for Kansas in 1867 and for Missouri and Iowa in 1868 are from The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1967). In addition, the following articles were consulted: Michael McManus, “Wisconsin Republicans and Negro Suffrage: Attitudes & Behavior, 1857,” Civil War History Vol. 25 (March, 1979), pp. 36­–54; John Rozett, “Racism and Republican Emergence in Illinois, 1848–1860: A Re-evaluation of Republican Negrophobia,” Civil War History Vol. 22 (June, 1976), pp. 101–115; Ronald Formisano, “The Edge of Caste: Colored Suffrage in Michigan,” Michigan History Vol. 56 (Spring 1972), pp. 19–41; Marion Thompson, “Negro Suffage in New Jersey, 1776–1875,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 33 (April, 1948), pp. 168–224; Charles Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution Making, 1787–1865,” in his Neglected History (Ohio: Central State College Press, 1965), pp. 41–55; S. B. Weeks, “The History of Negro Suffrage in the South,” Political Science Quarterly Vol. 9 (December, 1894), pp. 671–703; and Alice Hahn, “The Exercise of the Electoral Franchise in Iowa in Constitutional Referendum: 1838–1933” (master’s thesis, Drake University, 1933). Calculations by the authors. a

Outcome in favor of African American suffrage but with property, tax, or other restrictions.

The governor of Wisconsin set aside the referendum outcome that actually favored suffrage after claiming that he did not understand the results. Later, the state supreme court upheld the outcome that had been rendered by the electorate. b

The New Jersey legislature decided against allowing a state referendum, deliberating instead within their body to directly withhold suffrage rights from African Americans. c

On August 12, 1890, some six weeks after the bill’s passage in just the House of Representatives, the Mississippi Constitutional Convention met in Jackson to revise their state constitution to disenfranchise as much of the African American electorate as possible. Of the 134 convention members, only one, Isaiah T. Montgomery, was African American. Montgomery’s position, stated in his convention speech, seemingly endorsed and approved of the convention’s final document that disenfranchised the African American electorate in the state. Logan says: Montgomery favored, in October, a bill that would disfranchise 123,000 Negroes and 12,000 whites, leaving a total Negro vote of about 66,000 and a white majority of more than 40,000. Montgomery perhaps sincerely believed that relations between the races would be improved and that as Negroes increased in knowledge and property, they would be allowed to vote.42

32

Chapter 2

In his further evaluation of Montgomery’s speech, Logan found that “Montgomery’s speech naturally won the approval of the Democratic press in Mississippi and in the nation as a whole. Even [former President] Cleveland praised it.”43 The former president and several Republican senators seemingly had forgotten “the act of Congress, approved February 23, 1870, by which Mississippi had been ‘readmitted’ to the Union.” One of the fundamental conditions of readmission—as for other Confederate states—was the pledge that the state constitution should never be ‘so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen, or class of citizens of the United States, of the right to vote, who are entitled to vote by the Constitution (of 1868) herein recognized, except as punishment for such crimes as are now felonious at common law.’44 For Logan, Montgomery’s presence and speech enabled the collapse of suffrage rights for the African American electorate in Mississippi. However, long before Logan arrived at his evaluative position, numerous others—including contemporaries of Montgomery—had arrived at evaluative positions that were much harsher than his. The harshest declared Montgomery to be an “Uncle Tom” who conspired to destroy suffrage rights in the state, and later the South, for his race. The eminent African American political scientist and third African American to become president of the American Political Science Association, Matthew Holden, Jr., who also happens to be a native Mississippian, began a search for the actual convention speech because, except for a few excerpts, an original copy had not surfaced. Holden put it thusly: The speech is very hard to get. A Web search is useless. . . . Those who are accustomed to the old-fashioned paper searches are no better off. . . . [T]he Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported substantial portions (September 18, 1890) . . . [but] seemed to have omitted most, if not all, the historical and philosophical explanation that Montgomery put forth. The Memphis Appeal (September 16, 1890) also reported on the Convention in a way that refers to Montgomery’s presence. After much search, I have found a copy published in the New York World, September 30, 1890 . . . [and later] I was privileged to find another copy that had been published in a souvenir program for the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Mound Bayou.45 Using the entire speech, Holden discovered that previous existing excerpts had been taken out of context and that they offered a portrait of Montgomery’s actions that did not correlate with the entire speech. Hence, in a larger and forthcoming monograph entitled The World and Mind of Isaiah T. Montgomery: The Greatness of a Compromised Man, Holden argues persuasively that when the entire speech is analyzed and placed in the political context of the times, Montgomery’s action was one of “strategic surrender,” because this was the only possible option left to him given the determination to eliminate the

suffrage rights and political power of African Americans in the state’s legislature and local governments.46 However one views Montgomery’s speech, “on October 22, 1890, the convention adopted a report of the state judiciary committee that it was unnecessary to submit the proposed changes to the people. The convention approved the new [state] constitution on November 1, 1890.”47 The new provisions for disenfranchising certain members of the electorate included that the state government “imposed a poll tax of two dollars, excluded voters convicted of certain crimes, and barred from voting all those who could not read a section of the state constitution, or understand it when read, or give a reasonable interpretation of it.”48 In his annual message on December 1, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, only indirectly mentioned Mississippi’s action but proposed no new action. Just over three months prior to the president’s remarks, the senate Republican majority, acting on the very day of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention, set aside the Lodge Bill that the House of Representatives had passed to discuss instead the Tariff Bill, which took up the rest of the congressional session. The consideration of a silver bill drew higher priority from some Republicans, and the Lodge Bill was set aside again.49 With the passage of the silver bill on January 14, 1891, “the contest on the Elections bill had to be resolved.” A Republican motion to reconsider the Lodge Bill “resulted in a tie vote, 33 to 33, which Vice President (Levi P.) Morton broke with an affirmative vote.”50 A Democratic filibuster began that lasted until January 20, when an attempt at cloture began. The Democrats had maneuvered for two days to prevent cloture when help arrived from several silverite Republicans. One of them proposed consideration of an apportionment bill. It was approved by a vote of 35 to 34, and the Lodge Bill was set aside for the final time. A recent scholar using the unopened papers of the Lodge Bill senate Floor Manager, Republican Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts, found that the bill was defeated in the Senate due to its being “postponed in behalf of the tariff legislation, crippled by the controversy over silver, damaged by its association with cloture, the Federal Election Bill of 1890–1891 suffered the final humiliation of being sacrificed to a bill to which neither party had pledged it opposition, nor its honor.”51 This Senate defeat of the federal election supervision bill combined with the failure of the president to take any additional action sent a signal to the other southern states. Historian C. Vann Woodard, in his chapter on the “Mississippi Plan as the American Way,” describes how the success of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention in nearly eliminating suffrage rights for the African American electorate became the model that all of the southern states copied between 1891 and 1901.52 The new state constitutions that emanated from that model circumvented the Fifteenth Amendment and disenfranchised African Americans. After this period from 1888 to 1908, aptly called the Era of Disenfranchisement, a new suffrage literature emerged. Debates, discussions, dialogues, and arguments about the loss of suffrage rights for the African American electorate in the South abounded in most major newspapers and nationally known monthly magazines, as well as in leading literary magazines and academic journals. Some defended disenfranchisement, objected to disenfranchisement, or cried for a middle ground,

while other articles suggested a brighter future for African American voters that loomed out of sight but just over the political horizon. In this period a voluminous literature on suffrage arose. We know about the nature and scope of this literature owing to the eleven volumes of the Negro Year Book series that kept track of all published articles in a cumulative, comprehensive, and systematic manner. Nearly every edition of the Year Book carried a listing of all of the articles published on African American suffrage in each year of that edition’s cycle. Beginning in 1914 and moving through the last edition in 1952, one will find a full listing of articles on suffrage in the bibliography of each volume. No other publication carried such a comprehensive listing. At this writing, the diverse arguments and proposals in this large body of suffrage literature still have not been analyzed. But by the early 1940s Congress was starting to take notice and act. Beginning in 1940, the suffrage literature was displaced and transitioned into a new literature on poll taxes. The main reason for this transition and narrowing of the focus was that Congress was now seeing an increasing introduction of bills to ban and/or eliminate the poll tax in the South. The NAACP, along with a number of African American activists, had persuaded several congresspersons that one of the ways to solve the perpetual suffrage problem was to introduce anti-poll tax legislation. Frederick D. Odgen’s 1958 book The Poll Tax in the South is excellent on this topic and the huge number of congressional bills introduced to resolve the matter. Two other useful works on the topic in this period include Rayford Logan’s 1940 book The Attitudes of the Southern White Press Toward Negro Suffrage, 1932–1940 and Raymond Lloyd’s 1952 White Supremacy in the United States: An Analysis of Its Historical Background, with Especial Reference to the Poll Tax. These books offer previously unseen and unnoticed data on the poll tax referenda and votes. Additional election return data can be found in Alexander Heard and Donald Strong’s 1950 book Southern Primaries and Elections, 1920–1949, and some of these data offer previously unknown information on the African American electorate. These poll tax bills continued to come forth until the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which tried to address the lack of voting rights through legal action. The 1960 Civil Rights Act strengthened the federal government’s power in dealing with the loss of voting rights. Eventually, Congress passed and the states ratified the Twenty-Fourth Amendment on January 23, 1964, which abolished poll taxes in federal elections. With this action, the second great period of literature dealing with the suffrage rights of the African American electorate ended.

Felony Disenfranchisement Literature In the struggle for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its subsequent renewals, this suffrage literature reemerged. But during the renewal phases it was carefully and narrowly focused on matters of minority vote dilution, including examination of those techniques and procedures that emerged not to disenfranchise the African American electorate but only to diminish and decrease the impact and influence of the Act. Currently, the limited suffrage literature now being published focuses on felony disenfranchisement. Numerous southern states have enacted

The Literature on the African American Electorate 33 legislation to restrict or eliminate voting rights for members of the electorate who have been sent to jail for felony crimes. Such laws disproportionately affect African Americans. Even after serving their time, former felons face major challenges in getting back their right to vote. Such legislation may presage the future of suffrage rights literature.

The Registration, Turnout, and Voting Data Literature Besides the legal and constitutional literature on the suffrage rights of the African American electorate, there exists another body of literature on the voter participation of this electorate, consisting of voter registration, turnout, and behavior records, and the related election return data. As noted earlier, in Colonial and Revolutionary America, this literature is scattered, piecemeal, and sketchy. It improves in Antebellum and Reconstruction America, declines in the Era of Disenfranchisement, and slowly increases during the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, data collection on the African American electorate improves and increases significantly because these laws require the federal Bureau of the Census to collect and disseminate it, which they do with their CPS P–20 series. Prior to the role mandated by law for the Bureau of the Census, the 1957 Civil Rights Act created the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), which produced several hearings and reports beginning in 1957 that collected voter participation information on the African American electorate. Thus, we need to ask what is the state of the literature on voter participation dealing with the period before—in fact, well before—the arrival of the USCCR and the Bureau of the Census? The collection and reporting of such voter participation data were left to interested scholars and academics; interested organizations like the Southern Regional Council and its Voter Education Project (VEP); the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, under the leadership of W.E.B. DuBois; Tuskegee’s Monroe N. Work and his Negro Year Book series; the Carnegie Foundation’s Gunnar Myrdal study led by Ralph Bunche; some state agencies; and a few issues of the early encyclopedia, The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year, 1868– 1872. There is not much literature here concerning the period predating the USCCR and the Census Bureau, even less for the Antebellum and Revolutionary periods, and hardly anything at all for Colonial America. However, persistence and systematic research over more than thirty years have uncovered some voter participation data going back to 1867, the beginning of Black Reconstruction. In 1990, a letter was discovered, Senate Executive Document Number 53 of the 2nd Session of the 40th Congress, responding to a Senate Resolution of December 6, 1867, which stated: Statement of the number of white and colored voters registered in each of the States subject to the reconstruction acts of Congress, the number of white and colored voters voting for and against the calling of a [state constitution] convention, the number of white

34

Chapter 2

and colored voters who failed to vote either for or against the calling of a convention, and, as far as practical, the number of white and colored persons disfranchised and rendered incompetent by the reconstruction acts to vote for a [state constitution], and the number of white persons entitled to be registered but who did not apply for registration.53 Nearly simultaneously with the publication of the Senate Executive Document 53 covering the initial registration and voting of the African American electorate in the South in 1867–1868 was the publication of House Executive Document 342 that also covered the very same issue. However, coming a bit later than the Senate document, the House document gives updated voter registration and voting data for the African American electorate in the same years. Despite the existence of the official voter registration data contained in these official federal documents, the data had not surfaced in books or articles on presidential or congressional reconstruction studies, nor in the sundry state reconstruction books and articles. There data are even missing in the historical works of African American historians and political scientists. In fact, these unique Senate and House documents have been almost universally neglected and omitted, and this neglect or omission is not due to a question of accuracy or validity. Corroborating statelevel voter registration data for the same year have been found in the Texas State Archives, where there are individual registration certificates from every county of the state in existence in 1867, and in the North Carolina State Archives.54 A recent scholarly study on Georgia found that “voter registration lists on microfilm at the Georgia Archives document the decline of black voting both before and after disfranchisement” in the state; but except for a few footnote references in the book Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900–1920, this rare racial voter registration data has not surfaced.55 The American Annual Cyclopaedias of 1867 and 1868 further corroborate the Senate and House documents and provide voter registration data for other southern states at this time.56 Hence, the widespread under-usage of the data in the documents cannot be due solely to its potential inaccuracies. Part of the explanation may be that the government volumes listing all of the congressional documents had no index for these years and, therefore, all of the volumes had to be gone through page by page, often item by item, to make these discoveries. Recently, the availability of both a published series and an online source allowed easier access to such important documents. Using this Senate data, another study was undertaken of the African American and white electorates in Arkansas in the crucial year of 1867 to create a map of the counties with African American and white majorities. For the first time a longitudinal analysis of voter registration by race in the state from 1867 through 1990 was also obtained.57 Table 2.2 provides the actual numbers and percentages of African American and white voters in 1867. In three counties in Arkansas, African American voters made up 72 to 77 percent of the electorate; while in five other counties African Americans made up 62 to 68 percent of registered voters; and in two other counties 51 to 57 percent of the electorate was African American.58

Map 2.1 (p. 36) shows exactly where these ten African American–majority counties were located. Likewise the map shows us the geography of all of the counties and the proximities of white majoritarian counties to the African American ones. Such information gives us further insight on how these counties voted in congressional and presidential elections. This is the first time that this information has been published at the scholarly level for ten of the eleven southern states. (Although Tennessee was excluded from congressional Reconstruction we have also added data on the African American electorate in that state.) The rest of the southern states will be discussed in detail in Chapter 14. Finally, in Table 2.3 (p. 37) one can see in a longitudinal manner the relationship of the African American voter registration to the voting age population (VAP) in the state.59 Through time one can see the changing ratio of registered African American voters to eligible voters in the state. In 1944 the Supreme Court, in the famous Smith v. Allwright case, outlawed the White Primary in Texas, and other state level cases were victorious, so that the White Primary barrier was basically but not completely gone by the late 1940s. Since the unveiling of the Arkansas information on the African American electorate, similar studies on the electorates in Georgia and Texas have been made.60 Therefore, using the model approach employed in these three states, this volume will produce and examine, where similar data exist, voter participation data on all of the former Confederate states. Prior to Bunche’s data collection and reporting studies on the voter participation of the electorate, another pioneering academic work was that of Paul Lewinson, Race, Class, and Party: A History of Negro Suffrage and White Politics in the South, published in 1932. In his appendix, Lewinson lists estimates of the number of registered voters for each of the southern states. He sent a questionnaire to southern registrars and knowledgeable observers to collect this information. Instead of listing similar information in a separate section, Bunche distributed his analyses of voter participation throughout his 1,660-page narrative for Myrdal. Hence, it needs to be retrieved from the various pages of the narrative in order to capture a comprehensive listing. In addition to the voter participation data, Bunche and his student Robert Martin collected voting data from the southern cotton and tobacco referenda provided for by the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) during the 1930s. In these referenda African American and white farmers voted on crop allotments. Of this rural voting behavior, Bunche observed: Not since Reconstruction days has any numerous group of Negroes had the opportunity to cast the independent ballot that is cast by Negro cotton farmers in the cotton marketing quota referenda. Most significantly, many thousands of Negro cotton farmers each year now go to the polls, stand in line with their white neighbors and mark their ballots independently without protest or intimidation, in order to determine government policy toward cotton production control.61 Scholars have largely overlooked this unique intervention by the federal government in southern voting practices, even though



The Literature on the African American Electorate 35

Table 2.2  Percent and Number of Registered Voters in Counties of Arkansas by Race, 1867  

Free-Men-of-Color

County

Percent of Total Voters

Number of Voters

Chicot

77%

 894

Phillips

74%

2,681

White Percent of Total Voters

 

Number of Voters

Total Number of Voters

23%

268

1,162

26%

955

3,636

Jefferson

72%

2,738

28%

1,048

3,786

Desha

68%

592

32%

281

873

Arkansas

68%

1,030

32%

495

1,525

Crittenden

67%

505

33%

245

750

Lafayette

62%

962

38%

583

1,545

Pulaski

62%

2,402

38%

1,494

3,896

Little River

57%

426

43%

327

753

Monroe

51%

551

49%

525

1,076

Hempstead

48%

1,195

52%

1,307

2,502

St. Francis

47%

484

53%

544

1,028

Union

46%

798

54%

922

1,720

Ashley

46%

604

54%

710

1,314

Quachita

45%

870

55%

1,084

1,954

Mississippi

40%

193

60%

292

485

Columbia

36%

740

64%

1,313

2,053

Drew

35%

577

65%

1,079

1,656

Woodruff

34%

354

66%

673

1,027

Dallas

34%

337

66%

668

1,005

Prairie

32%

512

68%

1,071

1,583

Sevier

32%

261

68%

567

828

Cross

31%

184

69%

415

599

Calhoun

30%

184

70%

422

606

Clark

29%

464

71%

1,112

1,576

Bradley

29%

368

71%

908

1,276

Jackson

25%

283

75%

849

1,132

Poinsett

18%

39

82%

172

211

Sebastian

17%

203

83%

1,012

1,215

Van Buren

17%

148

83%

746

894

Crawford

17%

148

83%

746

894

Yell

14%

131

86%

831

962

Conway

14%

146

86%

934

1,080

Pine

13%

76

87%

489

565

Franklin

13%

107

87%

740

847

Hot Spring

12%

102

88%

723

825

Pope

11%

94

89%

771

865

White

11%

155

89%

1,279

1,434

Johnson

10%

73

90%

682

755

9%

140

91%

1,455

1,595

Independence

Craighead

7%

42

93%

523

565

Perry

7%

23

93%

295

318

Randolph

7%

59

93%

848

907

Saline

6%

42

94%

712

754

Montgomery

5%

27

95%

491

518

Washington

4%

84

96%

1,834

1,918

Lawrence

4%

43

96%

971

1,014

Izard

4%

31

96%

763

794

Scott

3%

17

97%

557

574

Fulton

3%

9

97%

297

306

Marion

2%

9

98%

382

391

Madison

1%

10

99%

709

719

Benton

1%

11

99%

998

1,009

Greene

1%

5

99%

922

927

Polk

0%

1

100%

392

393

Newton

0%

1

100%

425

426

Searcy

0%

1

100%

574

575

Carroll

0%

0

100%

767

767

Totals

35%

23,166

65%

43,197

66,363

Source: Hanes Walton, Jr., Re-election: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 93–94.

it was a major precursor to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Most of the scholars who saw its importance were African American, but the existence of this material greatly helps one to understand the nature and significance of the African American electorate, particularly in rural areas. Appearing in 1960, shortly after the studies of Lewinson and Bunche and Martin, is a rare state compilation, Joseph Bernd’s Grass Roots Politics in Georgia: The County Unit System and the Importance of the Individual Voting Community in Bi-Factional Elections, 1942–1954. “This study uses . . . segregated voting data collected on the black electorate in the state of Georgia from 1944 until 1964.” Because some of Georgia’s 159 counties required blacks to vote in separate voting precincts and to have their votes counted and reported separately “[Bernd] carefully and persistently collected this aggregate voting data.”62 Table 2.4 (p. 37) reveals the number of counties reporting separated black votes as well as the number of counties that reported that blacks voted. The Bernd study also showed the actual number of blacks voting in the Democratic primaries and referenda elections from 1946 to 1954. Later Bernd followed up on this work by using a secret FBI file compiled on the Georgia electorate during the 1946 gubernatorial election. The resulting article, “White Supremacy and the Disenfranchisement of Blacks in Georgia, 1946,”63 analyzed the number of blacks and whites purged from the registration rolls and the number of votes captured by the winner of each of the Georgia counties where purges of the voting rolls took place. Another Georgian, historian Numan Bartley, collected similar data on the city of Macon, Georgia, for the same time period.

36

Chapter 2

Map 2.1  Arkansas Counties with African American vs. White Voting Majorities, 1867

CARROLL

BENTON

FULTON

BOONE

SHARP

MARION

NEWTON

SEARCY STONE

CRAWFORD FRANKLIN

POPE

LOGAN

SEBASTIAN

INDEPENDENCE JACKSON

VAN BUREN

JOHNSON

CLEBURNE

CONWAY CONWAY

MISSISSIPPI

POINSETT

CRITTENDEN

WOODRUFF

YELL

ST. FRANCIS

PERRY

PRAIRIE LONOKE

LEE

PULASKI

GARLAND

MONROE SALINE

MONTGOMERY

PHILLIPS

POLK

JEFFERSON

HOT SPRING HOWARD

CRAIGHEAD

CROSS

WHITE FAULKNER

SCOTT

GREENE

LAWRENCE

IZARD

MADISON

WASHINGTON

CLAY

RANDOLPH

BAXTER

ARKANSAS

GRANT

PIKE CLARK DALLAS

SEVIER

LITTLE RIVER

HEMPSTEAD

CLEVELAND

LINCOLN DESHA

NEVADA OUACHITA

DREW

CALHOUN BRADLEY MILLER LAFAYETTE

COLUMBIA UNION

ASHLEY

CHICOT

County with an African American voting majority

Source: Hanes Walton, Jr., Reelection: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 95.

Although he did not publish these data in the 1975 book he coauthored with Hugh D. Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction, he did discuss them with and later send an entire copy of his file to one of the authors of this study. Such invaluable information provides both state- and city-level data on the African American electorate that had not previously surfaced but appear in this volume. However, the election return data collected for the Bartley and Graham volume eventually made it into a continuity compendium. This work, Southern Elections: County and Precinct Data, 1950–1972, was designed to update the Heard and Strong compendium, Southern Primaries and Elections, 1920–1949.64 And this volume contains some limited election return data on the African American electorate that do not exist elsewhere.

Following these works on Georgia, there appeared in 1987 Lawrence Hanks’ The Struggle for Black Political Empowerment in Three Georgia Counties. In the appendix to this unique volume African American political scientist Hanks collected forty-two tables of rare and fugitive registration, black elected officials, and election return data on African American political participation that do not surface anywhere else.65 In 2003, civil liberties attorney Laughlin McDonald wrote A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia, which provided a comprehensive overview of the suffrage struggle in the state and a very rare look at the African American electorate in a very small, all African American township, Keysville, Georgia.66 And in 2010 Pearl Ford edited the volume African Americans in Georgia: A Reflection of Politics and Policy in the New South, which offered empirical data on voter suppression in the presidential election of Barack Obama in 2008.67



The Literature on the African American Electorate 37

Table 2.3  Percent Ratio of Registered African American Voters to Eligible African American Voters in Arkansas, 1867–1990

Year

Number of African Americans of Voting Age

Number of African American Registered Voters

Percent Ratio of African American Registered Voters to African Americans of Voting Age

1867

N/A

23,166

N/A

1900

 87,157

N/A

N/A

1910

111,523

N/A

N/A

a

1920

124,062

17,240

13.9%

1930b

257,130

5,100

2.0%

1940

270,995

4,000

1.5%

1946

245,013

5,000

2.0%

1947

240,685

47,000

19.5%

1950

227,691

N/A

N/A

1952

220,353

61,413

27.9%

1956

205,676

69,677

33.9%

1957

202,007

64,023

31.7%

1958

198,338

64,023

32.3%

1959

194,669

72,604

37.3%

1960

191,000

73,000

38.2%

1961

191,300

68,970

36.1%

1963

191,900

77,714

40.5%

1964

192,200

81,178

42.2%

1970

194,000

153,000

78.9%

1980

217,000

128,467

59.2%

1990

195,000

99,060

50.8%

Source: Hanes Walton, Jr., Re-election: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 103. The actual vote for the African American gubernatorial candidate is used in place of registration data. a

Voting data from Paul Lewinson, Race, Class, and Party: A History of Negro Suffrage and White Politics in the South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932), p. 218. b

Earlier, there were three major voter participation compilations from the Southern Regional Council and its VEP. First, there is Luther Jackson’s notable 1948 article, “Race and Suffrage in the South since 1940,” in the journal New South. It offers voter participation information on all of the southern states in the 1940s. Two monographs by Margaret Price followed this: The Negro Voter in the South in 1957 and The Negro and the Ballot in the South in 1959. In 1967 there would arrive a book-length study, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Arrival of Negroes in Southern Politics. “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” was the theme song for several Negro-voting leagues in the South at this time, which the authors of the book, Pat Watters and Reese Cleghorn, visited in the course of researching their book. Needless to say, other studies appeared, but many did not carry factual voter participation data in full detail. They used selected voting data to make their arguments and advance their theses. However, the Watters and Cleghorn book launched a new approach. This book, which had several tables on the voter participation of the African American electorate in the South, spawned a series of similar works, which included several tables on the

Table 2.4  Number and Percent of Counties in Georgia that Reported Separately on Black Voters, 1944–1954

Year

Number of Counties

Number of Counties Reporting the Black Vote Separately

Number of Counties Reporting That Blacks Voted

Percent of Counties Reporting That Blacks Voted

1944

159

0

0

0

1946

159

12

10

6.3%

1948

159

12

11

6.9%

1950

159

11

8

5.0%

1952

159

15

14

8.8%

159

11

10

6.3%

12.2

10.6

6.7%

1954 Mean

Source: Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Voting Behavior in the Segregation Era, 1944–1964,” in Hanes Walton, Jr. (ed.), Black Politics and Black Political Behavior: A Linkage Analysis (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994), pp. 123–125.

electorate’s voter participation. These new works included historian Steven F. Lawson’s Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (1976) and In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965–1982 (1985); and David Garrow’s Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1980). These works were aided by the passage and the success of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This genre of books has tables, many of which rely on earlier compilations, updated to show different aspects of voter participation in the African American community. Instead of mere data collecting and reporting, these works provide analyses and interpretations of the voter participation data. Then, Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990, edited by Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman, brought this genre of works full circle, as it sought to prove the successful impact and influence of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The book used the increased number of African American elected officials in some eight states, as well as the increases in African American voter registration, to provide proof of the success of this public policy and to laud its effectiveness. To generate registration and election data, several of the chapters had to use inferential and derived data in their equations to produce estimates where gaps existed in the official data. The result is the very best book written to date on the impact and influence of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its three subsequent renewals in 1970, 1975, and 1982. It is a work without peer but not without limitations.68 The limitations of Davidson’s and Grofman’s work are that it was written during the first term of the William J. Clinton presidential administration, and it omits Arkansas, Florida, and Tennessee. The experiences of Arkansas’s African American electorate offer contrary evidence to their thesis that this public policy has been a great success in the South, especially given the more than six voting rights suits brought against Clinton during his five terms as governor of Arkansas. Literally nothing is said about Arkansas in the Quiet Revolution. Nor are Florida or Tennessee discussed, both of which have had very few African American elected officials and even fewer statewide officials.69 Beyond

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the state-by-state analyses, there is a chapter on voter registration among the African American electorate. The registration data are not new but are corrected for four states where data permit correction for the overestimation of black registration.70 Nevertheless, this voter registration data is essentially recent data and not past historical data. A few additional works have not been previously mentioned because, while they are not compilations in and of themselves, they do offer interpretations and analyses that provide some unique tabular data that support their contentions. Two studies on the city of Tuskegee, Alabama, reflect upon the question of racial gerrymandering, including Charles V. Hamilton’s Minority Politics in Black Belt Alabama (1960) and Bernard Taper’s Gomillion Versus Lightfoot: The Tuskegee Gerrymander Case (1962). Next, there is a work on how black votes count in the state of Mississippi by Frank R. Parker, Black Votes Count: Political Empowerment in Mississippi after 1965 (1990), and two works on minority vote dilution, Chandler Davidson (ed.), Minority Vote Dilution (1984), and Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson (eds.), Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective (1992). Each of these studies offers some tabular data on voter participation in the African American community, though much of it has appeared elsewhere before. However, what is new and different are some of the innovative interpretations that abound in these volumes, although many of these interpretations, where they are based on quantitative and qualitative data or both, in the end rest upon incomplete and inadequate data compilations. Such interpretations mainly serve to prove the point that more data need to be compiled on their subject, the African American electorate.

The Balance of Power Theory Literature The nature of theory-based literature also requires a few observations. Since the African American electorate has always been a minority in presidential electoral politics (some writers have argued permanently so), how can this minority have any influence and impact, once they acquire the vote, to achieve some of their public policy objectives? Beginning with the African American journalist T. Thomas Fortune just before the turn of the twentieth century, there has been the idea that the African American electorate could play a “balance of power” electoral strategy in presidential elections in order to influence the outcomes and achieve the public policy goals that the community needed. Although numerous other African American leaders over the years continued to advance this theory, it was not developed into a full-fledged statement and strategic vision until the arrival of NAACP publicist Henry Lee Moon’s Balance of Power: The Negro Vote in 1948. Moon asserted that African Americans should wait and see how the white electorate divides between presidential candidates and then vote in a bloc fashion to determine the winner. Afterwards, the winner could be made to acknowledge the power of the African American electorate and the debt owed to them for his or her election victory. To provide evidence and support for this theory, the Moon volume offers numerous tables of voting data to show how this theory

had played out in the past for the electorate. Much of the tabular evidence came primarily from the urban areas in the North, East, and Midwest. Moreover, in the 1948 presidential election, President Harry Truman’s political advisor Clark Clifford cited the Moon book in a memorandum that advised the President to use this strategy to win the very close 1948 election.71 Truman, acting upon Clifford’s advice, desegregated the armed services, put a civil rights plank in the Democratic platform, and created a Committee on Civil Rights that produced a report recommending civil rights legislation for African Americans. The theory became a model national strategy with potential for use at state and local levels as well.72 Such a new and bold theory with serious possibilities and consequences created its own literature. Another major book in this genre, Chuck Stone’s Black Political Power in America, appeared in 1968, when liberal Democratic candidate and vice president Hubert Humphrey, with solid African American support, lost to conservative Republican and former vice president Richard Nixon. An African American journalist, Stone laid bare all of the weaknesses and shortcomings inherent in the balance of power theory, namely that the white electorate did not always divide their vote. When they vote as a bloc, as they did in 1968, the power of the black vote could not overcome it. Stone then discarded the theory and offered a new one with accompanying election return data to prove and support his case. Simply put, this new attack brought forth new data about the African American electorate. The presidential elections in 1980 and 1984 bore out Stone’s critique. Former California governor Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican, swept into office despite nearly complete electoral opposition from the African American electorate. To help rectify this situation, Jesse Jackson entered the 1984 and 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, seeking to win the party nomination. He lost both times, but with a far better showing the second time around. One of his campaign managers, African American political scientist Ronald Walters, later wrote about the campaigns and revisited the balance of power theory in the process. Like Stone, Walters found the theory wanting and essentially weak because most African American voters were trapped in the Democratic Party. Walters, like Stone, sought to show them how to extricate themselves from this captive position and become a truly independent lever in national presidential politics. He set forth his case in his book, Black Presidential Politics in America: A Strategic Approach. When the 1965 Voting Rights Act came up for renewal in 2006, Walters followed up his popular initial study with another entitled Freedom Is Not Enough: Black Voters, Black Candidates, and American Presidential Politics. Both of these books, like the prior works by Moon and Stone, offered tabular data on voter participation in the African American community to critique the balance of power theory and support the case for a new approach. Each work offers some limited new voter registration data as well as voting data that have been collected but not widely reported in leading magazines and journals. And usually the data in these works spawn some interesting interpretations but not very much new, raw, and unknown electoral data.

Overall the literature of theory-based data is related to that of voter participation data in that both literatures generated new interpretations of black political power and, at times, some very clever insights. Missing for the most part is discovery of any new electoral data, but this was not their intent. Both literatures are intended to advance commentary, explanation, and discussions and debates. Most works in these genres accomplish these goals in a very significant fashion.

Conclusions on the Literature Concerning the African American Electorate The three basic categories of literature tell us much about where new and promising election return data on the African American electorate can be found so that a holistic portrait can be constructed and developed. First, the suffrage literature from the Antebellum period and the voter participation data from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s are most promising. These literatures tell us how and where potential new discoveries of election return data might surface and how new models of this data can help one to develop longitudinal analyses. These literatures further suggest that new information can be crafted from this original material, and that more data can be derived from this recently located information. Such new points of departure in the collection and reporting of this data can potentially create new avenues for further explorations. Much potential information is embedded in this material, and the new information may lead to new interpretations and analyses. Second, we now know where the literature is unpromising and highly overlapping and repetitive. This literature is primarily the volumes that have emerged from the debate and discussion over the renewals and efforts to repeal the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as well as those studies which preceded the Act that focused on the Era of Disenfranchisement and the legal success made through the Supreme Court’s 1944 decision Smith v. Allwright. It is what one might categorize as progress in voting rights literature. Inherent in this literature is a frequent rehashing of the victories at the Supreme Court over the grandfather clause, the White Primaries, the poll taxes, and other barriers, as well as the attainment of the 1957 and 1960 voting rights legislation. It tends to depict a linear progress model of African Americans gaining suffrage rights after they were denied in the Era of Disenfranchisement. But linearity, as some of the forthcoming chapters will show, does not come close either to describing or to explaining the sojourns of the African American electorate. In contrast to the stale literature referred to above, new and recent works shed new light on these issues. For example, Professor Richard Franklin Bensel’s The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century inventively and creatively used the House of Representatives Hearings on Contested Elections to tell us about voters at the ballot box between 1850 and 1868. Since many of the initial southern African American members of Congress were challenged in their election to the House, such a work is very useful.73 Professor Michael Perman’s book Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908 provides a greater and better explanation of this concept by extending the

The Literature on the African American Electorate 39 period rather than using the traditional periodization, 1890– 1901.74 Adding to the superb insights generated by Professor Perman is the recent state study of Alabama by Professor R. Volney Riser, Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights, Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890–1908.75 Although this book does not have any registration and voting data, it covers African American voter rights activists in Alabama that worked through, with, and beyond the Afro-American Council to halt disenfranchisement via legal efforts before the rise of the NAACP and its use of the legalism strategy. And finally, Richard Hume and Jerry Gough’s book Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction used the voter registration and voting of 1867 mandated by the four Military Reconstruction Acts to give us a new understanding of how these first-time African American registrants and voters elected individuals to the state constitutional conventions and the southern state legislatures during Reconstruction. Moreover, this is one of the very first scholarly works to combine and use data from both the Senate and House Executive Documents to explain political and voting behavior of the political neophytes, the freedmen.76 Such works allow current and future scholars to use this newly uncovered data to develop better and more precise insights and findings than previous scholars and academics. Thus, what will differentiate this study is the presentation of new election return data and voter participation data, together with fresh analyses that cover the well-known topics. Research time should not be spent in cluttered places and dead-end roads. Such literature that rehashes the “progress” theme prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its renewals should be given low priority in this and future research. Finally, there is a body of literature that has gone without discussion and review here but that might offer clues and tips leading to other unknown literature. This “minor” literature, which this study will review, might yet make or lead to some interesting breakthroughs. For instance, our five years of research on African American senatorial candidates from 1870 to 2006 has already produced new election return data, as has similar research on African American presidential candidates.77 Then there is the election return data of African American candidates who ran on third-party tickets for federal offices, such as president, senator, and representative. They also ran for a variety of statewide offices like governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. Most of the books on the endless array of third parties do not provide these data, but a few do provide some political identification. Yet there is no comprehensive list, only a partial listing. Hanes Walton, Jr.’s The Negro in Third Party Politics pioneered in this area, and his subsequent work has expanded it.78 Thus, in the end, this type of information embedded in our category of “minor” literature is somewhat promising and intriguing. So it is not always the major categories of the literature that hold promise, for in the end some contributions can be made and found in the minor literature. This study plans to make use of a portion of all of the literature that has come our way, albeit in different ways, but before closing there is one more statement about the literature that must be made.

40

Chapter 2

This literature review has been focused almost entirely upon aggregate election return data and group, rather than individual, voting behavior. This is exactly what most compilations contained. Nevertheless, voting participation studies have evolved from the aggregate-based studies to the studies that are now based on commercial and academic polls and surveys. From these new data sources, several major books on the African American electorate have arrived. One of the first sprang from social psychologist James S. Jackson’s National Black Election Surveys (NBES) at the Institute of Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan. Jackson collected data for the 1984, 1988, 1993, and 1996 election years, and a new survey promises studies for the 2004 election year. The first book to appear from these academic surveys was Patricia Gurin, Shirley Hatchett, and James Jackson’s Hope and Independence: Blacks’ Response to Electoral and Party Politics (1990). Next to come was Michael Dawson’s Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (1994),79 followed by two major works by Katherine Tate, From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections (1994), which was enlarged in a second edition, and Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress (2003). The first three books cover the two Jesse Jackson presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988, as well as the Reagan Revolution and its impact and influence on the voting behavior of the African American electorate, while the last book looks at how African Americans constituents view their congresspersons. These and several other studies using academic surveys and focus group data have created a contrasting portrait of African American voters and their participation and have broken away from the usual reliance on election return data. An especially good example of this type of study is Professor Lisa Nikol Nealy’s exceptional gender-based book, African American Women Voters.80 Thus, this budding literature is separate and distinct from the aggregate election return data-based studies. Hopefully, the day will come when both of these data sources can be used together and become interactive. But before that can happen, the election return data need to be collected and reported.

Notes   1. Hanes Walton, Jr., and Simone Greene, “Voting Rights and the Million Man March: The Problem of Restoration of Voting Rights for ExConvicts,” African American Research Perspectives Vol. 3 (Winter 1997), pp. 73–78. See also Aman McLeod, Amelia Gavin, and Ismail White, “The Locked Ballot Box: The Impact of State Criminal Disenfranchisement Laws on African American Voting Behavior and Implications for Reform,” Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law 11:1 (2003), pp. 67–88.  2. See Katharine Seelye, “Senators Hear Bitter Words on Florida Vote,” New York Times, June 28, 2001, p. 1.  3. United States Commission on Civil Rights, Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2001), pp. 6–24. See also the Commission’s appendix book, Voting Irregularities in Florida during the 2000 Presidential Election: Appendix (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2001).  4. U.S. House of Representatives, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio: Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2005). For a paperback copy of the report see Congressman John Conyers and

Anita Miller, What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005).  5. See Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). For the latest discussion see Richard Valelly, The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 1–25. The concept of the Second and Third Reconstruction was developed by Yale University historian C. Vann Woodward. See his article, “The Political Legacy of Reconstruction,” Journal of Negro Education Vol. 26 (Summer 1957), pp. 231–240. For a detailed analysis of his two concepts see Hanes Walton, Jr., Josephine A. V. Allen, Sherman C. Puckett, and Donald R. Deskins, Jr., “Beyond the Second Reconstruction: C. Vann Woodward’s Concept of the Third Reconstruction in the South,” American Review of Politics Vol. 32 (Spring 2001), pp. 105–130.   6. Hanes Walton, Jr., and Robert C. Smith, American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom, 4th Edition (New York: Longman, 2008), pp. 10–15.  7. Monroe Work, “Total Number Males and Females Voting Age in Southern States in 1920,” Negro Year Book, 1921–1922 (Tuskegee, AL: Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 1922), p. 42 for data on the voting age population, p. 44 for votes cast, and pp. 181–182 for officeholders.  8. Jerrold Rusk, A Statistical History of the American Electorate (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001), p. 38.  9. Ibid., p. 37. 10. Ibid. 11. Phyllis Field, “Republicans and Black Suffrage in New York State: The Grass Roots Response,” Civil War History 22 (June 1975), pp. 136–147. 12. Marion Wright, “Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1875,” Journal of Negro History Vol. XXXIII (April 1948), pp. 168–224. 13. David McBride, “Black Protest Against Radical Politics: Gardner, Hinton, and Their Memorial of 1838,” Pennsylvania History Vol. XLVI (April 1979), pp. 149–162. See also Maxwell Whiteman, A Memorial to the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by the Colored Citizens of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Rhistoric Publications, 1969) and “Appeal of Forty Thousand, 1838” in Herbert Aptheker (ed.), A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States (New York: Citadel Press, 1959), pp. 176–186; Roy Akari, “Black Suffrage in Bucks County: The Election of 1837,” Bucks County Historical Society Journal (Spring 1974), pp. 28–39; and Eric L. Smith, “End of Black Voting Rights in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania History Vol. 65 (1998), pp. 279–299. 14. Edward Schriver, “Antislavery: The Free Soil and Free Democratic Parties in Maine, 1848–1855,” New England Quarterly (March 1969), pp. 82–94. See also, James Adams, “Disfranchisement of Negroes in New England,” American Historical Review 30 (April 1925), pp. 543–547. 15. J. Stanley Lemons and Michael McKenna, “Re-enfranchisement of Rhode Island Negroes,” Rhode Island History 30 (February 1971), pp. 3–13. 16. Ronald Formisano, “The Edge of Caste: Colored Suffrage in Michigan, 1827–1861,” Michigan History 56 (Spring 1972), pp. 19–41, and Willis Dunbar with William Shade, “The Black Man Gains the Vote: The Centennial of ‘Impartial Suffrage’ in Michigan,” Michigan History 56 (Spring 1972), pp. 42–57. 17. Michael McManus, “Wisconsin Republicans and Negro Suffrage: Attitudes and Behavior, 1857,” Civil War History 25 (1979), pp. 36–54. See also Leslie Fishel, Jr., “Wisconsin and Negro Suffrage,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 446 (Spring 1963), pp. 160–197. 18. Phyllis Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). 19. Charles Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution Making, 1787–1865,” Journal of Negro History 32 (April 1947), p. 162. 20. Ibid., p. 163. 21. David McBride, “Black Protest Against Radical Politics: Gardner, Hinton, and Their Memorial of 1838,” Pennsylvania History Vol. XLVI (April 1979), p .156. 22. Ibid., p. 150.

23. Ibid., p. 157. 24. Ibid., pp. 149–150. 25. Whiteman, p. i. 26. Ibid. 27. McBride, p. 158, footnote 44. 28. Christopher Malone, Between Freedom and Bondage: Race, Party, and Voting Rights in the Antebellum North (New York: Routledge, 2008). 29. Robert Dykstra and Harlan Hahn, “Northern Voters and Negro Suffrage: The Case of Iowa, 1868,” Public Opinion Quarterly 32 (Summer 1968), p. 201. See also G. Galin Berrier, “The Negro Suffrage Issue in Iowa, 1965–1968,” Annals of Iowa 39 (Spring 1968), pp. 241–260. 30. Dykstra and Hahn, p. 203. For some additional studies on suffrage referenda votes see Edgar Toppin, “Negro Emancipation in Historic Retrospect: Ohio: The Negro Suffrage Issue in Post Bellum Ohio Politics,” Journal of Human Relations 11 (Winter 1963), pp. 232–246; and Victor Howard, “Negro Politics and the Suffrage Question in Kentucky, 1866–1872,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 72 (April 1974), pp. 111–133. 31. William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and the Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), pp. 25 and 27. 32. Ibid., p. 167. 33. Tom McLaughlin, “Grass-Roots Attitudes Toward Black Rights in Twelve Nonslaveholding States, 1846–1869,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 56 (July 1974), p. 177. 34. Ibid., p. 180. 35. Ibid. 36. Gillette, p. 45. 37. On Delaware, see Amy Hiller, “The Disfranchisement of Delaware Negroes in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Delaware History Vol. 13 (October 1968), pp. 124–154; Harold Hancock, “The Status of the Negro in Delaware After the Civil War, 1865–1875,” Delaware History Vol. 13 (April 1968), pp. 57–66; Harold Livesay, “Delaware Negroes, 1865–1915,” Delaware History Vol. 13 (October 1968), pp. 87–123; and John Munroe, “The Negro in Delaware,” South Atlantic Quarterly Vol. 56 (Autumn 1957), pp. 428–444. On West Virginia, see Charles Ambler, “Disfranchisement in West Virginia, Part I” Yale Review Vol. 14 (May 1905), pp. 38–59; and his “Disfranchisement in West Virginia, Part II,” Yale Review Vol. 14 (August 1905), pp. 155–180. 38. Rayford Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson, New Enlarged Edition (New York: Collier Books, 1965), p. 71. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., p. 74. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid., p. 75. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Matthew Holden, Jr., “What Answer?”: Speech in Support of Franchise Committee Report, Mississippi Constitutional Convention, 1890 by Isaiah T. Montgomery (Charlottesville, VA: Isaiah T. Montgomery Studies Project, 2004), p. 7. 46. Matthew Holden, Jr., The Reputation of Isaiah T. Montgomery: The Greatness of a Compromised Man (Itta Bena, MS: Occasional Paper for the Delta Research and Cultural Institute, Mississippi Valley State University, 2008). 47. Logan, p. 76. 48. Ibid. 49. Bess Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward: The Black Response to National Politics, 1876–1896 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 119–120. 50. Logan, p. 80. 51. Richard Welch, Jr., “The Federal Election Bill of 1890: Postscripts and Prelude,” Journal of American History Vol. 52 (December 1965), pp. 521–522. 52. C. Vann Woodard, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951).

The Literature on the African American Electorate 41 53. U.S. Senate, “Letter of the General of the Army of the United States Communicating In Compliance with a resolution of the Senate of December 5, 1867, a statement of the number of white and colored voters registered in each of the States subject to the reconstruction acts of Congress, with other statistics relative to the same Subject,” Senate Executive Document Number 53, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, May 13, 1868 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1868), p. 1. See also U. S. House, House Executive Document Number 342, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, with similar statistical data. 54. See the 1867 Texas Registration list of Colored and White Voters in either book format or on file in the Texas State Archives. For the book/computer disk see Donald Brice and John Barron, An Index to the 1867 Voters’ Registration of Texas (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 2000); and for the file that is available in the Archives, see Jean Carefoot, Guide to Genealogical Resources in the Texas State Archives (Austin: Archives Division, Texas State Library, 1984), pp. 95–97. Besides Texas, North Carolina is the only one of the ten southern states to have a file on its 1867 voter registration list. See Frances H. Wynne, North Carolina Extant Voter Registration of 1867 (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1992). This book contains a selected reporting of African American voter registration by county. Such publications of single-state African American voter registration data in 1867 are currently not yet available for the other nine southern states of the old Confederacy. 55. John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900–1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), p. 214; see also pages 97 and 103 for footnotes that offer additional information on these microfilms in the State Archives. See also Dewey Grantham, “Georgia Politics and the Disenfranchisement of the Negro,” Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 32 (March 1948), pp. 1–21. 56. See The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Independent Events of the Year 1868 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1869) and a similar volume for 1869. 57. Hanes Walton, Jr., Reelection: William Jefferson Clinton as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 93–94. 58. Ibid., p. 95. 59. Ibid., pp. 97–98. 60. See Hanes Walton, Jr., Pearl K. Dove, and Josephine A. V. Allen, Remaking the Democratic Party: Lyndon B. Johnson as a NativeSon Presidential Candidate (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013). 61. Quoted in Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Southern Politics: The Influences of Bunche, Martin, and Key,” in Hanes Walton, Jr. (ed.), Black Politics and Black Political Behavior: A Linkage Analysis (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994), p. 29. 62. Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Voting Behavior in the Segregation Era, 1944–1964,” in Hanes Walton, Jr. (ed.), Black Politics and Black Political Behavior: A Linkage Analysis (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994), pp. 123–125. 63. Ibid., p. 130. 64. Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Elections: County and Precinct Data, 1950–1972 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1978). 65. Lawrence Hanks, The Struggle for Black Political Empowerment in Three Georgia Counties (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987). 66. Laughlin McDonald , A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 67. Keesha Middlemass, “Racial Politics and Voter Suppression in Georgia,” in Pearl Ford (ed.), African Americans in Georgia: A Reflection of Politics and Policy in the New South (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010), pp. 7–24. 68. Hanes Walton, Jr., “Review of Quiet Revolution in the South,” Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 79 (Summer 1995), pp. 516–518. 69. See DeWayne Wickham, Bill Clinton and Black America (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002). 70. James Alt, “The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on Black and White Voter Registration in the South,” in Chandler Davidson and

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Bernard Grofman (eds.), Quiet Revolution in the South (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 376. 71. Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Presidential Participation and the Critical Election Theory,” in Lorenzo Morris (ed.), The Social and Political Implications of the 1984 Jesse Jackson Presidential Campaign (New York: Praeger, 1990), pp. 44–64. 72. Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 189–195. 73. Richard Bensel, The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 74. Michael Perman, Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 75. R. Volney Riser, Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890–1908 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010).

76. Richard Hume and Jerry Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008). 77. Walton and Smith, pp. 161 and 167. See also Hanes Walton, Jr. and Robert Starks, “African American Lawyers in the United States Senate: The Election of Barack Obama in 2004 and the 2008 Presidential Race” (forthcoming). 78. Hanes Walton, Jr., and Marion Orr, “African American Independent Politics on the Left: Voter Turnout for Socialist Candidate Frank Crosswaith in Harlem and New York,” Souls: Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 7 (Spring 2005), pp. 19–33. 79. Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Group Interest as Individual Intent: The Empirical Black Politics of Michael Dawson: A Book Review Essay,” The Black Scholar 25 (Winter 1995), pp. 48–51. 80. Lisa Nikol Nealy, African American Women Voters (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009).

CHAPTER 3

The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 The Demography of African Americans in Colonial America

45

Table 3.1 Numbers of Censuses During the American Colonial Period, 1624–1773

47

Table 3.2 African American Populations and Population Growth in Regions of Colonial America, 1610–1770

48

Figure 3.1 African American Share of Population in Colonial Virginia, 1610–1770

49

Figure 3.2 African American Share of Population in Colonial Maryland, 1610–1770

49

Figure 3.3 Distribution of African American Population in Colonial America Regions, 1610–1770

49

Table 3.3 Population by Census or Estimate During the American Colonial Period, 1624–1773

50

Figure 3.4 Percent Change in White and African American Populations, Seventeenth-Century Colonial America

54

Figure 3.5 Percent Change in White and African American Populations, Eighteenth-Century Colonial America

54

Potential African American Voters in Colonial America

54

Table 3.4 African American Populations of “Voting Age” in Colonial America, 1624–1625 to 1773

55

Table 3.5 Voting Rights, Population, and Population Change of African Americans in the Thirteen Original Colonies in the Colonial Era

56

Table 3.6 “Voting Age” African American Populations in Maryland, 1704–1755

58

Table 3.7 Taxable and Untaxable African American Populations in Maryland, 1704–1755

58

Table 3.8 Estimated African American Electorate by Colony, 1703–1773

59

Table 3.9 Local-Level Population Censuses and Enumerations of African Americans, 1624–1773

60

Table 3.10 Settlement-Level Demography for Virginia, Census of 1624

61

Table 3.11 County-Level Demography of Slaves in Massachusetts, Census of 1754

62

Table 3.12 County-Level Demography of Massachusetts, Census of 1764

63

Table 3.13 County-Level Demography of Connecticut, Census of 1756

63

Table 3.14 County-Level Demography of New Hampshire, Census of 1773

64

Table 3.15 Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1708

64

Table 3.16 Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1748–1749

64

Table 3.17 Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1755

65

Table 3.18 County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1726

66

Table 3.19 County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1738

66

Table 3.20 County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1745

67

Table 3.21 County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1704

67

Table 3.22 County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1710

68

Table 3.23 County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1712

68

Table 3.24 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1712

69

Figure 3.6 African Americans as Percentage of Total Population in New York, 1703–1773

69



44

Chapter 3

Table 3.25 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1703

70

Table 3.26 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1712

70

Table 3.27 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1723

71

Table 3.28 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1731

71

Table 3.29 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1737

72

Table 3.30 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1746

72

Table 3.31 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1749

73

Table 3.32 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1771

73

Table 3.33 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1771

74

Figure 3.7 African Americans as Percentage of Total Electorate in New York, 1703–1773

74

Figure 3.8 African American Men as Percentage of Male Electorate in New York, 1703–1773

74

Figure 3.9 African American Share of Taxable Population in North Carolina, 1754–1773

75

Table 3.34 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1754

75

Table 3.35 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1755

75

Table 3.36 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1756

76

Table 3.37 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1765

76

Table 3.38 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1766

77

Table 3.39 County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1767

77

Conclusions on the African American Electorate in the Colonial Era

78

Notes 78



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 45

D

ata and information on politics in the Colonial Era, 1610– 1773, are thin, scattered, and fragmented, particularly as they relate to African American political participation. Previous scholarship has focused on legal suffrage rights in this era. This chapter will for the first time establish African American electoral behavior in Colonial America and provide a foundation for the study and analysis of racial political participation prior to the Revolutionary and Antebellum eras in America. Since the thirteen colonies were each governed separately, Colonial America lacked a central government to collect and archive records in a comprehensive fashion. Hence, each of the colonies had to collect and archive its own records about registration and voting behavior. Such record keeping evolved slowly and gradually over time. Shortly after they were founded, each of the colonies began passing laws that set forth the rules and guidelines about who could and could not vote. Thus, rules and regulations concerning suffrage rights became law, and voting results began to be preserved in a fairly continuous fashion. Recordkeeping of voting was initially documented in pollbooks. John Kolp wrote in 1998 about these pollbooks: One hundred years ago, a New England historian discovered in the records of colonial Virginia a peculiar set of documents called Pollbooks. Frequently found in county deed and record books and occasionally in private papers, pollbooks report the voting behavior of individual adult male freeholders in elections for the provincial legislative assembly, the House of Burgesses. They not only include a listing by name of all persons voting for each candidate but often the total votes appear at the bottom followed by the signatures of the county sheriff and clerk attesting to the document’s accuracy and authenticity. Concentrated in the fifty-year period before the American Revolution, these surviving colonial pollbooks have long puzzled historians, for it has never been perfectly clear what they reveal about the political culture of this critical era in Virginia’s and America’s past.1 These books—along with other colonial documents like county deeds, wills, tax records, executive journals, as well as laws and statutes—serve as the primary sources of voting records in Colonial and Revolutionary America. Where gaps in these records exist, secondary sources such as newspapers, individual diaries, personal papers “both in printed and in manuscript form,” as well as pamphlets, broadsides, political memoirs, and the clipping files of early libraries provide useful semi-official election data.2 Needless to say, these different sources were not uniform or standardized. Dates of elections and methods of collecting and recording results were not consistent among the colonies, or even sometimes within them, making a comprehensive portrait nearly impossible.3 Even more in flux than the electoral processes themselves were the laws of different colonies concerning whether FreeMen-of-Color could vote.4 During the Colonial Era, suffrage laws continually changed for the free population of African

Americans.5 Any reconstruction of the African American electorate must begin with the demography of African Americans in Colonial America, particularly the dualism of that demography. Historian John Hope Franklin described the origin of this duality. He stated: “the twenty Africans who were put ashore at Jamestown in 1619 by the captain of a Dutch frigate were not slaves in a legal sense. . . . These newcomers, who happened to be black, were simply more indentured servants. They were listed as servants in the census counts of 1623 and 1624. . . .”6 Under Judeo-Christian teaching then in place, indentured servants were supposed to be freed in seven years. Thus, by 1626 these twenty African Americans had become Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color, and in some of the thirteen colonies Free-Men-of-Color had the right to vote. Hence, these individuals represent the beginning of the first category Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color of the African American population. Eventually, all of the thirteen colonies would have Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color. Franklin described the second category in the African American population thusly: “the actual statutory recognition of slavery in Virginia came in 1661. The status of blacks already there was not affected if they had completed their indenture and were free.”7 He continued: “the Virginia slave code, borrowing heavily from practices in the Caribbean and serving as a model for other mainland codes, was comprehensive if it was anything at all.”8 Thus, in America’s first colony, Virginia, there developed, almost from its inception, two African American populations, one free and one slave. This, too, became the model for other colonies. Maryland was the second colony to institute slavery. Franklin described the date and process there: While slavery in Maryland was not recognized by law until 1663, it came into existence shortly after the first settlements were made in 1634. As early as 1638 there was reference to slavery in some of the discussion in the legislature, and in 1641 the governor himself owned a number of slaves. . . . The law of 1663 was rather drastic. It undertook to reduce to slavery all blacks in the colony even though some were already free, and it sought to impose slave status on all blacks born in the colony regardless of the status of their mothers. It was not until 1681 that the law was brought in line with established practices by declaring that black children of white women and children born of free black women would be free.9 Laws in the original colonies allowed both slave and free populations to grow through the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum eras. This dual population was counted in the official censuses from 1790 to 1860. When slaves were finally set free in 1865 via the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, this dualism in the population ended.

The Demography of African Americans in Colonial America In 1976 the Bureau of the Census prepared a two-volume, bicentennial edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States:

46

Chapter 3

Colonial Times to 1970. Volume two (or Part 2) had a final section entitled “Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics.” This was Chapter Z, and in the Series Z 1–19 there appeared a table with the “Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610–1780.”10 These population data cover the 170-year period encompassing both the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, but primarily those years before the official U.S. Census started in 1790. Table Z 1–19 contains both white and African American population information. This table shows that in the 1620 census data from Virginia, twenty Africans were counted in the Virginia population. In 1909, the Bureau of the Census had issued a compilation entitled A Century of Population Growth. This contained a considerable amount of material on American population before 1790. Chapter I of this volume, entitled “Population in the Colonial and Continental Periods,” summarized the information available for the area and offered official enumerations for seven of the original thirteen states: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. In these tables population was grouped not only into local subdivisions but also into other demographic categories, including age, gender, race, and servile or free status.11 By the 1930s demographic scholars and historical researchers had unearthed not only additional census data for the seven colonies but also for the other six original colonies that had not appeared in the 1909 volume. These new data were assembled in a single volume: American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790.12 For the analyses presented in this chapter and in Chapter Four, the two census studies and Evart Greene and Virginia Harrington’s academic study were used to construct tabular data on the dual African American populations in the Colonial and Revolutionary eras and to derive from those populations the number of potential African American voters and their locations.

Censuses Taken in the Colonial Era The 1909 Census publication reveals the total number of censuses taken in the Colonial and Revolutionary eras. Table 3.1 lists the statistics of the Colonial Era. It offers the total number of censuses for all of the colonies in the Colonial Era, broken down over time by fifty-year cycles from 1600 until the eve of the Revolutionary Era in 1773. Table 3.1 also delineates this information by region and by individual colonies, illustrating that the majority of censuses took place in the 1700s, primarily in the Middle and New England colonies. Very few censuses were conducted in the Southern Colonies. In fact, it was in the Middle Colonies of the early 1700s where over a third (34.5%) occurred, followed by the New England Colonies with 10.3%. New York alone, with ten censuses during the Colonial Era, counts for over a third (34.5%) of the total. After New York is Rhode Island with four (13.8%), New Jersey with three (10.3%), and Connecticut, Delaware, and New Hampshire with two (6.9%) each. Several colonies—Pennsylvania in the Middle Colonies, and Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina in the Southern Colonies— conducted no censuses. Of the southern region, Virginia had one census, and that was in the very beginning of the Colonial Era. Delaware’s two censuses came in the same period. The initial one

was simply a list with no demographic categories and the second census was only for one county, Kent. These restrictions severely limit their usefulness for this study.

The African American Population by Region Table 3.2 reveals the African American populations, their percentages and their percentage of change (used here as the population growth) in the four regions of the country during the Colonial Era, 1610 to 1770. Although Virginia, one of the Southern Colonies, was the first to have an African American population, which arrived in August, 1619, in the Middle Colonies in 1640 and 1650 African Americans composed a larger proportion of the total population. However, that region later saw their numbers grow at a rate much smaller than the Southern Colonies. Not only is the growth rate in the South higher, the actual African American population is greater beginning in 1660. This growth rate in both percentages and actual numbers of African Americans results in a rank-ordered grand total in 1770 that renders the African American population as follows: (1) Southern Colonies with 343,208, (2) Border Colonies with 66,318, (3) Middle Colonies with 34,929, and (4) New England Colonies with 15,367. Moreover, while New England had a greater number of colonies than all other regions, it was the region where African Americans represented the smallest proportion of the total population.

African American Population Growth in Maryland and Virginia Two things stand out in Table 3.2 (p. 48). First, the Border (i.e., Maryland and Kentucky) and Southern colonies had the two largest populations of African Americans and eventually the largest percentages. Secondly, the southern region in the decade between 1680 and 1690 more than tripled its African American population. Thus, within two decades after Virginia and Maryland instituted legal slavery, both of their respective regions (Virginia in the South and Maryland as a Border Colony) began periods of high population growth. This population growth occurred in both of the two categories, free persons of color and slaves. By disaggregating the demographic data from a regional to an individual colony basis, it is possible to focus on the two individual colonies where high population growth occurred. Figures 3.1 and 3.2, for Virginia and Maryland, respectively, show how the population growth in each of these colonies accelerated. Figure 3.1 (p. 49) shows that the African American population percentage in Virginia grew steadily, with only a pause in 1730, peaked in 1750, and slowly declined from this peak between 1750 and 1780. Figure 3.2 (p. 49) shows that the African American population in Maryland peaked three times, 1660, 1710, and 1750, but continued to rise instead of declining. Returning to our regional analysis in a comparative manner, in the southern region the African American population reached a peak of 42.3%, while in the Border Colonies it peaked at 30.4%. African American populations in both Virginia and Maryland exceeded these regional percentages. Figure 3.3 (p. 49) reveals the total distribution of the African American populations in the four regions during seventeen different



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 47 Table 3.1  Numbers of Censuses during the American Colonial Period, 1624–1773

1624–1649 Colony

1650–1699

1700–1749

Percent

Number

Number of Censuses in Colonial Era

1750–1773

Percent

Number

Percent

Number

Percent

Number

Percenta

Number

New Hampshire Massachusetts Maineb Rhode Island Connecticut Vermontc

           

           

           

           

      3    

      10.3%    

2 1 1 1 2 1

6.9% 3.4% 3.4% 3.4% 6.9% 3.4%

2 1 1 4 2 1

6.9% 3.4% 3.4% 13.8% 6.9% 3.4%

New England Colonies Subtotal

0

 

0

 

3

10.3%

8

27.6%

11

37.9%

New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware

       

       

1     2

3.4%     6.9%

7 3  

24.1% 10.3%

2    

6.9%    

10 3 0 2

34.5% 10.3% 0.0% 6.9%

Middle Colonies Subtotal

0

3

10.3%

10

34.5%

2

6.9%

15

51.7%

1

3.4%

1

3.4%

1

3.4%

1

3.4%

Maryland Border Colony Subtotal

0

0

Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia

1      

3.4%      

Southern Colonies Subtotal

1

3.4%

0

 

0

 

0

Total Censuses of All Colonies

1

3.4%

3

10.3%

14

48.3%

11

6.9% 2

6.9%

1 0 0 0

3.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

 

1

3.4%

37.9%

29

100%

Source: Table “Censuses Prior to 1790,” A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790–1900 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), p. 4. a

All percentages are of the total number of censuses for all colonies in the Colonial Era (29).

b

As part of a census of Massachusetts.

c

As part of a census of New York.

decades, 1610–1770, showing that the population in the Southern Colonies eventually outstripped all other regions in the Colonial Era. Initially it was the Middle Colonies and New England that had the largest African American populations, but after the 1660s they gave way to the Southern and Border colonies. It is precisely these latter colonies, with the exception of Tennessee and North Carolina, that did not provide African American suffrage. Besides Virginia and Maryland, one can see population acceleration and decline in other individual colonies in the Colonial Era. In Table 3.3 (pp. 50–53), by using both colonial censuses and population estimate data, it is possible to provide demographic data for the four colonies listed in Table 3.1 where no pre-federal censuses have been found. It illustrates the African American and white populations in Pennsylvania and in all of the Southern Colonies, including Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, heretofore missing. As the above narrative indicates, recently uncovered Delaware censuses are now available with limited data. Hence, Table 3.3 offers demography data for all of the thirteen original colonies and two territories, the Wabash valley (traversing parts of Indiana and Illinois) and Michigan, in the Colonial Era. Such data provide a nearly complete portrait of the African American population during this time period.

Population Change during the Seventeenth Century Figure 3.4 (p. 54) provides a visual representation of the percentages of population change in the white and African American populations during the seventeenth century using the tabular data in Table 3.3. In 1620, the end of the first decade of our data analysis, the white population was dominant, but within a decade the African American population showed the greatest percentage change. This peaked in 1640, and the rate of change, with each group having a larger base, declined for both whites and African Americans. Only thereafter, in the decade ending in 1670, did the white population growth rate exceed that of African Americans.

Population Change during the Eighteenth Century Figure 3.5 (p. 54) extends use of the same tabular data in Table 3.3, revealing population changes in eighteenth century America, and indicating that in every decade African American population growth outstripped that of whites in the original thirteen colonies and in the two territories of Tennessee and Kentucky. In fact, in the seventeen decades of the Colonial Era, the white population grew faster only in the decades prior to 1620, 1670, and 1730.

102

1,796

13,679

22,832

15,136

51,896

68,462

86,961

92,763

115,094

170,893

217,351

289,704

360,011

449,634

581,038

1620

1630

1640

1650

1660

1670

1680

1690

1700

1710

1720

1730

1740

1750

1760

1770

15,367

12,717

10,982

8,541

6,118

3,956

2,585

1,680

950

470

375

562

380

195

0

0

0

African American

2.6%

2.8%

3.1%

2.9%

2.8%

2.3%

2.2%

1.8%

1.1%

0.7%

0.7%

3.7%

1.7%

1.4%

0.0%

0.0%

  0

0

20.8%

15.8%

28.6%

39.6%

54.7%

53.0%

53.9%

76.8%

102.1%

555,904

432,904

296,459

220,545

146,981

103,084

69,592

53,537

34,841

14,915

7,454

-33.3% 25.3%

5,476

4,301

1,930

350

Total

34,929

29,049

20,736

16,452

11,683

10,825

6,218

3,661

2,472

1,480

790

630

515

232

10

0

0

African American

Populationse

47.9%

94.9%

 

 

 

 

African Percent American Change Percent in African of Total American Population Population

6.3%

6.7%

7.0%

7.5%

7.9%

10.5%

8.9%

6.8%

7.1%

9.9%

10.6%

11.5%

12.0%

12.0%

2.9%

20.2%

40.1%

26.0%

40.8%

7.9%

74.1%

69.8%

48.1%

67.0%

87.3%

25.4%

22.3%

122.0%

220.0%

African Percent American Change Percent in African of Total American Population Population

Middle Coloniesb

0

0

0

218,299

162,267

141,073

116,093

91,113

66,133

42,741

29,604

24,024

17,904

13,226

8,426

4,504

583

Total

66,318

49,004

43,450

24,031

17,220

12,499

7,945

3,227

2,162

1,611

1,190

758

300

20

0

0

0

African American

Populationse

30.4%

30.2%

30.8%

20.7%

18.9%

18.9%

18.6%

10.9%

9.0%

9.0%

9.0%

9.0%

6.7%

3.4%

 

 

 

35.3%

12.8%

80.8%

39.6%

37.8%

57.3%

146.2%

49.3%

34.2%

35.4%

57.0%

152.7%

1400.0%

 

 

 

 

African Percent American Change Percent in African of Total American Population Population

Border Coloniesc

792,835

553,820

373,217

279,221

174,000

126,075

104,284

74,984

64,546

50,226

39,359

28,020

18,731

10,442

2,500

2,200

350

Total

343,208

235,036

161,252

101,000

56,000

41,559

28,118

19,249

11,145

3,410

2,180

970

405

150

50

20

Middle Colonies = New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Border Colonies = Maryland and Kentucky.

Southern Colonies = Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.

African American is the term used for Negro and mulatto populations.

c

d

e

New England Colonies = Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

b

a

0

African American

Populationse

43.3%

42.4%

43.2%

36.2%

32.2%

33.0%

27.0%

25.7%

17.3%

6.8%

5.5%

3.5%

2.2%

1.4%

2.0%

0.9%

0.0%

46.0%

45.8%

59.7%

80.4%

34.7%

47.8%

46.1%

72.7%

226.8%

56.4%

124.7%

139.5%

170.0%

200.0%

150.0%

 

 

African Percent American Change Percent in African of Total American Population Population

Southern Coloniesd

Source: “Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168.

0

Total

1610

    Year

Populationse

New England Coloniesa

Table 3.2  African American Populations and Population Growth in Regions of Colonial America, 1610–1770



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 49 Figure 3.2  African American Share of Population in Colonial Maryland, 1610–1770

50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%

Percent of Total Population

35%

25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 70

60

17

50

17

40

17

30

17

20

17

10

17

00

17

90

17

80

16

70

16

60

16

50

16

40

16

30

16

20

16

16

Year

16

10

20 17 30 17 40 17 50 17 60 17 70

10

17

00

17

90

17

80

16

70

16

60

16

50

16

40

16

30

16

20

16

16

16

30%

0%

10

Percent of Total Population

Figure 3.1  African American Share of Population in Colonial Virginia, 1610–1770

Year

African American Percent of Population in Virginia

African American Percent of Population in Maryland

Source: Adapted from Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168.

Source: Adapted from Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168.

Figure 3.3  Distribution of African American Population in Colonial America Regions, 1610–1770 100%

Population Distribution by Region (Percent)

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1610

1620

1630

1640

1650

1660

1670

1680

1690

1700

1710

1720

1730

1740

1750

1760

1770

Decade Southern Colonies

Border Colonies

Middle Colonies

New England Colonies

Source: Adapted from Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168.

50

Chapter 3

Table 3.3  Population by Census or Estimate during the American Colonial Period, 1624–1773

  Colony

  Year

Reference [source note number]: page numbers

New Hampshire

1715

[2]: 4, 71.

Population

9,650

9,500

150

General estimate of 1715.

1721

[2]: 71.

Population

9,000

8,850

150

Computed white population.

1730

[2]: 71.

Population

10,200

10,000

200

Computed total population.

1737

[2]: 71.

Population

11,000

10,800

200

Computed white population.

1754

[2]: 72.

Population

80,000

79,450

550

Computed white population.

1761

[2]: 72.

Taxables or Polls

9,146

8,868

278

As given by estimates, population-to-poll ratio = 4:1.

1767

[1]: 1170.

Census

52,720

52,087

633

Census of 1767.

1767

[2]: 72, 74–79.

Census

52,700

52,067

633

Census of 1767: computed white population.

1767

[3]: 149–150.

Census

52,720

52,087

633

Census of 1767.

1773

[1]: 1170.

Census

73,097

72,423

674

Census of 1773.

1773

[2]: 73.

Census

72,766

72,092

674

Census of 1773.

1773

[3]: 150–154.

Census

73,097

72,423

674

Census of 1773.

1715

[2]: 4, 14.

Population

96,000

94,000

2,000

General estimate of 1715.

1718

[2]: 15.

Population

94,000

90,800

2,000

White population = Total population (94,000) minus # slaves “mostly Negroes” (2,000) and minus # Indians (1,200).

1735

[2]: 15.

Population

144,308

141,708

2,600

Tot. pop. = 4 x # whites 16 yrs or older (35,427).

1736

[2]: 15.

Militia

123,000

120,000

2,000

White population = 4 x ratable male polls, given as 30,000.

1751

[2]: 15.

Population

122,000

120,000

2,000

Estimate based on 20,000 militia given for 1728.

1754

[3]: 156–157.

Census

 

2,712

Census of 1754: slave population. White/total not available.

1763–1765

[2]: 16-17, 21.

Census

241,024

235,810

5,214

Census of 1765.

1763

[2]: 16.

Population

200,000

197,779

2,221

Computed white population.

1764–1765

[1]: 1170.

Census

223,841

216,700

4,891

Census of 1764-1765.

1765

[2]: 17.

Population

250,000

243,000

5,500

Computed white population.

1773

[2]: 17.

Population

300,000

292,500

6,000

Computed white population.

1708

[1]: 1171.

Census

7,181

2,432

426

Census of 1708: white males.

1708

[2]: 62.

Census

7,181

426

Census of 1708: 1,015 freemen; 1,362 militia; 56 white servants; 426 black servants. White total not available.

1708

[3]: 162.

Census

7,181

6,755

426

Census of 1708: computed white population.

1715

[2]: 4, 62.

Population

9,000

8,500

500

General estimate of 1715.

1730

[1]: 1171.

Census

17,935

15,302

1,648

Census of 1730.

1730

[2]: 62–63, 66.

Census

17,935

15,302

1,648

Census of 1730.

1748

[1]: 1171.

Census

34,128

29,755

3,101

Census of 1748.

1748

[2]: 63, 66.

Census

34,128

29,755

4,373

Census of 1748: computed total population.

1748

[2]: 63, 66.

Census

32,773

28,439

3,077

Census of 1748.

1748

[2]: 63, 66.

Census

34,128

29,755

3,101

Census of 1748.

1748

[3]: 162.

Census

17,935

15,302

1,648

Census of 1748.

1755

[1]: 1171.

Census

40,536

35,839

4,697

Census of 1755.

1755

[2]: 63, 67.

Census

40,636

35,939

4,697

Census of 1755, “4,697 blacks and Indians, chiefly Negroes.”

Massachusetts

Rhode Island

Populations Enumeration Type

Total

White

African American

  Comments



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 51

  Colony

  Year

Reference [source note number]: page numbers

Connecticut

1715 1730 1754 1756 1756 1756 1762

[2]: 4, 49. [2]: 49. [2]: 49–50. [1]: 1169. [2]: 50, 58–61. [2]: 50. [2]: 50.

New York

1698 1698 1703 1703 1712–1714 1712 1715 1723 1723 1723 1731 1731 1731 1737 1737 1737 1746 1746 1746 1749 1749 1749 1754 1756 1756 1756 1771 1771 1771

New Jersey

Populations Enumeration Type

Total

White

African American

 

Population Population Population Census Census Census Population

47,500 100,000 138,500 130,612 129,994 129,994 146,520

46,000 70,000 135,000 126,976 126,975 128,212 141,000

1,500 1,000 3,500 3,019 3,109 3,587 4,590

General estimate of 1715. Total population as given by estimates. Computed total population. Census of 1756. Census of 1756: computed total population. Census of 1756. Computed total population.

[1]: 1171. [3]: 170. [1]: 1171. [2]: 90, 94–95. [1]: 1171. [3]: 181. [2]: 4, 90. [1]: 1171. [2]: 96. [3]: 181. [1]: 1171. [2]: 90, 97. [3]: 181. [1]: 1170. [2]: 90, 98. [3]: 182. [1]: 1170. [2]: 91, 99. [3]: 182. [1]: 1170. [2]: 91, 100. [3]: 182. [2]: 91. [1]: 1170. [2]: 91, 101. [3]: 183. [1]: 1170. [2]: 91, 102. [3]: 183.

Census Census Census Census Census Census Population Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Population Census Census Census Census Census Census

18,067 18,067 20,665 20,665 22,608 22,608 31,000 40,564 40,564 40,564 50,286 50,289 50,286 60,437 60,436 60,437 61,589 61,589 61,589 73,348 73,448 73,348 85,000 96,760 96,775 96,590 163,348 168,007 168,017

15,897 15,897 18,282 18,282 16,979 16,979 27,000 34,393 34,393 34,393 43,055 43,058 43,055 51,496 51,495 51,496 52,482 52,482 52,482 62,756 62,756 62,756 74,000 83,242 89,233 83,242 143,474 148,124 148,124

2,170 2,170 2,258 2,383 2,425 2,425 4,000 6,171 6,171 6,171 7,231 7,231 7,231 8,941 8,941 8,941 9,107 9,107 9,107 10,592 10,692 10,592 11,000 13,548 13,542 13,348 19,874 19,883 19,893

Census of 1698. Census of 1698. Census of 1703. Census of 1703. Census of 1712–1714. Partial census of 1712. General estimate of 1715. Census of 1723. Census of 1723. Census of 1723. Census of 1731. Census of 1731: computed white population. Census of 1731. Census of 1737. Census of 1737: computed white population. Census of 1737. Census of 1746. Census of 1746: computed white population. Census of 1746. Census of 1749. Census of 1749. Census of 1749: computed total population. Computed white population. Census of 1756. Census of 1756. Census of 1756. Census of 1771. Census of 1771. Census of 1771.

1715 1726 1726 1726 1737–1738 1738 1738 1745 1745 1745 1754 1754 1755

[2]: 4, 106. [1]: 1170. [2]: 106. [3]: 184. [3]: 184. [1]: 1170. [2]: 106, 110. [1]: 1170. [2]: 106, 111. [3]: 184. [2]: 107. [2]: 107. [2]: 107.

Population Census Population Census Census Census Census Census Census Census Population Population Population

22,500 32,442 32,446 32,442 46,676 46,676 47,369 61,403 61,383 61,403 81,500 78,500 81,500

21,000 29,861 29,861 29,861 42,695 42,695 43,388 56,797 56,777 56,797 80,000 73,000 80,000

1,500 2,581 2,581 2,581 3,981 3,981 3,981 4,606 4,606 4,606 1,500 5,500 1,500

1772

[2]: 108, 112.

Census

71,023

67,710

3,313

Comments

General estimate of 1715. Census of 1726. According to estimate. Census of 1726. Census of 1737–1738. Census of 1738. Census of 1738. Census of 1745. Census of 1745. Census of 1745. Computed total population. Computed total population. Floor estimate of total population based on black population from 1,500 to 1,800. Census of 1772. (Continued)

52

Chapter 3

Table 3.3 (Continued)

  Colony

  Year

Reference [source note number]: page numbers

Pennsylvania

1715 1721 1730 1754 1766

[2]: 4, 114. [2]: 114. [2]: 114. [2]: 115. [2]: 116.

Population Population Population Population Population

Delaware

1665–1697

[4]: 32.

Taxables or Polls

 

1684

[4]: 135–141.

Taxables or Polls

117

1704 1710 1710 1712 1715 1719 1732 1748 1754 1755 1755 1755 1756

[1]: 1169. [1]: 1169. [2]: 124. [1]: 1169. [2]: 4, 125. [2]: 125. [2]: 125. [2]: 125. [2]: 125. [1]: 1169. [2]: 125–126. [3]: 184. [2]: 126.

Census Census Census Census Population Population Population Population Population Census Census Census Population

1761

[2]: 126.

1624–1625 1624 1625 1648 1671 1708 1712 1715 1743 1749

Maryland

Virginia

North Carolina

Populations Enumeration Type

Total

White

African American

45,800 65,000 49,000 206,000 180,000

43,300 60,000 45,000 195,000 150,000

2,500 5,000 4,000 11,000 30,000

  Comments General estimate of 1715. According to estimate. According to estimate. According to estimate. According to estimate.

 

List of land owners by name, but not by gender, age, or race.

103

14

Kent County only. Freeholders, family members, household servants, and freemen by name; numbers of Negroes.

34,912 42,741 42,741 46,151 50,200 80,000 96,000 130,000 148,000 153,505 153,564 153,505 154,188

30,437 34,796 34,796 37,743 40,700 55,000 75,000 94,000 104,000 108,193 107,208 108,193 107,963

4,475 7,945 7,945 8,408 9,500 25,000 21,000 36,000 44,000 45,312 46,356 45,312 46,225

Census of 1704. Census of 1710. Census of 1710. Census of 1712. General estimate of 1715.         Census of 1755. Census of 1755. Census of 1755.  

Population

164,007

114,332

49,675

 

[1]: 1171. [2]: 136. [2]: 143. [2]: 136. [2]: 136. [2]: 139. [2]: 139. [2]: 4, 139. [2]: 140. [2]: 140.

Census Census Census Population Population Taxables or Polls Militia Population Population Taxables or Polls

1,227 1,275 1,227 15,300 40,000 30,000 24,102 95,000 130,000 135,000

1,202 1,253 1,202 15,000 38,000 18,000 12,051 72,000 88,000 85,000

23 22 23 300 2,000 12,000 12,051 23,000 42,000 40,000

1754 1755 1756

[2]: 140. [2]: 150–151. [2]: 140.

Population Census Taxables or Polls

284,000 103,407 293,472

168,000 43,329 173,316

116,000 60,078 120,156

1770

[2]: 141.

Taxables or Polls

447,008

259,402

187,606

Census of 1698. Census of 1698. Census of 1698.     Estimated “tithables.” Estimated white militia equal to Negroes. General estimate of 1715.   “135,000 souls: 85,000 tithables, 40,000 being blacks.”   Census of 1755; computed total population. Estimated from 4 times white tithables and 2 times Negro tithables. Estimates based on numbers of tithables.

1715 1732 1752 1754 1756 1761 1765 1766

[2]: 4, 156. [2]: 156. [2]: 157. [2]: 157. [2]: 157–158. [2]: 158. [2]: 158. [2]: 158–159.

Population Population Population Population Taxables or Polls Taxables or Polls Taxables or Polls Taxables or Polls

11,200 36,000 30,000 90,000 25,737 34,000 45,912 48,610

7,500 30,000 20,000 70,000 12,069 22,000 28,542 16,183

3,700 6,000 10,000 20,000 13,668 12,000 17,370 12,923

General estimate of 1715.       Estimated taxables. Estimated taxables. Estimated taxables. Estimated taxables.

1767

[2]: 159.

Taxables or Polls

51,044

17,700

12,382

Estimated taxables.



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 53

  Colony

  Year

Reference [source note number]: page numbers

South Carolina

1699 1703 1708 1715 1720 1737 1741 1742 1745 1749 1751 1754 1755 1756

[2]: 172. [2]: 172-173. [2]: 173. [2]: 4, 173. [2]: 174. [2]: 174. [2]: 174. [2]: 174. [2]: 174. [2]: 174. [2]: 175. [2]: 175. [2]: 175. [2]: 175.

1763 1765

Populations   Enumeration Type

Total

White

African American

Population Population Population Population Population Militia Population Militia Population Population Population Population Population Militia

62,500 7,150 9,580 16,750 21,000 27,000 45,000 54,500 50,000 64,000 65,000 80,000 110,000 22,500

12,500 3,800 4,080 6,250 12,000 5,000 5,000 5,500 10,000 25,000 25,000 40,000 25,000 5,500

50,000 3,000 4,100 10,500 9,000 22,000 40,000 49,000 40,000 39,000 40,000 40,000 50,000 17,000

[2]: 175. [2]: 175.

Population Population

105,000 125,000

35,000 40,000

70,000 85,000

1769 1770 1773

[2]: 175. [2]: 175, 176. [2]: 176.

Population Militia Population

125,000 115,000 175,000

45,000 10,000 65,000

80,000 75,178 110,000

1751 1753 1753 1754 1755 1760 1761 1765 1766

[2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181. [2]: 181.

Population Population Population Population Population Population Population Population Population

2,120 3,447 3,861 7,000 6,500 9,578 9,700 11,300 17,750

1,700 2,381 2,261 5,000 3,000 6,000 6,100 6,800 9,950

420 1,066 1,600 2,000 3,500 3,578 3,600 4,500 7,800

1773

[2]: 182.

Population

33,000

18,000

15,000

Illinois Country

1726 1732 1750 1763 1765 1766 1772

[2]: 186. [2]: 187. [2]: 187. [2]: 187. [2]: 188. [2]: 188. [2]: 189.

Population Population Population Population Population Militia Population

409 672 1,460 970 2,950 0 1,500

280 388 1,100 670 2,050 300 900

129 165 300 300 900 230 600

Wabash Valley, Indiana

1767

[2]: 190.

Population

400

10

17

 

Michigan Territory (Detroit)

1765

[2]: 191.

Population

799

701

60

 

Georgia

  Comments Four Negroes to one white man.     General estimate of 1715.   White fighting men.   (White) provincial militia.           Estimated population of white militia and Negro males 16 years and older. 30,000 to 40,000 whites. White population estimate based on 7,000 to 8,000 militia; 80,000 to 90,000 Negroes.   White militia.             Negro population estimate deemed excessive.     White population estimated in range from 9,900 to 10,000.             White “fencible” men.  

Sources: [1] “Table Series Z 24–132: Population Censuses Taken in the Colonies and States During the Colonial and Pre–Federal Period: 1624–25 to 1786,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), pp. 1169–1171. [2] Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932). [3] A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 149–185. [4] Ronald Vern Jakson and Gary Ronald Teeples (eds.), Early Delaware Census Records, 1665–1697 (Bountiful, UT: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1977), pp. 1–32, and Jeffrey L. Schieb, “A 1688 Census of Kent County, Delaware,” Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Vol. 37 (Philadelphia: Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 1991), pp. 135–141.

54

Chapter 3

140%

15% 66%

34%

35% 54%

98% 55%

11% 83%

87% 168%

101% 200%

468%

552%

Percent Change in Population

1000% 900% 800% 700% 600% 500% 400% 300% 200% 100% 0%

895%

Figure 3.4  Percent Change in White and African American Populations, Seventeenth-Century Colonial Americaa

1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 Decade White

African American

Source: Adapted from Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780," Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168. a

Includes the Original Thirteen Colonies, plus Tennessee and Kentucky.

33%

36% 38%

41%

58% 24%

30%

Primary Source Data on Voting Age

40%

40%

39%

50%

36% 32%

53%

61%

60%

29%

Percent Change in Population

70%

65%

Figure 3.5  Percent Change in White and African American Populations, Eighteenth-Century Colonial Americaa

20% 10% 0%

1710

1720

1730

1740

1750

1760

1770

Decade White

African American

Source: Adapted from Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780," Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168. a

New Jersey and New Hampshire. Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia each had one year of gender data. One year of gender data is available for Maine, although Maine was not one of the original thirteen colonies but initially a province of Massachusetts that did not join the federal system until 1820. Notably, five of the original colonies are missing from Table 3.4: Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Gender data by census were not collected for them in the colonial and pre-federal periods. Thus, said data existed only for eight of the thirteen original colonies, and only sporadically. When the Bureau of the Census published this material in its bicentennial edition of Historical Statistics, other extant data were not yet discovered or may simply have been omitted from Table Z 24–132. Hence our analysis must rely upon this data, which do provide specific information on Free-Menof-Color, that category of the African American demography that could vote. Occasionally, some of the colonies allowed women to vote. Virginia was the first to allow women, including Free-Women-of-Color, the legal right to vote between 1626 and 1699. Thus, in the final analysis, the data in this table show the principal number of African American males who potentially could have been in the electoral pool of voters. As to the matter of definition, the African American population should be read to include both Negro and mulatto populations.

Includes the Original Thirteen Colonies, plus Tennessee and Kentucky.

The Colonial Population by Race and Gender The colonial and pre-federal statistics provide much more than the total populations by region and individual colony. Table Z 24–132 in the historical statistics volume provides population breakdown by gender for some years, as well as information about the age distributions of the white and African American populations in Colonial America. Table 3.4 shows that not all of the colonies kept gender data on the African American population during this time frame. New York kept a significant amount of this data, as did

The colony of New York provides the richest series of data across time in the Colonial Era. Table Z 24–132 of Historical Statistics provides not only some gender data but also age data for five of the eight colonies. Of those five colonies, three demarcate their age data at “16 and over,” while another distinguishes its data at age “20 and over.” New York, in 1723, simply had “adult” and “non-adult” age categories. Thus, the age of sixteen tends to predominate as the possible voting age in these colonies. However, in the colony of New York in 1731 and 1737, census data of age start at “10 years and over.” Presumably ten year olds did not vote, and since other voting data for New York are available, it can be estimated that the population potentially eligible to vote was at or near the age of “16 and over.”

Potential African American Voters in Colonial America The total demography in Table 3.2 as well as the gender data in Table 3.4 provide for the first time an empirical look at the potential African American electorate in Colonial America. Matching up this demographic data with those colonies that legally allowed African Americans the right to vote provides some sense of how many Free-Men-and-Women-of Color had the potential right to cast ballots. Besides this basic empirical demographic and gender data on the Colonial Era, there are two other unique features. First, census data were collected for Maine when it was a province of Massachusetts. Table 3.4 shows that in this territory during the years 1764–1765, there were 344 African Americans, 192 males (55.8%) and 152 females (44.2%). And like the first

7,181 17,935 34,128 40,536

1708

1730

1748

1755

Rhode Island

73,348 96,790 163,348

1749

1756

1771

57,596

58,040

1701

1699  

 

 

23

45,312

8,408

7,945

4,475

 

4,606

3,981

2,581

19,874

13,548

10,592

9,107

8,941

7,231

6,171

2,425

2,258

2,170

3,019

4,697

3,101

1,648

426

344

4,891

674

633

Number

 

 

 

1.9%

29.5%

18.2%

18.6%

12.8%

 

7.5%

8.5%

8.0%

12.2%

14.0%

14.4%

14.8%

14.8%

14.4%

15.2%

10.7%

10.9%

12.0%

2.3%

11.6%

9.1%

9.2%

5.9%

1.6%

2.2%

0.9%

1.2%

 

 

 

11

23,746

 

 

 

 

2,588

2,208

1,435

10,623

7,570

5,696

4,857

4,948

4,334

3,364

1,334

1,174

 

 

2,387

 

 

 

192

2,824

379

384

Number

Males

 

 

 

10

20,179

 

 

 

 

2,018

1,773

1,146

9,251

5,978

4,896

4,250

3,993

2,897

2,807

1,091

1,084

 

 

2,310

 

 

 

152

2,067

295

249

Number

Females

 

 

 

 

16

 

 

 

 

 

16

16

16

16

16

16

c

c

‘Adult’

16

16

 

 

‘Adult’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  “Voting Age”b

 

 

21,189

 

2,357

1,502

11,404

7,488

5,973

4,927

6,265

4,785

3,996

1,581

1,409

 

2,542

 

 

Number

 

 

 

 

13.8%

 

 

 

 

 

5.0%

4.6%

7.0%

7.7%

8.1%

8.0%

10.4%

9.5%

9.9%

7.0%

6.8%

 

 

6.3%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11,696

 

 

 

 

 

1,359

872

6,209

4,290

3,317

2,893

3,551

2,932

2,186

900

707

 

 

1,277

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number

 

 

 

 

7.6%

 

 

 

 

 

2.9%

2.7%

3.8%

4.4%

4.5%

4.7%

5.9%

5.8%

5.4%

4.0%

3.4%

 

 

3.2%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percent of Total Population

Males

 

 

8,646

 

998

630

5,195

3,198

2,656

2,034

2,714

1,853

1,810

681

702

 

1,265

 

 

 

 

5.6%

 

2.1%

1.9%

3.2%

3.3%

3.6%

3.3%

4.5%

3.7%

4.5%

3.0%

3.4%

 

3.1%

 

 

Percent of Total Population

Females

Number

African American Population of Voting Age Percent of Total Population

Total

In this table, African American includes Negro and mulatto populations.

Age is derived from age strata in source data.

Demographic demarcation at 10 years of age.

a

b

c

Source: Adapted from “Table Series Z 24–132: Population Censuses Taken in the Colonies and States During the Colonial and Pre-Federal Period: 1624–25 to 1786,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), pp. 1169–1171. Calculations by the authors.

 

4,909

1634

153,505

1755 1,227

46,151

1712

1624–1625

42,741

1710

Virginia

34,912

1704

Maryland

122,003

1772

 

61,403

61,589

1746

1745

60,437

1737

46,676

50,286

1731

1738

40,564

1723

32,442

22,608

1712–1714

1726

20,665

1703

New Jersey

18,067

1698

New York

130,612

1756

Connecticut

21,857

1764–1765

Maine

73,097 223,841

1773

1764–1765

1767

New Hampshire

Massachusetts

52,720

Year

Colony

Total Population

Percent of Total Population

Total

African American Populationa

Table 3.4  African American Populations of “Voting Age” in Colonial America, 1624–1625 to 1773

56

Chapter 3

federal territories, such as Indiana, wherein Congress restricted African American suffrage and only white males could vote, Massachusetts blocked Free-Men-of-Color from voting in Maine. However, once it became a state, Maine never blocked them from voting, even up through the Civil War. A second unique feature is that Maryland, at least for one year in the Colonial Era, broke down its census data on African Americans by free male and female as well as by slave male and female. There was a mulatto breakdown as well. If data such as Maryland’s existed for all thirteen colonies it would be possible to quickly and accurately estimate the proportion of the African American population in Colonial America who were potential voters. Such information would provide us with a comprehensive and systematic portrait of African American voters in this era. Although we are lacking this type of empirical data for almost all of the colonies, a case study of the unique Maryland data will be the first of its kind. A unique feature of the Maryland data is that the data tell us that each of these African American demographic populations had taxes levied upon them. This means that these Free-Menand-Women-of-Color had acquired enough real and personal property in the colony to become taxpayers and thereby qualify as societal “stake-holders,” a qualification that was the main basis

for voting in Colonial America. These data, although limited to a single year, demonstrate that in Maryland, and probably in the rest of the thirteen colonies, some free African Americans satisfied the qualification of holding property as a basis for voting.

The Colonies That Gave African Americans the Legal Right to Vote Table 3.5 lists the original thirteen colonies and shows those which provided legal voting rights for Free-Men-of-Color. None of the thirteen colonies initially denied suffrage rights to African Americans. As time passed during the 163-year Colonial Era (1610–1773), only three of the thirteen colonies, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, changed their statutes to deny suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color. The other ten colonies did not deny suffrage rights based on color but rather upon the condition of property ownership. Suffrage rights in this era rested upon the ideology and concept of the voter as “a stakeholder in society,” which was the dominant requirement. Although there were other qualifications, the property qualification was the most pervasive, and each one of the colonies set its own requirements for property held in terms of acres owned and, later, valuation in dollars.

Table 3.5  Voting Rights, Population, and Population Change of African Americans in the Thirteen Original Colonies in the Colonial Era Voting Rights of Free African Americans 1770 Estimated Totala Population

Percent Total Population Increaseb (1760–1770)

1770 Estimated African American Population

1770 African American Percent of Total Population

Percent African American Population Increaseb (1760–1770)

Denied from the Outset

Denied by 1770

Never Denied

New Hampshire







62,396

59.6%

654

1.0%

9.0%

Massachusetts







235,308

16.1%

4,754

2.0%

4.1%

Rhode Island







58,196

28.0%

3,761

6.5%

8.5%

Connecticut







183,881

29.1%

5,698

3.1%

50.6%

New York







162,920

39.1%

19,112

11.7%

17.0%

New Jersey







117,431

25.2%

8,220

7.0%

25.2%

Pennsylvania







240,057

27.2%

5,761

2.4%

30.7%

Delaware







35,496

6.8%

1,836

5.2%

5.9%

Maryland







202,599

24.9%

63,818

31.5%

30.2%

Virginia







447,016

31.6%

187,605

42.0%

33.5%

North Carolina







197,200

78.6%

69,600

35.3%

107.4%

South Carolina







124,244

32.1%

75,178

60.5%

31.1%

Georgia







23,375

144.0%

10,625

45.5%

197.0%

Totals

0

3

10

2,090,119

32.4%

456,622

21.8%

40.3%

Colony

Source: “Table Series Z 1–19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168. a

Total population = white population + Negro (African American) population.

b

Percent population increase or decrease = (population in 1770 – population in 1760)/population in 1760.



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 57

As Alexander Keyssar wrote, “The linchpin of both colonial and British suffrage regulations was the restriction of voting to adult men who owned property. On the eve of the American Revolution, in seven colonies men had to own land of specified acreage or monetary value in order to participate in elections; elsewhere, the ownership of personal property of a designated value (or in South Carolina, the payment of taxes) could substitute for real estate.”13 In all of the colonies that provided the legal right to vote to Free-Men-of-Color, they also had the right to purchase property and the obligation to pay taxes on their real estate. They did so in each and every one of the thirteen colonies. Thus, with the data in Table 3.5 that pinpoint the exact colonies where Free-Men-of-Color had legal suffrage rights, the demography of total population and male population within these specific colonies can be combined to structure a portrait of potential voters via estimations based on the known male and free male populations from the “Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics.” Table 3.5 provides estimates showing that several of the Southern Colonies—including South Carolina, where African Americans constituted 60.5% of the population, Georgia with 45.5%, Virginia with 42.0%, North Carolina with 35.3%, and Maryland with 31.5%—did not deny African Americans suffrage rights despite their large proportions and population growth. This is just the opposite of what would later happen during the Reconstruction Era, 1868–1877, when states with large African American populations moved to disenfranchise them. The conclusion, at least from the demographic data, is that neither colonies with large African American populations nor those with large increases in the African American population pursued the diminution of legal suffrage rights. Thus, neither the population size nor population increase resulted in either outright or eventual denial of suffrage rights during colonial times. Even Virginia, which became one colony of the three to deny this right, did not do so until 1699 for Free-Women-ofColor and 1723 for Free-Men-of-Color.

Colony-Level Election Data: The Colonial Maryland Free and Taxable African American Population A case study of Colonial Maryland is possible, and instructive, due to the historical statistics from their census materials. Table 3.6 (p. 58) reveals that during the year 1755 when the African American population was nearly 30% of the total population, the Free African American population was just over 0.5% and stood at 1,817 individuals. The slave population was 43,495 (or 97.8% of the total African American population), and males in the slave population outnumbered females. Hence, because Maryland did not prohibit Free-Men-of-Color from exercising their suffrage rights, some 895 were of voting age and eligible to cast ballots if they were also male and also passed the economic requirement of being “taxable.” Table 3.7 (p. 58) further breaks down the year 1755 data into two categories of “taxable” and “untaxable” populations, showing that a large plurality of Free-Men-and-Women-ofColor was considered “taxable” and therefore likely paid taxes. More than 40% of this group, or 742 out of 1,817 individuals,

were eligible under the law to be potential voters in the colonial elections. Table 3.7 also reveals that 100% of the large “taxable” slave population in the colony that year, some 19,600 persons, was of the voting age. Of this number 11,270 were male, and they were eligible to vote just as were the Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color or even as the free white men (23,386). The voting age taxable slave population would have constituted 7.3% of the total population or 32.5% of a voting age male electorate. Because the “male” question and the “taxable” question were tallied separately, we do not know exactly how many FreeMen-of-Color were of voting age and taxable, as opposed to Free-Women-of-Color who could not vote even if of voting age and taxable. But the data we do have allow us to estimate their numbers. Males constituted 57.5% of the voting-age African American population; if they also constituted 57.5% of the free population, then approximately 427 of the 742 free and taxable African Americans in Maryland in 1755 were male and therefore could vote. Males constituted 53.5% of the total African American population; if they also constituted 53.5% of the free population, then approximately 396 of the 742 free and taxable African Americans could vote. Even more conservatively, if males were 50% of the free and taxable African population, they would have numbered 371 voters. These unique census data from Maryland give us both an empirically based glimpse and a suggestive clue about the potential voters in this single colony during the Colonial Era. The data tell us about the property holding that the Free-Men-andWomen-of-Color had in this time frame and how these taxable property owners were “stakeholders-in-society,” rendering them as potential voters. Historian William Gillette in his analysis of newspaper and scholarly sources about potential African American voters noted that journalistic works had a consensus of about “onesixth” of the African American population, while scholars used a consensus of about “one-fifth” of the African American population.14 Using the only colony where detailed data exist, Maryland in 1755, we have estimated that the number of voters was probably between 371, or 20.3% of the colony’s free African American population, and 427, or 23.5% of the colony’s free African American population. In other words, our rare findings, which Gillette does not analyze, confirm the basic validity of the rule of thumb that Gillette uses—if one calculates the percentage by dividing the number of voters by the total free African American population. If one divides the number of voters by the entire African American population, including the slave majority, the percentages are much lower. The low-end estimate (371) of the number of voters is only 0.8% of the total African American population in 1755 and 1.5% of the male African population, while the high-end estimate (427) is only 0.9% of the total African American population that year and 1.8% of the male African American population. The difficulty of estimating the African American electorate in other colonies is that they did not record how large their free African American population was, but only their total African American population, broken down into male and female. Therefore, we have used the consensus figure of “one-fifth” or 20% of the African American male population for each of the

 34,912

 42,741

 46,151

153,505

1704

1710

1712

1755

23,746

 

 

 

Number

20,719

Number

Female

1,817

Number

Free

43,495

Number

Slave

45,312

8,408

7,945

4,475

Number

29.5%

18.2%

18.6%

12.8%

Percent c

Total

21,189

 

 

 

Number

13.8%

Percent

Total

11,696

 

 

 

Number

7.6%

Percent

Male

8,646

 

 

 

Number

5.6%

Percent

Female

895

Number

0.6%

Percent

Free

African American Population of Voting Agea, b

20,294

 

 

 

Number

13.2%

Percent

Slave

Voting age was 16. Age is derived from the strata of age in the source data.

Percent of total state population.

b

c

34,912

42,741

46,151

153,505

1704

1710

1712

1755

45,312

8,408

7,945

4,475

  Population

29.5%

18.2%

18.6%

12.8%

Percent of Totalb

21,189

 

 

 

Number

13.8%

Percent of Totalb

742

Total

742

 

 

 

Number

0.5%

 

 

 

Percent Of Totalb

Of Voting Age

Free

1,075

 

 

 

  Total

153

 

 

 

Number

0.1%

 

 

 

Percent Of Totalb

Of Voting Age

Untaxable

African Americana

19,600

Total

19,600

 

 

 

Number

12.8%

 

 

 

Percent Of Totalb

Of Voting Age

Taxable

Slave

23,895

Total

694

 

 

 

Number

0.5%

 

 

 

Percent Of Totalb

Of Voting Age

Untaxable

The population of African Americans includes Negro and mulatto populations.

Percent total state population.

Voting age was 16. Age derived from the age strata in the source data.

a

b

c

Source: Adapted from “Table Series Z 50-59: Population Censuses Taken in the Colonies and States During the Colonial and Pre-Federal Period: 1624–25 to 1786,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), pp. 1169–1171. Calculations by the authors.

Total Population

Year

Population of Voting Agec

Taxable

Table 3.7  Taxable and Untaxable African American Populations in Maryland, 1704–1755

African American population includes Negro and mulatto populations. A group of 847 African Americans is not broken down by gender.

a

Source: Adapted from “Table Series z 50–59: Population Censuses Taken in the Colonies and States During the Colonial and Pre-Federal Period: 1624–25 to 1786,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census, 1975). pp. 1169–1171. Calculations by the authors.

Total Population

Year

Male

African American Populationa

Table 3.6  “Voting Age” African American Populations in Maryland, 1704–1755



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 59

colonies with census data with the exception of New Jersey. New Jersey allowed Free-Women-of-Color to vote until 1807, so we used the total African American population there as our base. Placing these data in Table 3.8, our resultant estimations have been placed in the last two columns. In making estimations for this time period for these other colonies, one must understand that the extant census data for the slave and free populations are not broken down as in Maryland but combined. Such a limited breakdown forces us to drop the 40% standard found in the Colonial Maryland data and use a 20% standard to determine our estimations for the other colonies. The patterns and trends in both numbers and percentages are very clear. Maryland, a Border State, has the largest number and percentage of potential Free-Men-of-Color voters. New York and New Jersey follow Maryland, particularly through years

prior to 1755 in numbers and percentages of potential voters. Then in the New England area, there is Rhode Island followed by Massachusetts. And given the numbers and percentages, the possible electoral impact and influence of these potential voters would be as “balance-of-power” voters, if concentrated in township and district elections, simply because their numbers are likely too small to affect statewide elections. In close local and district elections these potential voters had a chance for electoral impact and influence.

County-Level Election Data in the Colonial Era In addition to state-level data there are Colonial Era demographic data at the county and township levels. Heretofore, this countyand township-level data have not been used in the study of African American politics and history in the Colonial Era. The

Table 3.8  Estimated African American Electorate by Colony, 1703–1773 African Americana Population Total Population

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Total Population

Year

Non-South    

New Hampshire

1767

52,720

633

1.2%

384

0.7%

77

0.1%

 

1773

73,097

674

0.9%

379

0.5%

76

0.1%

Massachusetts

1764–1765

22,384

4,891

2.2%

2,824

1.3%

565

0.3%

Maine

1764–1765

21,857

344

6.0%

192

0.9%

38

0.2%

Rhode Island

1755

40,536

4,697

11.6%

2,387

5.9%

477

1.2%

New York

1703

20,665

2,258

10.9%

1,174

5.7%

235

1.1%

 

1712–1714

22,608

2,425

10.7%

1,334

5.9%

267

1.2%

 

1723

40,564

6,171

15.2%

3,364

8.3%

673

1.7%

 

1731

50,286

7,231

14.4%

4,334

8.6%

867

1.7%

 

1737

60,437

8,941

14.8%

4,948

8.2%

990

1.6%

 

1746

61,589

9,107

 

4,857

7.9%

971

1.6%

 

1749

73,348

10,592

14.4%

5,696

7.8%

1,139

1.6%

 

1756

96,790

13,548

14.0%

7,570

 

1,514

1.6%

 

1771

163,348

19,874

12.2%

10,623

6.5%

2,125

1.3%

New Jerseyc

1726

32,442

2,581

8.0%

1,435

4.4%

516

1.6%

 

1738

46,676

3,981

8.5%

2,208

4.7%

796

1.7%

 

1745

61,403

4,606

7.5%

2,588

4.2%

921

1.5%

Maryland

1755

153,505

45,312

29.5%

23,746

15.5%

4,749

3.1%

 

d

453

3.0%

 

356e

2.0%

 

   

 

   

 

 

Number

Percent of Total Population

Colony

 

Number

Estimated Electorateb

Region

Border States

Number

Male Population

Source: Adapted from Table 3.4. The methodology for estimating the African American electorate is taken from William Gillette, Right to Vote: Politics and the Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 105, Table, footnote C. Here the calculation is applied to the African American male population instead of the total African American population. Calculations by the authors. Calculations at notes d and e by the editor. a

African American includes Negro and mulatto populations.

b

Estimated African American electorate = 0.2 x African American male population.

c

Estimated African American electorate = 0.2 x African American total population.

d

Estimated African American electorate of Maryland = 0.01 x African American total population.

e

Estimated African American electorate of Maryland = 0.015 x African American total population.

60

Chapter 3

data offer the opportunity to see where in a particular colony the African American population resided, as well as the size and percentage of that population in relationship to the white population. The data provide some empirical data to estimate the potential electoral influence and impact of that population. In addition, the data allow the reader to see the growth and the spread of this population over time during the Colonial Era. Table 3.9 shows the colonial censuses that broke down their demographic data by counties for nine different

colonies from 1624 through 1773, a period of 149 years. New York colony had the largest number of these county-level breakdowns with nine, followed by six in North Carolina, four in Maryland, three in both Rhode Island and New Jersey, two in Massachusetts, and one each in New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Virginia. Together, there are thirty different county-level data points, and of these thirty different countylevel data points, gender information appears in nineteen of them.

Table 3.9  Local-Level Population Censuses and Enumerations of African Americans, 1624–1773

African American

Colony

Year

Locale

Table No.

Total Population

New Hampshire

1773

County

3.14

73,097

Massachusetts

1754

County

3.11

N/A

 

1764

County

3.12

245,698

16a

1708

Town

3.15

7,181

1748–1749

Town

3.16

31,778

 

1755

Town

3.17

40,536

Adult

Connecticut

1756

County

3.13

130,612

 

New York

1703

County

3.25

20,665

1712

County

3.26

22,608

1723

County

3.27

40,564

1731

County

3.28

1737

County

1746

Voting Age

Males

 

379

Females

Population

295

674

1,505

855

2,712

3,016

2,219

5,235

 

 

426

 

2,082

1,277

1,265

2,542

 

 

3,019

16

707

702

1,409

16

900

681

1,581

Adult

2,186

1,810

3,996

50,289

10

2,932

1,853

4,785

3.29

60,437

10

3,551

2,714

6,265

County

3.30

61,589

16

2,893

2,034

4,927

1749

County

3.31

73,309

16

3,317

2,656

5,973

1756

County

3.32

96,790

16

4,290

3,198

7,488

1771

County

3.33

168,007

16

6,220

5,197

11,417

1726

County

3.18

33,442

16

872

630

1,502

1738

County

3.19

47,369

16

1,359

998

2,357

1745

County

3.20

61,403

16 a

2,588

2,018

4,606

1704

County

3.21

34,912

 

 

 

4,475

1710

County

3.22

42,741

 

 

7,945

1712

County

3.23

46,151

 

 

8,408

1755

County

3.24

153,505

16

11,696

8,646

20,342

Virginia

1624–1625

Settlement

3.10

1,232

 

12

11

23

 

1755

County

 

103,328

 

 

 

59,999

North Carolina

1754

County

 

24,861

 

4,275

2,911

7,186

1755

County

 

24,607

 

 

7,018

1756

County

 

25,737

 

 

7,661

1765

County

 

45,912

 

 

12,303

1766

County

 

48,610

 

 

12,923

1767

County

 

51,044

 

 

11,884

Rhode Island

New Jersey

Maryland

 

 

 

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932) and A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 149–185. Calculations by the authors. a

Data source does not stratify the enumerated African Americans by voting age.



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 61

Beyond these different data points, we have data over time from two colonies: New York has nine data points and North Carolina provides six. These two colonies are indeed quite unusual in this manner. But even more unusual is the settlement (before counties) breakdown in Virginia, which shows the growth and movement of America’s original African American population. Collectively, these case studies of county- and townshiplevel demography allow us to supplement the state-level data and see precisely where African Americans had a possible chance to influence electoral outcomes in their communities. And these data show in place after place that in every census taken the male population outnumbered the female population, which is quite important because, except in Virginia and New Jersey, only male voters held the legal right to suffrage.

before their indentured servitude was to be completed—the census of 1624 revealed that they had grown from the original twenty to twenty-three and that they had been dispersed to six of the nineteen settlements. Although ten were still located within the Jamestown area (renamed James City and James City Neck of Land), the next largest concentration of this founding population was in Piersey’s Hund, where some seven of them were living. Moreover, females nearly matched males in number, and overall they constituted about 1% of the total population in Virginia. Finally, these rare demographic data precede the legal change in status of these indentured servants to Free-Men-andWomen-of-Color, allowing their acquisition of property, which would in turn allow them to become “stakeholders” in society and thereby voters.

Virginia

Thirteen years after Jamestown’s founding, the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620 began English settlement in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, there were no censuses until 1754 and 1764. In the initial census, which is shown in Table 3.11 (p. 62),

Table 3.10 lists the specific locations of the twenty African Americans who arrived in the recently established colony of Jamestown in 1619. Five years after they arrived—two years

Massachusetts

Table 3.10  Settlement-Level Demography for Virginia, Census of 1624 African Americans Whites Settlement

Males

Males Females

Number

Females

Percent of Total Population

Number

Percent of Total Population

Total Population

Basses Choyse

16

3

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

19

Chaplain Choice and Truelove’s Co.

13

4

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

17

Charles City Neck of Land

25

19

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

44

Colledge Island

20

2

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

22

Eastern Shore

44

7

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

51

Elizabeth City

198

59

2

0.8%

1

0.4%

260

78

20

1

1.0%

0

0.0%

99

Hog Island

40

13

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

53

James City

122

53

3

1.6%

6

3.3%

184

James City Neck of Land

126

19

1

0.7%

0

0.0%

146

Jordan’s Journey

36

19

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

55

Martin’s Hund

20

7

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

27

Mulbury Island

25

5

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

30

Newportes Newes

20

0

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

20

Pasheayghs

35

8

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

43

Piersey’s Hund

40

9

4

7.1%

3

5.4%

56

The Maine

30

6

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

36

W. and Sherley Hund

44

16

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

60

8

0

1

10.0%

1

10.0%

10

940

269

12

1.0%

11

0.9%

1,232

Elizabeth City beyond Hampton Road

Wariscoyack Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 144. Calculations by the authors.

62

Chapter 3

Table 3.11  County-Level Demography of Slaves in Massachusetts, Census of 1754 African American Slaves Males County

Number

Females

Percent of Total Slave Population

Number

Unspecified Gender

Percent of Total Slave Population

Number

Percent of Total Slave Population

Total Slave Population

Barnstable

36

47.4%

30

39.5%

10

13.2%

76

Bristol

39

32.0%

22

18.0%

61

50.0%

122

Dukes

3

42.9%

4

57.1%

0

0.0%

7

Essex

178

40.5%

122

27.8%

139

31.7%

439

Hamphire

56

75.7%

18

24.3%

0

0.0%

74

Middlesex

210

58.2%

123

34.1%

28

7.8%

361

Nantucket

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

0

Plymouth

63

50.8%

49

39.5%

12

9.7%

124

798

62.6%

424

33.3%

52

4.1%

1,274

Worcester

47

53.4%

22

25.0%

19

21.6%

88

York

75

51.0%

41

27.9%

31

21.1%

147

1,505

55.5%

855

31.5%

352

13.0%

2,712

Suffolk

Totals

Source: Adapted from A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 156–157. Calculations by the authors.

we see the African American slave population broken down by gender. In this colony, the African American slave population includes 55.5% identified as male and 31.5% identified as female (the remaining 13.0% are not identified by gender). This population resided in ten of the eleven counties in the colony. We can infer from this census data where the Free-Men-of-Color who had the right to vote possibly resided. Extant records tell us that Suffolk County had some. As shown by Table 3.12, with the publication of the second census in this colony ten years later, even greater demographic information is provided, showing that the African American population had grown from 2,712 to 4,891 and that the male population still outnumbered the female population. In addition, Suffolk still had the largest population, followed by Middlesex, Essex, and Plymouth. Also, in this census one finds an African American population in every one of the reported eleven counties. Appended to Table 3.12 is the demographic data on the territory of Maine, which at this time was a part of Massachusetts. African Americans made up about 1.6% of Maine’s population, and they were to be found in all three of its counties. Males slightly outnumbered females, and the largest population was in York County. However, the small size of this population suggests that they would have had very limited electoral influence in this period if they, in fact, voted.

Connecticut Connecticut issued its first census in 1756. African Americans composed 2.3% of the total population and were found in all of the six counties. Table 3.13 tells us that two counties, Fairfield and New London, had the largest percentage of African Americans with 3.5%; while the Hartford county percentage of

African Americans matched the state mean. Free-Men-of-Color initially had the legal right to vote in this colony. So some portion of the census population, qualified on the basis of property ownership, had this right.

New Hampshire The other New England colony to produce a census in the Colonial Era was New Hampshire. Their census appeared in 1773 on the eve of the Revolutionary period. As shown in Table 3.14 (p. 64), the African American population in this colony was just less than 1.0%. Of this population, males slightly outnumbered females, and they were located in all of the five counties in the state, with more than half of the total population in Rockingham County. However, they were not large enough overall in population size to have effectuated any kind of influence upon electoral politics.

Rhode Island Finally, there is the colony of Rhode Island, which produced three censuses during the Colonial period, in 1708, 1748, and 1755. Table 3.15 (p. 64), which provides the 1708 demographic data by township rather than by county, is quite similar to other area colonies, like New Hampshire and Connecticut, in that the African American population was less than 6% of the total and was located in all nine of the townships in this colony. Only the townships of Jamestown and Newport had a sizable presence. In Rhode Island, Free-Men-of-Color had the right to vote. Forty years later in the second census, as indicated in Table 3.16 (p. 64), the African American population had grown from 426 to 2,082, and from 5.9% to 6.6% of the total population. As the colony increased in population so did the number of



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 63 Table 3.12  County-Level Demography of Massachusetts, Census of 1764 African American Populationb White Electorate  

Males

a

County Barnstable Berks

Males

Females

2,970

3,250

Number

Females

Percent of Total Population

135

1.1%

Number

Percent of Total Population

96

0.8%

Total Population 12,464

772

676

50

1.5%

38

1.2%

3,250

Bristol

4,333

4,768

165

0.9%

128

0.7%

18,076

Dukes

618

660

25

0.9%

21

0.8%

2,719

Essex

10,727

12,664

624

1.4%

446

1.0%

43,751

Hampshire

4,363

4,407

121

0.7%

73

0.4%

17,245

Middlesex

8,218

9,196

485

1.4%

375

1.1%

33,732

Nantucket

904

882

24

0.7%

20

0.6%

3,526

Plymouth

5,305

6,028

243

1.1%

219

1.0%

22,256

Suffolk

8,054

9,307

814

2.2%

537

1.5%

36,410

Worcester Massachusetts Subtotals

7,488

7,663

138

0.5%

114

0.4%

30,412

53,752

59,501

2,824

1.3%

2,067

0.9%

223,841

Counties of the Maine Territory of Massachusetts, later counties of the separated state of Maine Cumberland Lincoln York Maine Subtotals Totals

1,898

1,718

55

0.7%

40

0.5%

878

847

17

0.5%

7

0.2%

7,474 3,644

2,562

2,839

120

1.1%

105

1.0%

10,739

5,338

5,404

192

0.9%

152

0.7%

21,857

59,090

64,905

3,016

1.2%

2,219

0.9%

245,698

Source: Adapted from A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 158–162. Calculations by the authors. a

Electorate as defined by persons of age 16 years and older.

b

Data source does not stratify enumerated African Americans by voting age.

Table 3.13  County-Level Demography of Connecticut, Census of 1756

Whites

County

Number

African Americans

Number

Percent of Total Population

Total Population

Fairfield

19,849

711

3.5%

20,560

Hartford

35,714

854

2.3%

36,568

Litchfield

11,773

54

0.5%

11,827

New Haven

17,955

226

1.2%

18,181

New London

22,015

829

3.5%

23,461

19,670

345

1.7%

20,015

126,976

3,019

2.3%

130,612

Windham Totals

Source: Adapted from A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), p. 164. Calculations by the authors. a

Total population includes 617 Indians.

townships, moving from nine to twenty four. In 1748, African Americans were located in each and every one of the townships, with the largest number being in South Kingstown and the second largest in Providence. However, the highest percentage (26.2%) resided in Jamestown. In point of fact, the percentage

of African Americans stood above the overall colony population proportion in ten of the twenty-four townships. Clearly, in two townships, Jamestown and South Kingstown, they had enough size to influence township elections. When Rhode Island took its third census seven years later in 1755, shown in Table 3.17 (p. 65), the adult African American population had become larger than the previous reported total, which was undistinguished by age. Adult males outnumbered adult females, and together their percentage of the total adult population was slightly less than in 1748, dropping from 6.6% to 6.3% of the total. The number of townships had grown by one, from twenty-four to twenty-five, and African Americans resided in all of them. There was one exception for females: none lived in the Gloucester township. However, the most discernible change was in the possible electoral impact of African Americans within the townships. Two more townships now had a sizable enough percentage to exert some electoral power, Charlestown and New Shoreham, along with the townships of Jamestown and South Kingstown in the previous census. Overall, the censuses in the New England colonies tell us that the African American populations there were quite small, but that within some of these colonies at the county and township levels there were locations where electoral influence could have been possible. This reality was nearly impossible to see from reviewing only the state-level data.

64

Chapter 3

Table 3.14  County-Level Demography of New Hampshire, Census of 1773 White Population Males Females County Cheshire Grafton Hillsborough Rockingham Strafford Totals

Number 5,018 1,974 6,978 17,273 5,496 36,739

African American Slaves Males

Number 4,466 1,563 6,459 17,968 5,228 35,684

Females

Percent of Total Population 0.1% 0.3% 0.3% 0.7% 0.6% 0.5%

Number 7 9 39 260 64 379

Percent of Total Population 0.0% 0.3% 0.3% 0.6% 0.4% 0.4%

Number 2 11 38 206 38 295

Total Population 9,493 3,557 13,514 35,707 10,826 73,097

Source: Adapted from A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 150–151. Calculations by the authors.

Table 3.15  Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1708 Whites Town Greenwich Jamestown Kingstown New Shoreham Newport Portsmouth Providence Warwick Westerly Totals

Freemen 40 33 200 38 190 98 241 80 95 1,015

Militiaa 65 28 282 47 358 104 283 95 100 1,362

Servants 3 9 0 0 20 8 6 4 5 55

African Americans Percent of Total Servants Population 6 2.5% 32 15.5% 85 7.1% 6 2.9% 220 10.0% 40 6.4% 7 0.5% 10 2.1% 20 3.5% 426 5.9%

Total Population 240 206 1,200 208 2,203 628 1,446 480 570 7,181

Source: Adapted from A Century of Population Growth From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), p. 162. Calculations by the authors. a

All freemen within the colony, from age 16 to 60, were also members of the militia.

Table 3.16  Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1748–1749 Whites

African Americans

Whites

Town

Number

Bristol

928

128

12.0%

1,069

Providence

Charlestown

641

58

5.8%

1,002

Richmond

Coventry

769

16

2.0%

792

Scituate

Cumberland

802

4

0.5%

806

Exeter

1,103

63

5.4%

1,174

Gloucester

1,194

8

0.7%

Greenwich

956

61

Jamestown

284

110

Little Compton

Number

Percent of Total Population

Total Population

Town 

Number 3,177

African Americans Number

Percent of Total Population

225

6.5%

Total Population 3,452

500

5

1.0%

508

1,210

16

1.3%

1,232

Smithfield

400

30

6.7%

450

1,202

South Kingstown

1,405

380

19.2%

1,978

5.8%

1,044

Tiverton

842

99

9.5%

1,040

26.2%

420

Warren

1,004

62

5.4%

1,152

Middletown

586

76

11.2%

680

New Shoreham

260

20

6.7%

300

Newport

5,335

110

2.0%

5,513

North Kingstown

1,665

184

9.5%

1,935

Portsmouth

807

134

13.5%

992

Warwick West Greenwich Westerly Totals

600

50

7.4%

680

1,513

176

9.9%

1,782

757

8

1.0%

766

1,701

59

3.3%

1,809

28,439

2,082

6.6%

31,778

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 66. Calculations by the authors.



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 65 Table 3.17  Town-Level Demography of Rhode Island, Census of 1755 White Electoratea

Males

Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

Male-Only Electorate

Total Electorateb

Total Population

Town

Males

Bristol

210

252

44

17.3%

8.1%

35

6.5%

254

541

1,100

Charlestown

171

187

100

36.9%

17.5%

112

19.6%

271

570

1,130

Coventry

298

232

4

1.3%

0.7%

2

0.4%

302

536

1,178

Cranston

375

354

21

5.3%

2.7%

22

2.8%

396

772

1,460

Cumberland

230

254

4

1.7%

0.8%

2

0.4%

234

490

1,083

East Greenwich

319

238

33

9.4%

5.3%

33

5.3%

352

623

1,167

Exeter

347

236

16

4.4%

2.6%

20

3.2%

363

619

1,404

Gloucester

332

327

4

1.2%

0.6%

0

0.0%

336

663

1,511

Jamestown

Females

African American Electoratea

86

100

42

32.8%

15.6%

41

15.2%

128

269

517

Little Compton

244

342

28

10.3%

4.3%

43

6.5%

272

657

1,272

Middletown

153

206

29

15.9%

7.0%

26

6.3%

182

414

778

83

77

29

25.9%

12.6%

41

17.8%

112

230

378

New Shoreham Newport

1,696

1,633

400

19.1%

9.8%

341

8.4%

2,096

4,070

6,753

North Kingstown

544

465

70

11.4%

6.0%

87

7.5%

614

1,166

2,109

Portsmouth

243

228

51

17.3%

8.8%

60

10.3%

294

582

1,363

Providence

747

741

72

8.8%

4.4%

75

4.6%

819

1,635

3,159

Richmond

199

195

9

4.3%

2.2%

5

1.2%

208

408

829

Scituate

392

403

4

1.0%

0.5%

4

0.5%

396

803

1,813

Smithfield

448

454

16

3.4%

1.7%

17

1.8%

464

935

1,921

South Kingstown

366

321

137

27.2%

14.7%

109

11.7%

503

933

1,913

Tivertown

277

217

44

13.7%

7.3%

67

11.1%

321

605

1,325

Warren

193

217

26

11.9%

5.7%

23

5.0%

219

459

925

Warwick

426

422

48

10.1%

5.0%

62

6.5%

474

958

1,911

West Greenwich

275

292

12

4.2%

2.0%

10

1.7%

287

589

1,246

Westerly

523

551

34

6.1%

3.0%

28

2.5%

557

1,136

2,291

9,177

8,944

1,277

12.2%

6.2%

1,265

6.1%

10,454

20,663

40,536

Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 67. Calculations by the authors. a

Electorate is defined as the segment in the data source consisting of “adult” persons.

b

The total electorate is the sum of “adult” persons among white and African American populations.

New Jersey New Jersey, which permitted both Free-Men-and-Women-ofColor to vote, conducted three censuses: in 1726, 1738, and 1745. As shown in Table 3.18 (p. 66), in 1726 the African American population sixteen years of age or older was 4.5% of the colony’s total population and had a presence in all ten counties, with males outnumbering females. Though this presence exceeded the average proportion for the colony in only three counties, seemingly only in one county, Bergen, could African Americans have had some electoral influence.

By the time of the second census in 1738, as shown in Table 3.19 (p. 66), the African American population had grown from 1,502 to 2,357 for an increase of 855 individuals. Moreover, the adult African American population as a percentage of total state population increased slightly from 4.5% to 5.0%. Along with this increase males still outnumbered females, while this population was distributed among all ten counties. As for potential electoral influence, Bergen County again seems to have offered the best chance, with Somerset County as a close second. Elsewhere in the colony, the demographic data suggest no other substantial potential.

66

Chapter 3

Table 3.18  County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1726 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males

Percent of Total Electorate

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

509

173

12.6%

121

8.8%

1,372

2,673

1,080

983

86

3.9%

63

2.8%

2,212

4,129

209

156

8

2.1%

5

1.3%

378

668

Essex

992

1,021

92

4.2%

78

3.6%

2,183

4,230

Gloucester

608

462

32

2.8%

21

1.9%

1,123

3,229

Hunterdon

892

743

43

2.5%

45

2.6%

1,723

3,377

County

Males

Bergen

569

Burlington Cape May

Females

Total Electorateb

Total Population

Middlesex

953

878

90

4.5%

73

3.7%

1,994

4,009

Monmouth

1,234

1,061

170

6.7%

90

3.5%

2,555

4,879

Salem

1,060

861

52

2.6%

38

1.9%

2,011

3,977

582

502

126

9.6%

96

7.4%

1,306

2,271

8,179

7,176

872

5.2%

630

3.7%

16,857

33,442

Somerset Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 109. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons 16 years of age and older.

b

The total electorate consists of the white and African American electorates, each of persons 16 years of age and older.

Table 3.19  County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1738 White Electoratea County Bergen Burlington Cape May

Males

Females

African American Electoratea Males

Percent of Total Electorate

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

Total Electorateb

Total Population

939

822

256

11.5%

203

9.1%

2,220

4,095

1,487

1,222

134

4.6%

87

3.0%

2,930

5,238

261

219

12

2.4%

10

2.0%

502

1,004

1,118

1,720

114

3.7%

114

3.7%

3,066

7,019

Gloucester

930

757

42

2.4%

24

1.4%

1,753

3,267

Hunterdon

1,618

1,230

75

2.5%

53

1.8%

2,976

5,507

Middlesex

1,134

1,085

181

7.2%

124

4.9%

2,524

4,764

Monmouth

1,508

1,339

233

7.2%

152

4.7%

3,232

6,086

Salem

1,669

1,391

57

1.8%

56

1.8%

3,173

5,884

967

940

255

10.9%

175

7.5%

2,337

4,505

11,631

10,725

1,359

5.5%

998

4.0%

24,713

47,369

Essex

Somerset Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 110. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons 16 years of age and older.

b

Total electorate = white electorate + African American electorate.

In 1745, seven years after the second census, the colony produced its third census of the Colonial Era. Table 3.20 indicates further growth in the African American population, rising from 2,357 to 4,606 for an increase of 2,249, almost doubling over the previous census. This increase was accompanied by a rise in the percentage of total population

from 5.0% to 7.5%. Once again, males outnumbered females, but both could potentially vote in this colony. Note that unlike in previous censuses the census of 1745 did not stratify the African American population by age. The place with the most electoral influence for African Americans was, once again, Bergen County, followed by possibly Middlesex, Somerset, and Monmouth for



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 67 Table 3.20  County-Level Demography of New Jersey, Census of 1745 White Electoratea

African American Populationb

  County

Males

Females

Males

Bergen

721

590

379

12.6%

237

7.9%

3,006

Burlington

1,786

1,605

233

3.4%

197

2.9%

6,803

Cape May

306

272

30

2.5%

22

1.9%

1,188

1,694

1,649

244

3.5%

201

2.9%

6,988

Essex

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Total Population

Females

  Total Population

Gloucester

913

797

121

3.5%

81

2.3%

3,506

Hunterdon

2,302

2,117

244

2.7%

216

2.4%

9,151

Middlesex

1,728

1,659

483

6.3%

396

5.2%

7,612

Monmouth

2,071

1,783

513

5.9%

386

4.5%

8,627

Morris

1,109

957

57

1.3%

36

0.8%

4,436

Salem

1,716

1,603

90

1.3%

97

1.4%

6,847

740

672

194

6.0%

149

4.6%

3,239

15,086

13,704

2,588

4.2%

2,018

3.3%

61,403

Somerset Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 111. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons of age 16 years and older.

b

The data source does not stratify enumerated African Americans by age.

contests involving several seekers for the same office. Thus, over three different time periods it appears that the electoral influence of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color in New Jersey was slowly growing.

Table 3.21  County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1704 White Electoratea

Maryland Maryland conducted four different colonial censuses, in 1704, 1710, 1712, and 1755. Starting with the 1704 census, as shown in Table 3.21, slaves composed 12.8% of total population and they resided in all eleven counties of the colony. Four of the eleven counties had higher percentages of African Americans than the colony mean; in Calvert County, African Americans exceeded a quarter of its total population. Six years later, in 1710, as shown in Table 3.22 (p. 68), the African American population had grown from 12.8% to 18.6% of the colony total. African Americans also had a greater presence in Prince George’s County, at 32.5% of the county population, followed by Anne Arundel with 32.0%, Calvert with 29.0%, and Charles with 18.6%. These four of the twelve Maryland counties had proportions of African American residents equal to or higher than the colony as a whole. This expansion of the African American population continued on to the next census, which occurred two years later in 1712. Table 3.23 (p. 68) indicates that the total population of African Americans rose from 7,945 to 8,408, for an additional 463 individuals in two years, but that the African American percentage of the total population actually decreased, from 18.6% to 18.2%, indicating that the white population was also growing rapidly. By 1712 the proportion of African Americans in Calvert

County

Masters

Free Men

Slavesb

Percent   Free of Total Total Women Number Population Population

Anne Arundel

765

503

1,058

672

14.7%

4,561

Baltimore

364

235

418

204

10.6%

1,927

Calvert

309

619

560

938

26.0%

3,611

Cecil

407

430

489

198

8.5%

2,335

Charles

408

390

485

578

19.3%

2,989

Dorchester

305

418

512

199

8.6%

2,312

Kent

264

393

413

159

8.4%

1,891

Prince George’s

416

464

530

436

14.0%

3,104

Somerset

804

642

1,167

305

6.9%

4,437

St. Mary’s

418

938

617

326

9.3%

3,515

Talbot

712

822

914

460

10.9%

4,230

Totals

5,172

5,854

7,163

4,475

12.8%

34,912

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 128. Calculations by the authors. The electorate is described by the data source as consisting of masters and “free” men and women. a

The data source does not stratify the enumerated slave population by race or gender. b

68

Chapter 3

Table 3.22  County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1710 White Electoratea

County Anne Arundel

Masters and Taxable Men

Women

Table 3.23  County-Level Demography of Maryland, Census of 1712

African Americansb

Number

Percent of Total Population

White Electoratea   Total Population

  County

Masters and Taxable Men

African Americansb

Women

Number

Percent of Total Population

  Total Population

1,559

31.2%

5,003

1,014

793

1,528

32.0%

4,778

Anne Arundel

985

885

Baltimore

733

558

438

15.5%

2,827

Baltimore

785

572

452

15.5%

2,923

Calvert

708

560

934

29.0%

3,216

Calvert

644

597

1,179

33.7%

3,500

Cecil

497

406

197

10.1%

1,956

Cecil

504

435

285

13.6%

2,097

Charles

951

641

638

18.6%

3,429

Charles

993

783

724

18.1%

4,007

Dorchester

499

430

343

15.7%

2,181

Dorchester

759

747

387

11.1%

3,475

Kent

974

753

479

17.4%

2,753

Kent

830

575

485

16.8%

2,886

Prince George’s

845

637

1,297

32.5%

3,994

Prince George’s

790

600

1,202

31.7%

3,790

Queen Anne’s

808

644

374

12.2%

3,067

Queen Anne’s

1,011

843

550

14.3%

3,850

Somerset

1,871

1,194

579

9.2%

6,314

Somerset

1,616

1,368

581

9.1%

6,352

St. Mary’s

1,088

827

668

16.2%

4,121

St. Mary’s

998

812

512

12.5%

4,090

Talbot

1,103

851

470

11.4%

4,105

Talbot

1,114

864

492

11.8%

4,178

Totals

11,091

8,294

7,945

18.6%

42,741

Totals

11,029

9,081

8,408

18.2%

46,151

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 128–129. Calculations by the authors.

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 129. Calculations by the authors.

a

The electorate is defined as the population excluding children.

a

The electorate is defined as the population excluding children.

b

The data source does not stratify enumerated African Americans by age.

b

The data source does not stratify enumerated African Americans by age.

(33.7%), Prince George’s (31.7%), and Anne Arundel (31.2%) counties far exceeded that of the other counties; in this census only these three counties had a higher percentage of African Americans than the colony as a whole. The final Maryland census in the Colonial Era appeared in 1755 and is shown in Table 3.24. This census broke down the African American population by gender to reveal another instance of males outnumbering females. This adult population is distinguished as taxable, including both free African Americans and slaves, and in number is more than twice that reported for all African American adults in the previous census forty-three years earlier. Note that, besides their average distribution for all counties, African American male slaves ranged from a high of 11.4% of a total county population to a low 3.2% of another. Of those counties at the high end, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s County had 11.4% and 11.3%, respectively; Calvert and Charles counties had 9.6% and 9.5%, respectively; and Talbot had 8.4%. Thus, slave African American males composed a significant portion of the population in five of the fourteen Maryland counties, while the free African American population was quite small in all counties.

New York New York, in the Middle Atlantic region, conducted nine censuses from 1703 to 1771. It gave to Free-Men-of-Color the legal right to suffrage, and the historical record includes

evidence that qualified Free-Men-of-Color did vote in state and county elections.15 Figure 3.6 visually presents the percentages of the total African American population at each census along with the component percentages of males and females. In this colony the total African American population peaked in 1737 but then began a steady decline, ending up very close to the level in the initial census of 1703. These fluctuations in the total African American population are repeated at the gender levels. However, there is one consistency: except in 1703, males always outnumbered females. The New York counties with the largest African American populations included New York, Kings, Richmond, and Queens, and, occasionally, Ulster. Falling just below the levels in these counties was Albany, where African Americans made up about 10% of the population for eight of the nine censuses (Albany was not listed in the census for 1746). In each of these counties, Free-Men-of-Color composed a large enough proportion of the population to have possibly influenced electoral contests at the local and county levels. Tables 3.25 through 3.33 (pp. 70–74) show that in the Colonial period, the colony of New York conducted some nine censuses. When these nine censuses are combined, the mean number of counties in the colony stood at 9.9, ranging from nine counties at the time of the 1703 census to a high of twelve counties at the census of 1771. And in these counties over these nine censuses we found that the population range for the



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 69 Table 3.24  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1712 Free African Americans White Men

County

Men

Percent of Total Population

African American Slaves

Women

Percent of Total Population

Men

Percent of Total Population

Women

Percent of Total Population

  Taxable Populationa

  Total Population

Anne Arundel

2,156

24

0.2%

26

0.2%

1,497

11.4%

1,071

8.1%

4,774

13,150

Baltimore

3,697

38

0.2%

23

0.1%

1,169

6.8%

849

4.9%

5,776

17,238

733

24

0.4%

9

0.2%

550

9.6%

523

9.2%

1,839

5,715

Calvert Cecil

1,782

2

0.0%

14

0.2%

406

5.3%

302

3.9%

2,506

7,731

Charles

2,307

63

0.5%

37

0.3%

1,244

9.5%

983

7.5%

4,634

13,056

Dorset

2,129

16

0.1%

10

0.1%

633

5.4%

536

4.6%

3,324

11,753

Frederick

3,085

68

0.5%

30

0.2%

447

3.2%

338

2.4%

3,968

13,969

Kent

1,901

18

0.2%

18

0.2%

698

7.4%

532

5.6%

3,167

9,443

Prince George’s

1,843

20

0.2%

24

0.2%

1,315

11.3%

194

1.7%

3,396

11,616

Queen Anne’s

2,316

26

0.2%

29

0.3%

676

6.0%

604

5.4%

3,651

11,240

Somerset

1,380

27

0.3%

19

0.2%

652

7.5%

586

6.7%

2,664

8,682

St. Mary’s

1,784

32

0.3%

22

0.2%

860

7.6%

788

7.0%

3,486

11,254

Talbot

1,542

36

0.4%

21

0.2%

719

8.4%

658

7.7%

2,976

8,533

Worcester

1,814

32

0.3%

34

0.3%

404

4.0%

366

3.6%

2,650

10,125

28,469

426

0.3%

316

0.2%

11,270

7.3%

8,330

5.4%

48,811

153,505

Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 125–126. Calculations by the authors. a

The taxable population includes persons of age 16 years and older. Taxable population = white men + free African American men and women + African American slave men and women.

Figure 3.6  African Americans as Percentage of Total Population in New York, 1703–1773

Percent of Total Population

12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0%

1703

1712

1723

1731 1737 1746 Census Year

All African Americans African American women

1749

1756

1771

African American men

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 95–103 and 181. Note: All populations consist of persons of age 16 years or older, except in the years 1723 (“adult”), 1731 (10 years or older), and 1737 (10 years or older).

male African American voters ran from a high of 10.0% in 1723 to a low of 6.8% in 1771. The mean percentage level during these nine censuses is 8.5% while the median is 8.6%. New York was one of few colonies in this period to undertake censuses of its African American populations by age and gender, and in ways comparable to the same stratifications of its white populations. The tables of the New York census series show numbers of African American men and women that reveal their shares of “voting-age electorates” and electorates based exclusively on male membership. Figures 3.7 and 3.8 (p. 74) summarize these electoral statistics, showing that African American men and women of voting age reached their largest proportion of the populations that included similarly aged white men and women in the census of 1723. This zenith of proportions among the censuses is observed in the same year for African American men with their share of the maleonly electorate that includes white men. Of course, the actual electorates of the time were restricted to property-owning adult white males that excluded not only African Americans—men and women—but white women as well.

North Carolina estimated Free-Men-of-Color voters ran from a low of 707 voters in 1703 to a high of 6,220 voters in the last colony census in 1771. The mean is 3,000 Free-Men-of-Color voters and the median is 2,932 such voters. Finally, at the percentage level the range of

Finally, North Carolina is the one southern state besides Virginia where some demographic census data were kept and are available in the historical record. North Carolina provides six different data points, from the year 1754 to 1767. As in New York, North

70

Chapter 3

Table 3.25  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1703 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males

County

Males

Albany

510

Kings New York

Females

Percent of MaleOnly Electorate

Number

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Number

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

MaleOnly Electorate

53

5.1%

2.3%

593

Total Electorate

Total Population

1,031

2,273

385

83

14.0%

8.1%

3.7%

345

304

135

28.1%

15.7%

7.1%

75

8.7%

3.9%

480

859

1,912

813

1,009

102

11.1%

4.6%

2.3%

288

13.0%

6.6%

915

2,212

4,375

Orange

49

40

13

21.0%

11.9%

4.9%

7

6.4%

2.6%

62

109

268

Queens

952

753

117

10.9%

6.0%

2.7%

114

5.9%

2.6%

1,069

1,936

4,392

Richmond

176

140

60

25.4%

14.7%

11.9%

32

7.8%

6.3%

236

408

504

Suffolk

787

756

60

7.1%

3.6%

1.8%

52

3.1%

1.6%

847

1,655

3,346

Ulster

383

305

63

14.1%

8.0%

3.8%

36

4.6%

2.2%

446

787

1,649

Westchester Totals

472

469

74

13.6%

7.0%

3.8%

45

4.2%

2.3%

546

1,060

1,946

4,487

4,161

707

13.6%

7.0%

3.4%

702

7.0%

3.4%

5,194

10,057

20,665

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 95. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons of age 16 to 60 years.

Table 3.26  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1712 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males

  County

  Males

Albany

688 89

Dutchess Kingsb

Females

Number

Percent of Male-Only Electorate

676

155

18.4%

9.4%

4.7%

122

7.4%

3.7%

843

1,641

97

12

11.9%

5.9%

2.7%

7

3.4%

1.6%

101

205

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

 

New York Orange Richmond

b

Number

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

    MaleOnly Electorate

 

  Total Electorate

 

Total Population 3,329 445 1,925

1,062

1,268

321

23.2%

10.8%

5.5%

320

10.8%

5.5%

1,383

2,971

5,841

98

91

21

17.6%

9.5%

4.8%

12

5.4%

2.7%

119

222

438

 

 

 

1,279

Suffolk

929

926

116

11.1%

5.7%

2.6%

70

3.4%

1.6%

1,045

2,041

4,413

Ulster

424

406

148

25.9%

14.0%

7.0%

78

7.4%

3.7%

572

1,056

2,120

560

539

127

18.5%

9.8%

4.5%

72

5.5%

2.6%

687

1,298

2,818

3,850

4,003

900

18.9%

9.5%

4.0%

681

9.5%

3.0%

4,750

9,434

22,608

Westchester Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 95. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons of age 16 to 60 years.

b

The source provides no data for the electorates of Kings and Richmond counties.



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 71 Table 3.27  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1723 White Electoratea 

African American Electoratea Males Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

  Total Electorate

    Total Population

Males

Females

Albany

1,512

1,408

307

16.9%

9.0%

4.7%

200

5.8%

3.1%

1,819

3,427

6,501

276

237

22

7.4%

4.0%

2.0%

14

2.6%

1.3%

298

549

1,083

Kings

Number

Percent of Total Electorate

County Dutchess

Number

Percent of Total Population

    MaleOnly Electorate

Females

490

476

171

25.9%

13.6%

7.7%

123

9.8%

5.5%

661

1,260

2,218

1,460

1,726

408

21.8%

10.0%

5.6%

476

11.7%

6.6%

1,868

4,070

7,248

Orange

309

245

45

12.7%

7.2%

3.6%

29

4.6%

2.3%

354

628

1,244

Queens

1,568

1,599

393

20.0%

10.2%

5.5%

294

7.6%

4.1%

1,961

3,854

7,191

335

320

101

23.2%

12.3%

6.7%

63

7.7%

4.2%

436

819

1,506

1,441

1,348

357

19.9%

10.2%

5.7%

367

10.4%

5.9%

1,798

3,513

6,241

642

453

227

26.1%

15.7%

7.8%

126

8.7%

4.3%

869

1,448

2,923

Westchester

1,050

951

155

12.9%

6.8%

3.5%

118

5.2%

2.7%

1,205

2,274

4,409

Totals

9,083

8,763

2,186

19.4%

10.0%

5.4%

1,810

10.0%

4.5%

11,269

21,842

40,564

New York

Richmond Suffolk Ulster

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 96. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as “adult” persons, i.e., men and women.

Table 3.28  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1731 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Total Population

  Total Electorate

    Total Population

Males

Females

Albany

1,212

1,255

568

18.6%

12.7%

6.6%

185

4.1%

2.2%

3,049

4,489

8,573

298

481

59

9.4%

5.2%

3.4%

32

2.8%

1.9%

629

1,142

1,727

268

518

205

24.6%

13.7%

9.5%

146

9.7%

6.8%

834

1,498

2,150

1,024

2,250

599

18.6%

9.8%

6.9%

607

10.0%

7.0%

3,227

6,084

8,622

Kings New York

Number

Percent of Total Electorate

    MaleOnly Electorate

County Dutchess

Number

Females

Orange

299

534

85

11.9%

6.6%

4.3%

47

3.6%

2.4%

712

1,293

1,969

Queens

1,139

2,175

476

17.5%

9.1%

6.0%

363

6.9%

4.5%

2,715

5,253

7,995

Richmond

256

571

111

20.8%

9.2%

6.1%

98

8.1%

5.4%

534

1,203

1,817

Suffolk

955

1,130

239

10.0%

6.6%

3.1%

83

2.3%

1.1%

2,383

3,596

7,675

Ulster

515

914

321

24.5%

13.3%

8.6%

196

8.1%

5.3%

1,311

2,421

3,728

Westchester Totals

707

1,701

269

12.5%

6.8%

4.5%

96

2.4%

1.6%

2,148

3,945

6,033

14,610

11,529

2,932

16.7%

9.5%

5.8%

1,853

6.0%

3.7%

17,542

30,924

50,289

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 97. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons over 10 years of age.

72

Chapter 3

Table 3.29  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1737 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males

  County

  Males

Females

Albany

Number

Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

    MaleOnly Electorate

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Number

  Total Electorate

    Total Population

1,384

2,995

714

18.2%

9.6%

6.7%

496

6.7%

4.6%

3,923

7,414

10,681

Dutchess

646

860

161

14.6%

8.0%

4.7%

42

2.1%

1.2%

1,101

2,003

3,418

Kings

264

631

210

24.3%

12.6%

8.9%

169

10.2%

7.2%

864

1,664

2,348

New York

1,036

3,568

674

17.2%

8.3%

6.3%

609

7.5%

5.7%

3,927

8,104

10,664

Orange

433

753

125

12.7%

6.8%

4.4%

95

5.2%

3.3%

985

1,833

2,840

Queens

1,656

2,290

460

16.0%

8.3%

5.1%

370

6.7%

4.1%

2,867

5,527

9,059

266

497

132

21.3%

10.7%

7.0%

112

9.1%

5.9%

620

1,229

1,889

1,008

2,353

393

14.6%

7.3%

5.0%

307

5.7%

3.9%

2,690

5,350

7,923

Ulster

601

1,681

378

24.3%

10.8%

7.8%

260

7.4%

5.3%

1,553

3,494

4,870

Westchester

944

1,890

304

12.6%

6.7%

4.5%

254

5.6%

3.8%

2,414

4,558

6,745

17,393

17,518

3,551

17.0%

8.6%

5.9%

2,714

6.6%

4.5%

20,944

41,176

60,437

Richmond Suffolk

Totals

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 98. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as persons over 10 years of age.

Table 3.30  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1746 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Females

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

  County

  Males

Females

Dutchess

2,256

1,750

186

7.6%

4.3%

2.1%

100

2.3%

1.1%

506

464

199

28.2%

15.1%

8.5%

152

11.5%

2,246

2,897

721

24.3%

11.2%

6.2%

569

8.8%

Kings New York

Number

Number

    MaleOnly Electorate

  Total Electorate

    Total Population

2,442

4,292

8,806

6.5%

705

1,321

2,331

4.9%

2,967

6,433

11,717

Orange

830

721

133

13.8%

7.7%

4.1%

44

2.5%

1.3%

963

1,728

3,268

Queens

2,059

1,914

527

20.4%

10.8%

5.5%

361

7.4%

3.7%

2,586

4,861

9,640

411

414

101

19.7%

9.9%

4.9%

94

9.2%

4.5%

512

1,020

2,073

Suffolk

2,061

2,016

445

17.8%

9.2%

4.8%

310

6.4%

3.3%

2,506

4,832

9,254

Ulster

1,160

1,000

374

24.4%

13.4%

7.1%

264

9.4%

5.0%

1,534

2,798

5,265

Richmond

Westchester Totals

2,393

1,640

207

7.6%

4.3%

2.1%

140

2.3%

1.1%

2,600

4,380

9,235

13,922

12,816

2,893

17.2%

9.1%

4.7%

2,034

6.4%

3.3%

16,815

31,665

61,589

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 99. Calculations by the authors. a

Electorate defined as “women” of unspecified age and males aged 16 years and older.

Carolina gave Free-Men-of-Color the legal right to suffrage, and the historical record includes evidence that qualified Free-Menof-Color did vote in state and county elections.16 Figure 3.9 (p. 75) shows that African Americans accounted for more than a quarter of the colony’s population for most of the period. This proportion peaked in 1756 and then declined by about 6% over the next eleven years.

Tables 3.34 through 3.39 (pp. 75–77) reveal what the six colonial censuses conducted in North Carolina show about African Americans in actual numbers and percentages in each of the counties in the state. Taxable African American males had the right to vote in North Carolina. In New Hanover County the censuses record that throughout the period the taxable African American population made up 75% or more of all taxable



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 73 Table 3.31  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1749 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males

Females

Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

    MaleOnly Electorate

  Total Electorate

    Total Population

  County

  Males

Females

Albany

2,681

2,087

472

15.0%

8.4%

4.4%

365

6.5%

3.4%

3,153

5,605

10,634

Dutchess

1,980

1,751

176

8.2%

4.4%

2.2%

79

2.0%

1.0%

2,156

3,986

7,882

499

391

265

34.7%

20.3%

11.6%

149

11.4%

6.5%

764

1,304

2,283

2,939

3,268

651

18.1%

8.6%

4.9%

701

9.3%

5.3%

3,590

7,559

13,285

Kings New York

Number

Number

Orange

922

899

111

10.7%

5.5%

2.6%

103

5.1%

2.4%

1,033

2,035

4,234

Queens

1,659

1,778

429

20.5%

10.2%

5.4%

349

8.3%

4.4%

2,088

4,215

7,940

456

434

130

22.2%

11.6%

6.0%

98

8.8%

4.5%

586

1,118

2,154

Suffolk

2,111

1,969

396

15.8%

8.3%

4.2%

293

6.1%

3.1%

2,507

4,769

9,384

Ulster

1,102

979

351

24.2%

13.1%

7.3%

240

9.0%

5.0%

1,453

2,672

4,810

Richmond

Westchester Totals

2,540

2,233

336

11.7%

6.2%

3.1%

279

5.2%

2.6%

2,876

5,388

10,703

16,889

15,789

3,317

16.4%

8.6%

4.5%

2,656

6.9%

3.6%

20,206

38,651

73,309

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 100. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as “women” of unspecified age and males of age 16 years and older.

Table 3.32  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1756 White Electoratea 

African American Electoratea Males

Percent of Total Population

    MaleOnly Electorate

  Total Electorate

    Total Population

Females

Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Total Electorate

  County

Males

Females

Albany

4,251

3,846

862

16.9%

9.0%

4.9%

603

6.3%

3.5%

5,113

9,562

17,424

Dutchess

3,076

2,782

323

9.5%

5.1%

2.3%

162

2.6%

1.1%

3,399

6,343

14,157

551

536

235

29.9%

15.5%

8.7%

197

13.0%

7.3%

786

1,519

2,707

New York

2,482

3,667

672

21.3%

8.9%

5.2%

695

9.2%

5.3%

3,154

7,516

13,046

Orange

1,162

998

140

10.8%

5.8%

2.9%

94

3.9%

1.9%

1,302

2,394

4,886

Queens

2,400

2,365

618

20.5%

10.6%

5.7%

470

8.0%

4.4%

3,018

5,853

10,786

518

471

122

19.1%

10.1%

5.7%

101

8.3%

4.7%

640

1,212

2,132

Suffolk

2,362

2,335

337

12.5%

6.4%

3.3%

236

4.5%

2.3%

2,699

5,270

10,290

Ulster

1,843

1,618

486

20.9%

11.3%

6.0%

360

8.4%

4.4%

2,329

4,307

8,105

Westchester

3,947

2,379

495

11.1%

7.0%

3.7%

280

3.9%

2.1%

4,442

7,101

13,257

22,592

20,997

4,290

16.0%

8.4%

4.4%

3,198

6.3%

3.3%

26,882

51,077

96,790

Kings

Richmond

Totals

Number

Number

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 101. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as “women” of unspecified age and males aged 16 years and older.

persons. In Bladen County, African Americans made up nearly half of the taxable population. Thus, we will infer from this data, since property qualifications were necessary to vote and taxes were levied on property, that there is the possibility that FreeMen-of-Color in these two counties voted. Surprisingly, the initial colonial census of 1754 provides a gender breakdown, while the other five censuses in 1755, 1756, 1765, 1766, and 1767 do not. These five latter censuses combined

both male and female African Americans into the same taxable group. Hence, we calculated the black male percentage in the first census at 59% and used that figure to estimate both the number and percentage of African American males in each of the other census years. Summarizing the data in these six tables, the number of counties in colonial North Carolina ranged from a low of twentytwo in the 1754 census to a high of twenty-nine in the 1767 one.

74

Chapter 3

Table 3.33  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1771 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea Males

Females

County

Males

Females

Number

Percent of Male-Only Electorate

Albany

10,958

9,045

1,350

11.0%

6.0%

3.2%

980

4.4%

2.3%

12,308

22,333

42,706

Cumberland

1,061

862

7

0.7%

0.4%

0.2%

2

0.1%

0.1%

1,068

1,932

3,947

Dutchess

5,071

4,839

451

8.2%

4.2%

2.0%

328

3.1%

1.5%

5,522

10,689

22,404

193

151

4

2.0%

1.1%

0.6%

0

0.0%

0.0%

197

348

722

Gloucester Kings

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

Number

Percent of Total Electorate

Percent of Total Population

MaleOnly Electorate

Total Electorate

Total Population

720

680

309

30.0%

15.4%

8.5%

295

14.7%

8.1%

1,029

2,004

3,623

New York

5,363

5,864

932

14.8%

7.0%

4.3%

1,085

8.2%

5.0%

6,295

13,244

21,863

Orange

2,464

2,124

206

7.7%

4.1%

2.0%

174

3.5%

1.7%

2,670

4,968

10,092

Queens

3,033

2,332

782

20.5%

11.7%

7.1%

534

8.0%

4.9%

3,815

6,681

10,980

534

595

174

24.6%

12.1%

6.1%

137

9.5%

4.8%

708

1,440

2,847

Suffolk

3,181

3,106

448

12.3%

6.3%

3.4%

334

4.7%

2.5%

3,629

7,069

13,128

Ulster

3,285

3,275

573

14.9%

7.6%

4.1%

441

5.8%

3.2%

3,858

7,574

13,950

Richmond

Westchester Totals

5,753

5,266

984

14.6%

7.6%

4.5%

887

6.9%

4.1%

6,737

12,890

21,745

41,616

38,139

6,220

13.0%

6.8%

3.7%

5,197

5.7%

3.1%

47,836

91,172

168,007

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 102–103. Calculations by the authors. a

The electorate is defined as “women” of unspecified age and males aged 16 years and older.

20% 18% 16% 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0%

Figure 3.8  African American Men as Percentage of Male Electorate in New York, 1703–1773 25% Percent of Male Electorate

Percent of Total Electorate

Figure 3.7  African Americans as Percentage of Total Electorate in New York, 1703–1773

1703

1712

1723

1731

1737

1746

1749

1756

1771

Census Year All African Americans African American women

20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 1703

1712

1723

1731

1737

1746

1749

1756

1771

Census Year African American men

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 95–103 and 181. Note: All populations consist of persons of age 16 years or older, except in the years 1723 (“adult”), 1731 (10 years or older), and 1737 (10 years or older).

The mean number of counties is 25.3 while the median is 25.5 counties. According to our 59% estimate, the number of taxable African American males—potential voters—ranged from a high of 7,625 in the 1766 census to a low of 4,141 in the 1755 census. The mean for these six censuses stands at 5,805 and the median is 5,766. In terms of percentage of the taxable population in the

African American men Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 95–103 and 181. Note: All populations consist of persons of age 16 years or older, except in the years 1723 (“adult”), 1731 (10 years or older), and 1737 (10 years or older).

colony, African American males ranged from a high of 17.8% in the 1766 colonial census to a low of 11.3% in the 1767 census. The mean percentage is 15.4% while the median is 15.7%. Thus, our estimated data tell us that Free-Men-of-Color had the qualification to vote in some respectable numbers in local and county elections in colonial North Carolina.



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 75 Taxablea African Americans

Figure 3.9  African American Share of Taxable Population in North Carolina, 1754 –1773

Males

Percent of Taxable Population

35% County

30% 25% 20% 15%

500

100

(additions to Beaufort and Anson)

120

40

12,493

4,275

a

1754

1755

1756

1765

1766

1767

Census Year

Males

Taxable Whites

60

6.9%

870

Beaufort

771

567

41.0%

1,383

346

50.6%

 

Bladen

338  

400

Chowanc

 

1,481

Craven Cumberland

40

4.6%

20

2.3%

870

267

20.4%

218

16.7%

1,306

Currituck

1,220

289

16.9%

200

11.7%

1,709

Duplin

 

 

 

870

468

 

 

33.0%

120

17.5%

    28.4%

308

18.7%

 

989 d

637

226

684

Carteret

810

 

1,876

c

Beaufort

338

Taxable Populationb

810

Bertie

Females

Number

Percenta of Taxable Population

Anson

Anson

Cumberland

24,861

Taxable African Americans

Taxablea Percent Percent White of Taxable of Taxable Taxableb Males Number Population Number Population Population

Craven

11.7%

Table 3.35  County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1755

Taxablea African Americans

Chowan

2,911

These are the taxable populations indicated by the source and not intended as calculated totals.

c

c

17.2%

0

The source does not break down the taxable population data for this county.

Table 3.34  County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1754

Carteretc

690

c

County

Bladen

13.0%

24

The taxable populations included persons of age 16 years and older.

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 162–167.

Bertie

90

b

Taxable African Americans

County

14.5%

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 162. Calculations by the authors.

5% 0%

Tyrrel

Totals

10%

Females

Taxablea Percent Percent White of Taxable of Taxable Taxableb Males Number Population Number Population Population

934

48.6%

1,923

474

150

24.2%

620

 

 

460

168

26.8%

628

684

Edgecom

1,611

924

36.4%

2,535

400

Granville

779

426

35.4%

1,205

1,481

Hyde

237

183

43.6%

1,646

Johnstonc

 

420 1,425

850

New Hanover

362

1,374

79.1%

1,736

Currituck

470

80

12.7%

70

11.1%

629

Northampton

902

834

48.0%

1,736

Duplin

560

105

16.7%

63

10.0%

628

Onslow

448

247

35.5%

695

1,611

508

20.0%

416

16.4%

2,535

Orange

950

50

5.0%

1,000

1,205

Pasquotank

563

366

39.4%

929

420

Perquimans

Edgecombe Granville

779

Hyde

237

261 100

21.7%

165

23.8%

83

13.7% 19.8%

c

 

1,176

 

 

1,425

Rowan

1,116

54

4.7%

1,160

New Hanover

362

799

46.0%

575

33.1%

1,736

Tyrrel

477

335

46.4%

722

Northampton

902

510

29.4%

324

18.7%

1,736

Totals

11,287

7,018

28.5%

24,607

Onslow

448

151

21.7%

96

13.8%

695

Orange

950

35

3.5%

15

1.5%

1,000

Pasquotank

563

266

28.6%

100

10.8%

929

a

Perquimansc

 

 

1,117

b

These are the taxable population numbers that are provided by the source.

c

1,116

30

The source provides only the total taxable population for this county.

d

No data is provided by the source for Cumberland County.

Johnston

c

Rowan

 

  2.6%

24

2.1%

1,170

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 163. Calculations by the authors. Percentages are based on taxable populations reported by the source.

76

Chapter 3

Table 3.36  County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1756

Table 3.37  County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1765 Taxable African Americans

Taxable African Americans Taxable Whites

County

Number

Percent of Taxable Population

  Taxable Populationa

18.3%

1,383

Beaufort

411

470

53.3%

881

1,876

Bertie

636

877

58.0%

1,513

684

Bladen

604

633

51.2%

1,237

400

Brunswick

209

1,106

84.1%

1,315

6.9%

870

Beaufort

771

567

41.0%

338

346

50.6%

Carteret

b

Chowan

 

b

Craven

989

934

48.6%

1,481 1,923

Carteret

411

931

69.4%

1,342

610

1,017

62.5%

1,627

1,284

1,320

50.7%

2,604

866

366

29.7%

1,232

Cumberland

302

74

19.7%

376

Currituck

470

150

24.2%

620

Craven

Duplin

460

168

26.8%

628

Cumberland

Granville Hyde New Hanover Northampton Onslow Orange

1,091

39.5%

2,765

835

470

36.0%

1,305

Dobbs

1,176

609

34.1%

1,785

424

Duplin

848

130

13.3%

978

148

34.9%

397

24.2%

1,639

Edgecombe

396

1,420

78.2%

1,816

Granville

1,736

Halifaxb

695

Hertford

902

563

Perquimans

b

 

1,242

834 247

48.0% 35.5%

 

Pasquotank Rowan

1,674

448

b

2,078

Currituckb

276

Johnston

366

39.4%

  1,116

54

4.6%

974

929

38.4%

653

Johnston

984

458

31.8%

1,442

1,476

73.6%

 

1,176

Northampton

 

722

Totals

12,069

7,661

29.8%

25,737

b

These are the taxable population numbers that are provided by the source. The percentages of taxable population are calculated based on these numbers rather than the calculated sum of the taxable white population and the taxable African American population. a

1,352 2,005 2,434

Onslow

678

451

39.9%

1,129

Orange

2,825

579

17.0%

3,404

b

Pasquotank

 

1,106

Perquimansb

 

1,531

Pitt

750

Rowan

b

The source provides only the total taxable population for this county.

1,567 251

529

46.4%

1,675 2,628

 

New Hanover

335

41.9%

402

Mecklenberg

477

701

Hyde

1,176

Tyrrel

1,739

  b

1,113

796

 

b

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 163–164. Calculations by the authors.

b

 

715

Buteb Chowan

Edgecombe

Taxablea Population

131

60

Bladen

Number

584

810

Bertie

County

Percent of Taxable Population

Anson

Anson b

Taxable Whites

429

36.4%

 

1,179 3,059

Tyrell

538

368

40.6%

906

Totals

15,319

12,303

26.8%

45,912

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 165–166. Calculations by the authors. These are the taxable population numbers that are provided by the source. The percentages of taxable population are calculated based on these numbers rather than the calculated sums of the taxable white and African American populations. a

The source provides only the total taxable population for this county.

b



The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610–1773 77 Table 3.38  County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1766

Table 3.39  County-Level Demography for North Carolina List of Taxables for 1767

Taxable African Americans Taxable Whites

County Ansonb Beaufort

Number

 

 

432

476

Percent of Taxable Population

Taxable African Americans Taxablea Population

County

786

Anson

696

173

19.9%

869

908

Beaufort

410

481

54.0%

891

 

1,745

Bertie

 

1,262

Bute

Taxablea Population

 

Bladenb Brunswick

Number

Percent of Taxable Population

52.4%

Bertie

b

Taxable Whites

 

b

1,829

Bladen

791

716

47.5%

1,507

229

1,177

83.7%

1,406

Brunswick

224

1,085

82.9%

1,309

Bute

1,172

967

45.2%

2,139

1,299

941

42.0%

2,240

Carteret

460

269

36.9%

729

Carteret

470

290

38.2%

760

Chowan

 

Craven Cumberland Currituck

616

1,082

63.7%

1,698

Chowan

1,391

1,298

48.3%

2,689

Craven

900

387

30.1%

1,287

Cumberland

 

b

Dobbs Duplin Edgecombe

b

Granville

b

875

Currituck

2,898

28.7%

1,261

1,268

706

35.8%

1,974

1,071

437

29.0%

1,508

906

47.0%

34.7%

1,854

Dobbs

883

359

28.9%

1,242

Duplin

2,066

Edgecom

 

1,735

Granville

1,022

  809

46.6%

b

 

2,894

Halifax

 

1,667

Hertford

Johnston

52.4%

362

643

Hertfordb Hyde

1,520

899  

b

Halifax

b

1,378

1,211

926

1,653

889

2,260

 

b

2,806

 

b

430

286

39.9%

716

1,003

511

33.8%

1,514

Johnson

1,461

Mecklenbergb

 

Hyde

1,928 1,690

441

282

39.0%

723

1,129

567

33.4%

1,696

Mecklenbergb

 

New Hanover

507

2,038

New Hanover

511

Northamptonb

 

2,497

Northampton

 

2,557

Onslowb

 

1,192

Onslowb

 

1,216

Orange

1,531

75.1%

b

3,324

649

16.3%

3,973

Orange

Pasquotank

740

606

45.0%

1,346

Pasquotank

Perquimans

527

1,017

65.9%

1,544

Perquimans

Pitt

798

470

37.1%

1,268

Pitt

3,059

Rowanb

Rowanb

 

b

2,163 1,492

74.5%

2,003

3,573

729

17.0%

4,300

433

359

45.3%

792

  775

1,472 448

36.6%

 

1,223 3,643

Tyrell

634

386

37.8%

1,020

Tyrell

594

390

39.6%

984

Totals

16,183

12,923

26.6%

48,610

Totals

16,984

11,884

23.3%

51,044

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 165–166. Calculations by the authors.

Source: Adapted from Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 166–167. Calculations by the authors.

These are the taxable population numbers that are provided by the source. The percentages of taxable population are calculated based on these numbers rather than the calculated sums of the taxable white and African American populations.

a

a

The source provides only the total taxable population for this county.

b

These are the taxable population numbers that are provided by the source. The percentages of taxable population are calculated based on these numbers rather than the calculated sums of the taxable white and African American populations. The source provides only the total taxable population for this county.

b

78

Chapter 3

Conclusions on the African American Electorate in the Colonial Era While information on African American voters in Colonial America was heretofore sketchy, fragmentary, and scattered, a much better organized and structured portrait of this potential group of voters is now possible. Useful information has been compiled on the categories of African Americans who could vote and in which colonies they could vote. In addition, there is now some idea of the size and scope of those voting populations. Although the census and estimated demographic data are incomplete for many colonies, there is now a starting point to try to recapture lost or strayed data. The extant empirical data that this chapter uncovers and analyzes relieve current and future researchers from relying solely upon the existence of legal suffrage for African Americans in each and every colony to merely speculate about where and when African Americans might have voted in Colonial America. This chapter pinpoints exactly where the potential African American voting populations existed and in some instances the sizes and percentages of those populations. The data in this chapter also provide an empirical foundation upon which scholars can build to reveal the evolution and progression of African American voting behavior early in our nation’s history. No longer will it be necessary for academics and scholars to quickly skip over this period with an apology, stating that African Americans probably did not vote in this epoch of American history. With this data, and taking the variables of population size and population increases into account, it is possible to determine the true effects of efforts in the Revolutionary and Antebellum periods to extend suffrage rights or to deny them.

Notes   1. John Kolp, Gentlemen and Freeholders: Electoral Politics in Colonial Virginia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. ix.

  2. For more on this topic see the “Bibliographical Essay,” in Robert Dinkin, Voting in Provincial America: A Study of Elections in the Thirteen Colonies, 1689–1776 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), p. 263.   3. Walter Dean Burnham, “Printed Sources,” in Jerome Clubb, William Flanigan, and Nancy Zingale (eds.), Analyzing Electoral History: A Guide to the Study of American Voter Behavior (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981), pp. 39–42; and Michael Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Results by County and State (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2002), p. ix.   4. Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), see Table A.1 Suffrage Requirements: 1776–1790, and Table A.4 Race and Citizenship Requirements for Suffrage: 1790–1855; pp. 340–341 and 348–353.   5. Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Politics (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1972), pp. 21–26, as well as Figures 2 and 3 for the fluctuations over time. For an analysis in one state, New York, see Phyllis Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 59, 124–126, and 198.   6. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom, 7th Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), p. 56.   7. Ibid., p. 57.   8. Ibid., p. 58.  9. Ibid. 10. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975). See also Evart Greene and Virginia Harrington, American Population before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932). 11. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Population Growth (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. 3–15. 12. Greene and Harrington, p. v. The authors want to thank our developmental editor, David Arthur, for bringing the recently discovered Delaware census data to our attention. Two researchers at the Library of Michigan in Lansing helped us find this fugitive demographic information. 13. Keyssar, p. 5. 14. William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and the Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 105, Table 5, note C. 15. See Dixon R. Fox, “The Negro Vote in Old New York,” Political Science Quarterly Vol. 32. (June 1917), pp. 252–275. 16. See Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912). pp. 8–11, 41–42.

CHAPTER 4

The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789 The Demography of African Americans in Revolutionary America

80

Table 4.1 Numbers of Censuses in the Thirteen Original States, 1774–1789

81

Table 4.2 Populations by Census or Estimate, 1774–1789

82

Potential African American Voters in Revolutionary America

84

Table 4.3 African American Populations in the Thirteen Original States, 1774–1789

85

Table 4.4 Voting Rights, Population, and Population Change of African Americans in the Thirteen Original States: The Revolutionary Era

86

County-Level Election Data in the Revolutionary Era

87

Table 4.5 Town-Level Demography for Rhode Island, Census of 1774

87

Table 4.6 Town-Level Demography for Rhode Island, Census of 1783

88

Table 4.7 County-Level Demography for Connecticut, Census of 1774

89

Table 4.8 County-Level Demography for Connecticut, Census of 1782

89

Table 4.9 County-Level Demography for New Hampshire, Census of 1775

89

Table 4.10 County-Level Demography for New Hampshire, Census of 1786

90

Table 4.11 County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1786

90

Table 4.12 County-Level Demography for Massachusetts and Maine, Census of 1776

91

Table 4.13 County-Level Demography for North Carolina, Incomplete Census of 1786

91

Table 4.14 Local-Level Population Censuses and Enumerations of African Americans during the Period of the American Revolution

92

Conclusions on the African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Period

92

Notes 92

80

A

Chapter 4

s the thirteen colonies transitioned to the original thirteen states, the number of colonies/states that permitted African Americans the legal right to vote declined significantly. Indeed, the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789, ended with a more limited— not less limited—franchise than had previously existed. There was almost no continuity between voting rights in the Colonial Era and the Revolutionary Era. This was in spite of the fact that African Americans bravely fought for the future United States in early skirmishes prior to the Revolutionary War and, eventually, in the war itself. Initially, African Americans were not welcome in the Revolutionary Army, but when Lord Dunmore proclaimed that those African Americans, slave and free, who would fight with the British would be given their freedom after the war, it forced General George Washington and the Continental Congress to draft and recruit African Americans into the Revolutionary Army and Navy.1 Once drafted, recruited, or sent as substitutes for their slavemasters, these people of color fought for all of the idealistic principles found in the Declaration of Independence and for the spirit of Revolution as set forth in the numerous pamphlets and broadsides of the period. Yet in the midst of all of these philosophical explanations of independence and freedom from tyranny, the colonies wrote, then ratified, and approved new state constitutions, several of which replaced the property-based voting rights of the Colonial Era with “white only” clauses as the legal bases for voting rights in the Revolutionary Era. Alexander Keyssar, a leading scholar of this period, wrote: “for many participants, values and principles at the heart of the revolution were difficult to reconcile with the practice of denying voting rights to men simply because they were poor or African American.”2 Nevertheless, this is exactly what the framers of these pioneering state constitutions did. The Articles of Confederation, which provided the legal basis for the national legislature/government (Continental Congress), made no provisions for national voting rights. Each state had one vote in the Continental Congress. Thus, institutions rather than individuals had voting rights at the national level. Individual suffrage rights were left to each of the new thirteen states to decide, as they had done during the Colonial Era. However, when the Continental Congress was considering the Articles of Confederation, the proposed ninth article stated that “the requisitions for the land [military/Army] forces should be apportioned among the several states according to the number of their white inhabitants”3 [emphasis added]. Since only states had representation in the Continental Congress, New Jersey objected to this white only clause because it violated their state constitution, which had embedded the principle of the Revolution that all men were equal. Due to this objection, the white only section was removed from the article.4 On the same day, there was an objection to the fourth article by South Carolina. This article provided “that the free inhabitants of each of these States . . . shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states.”5 This article would, by its wording, convey suffrage rights to Free-Men-ofColor. However, according to historian Emil Olbrich, South Carolina, which had in 1716 disenfranchised Free-Men-of-Color, moved in this Congress “to insert ‘white’ between the words ‘free inhabitants,’ and also to insert after ‘several states’ the words

‘according to the laws of such states respectively for the government of their own free white inhabitants.’”6 “Both these amendments were defeated; eight states voted against them, one state was divided and two states voted for them. Congress therefore was not willing to refuse Negroes the ‘privileges and immunities of free citizens.’”7 The Continental Congress, however, had to rule on the qualifications of electors in organizing the Northwest Territory; in the Ordinance of 1787, no colored discrimination was inserted. This first experiment in democracy saw the Continental Congress keep a color discrimination clause out of its formative document, the Articles of Confederation. And when this Congress had to consider suffrage rights in the Northwest Territory, it was consistent in letting Free-Men-of-Color have suffrage rights like all other free men. In the only overview book on voting in the Revolutionary Era, Voting in Revolutionary America: A Study of Elections in the Original Thirteen States, 1776–1789, Robert J. Dinkin wrote: Racial requirements for voting were also being altered at this point. Several states allowed free Negroes to possess the franchise for the first time, though often due to inadvertence, confusion, and haste in constitution-making, rather than to conscious design. In Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New York, free blacks became members of the electorate on the same terms as whites. (Of course, the latter state’s property qualification continued to serve as a barrier to many.) Maryland’s constitution (1776) permitted voting for the lower house without color discrimination, but a statute in 1783 denied the ballot to anyone manumitted after that date. . . . The Massachusetts Constitution approved in 1780 did not specifically give the franchise to persons of color; the lack of any distinction among males in the voting provision was interpreted to mean that such individuals could take part.8 Despite the emergence of a new ideology, based on the Declaration of Independence, that stressed equality as the foundation of American nationalism, a uniform philosophy for dealing with suffrage rights did not emerge. Put differently, state and local leaders enacted the Revolution’s vision and philosophy in varying ways.

The Demography of African Americans in Revolutionary America In 1909 the Census Bureau noted, “In November, 1781, a resolution was introduced in [the Continental] Congress recommending to the several states that they make an enumeration of their white inhabitants pursuant to the ninth article of the Confederation. The Resolution failed to pass and the article was inoperative. Several of the states, however, made an enumeration about that time” independently of a confederated agreement.9 There were eleven official censuses conducted during the fifteen-year period from 1774 to 1789, along with numerous population estimates. These data reveal



The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

the size and distribution of the dual (slave and free) African American populations in certain locations. It is also possible to discern the potential voting population of African Americans in each of the thirteen new states. Table 4.1 lists the eleven censuses conducted in this fifteenyear period by the former colonies. Nine were conducted in New England, but only one each in the middle (coastal Atlantic) states (New York) and in the southern states (Virginia, which also completed a population estimate). Despite the fact that a war for independence from England was underway during this period, the number of censuses conducted is comparable to the Colonial Era (see Table 3.1), with only minor differences. Hence, the war, somewhat surprisingly, appears not to have been a disruptive factor. In fact, Rhode Island conducted two more censuses than it had during the Colonial Era, though it was the only state to conduct more. In addition, several states conducted censuses and estimates to determine how many men, both white men and Free-Men-of-Color, could be mustered for the militia and the Continental Army. After the war was over, there was the added imperative for censuses due to the “settlement of the national [war] debt . . . [so that each state could] assume their equitable proportion.”10 Thus, in this manner the Revolutionary War helped to create a greater understanding of the demography of the thirteen original states. Table 4.1  Numbers of Censuses in Thirteen Original States, 1774–1789 Colony / State

Number

Percent of Total

New Hampshire Massachusetts Mainea Rhode Island Connecticut Vermontb

2 1 1 3 2

18.2% 9.1% 9.1% 27.3% 18.2%

New England Colonies/States Subtotal

9

81.8%

New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware

1

9.1%

Middle Colonies/States Subtotal

1

9.1%

Border Colony/State Subtotal

0

0.0%

Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia

1

9.1%

Southern Colonies/States Subtotal

1

9.1%

11

100%

Maryland

Total Censuses of All Colonies/States During the Revolutionary Era

Source: Table “Censuses Prior to 1790,” A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790–1900 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), p. 4. a

Though Maine was part of Massachusetts, there was also a census of the counties that formed Maine.

b

As part of a census of New York.

81

The state census data from this fifteen-year span lack the same demographic detail concerning the African American population as is available for the Colonial Era. Only one state census from this period (Connecticut in 1774) contained detailed data on African Americans. As a consequence of this extremely limited data, our tabular display is not as robust as those in the Colonial Era. As a result, Table 4.2 (pp. 82–83) covers the censuses for each state as well as the population estimates for other states where no censuses were conducted. Table 4.2 offers a clear portrait of the African American population in the newly created thirteen states. Delaware is the one exception among states emerging from the Revolutionary War Era for which no census data or population estimates exist. It is not clear why Delaware made no count of its population.11

The Three-Fifths Clause and the Slave Population Unique to the Revolutionary Era are the population estimates made by the Constitutional Convention in 1787, during its meeting in Philadelphia to work out the so-called ThreeFifths Clause. Since state representation in the House of Representatives was to be based on population, one of the three major compromises at the Convention was to let slave states count five slaves as equal to three whites, or, put another way, each slave was deemed equivalent to three-fifths of a person. Though the first federal census was not conducted until 1790, the first session of the House of Representatives was to take place in 1789, just after the first national election in 1788. The Convention leaders developed a set of population estimates of slaves so that the number of seats in the first Congress could be worked out for each of the states where large proportions of the population consisted of slaves. Recent examination of these estimates has revealed the following: In the first congressional election in 1788 five states (Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia) gained 14 seats or a bonus of 48%, allowing them to reach near parity in the number of House seats (47–53) with the eight larger northern states. This bonus in numbers increased until 1830 and in percentages until 1860, when the numbers began to decline somewhat. Over the nine (national) censuses and reapportionments of House seats from 1788 until 1860 (the Clause was abolished during the 1860s as a result of the Civil War), the mean or average bonus percentage of seats were 25.12 Since the Three-Fifths Clause allowed the slave states to gain bonus seats in the House of Representatives, there was also an increase in the number of electoral votes for the slave states. Each additional House seat translated to an additional electoral vote for each slave state. “The percentage of additional electoral votes going to the slave states, as a result of the Three-Fifths Clause, ranged from a low of 8 percent in 1792 to a high of 19 percent in most presidential elections between 1788 and 1860 (the

82

Chapter 4

Table 4.2  Populations by Census or Estimate, 1774–1789 Populations   Colony/State

  Year

Reference ([footnote]: page)

  Enumeration Type

New Hampshire

1775

[1]: 1170.

Census

81,300

80,644

656

Census of 1775.

1775

[3]: 152–153.

Census

81,305

80,649

656

Census of 1775, white population = total population – black population.

1786

[3]: 156.

Census

95,801

95,452

46

Census of 1786. Free inhabitants included African Americans.

1786

[2]: 73.

Census

95,801

95,452

349

“95,452 free inhabitants (whites); 46 slaves (blacks); 303 others (former slaves and black).” Total population = # whites + # blacks.

1786

[1]: 1170.

Census

95,849

95,452

46

1787

[2]: 8, 73.

Population

102,000

102,000

0

1776

[1]: 1170.

Census

290,900

286,139

4,761

Census of 1776.

1776

[2]: 17.

Census

290,900

286,139

4,761

Census of 1776, after deducting 3 counties of Maine.

1776

[2]: 30–40.

Census

338,667

333,418

5,249

Census of 1776.

1776

[1]: 1170.

Census

290,900

286,139

4,761

Census of 1776.

1784

[2]: 18, 46.

Census

357,510

353,133

4,377

Census of 1784, including 3 counties of Maine.

1785

[2]: 18.

Population

335,024

330,836

4,188

Total population = # whites + # blacks.

1786

[3]: 18.

Census

356,642

352,171

4,371

Total population = # whites + # blacks.

1787

[2]: 8, 18.

Population

360,000

360,000

0

1774

[1]: 1171.

Census

59,678

54,435

3,761

Census of 1774.

1774

[3]: 162.

Census

59,607

54,460

3,668

Census of 1174.

1783

[1]: 1171.

Census

51,887

48,556

2,806

Census of 1783.

1783

[2]: 64, 67, 69–70.

Census

51,869

48,538

2,342

Census of 1783.

1787

[2]: 8, 64.

Population

58,000

58,000

0

1774

[3]: 168.

Census

197,842

191,378

6,464

Census of 1774. Total population computed.

1774

[2]: 50, 58–61.

Census

199,169

191,342

6,464

Census of 1774.

1782

[1]: 1169.

Census

209,177

202,904

6,273

Census of 1782.

1782

[2]: 50.

Population

208,840

202,567

6,273

Total population = 202,567 whites + 6,273 “Indians and Negroes.”

1787

[2]: 8, 50.

Population

202,000

202,000

0

1774

[2]: 91.

Population

182,247

161,098

21,149

Estimated from population increases from 1756 to 1771.

1776

[2]: 91.

Population

191,741

169,148

21,193

Estimated based on ratio of population increases from 1771 to 1774.

1786

[1]: 1170.

Census

238,897

219,996

18,889

Census of 1786.

1786

[3]: 183.

Census

238,897

219,996

18,889

Census of 1786.

1786

[2]: 92.

Census

238,897

219,996

18,889

Census of 1786.

1787

[2]: 8, 92.

Population

233,000

233,000

0

1784

[1]: 1170.

Census

149,435

138,934

10,501

Census of 1784.

1784

[2]: 108, 113.

Census

149,435

139,934

10,501

Census of 1784.

1787

[2]: 8, 108.

Population

138,000

138,000

0

Massachusetts

Rhode Island

Connecticut

New York

New Jersey

Totala

White

African American

  Comments

Census of 1786. Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “or 82,000 white inhabitants.”

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “or 352,000 whites.”

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves.

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves.

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “280,000 souls, … and adding 50,000 for Vt. Livingston to Lafayette, April 24, 1787 … 233,000 population; or 238,000.”

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “or 138,000 to 145,000.”



The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

83

Populations   Colony/State

  Year

Reference ([footnote]: page)

  Enumeration Type

Delawareb

1787

[2]: 8.

Population

37,000

37,000

0

Pennsylvania

1774

[2]: 116.

Population

300,000

200,000

100,000

1775

[2]: 116.

Population

302,000

300,000

2,000

1787

[2]: 8, 116.

Population

360,000

360,000

0

1782

[2]: 127.

Population

254,050

170,688

83,362

 

1782

[1]: 1169.

Census

254,050

170,688

83,362

Census of 1782.

1787

[2]: 8, 127.

Population

218,000

174,000

80,000

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “218,000 population . . . or 174,000 whites, and 80,000 blacks.”

1774

[2]: 141.

Population

500,000

300,000

200,000

“A very rough guess.”

1782

[2]: 141.

Population

567,614

355,916

211,698

Partial census of 1782 and estimates from tithable-topopulation ratios.

1785

[2]: 142.

Taxables or Polls

73,000

55,985

17,015

1787

[2]: 8, 142.

Population

700,000

420,000

280,000

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “420,000 inhabitants, including 280,000 Negroes; or 300,000 whites and 300,000 blacks.”

1788

[2]: 142.

Population

588,000

352,000

236,000

Also “800,000 and over in population: 503,248 whites; 12,880 free colored; and 305,257 slaves.”

1774

[2]: 159.

Taxables or Polls

64,000

54,000

10,000

Taxables, equivalent to Congressional total population estimate of up to 300,000.

1775

[2]: 159.

Militia

30,000

20,000

10,000

Estimated militia.

1786

[2]: 160.

Population

224,000

164,000

60,000

Estimated population.

1787

[2]: 8, 160.

Population

200,000

181,000

60,000

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “or 181,000 whites.”

1774

[2]: 176.

Population

200,000

40,000

160,000

1775

[2]: 176.

Population

174,000

70,000

104,000

1775

[2]: 176.

Population

150,000

60,000

90,000

1785

[2]: 176.

Population

188,000

108,000

80,000

1787

[2]: 8, 176.

Population

150,000

93,000

80,000

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves.

1774

[2]: 182.

Population

100,000

20,000

80,000

White population estimated at one-fifth of total population.

1774

[2]: 182.

Population

32,000

17,000

15,000

1787

[2]: 8, 182.

Population

90,000

70,000

20,000

Maryland  

Virginia

North Carolina  

South Carolina

Georgia

Totala

White

African American

  Comments Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves. According to estimate, of total “1/3 are blacks.” According to estimate. Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “or 341,000.”

Estimated tithables, yielding equivalent total population of 448,008.

White population estimated at one-fifth of total population.

Negro population estimated in range from 80,000–100,000.

Estimate of 1787 for 3/5 of slaves; “including 20,000 negroes; or by another estimate, 27,000.”

Sources: [1] “Table Series Z 24–132: Population Censuses Taken in the Colonies and States During the Colonial and Pre-Federal Period: 1624–25 to 1786,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), pp. 1169–1171. [2] Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932). [3] A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 149–185. a

The totals come from the source materials, unless indicated by calculation formula in notes.

b

The population estimate for Delaware in 1787 is not based on an available census but rather on varied and partial counts from its counties that were taken in prior years.

84

Chapter 4

mean over these 19 elections was a 17% bonus). This helped the southern states to elect four of the first five presidents.”13 Seen in this perspective, the votes of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color ironically lacked the power and influence of their non-voting slave brethren. In Table 4.2 the 1787 population estimates for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives for each state are given. With this data, one has a good sense of the number of slaves in the new nation. South Carolina had the largest slave population proportion (53.3%), followed by Virginia (40.0%), Maryland (36.7%), North Carolina (30.0%), and Georgia (22.2%). Eight of the original states reported no slave populations and, therefore, the Three-Fifths Clause did not increase their representation in the House of Representatives. In each of these eight states (Delaware is missing due to the lack of available census or estimated demographical information), the African American populations were quite small compared to the total populations in the five southern states.

States that Tracked Gender as Well as Race Two of the Revolutionary Era states, Connecticut and New York, provided gender and racial breakdowns of their census data for single years of the period; Table 4.3 (p. 85) provides that information. New York permitted Free-Men-of-Color to vote, and for the year preceding the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the African American population stood at 7.9% of the total and there were more males than females. In Connecticut during the first year of the Continental Congress, African Americans made up 2.6% of the population, and males there also outnumbered females. Among all of the original states, Maryland had the largest African American population, accounting for 32.8% of the total population. All of the other states in this group reported African American populations of less than 10% of their total populations. In two states, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, the African American populations declined during the Revolutionary Era, but in Connecticut this population grew, albeit slowly.

Potential African American Voters in Revolutionary America Table 4.4 (p. 86) lists the states and whether they provided or denied suffrage rights to Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color in their original state constitutions. In addition, one state (Maryland) changed its policy during the Revolutionary Era.

States that Banned African American Suffrage Two states, Virginia and South Carolina, banned suffrage rights immediately upon making the transition from colonies to states. Virginia and South Carolina had also banned this right in the Colonial Era; these same two states had large African American populations. Maryland eventually denied suffrage rights to Free-Menof-Color during the Revolutionary Era. At one point, based

on early historical findings by Emil Olbrich, a pioneering student of African American suffrage rights, it was thought that Maryland did not deny suffrage rights in this period. Here is how Olbrich initially wrote about it: “Maryland, which had passed in 1783 and re-enacted in 1796, a law forbidding emancipated slaves to exercise the elective franchise, adopted, by a bill . . . in November 1801, a constitutional amendment . . . that only free white male citizens should be electors. This alteration was confirmed in November 1802”14 and retained in an amendment confirmed in 1810. In its 1776 state constitution, there was no color discrimination. However, a Maryland law of June, 1793, entitled ‘an act to prohibit the bringing [of] slaves into the state,’ provided that slaves might be manumitted under certain conditions, and ‘that no colored person freed thereafter, nor the issue of such should be allowed to vote, or to hold office, or to give evidence against any white, or to enjoy any other right of a freeman than the possession of property and redress at law or equity for injury to person or property.’15 That yet another state law of December 31, 1796, made no mention “of the issue of manumitted slaves” suggests these children of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color could vote.16 Later, a much more carefully researched study, focused entirely on Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color in the state, corrected these earlier factual errors by asserting: “In 1783 a state statute restricted the right to Negroes who were free prior to that year, and in 1810 Negro suffrage was ended completely by a constitutional amendment that limited the franchise to whites.”17 The state legislature had passed a statute in 1801 that restricted suffrage rights to whites only. In the final analysis, Maryland’s legislative behavior toward African American suffrage in this era was typical of several states and, prior to that, several colonies, which continually revisited the question of the African American right to vote. In point of fact, the right to vote was continually debated throughout both eras, and in a state like Maryland action was eventually taken to deny the right to vote. In other places, where it continued, it was still brought up for debate.

States that Allowed African American Suffrage Nine states never denied suffrage rights to African American males in the Revolutionary Era (up to 1789). Comparing Table 4.4 with Table 3.5 for the Colonial Era, there are some noticeable differences in the Revolutionary Era. There were no outright denials during the Colonial Era, but eventually three of the southern colonies came to deny suffrage rights. Two of those three, Virginia and South Carolina, did so when they made the transition from colonies to states. However, North Carolina, seemingly affected by the war and principles of natural rights, allowed Free-Men-of-Color suffrage rights when it became a state. All the other colonies continued the traditions that they had in place in the Colonial Era.

 

Georgia

 

 

 

254,050

 

 

149,435

 

 

 

83,362

 

 

10,501

18,889

6,273

5,101

2,806

3,668

 

488

 

4,761

46

656

Number

 

 

 

32.8%

 

 

7.0%

7.9%

3.0%

2.6%

5.4%

6.2%

 

1.0%

 

1.6%

0.0%

0.8%

Percent of Total Population

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9,521

 

2,883

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number

Males

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9,368

 

2,218

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number

Females

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Voting Ageb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2,630

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percent of Total Population

Total

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,577

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0.8%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percent of Total Population

Males

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,053

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0.5%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percent of Total Population

Females

Number

African American Population of Voting Age

African American population includes Negro and mulatto populations.

Age is derived from age strata in source data.

a

b

Source: Adapted from “Table Series Z 24–132: Population Censuses Taken in the Colonies and States During the Colonial and Pre-Federal Period: 1624–25 to 1786,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), pp. 1169–1171. Calculations by the authors.

 

1782

Maryland

South Carolina

 

Delaware

 

 

Pennsylvania

North Carolina

1784

New Jersey

238,897

209,177

1782

1786

197,842

51,887

1783

1774

59,607

50,493

1784

1774

47,767

1776

307,018

1784

New York

Connecticut

Rhode Island  

Maine  

290,900

1786

1776

95,849

1775

New Hampshire

Massachusetts  

81,300

Year

Colony/State

Total Population

Total

African American Populationa

Table 4.3  African American Populations in the Thirteen Original States, 1774–1789

86

Chapter 4

Table 4.4  Voting Rights, Population, and Population Change of African Americans in the Thirteen Original States: The Revolutionary Era Voting Rights of Free African Americans

1780 Estimated Totala Population

Percent Total Population Increaseb (1770–1780)

1780 Estimated Negro Population

1780 African American Percent of Total Population

Percent Negro Population Increaseb (1770–1780)

Denied from the Outset

Denied by 1789

Never Denied

New Hampshire







87,802

40.7%

541

0.6%

-17.3%

Massachusetts







268,627

14.2%

4,822

1.8%

1.4%

Rhode Island







52,946

-9.0%

2,671

5.0%

-29.0%

Connecticut







206,701

12.4%

5,885

2.8%

3.3%

New York







210,541

29.2%

21,054

10.0%

10.2%

New Jersey







139,627

18.9%

10,460

7.5%

27.3%

Pennsylvania







327,305

36.3%

7,855

2.4%

36.4%

Delaware







45,385

27.9%

2,996

6.6%

63.2%

Maryland







245,474

21.2%

80,515

32.8%

26.2%

Virginia







538,004

20.4%

220,582

41.0%

17.6%

North Carolina







270,133

37.0%

91,000

33.7%

30.8%

South Carolina







180,000

44.9%

97,000

53.9%

29.0%

Georgia







56,071

139.9%

20,831

37.2%

96.1%

Totals

2

1

10

2,628,616

25.8%

566,212

21.5%

24.0%

Colony

Sources: “Table Series Z 1-19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780,” Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), p. 1168 and Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 349–353, Table A4. a

Total population = white population + Negro (African American) population;

b

Percent population increase or decrease = (population in 1780 – population in 1770)/population in 1770.

To be sure, extant data reveal that several of the nine states that never denied Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color the right to vote continued to debate the extension and granting of this right but, for one reason or another, permitted suffrage rights to continue. New Jersey, for example, permitted Free-Women-ofColor to vote until February 22, 1807. In the state constitution of 1776, it provided “that all inhabitants of this colony, who had the requisite property, age, and residence qualifications should be entitled to vote.” There is evidence that this clause was interpreted literally because in the historical record there are instances where African American women voted.18 New Jersey is the one locale, other than Virginia until 1699, not to impose gender restrictions that barred African American women from voting.19

“Negro Elections” Historian Emil Olbrich discussed “a peculiar slave custom in colonial Rhode Island and Connecticut” which, he argued, provided “interesting and curious evidence of the African’s appreciation of the elective franchise, even in slavery.”

He wrote: In both colonies the imitative Negroes follow the example of the whites on election day and elected a governor. In Rhode Island, where slaves were still numerous, each town held its own election to which the slaves looked forward with great anxiety and which is said to have been marked by as violent and acrimonious party spirit as among the whites. . . . As the number of slaves diminished, these mock elections became less general and, toward the end of the 18th century, finally disappeared.20 Olbrich described the same situation in Connecticut: In Connecticut, the earliest evidence of the custom is the record that, in 1766, after having held the office ten years, Governor Cuff [a slave] resigned in favor of John Anderson [a slave]. There Negro elections continued into the nineteenth century after the Negroes were freed, and their last governor held office down to within a few years of the civil war.21



The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

Olbrich further described these mock elections held by slaves in Connecticut by giving a portrait of the inauguration of these “Negro Governors,” whose only function was ceremonial within the slave community:

87

Table 4.5  Town-Level Demography for Rhode Island, Census of 1774 White Electoratea Town

African American

Female

Total

Barrington

142

162

304

41

6.8%

601

Bristol

272

319

591

114

9.4%

1,209

Charlestown

312

350

662

52

2.9%

1,821

Coventry

474

493

967

20

1.0%

2,023

Cranston

476

517

993

60

3.2%

1,861

Cumberland

400

478

878

17

1.0%

1,756

East Greenwich

416

464

880

69

4.1%

1,663

Exeter

441

478

919

67

3.6%

1,864

Glocester

743

740

1,483

19

0.6%

2,945

Hopkinton

427

477

904

48

2.7%

1,808

Jamestown

110

118

228

131

23.3%

563

Re-enacting the Ordinance of 1787

Johnston

242

254

496

65

6.3%

1,031

Finally, during this period, the newly elected federal government in 1789 re-enacted the Ordinance of 1787 with its impartial suffrage provision. This re-enactment and subsequent ones that provided for “a territorial government,” like those for the Mississippi, Indiana, Orleans (Louisiana), Michigan, and Illinois territories, shifted away from impartiality. Instead, they set the qualification for who could vote at the first election for the general assembly and/or delegates to the constitutional convention and “then left the fixing of permanent suffrage qualifications to the territorial legislature.”23 Thus, on the verge of the creation of new states from the sundry territories, the federal government was against color discrimination in suffrage rights, but, as in some states, this would change in later years.

Little Compton

304

382

686

47

3.8%

1,232

Middletown

210

259

469

64

7.3%

881

New Shoreham

109

121

230

55

9.6%

575

2,100

2,624

4,724

1,246

13.5%

9,209

North Kingstown

538

595

1,133

211

8.5%

2,472

North Providence

193

230

423

31

3.7%

830

Portsmouth

343

400

743

122

8.1%

1,512

Providence

1,219

1,049

2,268

303

7.0%

4,321

Richmond

286

324

610

24

1.9%

1,257

Scituate

909

933

1,842

55

1.5%

3,601

Smithfield

742

769

1,511

51

1.8%

2,888

South Kingstown

550

597

1,147

440

15.5%

2,835

Tiverton

418

438

856

95

4.9%

1,956

Warren

237

255

492

44

4.5%

979

Warwick

569

615

1,184

89

3.8%

2,338

West Greenwich

429

465

894

19

1.1%

1,764

Westerly

421

443

864

69

3.8%

1,812

14,032

15,349

29,381

3,668

6.2%

59,607

On the day of the inauguration of governor of the state, they followed whites to the capital, enjoyed the military parades and the procession to hear the election sermon, elected a governor, inaugurated with great ceremony and with shouting, laughing and singing, listened to an address from their governor, ate a dinner, and then danced until noon of the next day.22 However, there is one thing which sets the Connecticut mock slave elections apart from those in Rhode Island. From our data, we know that in 1818 Connecticut eliminated the right to suffrage for Free-Men-of-Color and restricted the right to only white males. Rhode Island never did this during the Revolutionary Era. Thus, the mock slave elections became the only electoral outlet for Connecticut African Americans until just before the Civil War.

Newport

County-Level Election Data in the Revolutionary Era In this section, we will focus upon those states that produced state censuses and broke the population down to the township or the county level. These data were, in some instances, further broken down by gender and age. Our examination of this data will permit the reader to see not only which states allowed African Americans to vote in the Revolutionary Era but the number of these potential voters who lived in towns and counties. These data have heretofore never been organized and structured so as to permit a county-level analysis.

Totals

Rhode Island Table 4.5 provides this view from twenty-nine towns in Rhode Island in 1774. Three of these towns had doubledigit percentages of African American population, including Jamestown (23.3%), South Kingstown (15.5%), and Newport (13.5%), while twenty-five other towns had the population in single digit percentages, and one, Gloucester (0.6%), had less

Population

Percentc

Total Populationb

Male

Source: A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 162–163. The census enumerates the white population in age stratifications. The electorate is defined here as persons age 16 years and over. a

b

Total population = African Americans + whites + American Indians.

Percent of total population. The census did not stratify the African American population by age. c

88

Chapter 4

than one percent. The capital of the colony and later state, Providence, had 7.0%. Overall, the African American population stood at 6.2%. In the final analysis, only in Newport and South Kingstown did the African American population rise to a level where the potential African American electorate could have influenced the outcome of county and state elections. Nine years later, in 1783, Rhode Island conducted another census, the results of which are shown in Table 4.6. The total African American population had dropped considerably, to only 5.4% of the state’s population. This decrease was noticeable in the towns mentioned previously. Jamestown, which had the largest African American population of all Rhode Island towns in 1774, still had the largest in 1783, but the proportion dropped from 23.3% to 19.9%. Newport also dropped from 13.5% to 10.8%, while South Kingstown increased from 15.5% to 16.9%. Except for the increase in South Kingstown, there was no increase in the potential influence of African Americans upon elections through the rest of Rhode Island.

Table 4.6  Town-Level Demography for Rhode Island, Census of 1783 African Americans Town

Connecticut Table 4.7 shows that in Connecticut, with its six different counties, African Americans comprised 3.1% of the electorate, which included them along with the white population of age 20 years or older. Within the African American population, males outnumbered females. All of the counties in the state had single-digit African American population percentages, with the range running from a low of 1.5% in Litchfield to a high of 4.6% in Fairfield; but even in this highest percentage county, the population numbers were so small that African Americans would have had extremely limited electoral influence. Connecticut took another census eight years later, in 1782, and Table 4.8 summarizes the results. The small African American population in this state declined from 6,464 to 6,273, while its percentage of the total population also dropped slightly from 3.1% to 3.0%. The previous breakdown by gender is no longer present in the latter census. This 1782 census shows a decline in the already small potential influence and impact of African American voters in the electorate.

Total Whites Indians Mulattoes Blacks Percenta Populationb

Barrington

488

0

20

26

8.6%

534

Bristol

954

2

13

63

7.4%

1,032

Charlestown

1,204

280

9

30

2.6%

1,523

Coventry

2,093

2

3

9

0.6%

2,107

Cranston

1,508

9

17

50

4.2%

1,584

Cumberland

1,537

0

2

9

0.7%

1,548

East Greenwich

1,529

10

17

53

4.4%

1,609

Exeter

1,946

18

7

87

4.6%

2,058

Foster

1,756

0

0

7

0.4%

1,763

Gloucester

2,769

0

0

22

0.8%

2,791

Hopkinton

1,677

30

11

17

1.6%

1,735

270

0

0

65

19.4%

335

Jamestown Johnston

928

3

37

28

6.5%

996

Little Compton

1,294

13

0

34

2.5%

1,341

Middletown

646

0

4

29

4.9%

679

Newport

4,914

17

51

549

10.8%

5,531

North Kingstown

2,110

8

22

188

9.0%

2,328

North Providence

676

5

0

17

2.4%

698

Portsmouth

1,266

7

11

67

5.8%

1,351

Providence

4,015

6

33

252

6.6%

4,306

Richmond

1,061

1

15

17

2.9%

1,094

Scituate

1,613

0

19

3

1.3%

1,635

Smithfield

2,158

12

7

40

2.1%

2,217

South Kingstown

2,190

32

38

415

16.9%

2,675

New Hampshire

Tiverton

1,792

21

44

93

7.0%

1,950

In the state of New Hampshire, which allowed suffrage rights to African Americans, two censuses were conducted during the Revolutionary period, one in 1775 and another in 1786, and in each of these censuses, they disaggregated the data by county. For 1775, Table 4.9 reveals that only in one of the state’s five counties, Rockingham, did the African American population reach or exceed one percent. In all of the other counties, the total was under one percent, and this also held true for the entire state. Thus, the potential voting African American population in this state had minimal potential influence and impact. Eleven years later, the census of 1786 (Table 4.10, p. 90) indicated that there were fewer African Americans (who were merely listed among “Slaves” or “Others”) in the state than before, making it possible that there were fewer potential voters than before. Thus, while African Americans could vote in the Revolutionary Era in New Hampshire, their potential influence was very small indeed.

Warren

867

3

5

30

3.9%

905

Warwick

1,951

37

36

100

6.4%

2,124

West Greenwich

1,677

0

7

14

1.2%

1,698

Westerly

1,667

9

36

28

3.7%

1,740

48,556

525

464

2,342

5.4%

51,887

Totals

Source: Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 69–70. a

Percent of total population. Data source does not stratify enumerated populations by age.

b

Total population = African Americans + whites + American Indians.

New York Table 4.11 (p. 90) provides a look at New York at the county level in 1786. These data are also broken down by gender for



The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

89

Table 4.7  County-Level Demography for Connecticut, Census of 1774 White Electoratea

African American Electoratea

Total Populations

County

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

Total Electorate

Fairfield

6,260

6,119

12,379

358

234

592

12,971

28,936

1,214

30,150

48.3%

47.2%

95.4%

2.8%

1.8%

4.6%

100%

96.0%

4.0%

100%

10,745

11,398

22,143

370

201

571

22,714

50,666

1,215

51,881

47.3%

50.2%

97.5%

1.6%

0.9%

2.5%

100%

97.7%

2.3%

100%

5,668

5,154

10,822

99

61

160

10,982

26,844

440

27,284

51.6%

46.9%

98.5%

0.9%

0.6%

1.5%

100%

98.4%

1.6%

100%

5,811

5,843

11,654

268

181

449

12,103

25,896

925

26,821

48.0%

48.3%

96.3%

2.2%

1.5%

3.7%

100%

96.6%

3.4%

100%

6,617

6,965

13,582

335

255

590

14,172

31,542

2,036

33,578

46.7%

49.1%

95.8%

2.4%

1.8%

4.2%

100%

93.9%

6.1%

100%

5,696

6,210

11,906

147

121

268

12,174

27,494

634

28,128

46.8%

51.0%

97.8%

1.2%

1.0%

2.2%

100%

97.7%

2.3%

100%

40,797

41,689

82,486

1,577

1,053

2,630

85,116

191,378

6,464

197,842

47.9%

49.0%

96.9%

1.9%

1.2%

3.1%

100%

96.7%

3.3%

100%

Hartford

Litchfield

New Haven

New London

Windham   Totals  

White

Black

Total

Source: A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 166–169. a

Electorate defined as persons 20 years of age and over. Electorate percentages are percent shares of total electorate.

Table 4.8  County-Level Demography for Connecticut, Census of 1782 Whites

African Americansa

County

Population

Population

Percent of Total Population

Fairfield

29,722

1,134

3.7%

30,856

Hartford

55,647

1,320

2.3%

56,967

Litchfield

33,127

529

1.6%

33,656

New Haven

25,092

885

3.4%

25,977

New London

31,131

1,920

5.8%

Windham

28,185

485

202,904

6,273

Totals

Table 4.9  County-Level Demography for New Hampshire, Census of 1775

Whites

Total Population

Percent of Total Population

Total Population

County

Male Electoratea

Cheshire

2,708

7

0.1%

10,659

Grafton

1,108

24

0.6%

3,880

33,051

Hillsborough

3,983

87

0.5%

16,108

1.7%

28,670

Rockingham

9,272

435

1.1%

37,945

3.0%

209,177

Stafford

3,077

103

0.8%

12,713

20,148

656

0.8%

81,305

Totals

Source: Evarts B. Green and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 61. a

African Americans and Slavesb

This enumeration of African Americans also includes some American Indians.

both races. Here as in other states, the African American male population outnumbers the female population. As a percent of total population, the largest African American population was in Kings County with 17.4% and 15.6%, for males and females, respectively. The county with the second largest percentage of African Americans was Richmond, with 11.7% and 10.3%. Then, there were three counties, Queens, Ulster, and Suffolk, which

Population

Source: A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 152–154. The electorate is defined as male persons 16 years of age and over, whether in the army or not. The census does not enumerate African Americans or white females by age. a

b

The census does not distinguish African Americans from the slave population.

had African American population percentages larger than the state’s mean. The county with the smallest population—both in number and percentage—was Washington, where fifteen

90

Chapter 4

Massachusetts

Table 4.10  County-Level Demography for New Hampshire, Census of 1786

County

Free Inhabitants

Slavesa

Cheshire

15,160

7

6

15,173

Grafton

8,344

0

56

8,400

Hillsborough

25,933

9

48

25,990

Rockingham

32,138

21

185

32,344

Stafford

13,877

9

8

13,894

Totals

95,452

46

303

95,801

The demographic data for Massachusetts, as shown in Table 4.12, follow the patterns seen in the other New England states. African Americans made up only 1.5% of the total population in 1776. The percentage of African Americans in each of the thirteen counties was quite small. Nantucket had the highest percentage of African Americans with 2.9%, followed in order by Suffolk with 2.4%, Bristol with 2.3%, and Dukes and Essex with 2.0% each. Overall, none of these population totals or percentages gave the Free-Men-of-Color enough numerical strength to have had any significant electoral influence in the state during the Revolutionary Era.

Total Population

Othersa

Source: A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 154–156. These enumerated populations include African Americans as well as some American Indians. ‘Free Inhabitants’ are not indicated to have included African Americans. No population in the census was stratified by age. a

African Americans made up about 0.2% of the total population. Therefore, one sees from the table that clearly there were several counties, especially Kings and Richmond, where African Americans could possibly have had some influence and impact upon the outcome of elections

North Carolina Table 4.13 shows data from the 1786 census of North Carolina, a southern state where Free-Men-of-Color intermittently had the right to vote. This table isolates a segment of the county populations by a threshold voting age, permitting one to see the approximate size of the voting age population in each of the eighteen counties. Eight of the counties had an African American voting age population percentage above that for the state; and in four counties, voting age African Americans accounted for at least a quarter of the total population. In those counties where the African American population was sizable, they presumably

Table 4.11  County-Level Demography for New York, Census of 1786 White Electoratea

African American Populationb

County

Males

Females

Males

Percent of Total

Females

Percent of Total

Total Population

Albany

17,230

16,093

2,335

3.2%

2,355

3.3%

72,360

7,601

7,481

830

2.5%

815

2.5%

32,636

842

766

695

17.4%

622

15.6%

3,986

Montgomery

3,829

3,415

217

1.4%

188

1.2%

15,057

New York

6,141

6,746

896

3.8%

1,207

5.1%

23,614

Orange

3,429

3,187

442

3.1%

416

3.0%

14,062

Queens

3,012

3,140

1,160

8.9%

1,023

7.8%

13,084

665

638

369

11.7%

324

10.3%

3,152

Suffolk

3,475

3,633

567

4.1%

501

3.6%

13,793

Ulster

5,256

4,865

1,353

6.1%

1,309

5.9%

22,143

Washington

1,210

983

8

0.2%

7

0.2%

4,456

Westchester

4,968

4,818

649

3.2%

601

2.9%

20,554

57,658

55,765

9,521

4.0%

9,368

3.9%

238,897

Dutchess Kings

Richmond

Totals

Source: A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), p. 183. a

The electorate is defined here as the population segment that includes persons of age 16 years and older.

b

The census does not have age stratifications of the African American population.



The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789 Table 4.12  County-Level Demography for Massachusetts and Maine, Census of 1776 Whites

County

Population

Table 4.13  County-Level Demography for North Carolina, Incomplete Census of 1786 Whites

African Americans

Population

Percent of Total Population

Total Population

91

Countya

African Americans

Percent Males Other All of Total Other Total 21–60b Males Females 21–60 Populationc Blacks Populationd

Franklin

740

1,069

1,814

931

17.0%

913

5,475

Barnstable

12,936

171

1.3%

13,107

Tyrrell

552

966

1,488

374

9.7%

379

3,859

Berkshire

17,952

216

1.2%

18,168

Pasquotank

615

1,023

1,551

789

16.5%

815

4,793

Bristol

24,916

585

2.3%

25,501

Northampton

763

1,329

1,966

1,721

24.4%

1,564

7,043

New Hanover

579

722

1,397

1,332

26.4%

1,012

5,042

Duplin

734

1,356

1,997

605

11.5%

548

5,248

Warren

735

1,399

2,499

1,792

21.6%

1,870

8,295

Dukes

2,822

59

2.0%

2,881

Essex

50,923

1,049

2.0%

51,972

Hampshire

32,701

245

0.7%

32,946

Middlesex

40,121

702

1.7%

40,823

Nantucket

4,412

133

2.9%

4,545

Plymouth

26,906

487

1.8%

27,393

Suffolk

27,419

682

2.4%

28,101

Worcester

45,031

432

1.0%

45,463

286,139

4,761

1.6%

290,900

MA Subtotals

Addition to above Richmond

Counties of the Maine Territory of Massachusetts, later counties of the separated state of Maine

 

701

380

757

1,126

168

6.5%

154

2,585

Caswell

1,273

2,748

3,611

1,110

11.3%

1,097

9,839

Chowan

463

641

970

992

26.2%

716

3,782

Nash

650

1,269

1,850

799

15.1%

709

5,277

Edgecomb

1,045

1,977

2,985

1,271

15.0%

1,202

8,480

Halifax

1,088

814

3,145

2,638

25.5%

2,552

10,327

Gates

543

901

1,361

927

18.9%

1,183

4,917

Granville

733

1,486

2,149

925

14.8%

954

6,247

Cumberland

14,110

162

1.1%

14,272

Addition to above

Lincoln

15,546

85

0.5%

15,631

Sampson

565

1,197

1,786

384

9.0%

338

4,268

York

17,623

241

1.3%

17,864

Hyde

496

584

1,282

430

12.6%

376

3,421

Surry

340

837

436

105

6.7%

94

1,559

12,294 21,075

33,413

17,293

16.4%

16,476

105,213

ME Subtotals Totals

47,279

488

1.0%

47,767

333,418

5,249

1.5%

338,667

Source: Evarts B. Green and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 30–40. Note: The census does not have stratifications of the enumerated populations by age.

had the potential to impact county level elections. Opposition to this influence became one of the causes for the contraction of the legal right of African American to vote in North Carolina and the eventual denial of voting rights in 1835.

Overall View of African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Period Overall, Table 4.14 (p. 92) provides a synopsis of the African American population during the Revolutionary Era for six states—Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina—as well as a breakdown by gender in two of them, Connecticut and New York. Using the county or township population sizes in these states, shown in Tables 4.5–4.13, we are able to infer the possibility of electoral influence and impact. Such data allow a refinement from the

Totals

 

4,055

Source: Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 169. North Carolina’s census in 1786 was not a completed census. In some instances the census indicates “additions” to the total population count without identifying the contributing counties or distributing the “added” population among identified counties or segmenting the “added” enumerations by race and age as was done in the identified counties. a

The census segmented white males and all African Americans, male and female, who were 21 years to 60 years of age. White females were not distinguished in this manner. b

c

Percent of the reported total population.

d

Reported total populations may not match the sum of the component populations.

state level, and this refinement tells us exactly where in each state the largest and smallest African American populations resided. In the three states where two censuses were conducted during this period, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, we were able to compare and contrast the growth and decline in the African American populations and to get some sense of the size of the male and female populations. The North Carolina data provide a portrait of the South that helps to explain what might have eventually ended the legal right of African Americans to suffrage in this state, as well as why other southern states may never have granted this legal right despite the national revolutionary spirit and its principles.

92

Chapter 4

Table 4.14  Local-Level Population Censuses and Enumerations of African Americans during the Period of the American Revolution African American Colony

Year

Locale

Table No.

Total Population

Age Strataa

Males

Females

New Hampshire

1775

County

4.9

81,305

16

 

 

656

1786

County

4.10

95,801

 

 

 

46

Massachusetts

1776

County

4.12

338,667

 

Rhode Island

1774

Town

4.5

59,607

 

 

 

3,668

1783

Town

4.6

51,887

 

 

 

2,806

1774

County

4.7

197,842

20

1,577

1,053

6,464

1782

County

4.8

209,177

 

New York

1786

County

4.11

238,897

16

9,521

9,368

18,889

North Carolina

1786

County

4.13

105,213

21–60

 

 

17,293

Connecticut

Population

5,249

6,273

Sources: Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932) and A Century of Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1909), pp. 149–185. The age used by some states to define the electorate or potential electorate. In most cases, the data was collected for whites or white males exclusively. Connecticut, in its census of 1774, was the only state in the Revolutionary period to count whites and African Americans in the same comparable age and gender stratas. a

Conclusions on the African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Period During the Revolutionary Era, nine of the thirteen states (69.2%) allowed the exercise of suffrage rights by Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color. Thus, more than two-thirds of the original states granted legal suffrage rights. Unlike the Colonial Era, where none of the original thirteen colonies initially denied suffrage rights to Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color, two states denied them throughout the Revolutionary Era and another eventually denied the right. Virginia and South Carolina adopted anti-suffrage laws during the Colonial Era and simply carried them over into the Revolutionary Era. North Carolina barred suffrage for free African Americans in 1715 during the Colonial Era but within thirty years, around 1734–1735, reversed its position and again permitted free African Americans to have the legal right to suffrage.24 Delaware adopted antisuffrage laws during the Antebellum Era, although free African Americans had the legal right to suffrage in both the Colonial and Revolutionary Eras.25 On the other hand, a majority of nine states permitted the legal right to suffrage to continue for Free-Men-and-Women-ofColor. This had been set in motion during the Colonial Era, and these states embedded this right in their state constitutions. In eight of these nine states, property qualifications were the only barrier that Free-Men-of-Color faced. In Vermont, even property qualifications were wiped away. The one reality not swept away was the anti-suffrage sentiment. It lingered. Moreover, the rise of two national governments during the Revolutionary War Era (the Continental Congress from the Articles of Confederation and the United States of America from the

United States Constitution) did not settle the matter because the power to determine the right to vote remained with the states. The Constitution did establish a linkage between the states and the federal government because Article 1, Section 2, calls for state voters to cast their ballots directly for members of the House of Representatives. But even with this constitutional linkage, the power to determine who votes still resided with the state governments. Commenting on the lack of continual progress in the suffrage struggle, Emil Olbrich wrote: The evolution of democracy rarely followed a straight path, and it always has been accompanied by profound antidemocratic countercurrents. The history of suffrage in the United States is a history of both expansion and contraction, of inclusion and exclusion, of shifts in direction and momentum at different places and at different times.26 This has been especially true for African Americans, for their quest started in the Colonial Era and continued into the Revolutionary Era. “The chief problems that have faced the black electorate have been the acquisition and retention of the franchise.”27 Neither era permanently settled the matter. And as a consequence, linear progress never became a feature of the suffrage struggle for the potential African American electorate in these two eras.

Notes   1. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 7th Edition (New York: McGrawHill, 1994), pp. 74–75.



The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774–1789

  2. Alexander Keyssar, The Right To Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 25.   3. Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912), p. 19.   4. Ibid., pp. 19–20.   5. Ibid., p. 20. See also Marion Wright, “Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1785,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 33 (April 1948), pp. 168–224.   6. Olbrich, p. 20.  7. Ibid.   8. Robert Dinkin, Voting in Revolutionary America: A Study of Elections in the Original Thirteen States, 1776–1789 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 41–42.   9. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Population Growth (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), p. 4. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. See also John Munroe, “The Negro in Delaware,” South Atlantic Quarterly Vol. 56 (Autumn 1957), pp. 428–443, and Harold Livesay, “Delaware Negroes, 1865–1915,” Delaware History Vol. 13 (October 1968), pp. 87–123. 12. Hanes Walton, Jr. and Robert Smith, American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom, 4th Edition (New York: Longman Publishers, 2008), pp. 10–11. 13. Ibid., p. 11. See also how this affected presidential and congressional campaigns during this era because those candidates who won these

93

slave states’ electoral votes and bonus congressional seats were referred to as “Negro Presidents and Negro Congressmen,” Garry Wills, “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003). 14. Olbrich, p. 21. 15. Ibid., p. 10. 16. Ibid. 17. James Wright, The Free Negro in Maryland, 1634–1860 (New York: 1921), p. 119. See also Margaret Callcott, The Negro in Maryland Politics, 1870–1912 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), p. 3. 18. Olbrich, p. 23. 19. John Kolp, Gentlemen and Freeholders: Electoral Politics in Colonial Virginia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 41. 20. Olbrich, p. 11 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. See also Joseph P. Reidy, “ ‘Negro Election Day’ and Black Community Life, 1750–1860,” in Marxist Perspectives (Fall 1978), pp. 102–117. 23. Olbrich, p. 26. 24. Ibid., p. 8. 25. Ibid., p. 10. 26. Ibid., p. xx. 27. Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Politics: A Theoretical and Structural Analysis (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1972), p. 33.

CHAPTER 5

The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861 The Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause The Demography of African Americans in Antebellum America

96

Table 5.1 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1788–1789 Elections

98

Table 5.2 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1790 Census

99

Table 5.3 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1800 Census

100

Table 5.4 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1810 Census

101

Table 5.5 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1820 Census

102

Table 5.6 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1830 Census

104

Table 5.7 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1840 Census

105

Table 5.8 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1850 Census

107

Table 5.9 House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1860 Census

108

Figure 5.1 Number of States Admitted to the United States by Decade, 1787–1860s

109

Figure 5.2 Numerical Parity of Free and Slave States in the United States by Decade, 1787–1860s

109

Longitudinal Analysis of the Three-Fifths Clause

109

Table 5.10 States Admitted to the Union of the United States, Founding–1870

109

Figure 5.3 Number of House of Representatives Seats Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s

110

Figure 5.4 Percent of House of Representatives Seats Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s

110

Figure 5.5 Percent of Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s

111

Figure 5.6 Total Electoral Votes and Number of Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s

112

Figure 5.7 African American Population Growth in the United States by Slavery Status, 1790–1860

112

Figure 5.8 White Population Growth in the United States by Slavery Status of Residence, 1790–1860

112

Figure 5.9 African American and White Population Growth in the United States, 1790–1860

113

Figure 5.10 Number of Electoral Votes by Slavery Status Grouping of States, 1787–1860s

113

Figure 5.11 Two-Fifths of African American Slave Population as a Share of Total U.S. Population, 1790–1860

114

Table 5.11 Number of Seats in the House of Representatives Held by the Slave States during and after the Period of the Three-Fifths Clause, 1860, 1872, and 1882

115

Summary and Conclusions on the Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause

115

Notes 115

96

Chapter 5

R

atification of the U.S. Constitution on June 26, 1788, created a new electoral system requiring the election of a president and members of the House of Representatives. While the Senate would be elected by the state legislatures, the House and the executive branch of government required popular participation by the state-based electorates. Each state government—thirteen at that time—would set the qualifications for voting in this new federalist system comprised of national, state, county, and local governments. This new document enabled the transition from a confederation of states organized under the Articles of Confederation and operating through the Continental Congress into a federalist system of government. In the Continental Congress only states could vote, and state legislatures, not the voters, decided which delegates would represent the state in the Continental Congress. Now with the Constitution in place, national elections had to be held in the same way as state, county, and local contests. Although the Constitution did not set suffrage qualifications for national elections, it did recognize the duality of the African American population, free and slave. Southerners at the 1787 Constitutional Convention demanded that if the House of Representatives was to be based on population, then slaves had to be counted in the apportionment for the House. Leaders from the slave states demanded a full count of this group, while the leaders from non-slave states declared that they could not be counted in the population for the purposes of representation because they were used and treated as property. Eventually, a compromise was worked out known as the Three-Fifths Clause. It is written into Section 2 of Article I of the Constitution in the following manner: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”1 James Madison later reflected on this constitutional decision, writing in Federalist 54 that The true state of the case is, that they [slaves] partake of both of these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property. . . . [T]he slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property. The federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixt character of persons and of property. This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied, that these are the proper criterion. . . .2 Later in the very same essay, Madison reiterated his justification that the nation had done the right thing in adopting the Three-Fifths Clause: “Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted, which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased

by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man.”3 Ratification of the Constitution, therefore, did not convey suffrage rights to African Americans, but it did allow three-fifths of the slave population, or 60%, to be counted as the population base for slave state representation in the House of Representatives. Thus, the Three-Fifths Clause in the Constitution not only allowed slave states to increase the number of seats that they would have in one house of the national congress but, as the electoral votes of each state are determined by the number of senators and representatives that they have in Congress, it also increased the number of electoral votes that each slave state would have in presidential elections. Of course, if each slave had been counted as a full person, those states would have gained even more. Therefore, along with the creation of national elections came one institution (the House of Representatives) of the new nation built upon non-voting slaves as well as another institution (the Electoral College) residing on the very same foundation. Ironically, Free-Men-of-Color voters found themselves structurally compelled to participate in national elections that were undergirded by the suppression of their fellow men and women of color, but then, they had been in the same situation in the elections of Colonial and Revolutionary America.

The Demography of African Americans in Antebellum America Madison’s argument for the ratification of the Constitution with the Three-Fifths Clause may have effectuated the adoption of this formative document and assured the entrance of the southern states into the Union. Yet he and the other Federalist writers, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, paid no attention to how this clause would provide the political, electoral, and opinion context for the entire Antebellum Era. On this point, African American historian Charles Wesley wrote, “the failure to settle this issue [of slaves being both human and property] laid the foundation for considerable confusion concerning the Negro’s right to vote, for if they were property manifestly, there was no adequate argument for this right.”4 Similarly, constitutional scholar Donald Nieman noted that the Three-Fifths Clause “became an important tool that southerners would use during the next seventy years to bend national policy to their will and make the Constitution a proslavery document.”5 He added: “between ratification of the Constitution and the Mexican War (1846–1848) the American political system worked against realization of the Constitution’s antislavery potential.” As they had at the Philadelphia Convention, southern political leaders doggedly insisted that the national government show solicitude for slavery and challenged measures that threatened the institution. Although northern politicians sometimes resisted these demands, more often they backed down or broke ranks in the face of southern initiatives. Confronted with southern assertiveness, many northern leaders believed that preservation of the Union required them to make concessions to southerners on an issue so vital to their interests.6

The North was not merely interested in saving the Union. Niemann continued, “White attitudes toward blacks, which had taken root during the previous century [in Colonial America] reinforced slavery and the system of racial hierarchy which it created. . . . Such attitudes legitimized existing social arrangements and provided ready arguments against emancipation.”7 Thus, once the Three-Fifths Clause was embedded in the Constitution, along with the fugitive slave clause and another that protected the importation of slaves for twenty years, a political and legal environment was created that placed the Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color in grave jeopardy. Free African Americans existed at the mercy of the state, and many leaders in the slave states equated African Americans with slaves. Nieman observed, “Southern laws governing free blacks were much more restrictive and repressive than those on northern statute books, making southern free blacks little better than slaves without masters.”8 Thus, Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color in Antebellum America found themselves, both in the North and South, “with limited citizenship privileges,” and “they occupied a subordinate position between the whites and the slaves. They were between freedom and bondage.”9 The Three-Fifths Clause drained not only the humanity away from slaves but from free blacks as well. It eroded rights of the latter in both the northern and southern states because the Three-Fifths Clause implied legally that an endless array of restrictions could be visited upon blacks for the good of sectional unity. If the Constitution could count a portion of the African American population while excluding them from suffrage rights, then state legislatures, which had the power over suffrage rights qualifications, could use the existence of the Three-Fifths Clause to diminish the voting rights of free blacks. As this chapter will show, this is exactly what the states did during the Antebellum era. Before we discuss how the Three-Fifths Clause was used to restrict and circumscribe the rights and liberties of the FreeMen-and-Women-of-Color, it is essential to show how this clause empowered the slave states in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Here, for the very first time, is an empirical analysis and assessment of the impact of the Three-Fifths Clause upon the number of seats in the House of Representatives and the number of electoral votes in presidential elections, beginning with the initial election of 1788–1789 and, subsequently, in every federal Census from 1790 through 1860. On July 9, 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, the Three-Fifths Clause was no longer operative. Also, since the nation had no census for the initial national election in 1788, population estimates were put forward by the 1787 Constitutional Convention regarding the number of slaves in each of the six slave states. The Convention also fixed a population of 30,000 as the criterion for one seat in the House of Representatives, although the population requirement for at least one seat in the House of Representatives changed with the appearance of each Census. All of the thirteen original states were granted provisional representation (based on estimated populations) for the first federal election in 1788–1789. Table 5.1 (p. 98) groups these states according to geography and the status to which each had evolved on the question of slavery by 1860, the eve of the Civil War, as (1) free states, (2) border slave states, and (3) southern

The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

97

slave states. The next columns analyze the number of seats that each state had in the House of Representatives of the first Congress, as well as the number of electoral votes in the first presidential election. The non-slave column reveals the number of House seats (and electoral votes) given to the states based on free population (including both whites and blacks); the slave column shows the number of seats (and votes) based on the slave population, made possible by the Three-Fifths Clause. Finally, the table disaggregates the actual state populations into their non-slave population, the three-fifths of the slave population, the population used for apportionment to representation, and the total population for each of the thirteen original states in the new nation. At the bottom of Table 5.1 are the grand totals. There were 65 seats in the initial House of Representatives and a total of 91 electoral votes (achieved by adding the total of 65 seats in the House and the 26 senators) for the presidential election. From these numbers we find that 55 House seats were attributable to non-slave (or free) populations. Thus, a total of 10 House seats, and therefore 10 electoral votes, were attributable to the ThreeFifths Clause.

The 1790 Census Table 5.2 (p. 99) shows how matters stood at the time that the first United States Census was taken in 1790. Three new states, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, had been added to the Union, and since Tennessee entered the Union after the Census had been taken, it was allocated one seat in the House of Representatives on a provisional basis. Examining the grand totals, there were 106 seats in the House of Representatives of the Second Congress, and presidential elections during this decade would have had 138 electoral votes. Of these numbers, 95 seats and 127 of the electoral votes were attributable to non-slave populations. Because of the Three-Fifths Clause, slave states received 9 seats and 9 electoral votes; adding the seats and votes of border slave states, enslaved populations accounted for 11 seats and 11 electoral votes. This decade was also the first time there were an equal number of free and slave states. Vermont entered as a free state and Tennessee as a slave state. Nonetheless, the free states had 57 seats in the House of Representatives and the slave states 49, so viewed by their status on the question of slavery, the states were not on parity: the free states had 8 more seats. There is also no parity shown between the states in Table 5.1, for the free states had 35 seats and the slave states only 30, and this disparity between the states begins to grow slightly in Table 5.2. This same reality pertains in the presidential elections. In 1790, the free states had 73 electoral votes and the slave states only 65 votes, a difference of 8 electoral votes. In the first federal election (Table 5.1), the free states had 49 electoral votes compared to the slave states’ 42, for a difference of 7 electoral votes. Clearly, the slave states needed the Three-Fifths Clause to stay near to parity with the free states in terms of political power in the House of Representatives. However, as representation in the Senate became equal in the 1790s, the southern states did gain effective veto power over legislation that might negatively impact slavery. Although the number of states would not always be equal, the

98

Chapter 5

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Border Slave

Slave

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.1  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1788–1789 Elections Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives

State

Non-Slaveb House Seats

Slavec House Seats

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale



Connecticut

5

0

5

2

7

202,000

0

202,000

202,000



Massachusetts

8

0

8

2

10

360,000

0

360,000

360,000



New Hampshire

3

0

3

2

5

102,000

0

102,000

102,000



New Jersey

4

0

4

2

6

138,000

0

138,000

138,000



New York

6

0

6

2

8

238,000

0

238,000

238,000



Pennsylvania

8

0

8

2

10

360,000

0

360,000

360,000



Rhode Island

1

0

1

2

3

58,000

0

58,000

58,000

 

Subtotal (7)

35

0

35

14

49

1,458,000

0

1,458,000

1,458,000



Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

37,000

0

37,000

37,000



Maryland

4

2

6

2

8

218,000

80,000

298,000

351,333

 

Subtotal (2)

5

2

7

4

11

255,000

80,000

335,000

388,333



Georgia

2

1

3

2

5

90,000

20,000

110,000

123,333



North Carolina

4

1

5

2

7

200,000

60,000

260,000

300,000



South Carolina

3

2

5

2

7

150,000

80,000

230,000

283,333



Virginia

6

4

10

2

12

420,000

280,000

700,000

886,667

 

Subtotal (4)

15

8

23

8

31

860,000

440,000

1,300,000

1,593,333

Total (13)

55

10

65

26

91

2,573,000

520,000

3,093,000

3,439,666

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

d

Populations in this column are constitutionally re-apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + ((3/5) x Slave population).

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.

southern states would fight hard to maintain their numerical parity. Another interesting feature in Table 5.2 is that by the time of the initial Census there were slaves in the so-called free states because southern slave owners sometimes transported slaves with them when moving to free states. (This situation would be the crux of Dred Scott’s unsuccessful argument for his freedom in the 1857 Supreme Court case that helped set the stage for the Civil War.) The number of slaves in the free states was much smaller than in the slave states but significant enough that free states began to get fractions of seats and electoral votes just like the slave states. For instance, if New York’s seats and votes were

examined in terms of fractions, New York might have obtained almost a half-seat and a half-electoral vote because of its slave population.

The 1800 Census In 1803 Ohio entered the Union as a free state. Table 5.3 (p. 100) indicates that a near balance in numbers of free and slave states had been maintained, with nine of the former and eight of the latter. However, of the total 142 House seats, the free states had 77, compared with 65 for the slave states, for a difference of 12. In terms of the 176 electoral votes, the free states had 95,



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

99

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Border Slave

Slave

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.2  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1790 Census Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives

State

Populations

Non-Slaveb House Seats

Slavec House Seats

Total House Seats

7

0

7

2

9

235,145

1,589

236,734

237,793

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

 

Connecticut

 

Massachusetts

14

0

14

2

16

378,693

0

378,693

378,693

 

New Hampshire

4

0

4

2

6

141,727

94

141,821

141,884

 

New Jersey

5

0

5

2

7

172,716

6,854

179,570

184,139

 

New York

10

0

10

2

12

318,824

12,716

331,540

340,017

 

Pennsylvania

13

0

13

2

15

430,630

2,224

432,854

434,337

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

67,954

575

68,529

68,912

 

Vermont

2

0

2

2

4

85,423

0

85,423

85,423

 

Subtotal (8)

57

0

57

16

73

1,831,112

24,052

1,855,164

1,871,198

 

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

50,209

5,332

55,541

59,096

 

Kentucky

2

0

2

2

4

61,247

7,458

68,705

73,677

 

Maryland

6

2

8

2

10

216,692

61,822

278,514

319,728

 

Subtotal (3)

9

2

11

6

17

328,148

74,612

402,760

452,501

 

Georgia

2

0

2

2

4

53,284

17,558

70,842

82,548

 

North Carolina

8

2

10

2

12

293,245

60,470

353,715

394,028

 

South Carolina

4

2

6

2

8

141,979

64,256

206,235

249,073



Tennessee

1

0

1

2

3

32,274

2,050

34,324

35,691

 

Virginia

14

5

19

2

21

454,983

175,576

630,559

747,610

 

Subtotal (5)

29

9

38

10

48

975,765

319,910

1,295,675

1,508,950

Total (16)

95

11

106

32

138

3,135,025

418,574

3,553,599

3,832,649

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

d

Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population.

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.

compared to the 81 for the slave states, for a difference of 14. Hence, in each decade since the formation of the new nation, the slave states moved further and further away from parity, losing power and influence in the Congress and in each of the presidential elections. This was a far cry from the Continental Congress, where each state had one vote. Table 5.3 (p. 100) shows that slave populations in free states declined compared to the 1790 Census, because in these states the process of emancipation had begun, and they were

gradually abolishing slavery. However, while slavery in the free states was starting to disappear, the loss of this population did not result in the loss of seats and/or electoral votes. As shown in Tables 5.1 and 5.2, none of the free states had large enough slave populations to gain seats through reapportionment. Indeed, when former slaves remained in the state and became Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color, the state’s representation grew as they were counted as whole persons, rather than only as three-fifths of a person.

100

Chapter 5

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Border Slave

Slave

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.3  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1800 Census Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives

State

 

Connecticut

 

Non-Slaveb House Seats

Slavec House Seats

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

7

0

7

2

9

250,051

571

250,622

251,002

Massachusetts

17

0

17

2

19

568,564

0

568,564

568,564

 

New Hampshire

5

0

5

2

7

183,850

5

183,855

183,858

 

New Jersey

6

0

6

2

8

198,727

7,453

206,180

211,149

 

New York

17

0

17

2

19

568,148

12,542

580,690

589,051



Ohio

1

0

1

2

3

45,365

0

45,365

45,365

 

Pennsylvania

18

0

18

2

20

600,659

1,024

601,683

602,365

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

68,742

228

68,970

69,122

 

Vermont

4

0

4

2

6

154,465

0

154,465

154,465

 

Subtotal (9)

77

0

77

18

95

2,638,571

21,823

2,660,394

2,674,941

 

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

58,120

3,692

61,812

64,273

 

Kentucky

5

1

6

2

8

180,662

24,230

204,892

221,045

 

Maryland

7

2

9

2

11

235,913

63,381

299,294

341,548

 

Subtotal (3)

13

3

16

6

22

474,695

91,303

565,998

626,866

 

Georgia

3

1

4

2

6

103,280

35,644

138,924

162,686

 

North Carolina

10

2

12

2

14

344,807

79,978

424,785

478,103

 

South Carolina

6

2

8

2

10

199,440

87,691

287,131

345,591

 

Tennessee

3

0

3

2

5

92,018

8,150

100,168

105,602

 

Virginia

16

6

22

2

24

534,404

207,478

741,882

880,200

 

Subtotal (5)

38

11

49

10

59

1,273,949

418,941

1,692,890

1,972,182

128

14

142

34

176

4,387,215

532,067

4,919,282

5,273,989

Total (17)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

d

Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population.

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.

The 1810 Census In the decade after the third Census in 1810, five new states joined the Union. There were two free states (Illinois, and Indiana) and the three slave states (Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi). Table 5.4 shows that four of these five states came in with provisional representation, and each received one seat in the House of Representatives. The Census of 1810 apportioned the 186 seats in the House of Representatives and the 230 electoral votes for presidential elections. The free states had 105 seats in the House and the slave states 81, for a difference of 24 seats. As for electoral votes, the free states had 127 and the slave states 103,

for a difference of 24 electoral votes. Thus, despite the balance in the number of states, the slave states were dropping further and further away from parity in political representation in the House and Electoral College influence with each Census. Of the free states of Table 5.4, only two, New York and New Jersey, reported significant slave populations, but the number of slaves in free states continued to drop. Slavery, as an institution, was slowly becoming geographically regionalized, from the free states in the North to the slave states in the South. The first three Censuses, as illustrated in our tables, document a slowly emerging trend that did not favor the slave states.



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

101

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.4  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1810 Census Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives

State

Slave

Slave House Seats c

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

 

Connecticut

7

0

7

2

9

261,632

186

261,818

261,942



Illinois

1

0

1

2

3

12,114

101

12,215

12,282



Indiana

1

0

1

2

3

24,283

142

24,425

24,520

 

Massachusetts

20

0

20

2

22

700,745

0

700,745

700,745

 

New Hampshire

6

0

6

2

8

214,460

0

214,460

214,460

 

New Jersey

6

0

6

2

8

234,711

6,511

241,222

245,562

 

New York

27

0

27

2

29

944,032

9,010

953,042

959,049

6

0

6

2

8

230,760

0

230,760

230,760

Ohio

Border Slave

Non-Slave House Seats

b

 

Pennsylvania

23

0

23

2

25

809,296

477

809,773

810,091

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

76,823

65

76,888

76,931

 

Vermont

6

0

6

2

8

217,895

0

217,895

217,895

 

Subtotal (11)

105

0

105

22

127

3,726,751

16,492

3,743,243

3,754,237

 

Delaware

2

0

2

2

4

68,497

2,506

71,003

72,674

 

Kentucky

9

1

10

2

12

325,950

48,337

374,287

406,511

 

Maryland

7

2

9

2

11

269,044

66,901

335,945

380,546

 

Subtotal (3)

18

3

21

6

27

663,491

117,744

781,235

859,731



Alabama

1

0

1

2

3

0

0

0

0

 

Georgia

4

2

6

2

8

147,215

63,131

210,346

252,433



Louisiana

1

0

1

2

3

41,896

20,796

62,692

76,556



Mississippi

1

0

1

2

3

23,264

10,253

33,517

40,352

 

North Carolina

10

3

13

2

15

386,676

101,294

487,970

555,500

 

South Carolina

6

3

9

2

11

218,750

117,819

336,569

415,115

 

Tennessee

5

1

6

2

8

217,192

26,721

243,913

261,727

 

Virginia

16

7

23

2

25

582,084

235,510

817,594

974,600

 

Subtotal (8)

44

16

60

16

76

1,617,077

575,524

2,192,601

2,576,283

167

19

186

44

230

6,007,319

709,760

6,717,079

7,190,251

Total (22)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

d

Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population.

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.

The 1820 Census Table 5.5 (p. 102), which is based on the fourth Census in 1820, further demonstrates this emerging trend. Only one state was admitted during this decade, Missouri, which came

in as a slave state. Parity was again achieved, as there were now twelve free states and twelve slave states. The House of Representatives that year had 213 seats, with the free states accounting for 123 and the slave states 90, a difference of

102

Chapter 5

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Border Slave

Slave

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.5  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1820 Census Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives Non-Slave House Seats

b

State

Slave House Seats c

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

 

Connecticut

6

0

6

2

8

275,151

58

275,209

275,248

 

Illinois

1

0

1

2

3

54,294

550

54,844

55,211

 

Indiana

3

0

3

2

5

146,988

114

147,102

147,178

 

Maine

7

0

7

2

9

298,335

0

298,335

298,335

 

Massachusetts

13

0

13

2

15

523,287

0

523,287

523,287

 

New Hampshire

6

0

6

2

8

244,161

0

244,161

244,161

 

New Jersey

6

0

6

2

8

270,018

4,534

274,552

277,575

 

New York

34

0

34

2

36

1,362,724

6,053

1,368,777

1,372,812

Ohio

14

0

14

2

16

581,434

0

581,434

581,434

 

Pennsylvania

26

0

26

2

28

1,049,247

127

1,049,374

1,049,458

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

83,011

29

83,040

83,059

 

Vermont

5

0

5

2

7

235,981

0

235,981

235,981

 

Subtotal (12)

123

0

123

24

147

5,124,631

11,465

5,136,096

5,143,739

 

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

68,240

2,705

70,945

72,749

 

Kentucky

10

2

12

2

14

437,585

76,039

513,624

564,317

 

Maryland

7

2

9

2

11

299,953

64,438

364,391

407,350

 

Missouri

1

0

1

2

3

56,364

6,133

62,497

66,586

 

Subtotal (4)

19

4

23

8

31

862,142

149,315

1,011,457

1,111,002

 

Alabama

2

1

3

2

5

86,022

25,127

111,149

127,901

 

Georgia

5

2

7

2

9

191,333

89,794

281,127

340,989

 

Louisiana

2

1

3

2

5

84,343

41,438

125,781

153,407

 

Mississippi

1

0

1

2

3

42,634

19,688

62,322

75,448

 

North Carolina

10

3

13

2

15

433,912

122,950

556,862

638,829

 

South Carolina

6

3

9

2

11

244,265

155,085

399,350

502,740

 

Tennessee

8

1

9

2

11

342,716

48,064

390,780

422,823

 

Virginia

16

6

22

2

24

640,218

255,089

895,307

1,065,366

 

Subtotal (8)

50

17

67

16

83

2,065,443

757,235

2,822,678

3,327,503

192

21

213

48

261

8,052,216

918,015

8,970,231

9,582,244

Total (24)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

d

Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population.

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.

33 seats. In the Electoral College, there were 261 electoral votes in total, with the free states holding 147 for a 33 vote edge over the 114 electoral votes of the slave states. Hence, even with a balance in number of states, the erosion of power and influence in terms of seats and electoral votes meant that the slave states were falling further and further behind. Up to this time New York and New Jersey were still reported to have slave populations; these two were the slowest of free states to emancipate their slave populations. Accompanying this Census in 1820 was the passage of the Missouri Compromise. Designed to reduce the intersectional strife and friction caused by power struggles that went along with adding slave and free states, this compromise “said that slavery was congressionally banned north of Missouri” in the federal territories.10 This congressional action allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine to enter as a free state because the compromise forbade slavery in places north of Missouri. Besides creating a geographical basis for the existence of slavery, the compromise also laid the foundation for Congress to pursue a policy of balance in admitting new states to the Union. For each new state admitted to the Union, there had to be an equal number of free and slave states after 1820. But as the Census data reveal, this compromise, rather than limiting the intersectional strife, increased it.

The 1830 Census With the 1830 Census, the slave states could readily see that their disadvantages were steadily increasing. Table 5.6 (p. 104) shows that two new states, Michigan and Arkansas, were added to the Union on a provisional basis and each was given one representative. Michigan was admitted as a free state and Arkansas as a slave state. During the 1830s, there was a grand total of 242 seats in the House of Representatives and 294 electoral votes for the presidential races. Of the 242 House seats, the free states had 142 to the slave states’ 100, for a difference of 42 seats. The free states had 168 electoral votes to 126 for the slave states, for a difference of 42 electoral votes. The data of 1830 reveal that the gaps in seats and votes between free and slave states had widened over the differences seen in the 1820 data.

The 1840 Census During the Census decade of 1840, as shown in Table 5.7 (p. 105), four new states were added to the Union, all provisionally: two free states, Iowa and Wisconsin, and the last two slave states, Florida and Texas. For the first time the House of Representatives actually declined in its number of seats over the previous decade, dropping to a total of 230 seats from 242 in 1830. Even with the additional states admitted, the number of electoral votes also declined to 290. Of the 230 House seats, the free states had 139 and the slave states had 91, for a difference of 48 seats, up 6 seats over the 1830 count despite the overall shrinkage of the House. Free states had 169 of the electoral votes and slave states had 121, for a difference of 48 votes, 6 more votes than the difference of the previous decade. Thus, with each passing decade, in a House of Representatives of increasing numbers and in a House of declining numbers,

The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

103

the slave states, despite adding new states to their bloc, were losing power and influence in the Congress and presidential elections—the Three-Fifths Clause notwithstanding. The 48-seat and 48-vote disparities were the largest to this point in time. If this trend continued, the slave states would become too much of a minority in the House to defend the culture and politics of their region.

The 1850 Census To stop this erosion of political and electoral power, the slave states were able to push the Compromise of 1850 through Congress. “The period was ushered in by the controversy over slavery in the newly acquired territory in the Southwest,” that resulted from the United States’ war with Mexico.11 “With the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and the rapid peopling of many areas in the Mexican cession, a policy had to be decided upon.”12 In a bid to enhance its chances for statehood, California adopted a state constitution in 1849 with a clause prohibiting slavery. Historian John Hope Franklin described the situation: Some leaders held that the new territory should be divided into slave and free sections as in the Missouri Compromise. . . . Others . . . wanted . . . total exclusion of slavery from the territories. . . . Still others were of the position that the question should be decided by the people who lived in the new territories. . . . Finally, there were those who insisted that slavery could not be legally excluded anywhere. . . . 13 One of the things that helped to set off this renewed intersectional strife and animosity was the Supreme Court’s decision “in 1842, in the Case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania . . . [which ruled] that state officials were not required to assist in the return of fugitives, and the decision did much to render ineffective all efforts to recover slaves.”14 Leaders in the slave states felt that the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution had been set aside, and that this decision made the recovery of their human property even more difficult and expensive. Thus, slave state leadership and their slave owner constituencies felt that now they were not only losing political and electoral power but also their economic power. Therefore, they demanded that the 1850 Compromise contain “a stringent fugitive slave law,” but being a compromise, the non-slave states demanded and received the entrance of California as a free state and the end of the slave trade in Washington, D.C.15 It created, at best, a very uneasy and untenable situation for the moment, but the moment did not last long, and the nation stood on the verge of a dramatic re-shaping of the political landscape. Two years later, in 1852, “the appearance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin . . . increased the strain on intersectional relations. This novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe sold more than 300,000 copies in the first year of publication and was soon dramatized in theaters throughout the North.”16 The novel described in vivid and moving language the inhumanity and cruelty of slavery and the fugitive slave law and catchers. Now along with the attacks

104

Chapter 5

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Border Slave

Slave

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.6  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1830 Census Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives Non-Slave House Seats

b

State

Slave House Seats c

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

 

Connecticut

6

0

6

2

8

297,650

15

297,665

297,675

 

Illinois

3

0

3

2

5

156,698

448

157,146

157,445

 

Indiana

7

0

7

2

9

343,028

2

343,030

343,031

 

Maine

8

0

8

2

10

399,453

1

399,454

399,455

 

Massachusetts

12

0

12

2

14

610,407

1

610,408

610,408



Michigan

1

0

1

2

3

31,607

19

31,626

31,639

 

New Hampshire

5

0

5

2

7

269,325

2

269,327

269,328

 

New Jersey

6

0

6

2

8

318,569

1,352

319,921

320,823

 

New York

40

0

40

2

42

1,918,533

45

1,918,578

1,918,608

Ohio

19

0

19

2

21

937,897

4

937,901

937,903

 

Pennsylvania

28

0

28

2

30

1,347,830

242

1,348,072

1,348,233

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

97,182

10

97,192

97,199

 

Vermont

5

0

5

2

7

280,652

0

280,652

280,652

 

Subtotal (13)

142

0

142

26

168

7,008,831

2,141

7,010,972

7,012,399

 

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

73,456

1,975

75,431

76,748

 

Kentucky

11

2

13

2

15

522,704

99,128

621,832

687,917

 

Maryland

7

1

8

2

10

344,046

61,796

405,842

447,040

 

Missouri

2

0

2

2

4

115,364

15,055

130,419

140,455

 

Subtotal (4)

21

3

24

8

32

1,055,570

177,954

1,233,524

1,352,160

 

Alabama

4

1

5

2

7

191,978

70,529

262,507

309,527



Arkansas

1

0

1

2

3

25,812

2,746

28,558

30,388

 

Georgia

6

3

9

2

11

299,292

130,519

429,811

516,823

 

Louisiana

2

1

3

2

5

106,151

65,753

171,904

215,739

 

Mississippi

1

1

2

2

4

70,962

39,395

110,357

136,621

 

North Carolina

10

3

13

2

15

492,386

147,361

639,747

737,987

 

South Carolina

5

4

9

2

11

265,784

189,241

455,025

581,185

 

Tennessee

11

2

13

2

15

540,301

84,962

625,263

681,904

 

Virginia

15

6

21

2

23

741,648

281,854

1,023,502

1,211,405

Subtotal (9)

55

21

76

18

94

2,734,314

1,012,360

3,746,674

4,421,579

218

24

242

52

294

10,798,715

1,192,455

11,991,170

12,786,138

 

Total (26)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population. d

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

105

Free/Slave Status (1860) Free

Border Slave

Slave

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.7  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1840 Census Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives     State

Non-Slave House Seats

b

Slave House Seats c

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

 

Connecticut

4

0

4

2

6

304,961

10

304,971

304,978

 

Illinois

7

0

7

2

9

475,852

199

476,051

476,183

 

Indiana

10

0

10

2

12

685,863

2

685,865

685,866



Iowa

2

0

2

2

4

43,096

10

43,106

43,112

 

Maine

7

0

7

2

9

501,793

0

501,793

501,793

 

Massachusetts

10

0

10

2

12

737,699

0

737,699

737,699

 

Michigan

3

0

3

2

5

212,267

0

212,267

212,267

 

New Hampshire

4

0

4

2

6

284,573

1

284,574

284,574

 

New Jersey

5

0

5

2

7

372,632

404

373,036

373,306

 

New York

34

0

34

2

36

2,428,917

2

2,428,919

2,428,921

Ohio

21

0

21

2

23

1,519,464

2

1,519,466

1,519,467

 

Pennsylvania

24

0

24

2

26

1,723,969

38

1,724,007

1,724,033

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

108,825

3

108,828

108,830

 

Vermont

4

0

4

2

6

291,948

0

291,948

291,948



Wisconsin

2

0

2

2

4

30,934

7

30,941

30,945

 

Subtotal (15)

139

0

139

30

169

9,722,793

678

9,723,471

9,723,922

 

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

75,480

1,563

77,043

78,085

 

Kentucky

8

2

10

2

12

597,570

109,355

706,925

779,828

 

Maryland

5

1

6

2

8

380,282

53,842

434,124

470,019

 

Missouri

5

0

5

2

7

325,462

34,944

360,406

383,702

 

Subtotal (4)

19

3

22

8

30

1,378,794

199,704

1,578,498

1,711,634

 

Alabama

5

2

7

2

9

337,224

152,119

489,343

590,756

 

Arkansas

1

0

1

2

3

77,639

11,961

89,600

97,574



Florida

1

0

1

2

3

28,760

15,430

44,190

54,477

 

Georgia

6

2

8

2

10

409,848

168,566

578,414

690,792

 

Louisiana

3

1

4

2

6

183,959

101,071

285,030

352,411

 

Mississippi

2

2

4

2

6

180,440

117,127

297,567

375,651

 

North Carolina

7

2

9

2

11

507,602

147,490

655,092

753,419

 

South Carolina

4

3

7

2

9

267,360

196,223

463,583

594,398

 

Tennessee

9

2

11

2

13

646,151

109,835

755,986

829,210



Texasf

2

0

2

2

4

0

0

0

0

 

Virginia

11

4

15

2

17

790,810

269,392

1,060,202

1,239,797

 

Subtotal (11)

51

18

69

22

91

3,429,793

1,289,214

4,719,007

5,578,485

209

21

230

60

290

14,531,380

1,489,596

16,020,976

17,014,041

Total (30)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment. b Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats). c Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats). d Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population. e Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population. f Census population data were not available for the provisional admission of Texas to the United States.

106

Chapter 5

and criticisms from the abolitionists, the slave states were losing the battle for public opinion. More importantly, the impact and influence of the novel had the potential to further erode their political and electoral power by setting into motion two new political realities. First, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, introduced by Illinois’ Democratic senator Stephen Douglas, undermined the temporary sectional truce generated by the 1850 Compromise. This new legislation provided that “Kansas and Nebraska should be organized as territories and that the question of slavery should be decided by territorial legislatures.”17 It ended up creating what historians call “Bleeding Kansas,” due to violent confrontations in the territory between pro-slavery southerners and “free soil” northerners over the type of state that the territory would become. The second new political reality occurred in the same year, 1854, with the founding of the Republican Party in Ripon, Wisconsin, dedicated to stopping the expansion of slavery into the new territories. Republican leaders vowed to halt the continuing efforts of pro-slavery political forces to return the nation to a pro-slavery republic. The Republican Party was developed to fill the political vacuum created by the collapse and fall of the Whig Party.18 Although these two new political realities became the new political engines driving intersectional strife and rivalry, the slave states were further aggrieved by the results of reapportionment from the 1850 Census. Table 5.8 displays the results of the 1850 Census. Near the end of this decade two new states, Minnesota and Oregon, entered the Union as free states. The slave states lost significant ground simply because, for the first time, there was no admittance of slave states to offset the new free states. With this handicap, the advantage of the free states in the House of Representatives increased to 57 seats over the slave states (only 90 seats as compared to the free states’ 147 out of the grand total of 237 seats). In the Electoral College there were 303 votes, of which free states held 183 and slave states 120, creating a difference of 63 votes. The pattern of lost political power and influence in presidential elections through the shift in the Electoral College was quite apparent. The leaders of the slave states could clearly see that free states had an ever-rising majority of seats in the House of Representatives and could outvote the slaves states; this was even more likely as northern public opinion was becoming strongly anti-slavery. Without new slave states, not even the Three-Fifths Clause could forestall the political and electoral power of the slave states slipping away, and the possibility grew that the very institution of slavery might also perish.

The 1860 Census With the advent of the 1860 Census, the nation was on the verge of civil war. Kansas entered the Union as a free state in January 1861, just months ahead of the start of hostilities in April 1861. In 1863, the Union-occupied territory of West Virginia was

formed as a free state, separated from the slave state of Virginia in the midst of the war. Nevada was also admitted in 1864. Of course, all of these states entered as free states. Two of these states had provisional representation, while one, Kansas, was fully represented. The point here is that with the onset of the war, the political and electoral power of slave states continued to decline. Table 5.9 (p. 108) shows that in 1860 the House of Representatives had a grand total of 243 seats and that the free states held 158 seats to only 85 for the slave states, for difference of 73 seats. Free states now had a near two-thirds majority (65.0%) of seats in the House of Representatives and a 42 to 30 advantage in the Senate. The slave states were at their political mercy. At the Electoral College level, there were 315 votes for presidential elections. Here, the free states held 200 electoral votes to the slave states’ 115—a difference of 85 electoral votes. This meant that the free states alone had enough electoral votes to decide a presidential contest—indeed, in 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the White House without a single southern electoral vote. If the Three-Fifths Clause population were to be eliminated, slave states would drop to an even smaller minority, and possibly to a “permanent minority” in the congressional and presidential politics of the nation. This population predicament makes evident the urgency that led the slave states to withdraw from the Union after Republican Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. South Carolina seceded first, and the other ten states of the old South followed in short order, setting up the Confederate States of America. Despite this secession, the Three-Fifths Clause remained in the Constitution, and the four border slave states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri remained in the Union to fight against the South in the Civil War. During the eight decades prior to the Civil War, some twenty-one states were added to the Union. Twelve of the twenty-one were admitted as free states and only nine were admitted as slave states. Figure 5.1 (p. 109) shows the number of states admitted by decade. Aside from the initial year of 1789, the decades of the 1810s, 1840s, and 1860s were the periods when the largest numbers of states joined the Union. Table 5.10 (p. 109) lists the states by the decade that they were admitted as well as the year of admission and their status on the issue of slavery as of 1860. Eventually, the slave states simply ran out of geographical territory for more states, as the western climate was not amenable to the cash crops that slaves had planted and harvested, and the would-be western states, seeing the growing power of the existing free states, cast their lot against becoming slave states. Figure 5.2 (p. 109) shows the numerical parity of free and slave states from the national founding through the decade of the 1860s. There was parity in the number of free and slave states in the 1790s and again from 1812, when Louisiana became a slave state, until 1850, when California was admitted as a free state. Then began a run that added two more free states before the advent of the Civil War and three more during the war.



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

107

Free/Slave Status (1860)

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.8  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1850 Census

Free

Border Slave

Slave

Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives     State

Non-Slave House Seats

b

Slave House Seats c

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

California

2

0

2

2

 

Connecticut

4

0

4

 

Illinois

9

0

9

 

Indiana

11

0

 

Iowa

2

0

 

Maine

 

Massachusetts

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

4

92,597

0

92,597

92,597

2

6

370,792

0

370,792

370,792

2

11

851,470

0

851,470

851,470

11

2

13

988,416

0

988,416

988,416

2

2

4

192,214

0

192,214

192,214

6

0

6

2

8

583,169

0

583,169

583,169

11

0

11

2

13

994,514

0

994,514

994,514

 

Michigan

4

0

4

2

6

397,654

0

397,654

397,654



Minnesota

2

0

2

2

4

6,077

0

6,077

6,077

 

New Hampshire

3

0

3

2

5

317,976

0

317,976

317,976

 

New Jersey

5

0

5

2

7

489,319

142

489,461

489,555

 

New York

33

0

33

2

35

3,097,394

0

3,097,394

3,097,394

Ohio

21

0

21

2

23

1,980,329

0

1,980,329

1,980,329



Oregon

1

0

1

2

3

13,294

0

13,294

13,294

 

Pennsylvania

25

0

25

2

27

2,311,786

0

2,311,786

2,311,786

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

147,545

0

147,545

147,545

 

Vermont

3

0

3

2

5

314,120

0

314,120

314,120

 

Wisconsin

 

Subtotal (18)

   

3

0

3

2

5

305,391

0

305,391

305,391

147

0

147

36

183

13,454,057

142

13,454,199

13,454,293

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

89,242

1,374

90,616

91,532

Kentucky

9

1

10

2

12

771,424

126,589

898,013

982,405

 

Maryland

5

1

6

2

8

492,666

54,221

546,887

583,034

 

Missouri

6

1

7

2

9

594,622

52,453

647,075

682,044

 

Subtotal (4)

21

3

24

8

32

1,947,954

234,637

2,182,591

2,339,015

 

Alabama

5

2

7

2

9

428,779

205,706

634,485

771,623

 

Arkansas

2

0

2

2

4

162,797

28,260

191,057

209,897

 

Florida

1

0

1

2

3

48,135

23,586

71,721

87,445

 

Georgia

6

2

8

2

10

524,503

229,009

753,512

906,185

 

Louisiana

3

1

4

2

6

272,953

146,885

419,838

517,762

 

Mississippi

3

2

5

2

7

296,648

185,927

482,575

606,526

 

North Carolina

6

2

8

2

10

580,491

173,129

753,620

869,039

 

South Carolina

3

3

6

2

8

283,523

230,990

514,513

668,507

 

Tennessee

8

2

10

2

12

763,258

143,675

906,933

1,002,717

 

Texas

 

Virginia

 

2

0

2

2

4

154,431

34,897

189,328

212,592

10

3

13

2

15

949,133

283,517

1,232,650

1,421,661

49

17

66

22

88

4,464,651

1,685,581

6,150,232

7,273,954

217

20

237

66

303

19,866,662

1,920,360

21,787,022

23,067,262

Subtotal (11) Total (33)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a

Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment.

b

Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

c

Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats).

d

Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population.

e

Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population.

108

Chapter 5

Free/Slave Status (1860)

Provisional Representationa

Table 5.9  House of Representatives Seats and Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause, 1860 Census

Free

Border Slave

Slave

Congressional Seats and Electoral Votes House of Representatives     State

Non-Slave House Seats

b

Slave House Seats c

Populations

Total House Seats

Senate Seats

Electoral Votes

NonSlave

(3/5) x Slave

Constitutional Reapportionmentd

Totale

California

3

0

3

2

5

327,263

0

327,263

 

Connecticut

4

0

4

2

6

460,131

0

460,131

327,263 460,131

 

Illinois

14

0

14

2

16

1,711,919

0

1,711,919

1,711,919

 

Indiana

11

0

11

2

13

1,350,138

0

1,350,138

1,350,138

 

Iowa

6

0

6

2

8

674,848

0

674,848

674,848

 

Kansas

1

0

1

2

3

107,015

1

107,016

107,017

 

Maine

5

0

5

2

7

628,274

0

628,274

628,274

 

Massachusetts

10

0

10

2

12

1,231,034

0

1,231,034

1,231,034

 

Michigan

6

0

6

2

8

742,941

0

742,941

742,941

 

Minnesota

2

0

2

2

4

169,654

0

169,654

169,654

 

Nebraska

1

0

1

2

3

28,763

9

28,772

28,778

Nevada

1

0

1

2

3

6,857

0

6,857

6,857

 

New Hampshire

3

0

3

2

5

326,073

0

326,073

326,073

 

New Jersey

5

0

5

2

7

672,017

11

672,028

672,035

 

New York

31

0

31

2

33

3,880,595

0

3,880,595

3,880,595

Ohio

19

0

19

2

21

2,339,481

0

2,339,481

2,339,481

1

0

1

2

3

52,288

0

52,288

52,288

 

Oregon

 

Pennsylvania

24

0

24

2

26

2,906,208

0

2,906,208

2,906,208

 

Rhode Island

2

0

2

2

4

174,601

0

174,601

174,601

 

Vermont

3

0

3

2

5

315,078

0

315,078

315,078

 

Wisconsin

6

0

6

2

8

774,864

0

774,864

774,864

 

Subtotal (21)

158

0

158

42

200

18,880,042

21

18,880,063

18,880,077

 

Delaware

1

0

1

2

3

110,418

1,079

111,497

112,216

 

Kentucky

8

1

9

2

11

930,168

135,290

1,065,458

1,155,651

 

Maryland

5

0

5

2

7

599,860

52,313

652,173

687,049

 

Missouri

8

1

9

2

11

1,067,061

68,959

1,136,020

1,181,992

 

West Virginia f

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

 

Subtotal (5)

22

2

24

8

32

2,707,507

257,641

2,965,148

3,136,908

 

Alabama

4

2

6

2

8

528,961

261,048

790,009

964,041

 

Arkansas

2

1

3

2

5

324,287

66,669

390,956

435,402

 

Florida

1

0

1

2

3

78,678

37,047

115,725

140,423

 

Georgia

5

2

7

2

9

595,050

277,319

872,369

1,057,248

 

Louisiana

3

2

5

2

7

376,103

199,036

575,139

707,829

 

Mississippi

3

2

5

2

7

354,672

261,979

616,651

791,303

 

North Carolina

5

2

7

2

9

660,405

198,635

859,040

991,464

 

South Carolina

2

2

4

2

6

301,214

241,444

542,658

703,620

 

Tennessee

7

1

8

2

10

834,022

165,431

999,453

1,109,741

 

Texas

3

1

4

2

6

421,246

109,540

530,786

603,812

 

Virginia

9

2

11

2

13

1,105,341

294,519

1,399,860

1,596,206

44

17

61

22

83

5,579,979

2,112,667

7,692,646

9,101,089

224

19

243

72

315

27,167,528

2,370,329

29,537,857

31,118,074

 

Subtotal (11) Total (37)

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57; Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). a Provisional representation accorded by Congress to newly admitted states; not based on any census but pending the next census for determination by reapportionment. b Number of Non-Slave Representatives = Rounded((Non-slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats). c Number of Slave Representatives = Rounded((((3/5) x Slave population)/(Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population)) x Total House Seats). d Populations in this column are constitutionally apportioned, except when provisionally represented. Re-apportioned population = Non-slave population + (3/5) x Slave population. e Total population = Non-slave population + Slave population. f West Virginia, formed from the slave state of Virginia, was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1863, one year after the reapportionment based on the 1860 census became effective in 1862. West Virginia is introduced here among the Border (Slave) states without population and representation data.



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861 Figure 5.1  Number of States Admitted to the United States by Decade, 1787–1860s

Number of States Admitted

14

Table 5.10  States Admitted to the Union of the United States, Founding–1870

13

Decade of Admittance to the Union

12 10 8 6

5

4

4

3

2

2

1

2

Original Thirteen States 1787–1790 a

4

3

Slaveholding Status as of 1860 Number Admitted

Year Admitted

13

1787 1787 1787 1788 1788 1788 1788 1788 1788 1788 1788 1789 1790

s 60 18

s

s

s 50 18

40 18

30

s

s

18

20 18

10

s

18

17

00

s 90

79 –1 17

87

18

0

0

Decade

Source: Table 5.10.

State

3

25

1800s

18 15 15 15

15 11 11

10 6

5

8 8

7

8

1

1803

15

1810s

5

1820s

2

9

1812 1816 1817 1818 1819

s 60 18

s 50 18

s 40 18

s 18

30

s 20 18

s 10 18

s 00 18

90 17

79 17

Decade Border and Slave States

1830s

2

1840s

4

Free States

1836 1837

Longitudinal Analysis of the Three-Fifths Clause Moving from our decade-by-decade analysis of the impact and influence of the Three-Fifths Clause and to a more dynamic longitudinal analysis, as shown in Figure 5.3 (p. 110), one sees how the number of seats granted by the Three-Fifths Clause evolved and peaked in the decade of the 1830s and began a descent afterward until 1860. The average number of seats granted to the slave states by the Three-Fifths Clause for this period was 18, and this number was surpassed in the decade of the 1810s, shortly after the new nation was formed. When these data concerning the number of seats in the House of Representatives attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause are analyzed from the perspective of percentages, Figure 5.4 (p. 110) reveals that in 1789 the House of Representatives began with over 15% of its seats attributable to the clause. Slave states held nearly 80% of

1845 1845 1846 1848

3

1850 1858 1859

1860s

4

1861 1863 1864 1867

Total Number of States 37

11

3

5

3

5

3

8

Free Border Slave 12

4

8

Slave Free 13

4

9

Slave Slave Free Free 15

California Minnesota Oregon

4

11

Free Free Free 18

Kansas West Virginia Nevada Nebraska

Cumulative Totals 1787–1870

4

Slave Free Slave Free Slave

Florida Texas Iowa Wisconsin

Cumulative Totals

2

Free 9

Arkansas Michigan

Cumulative Totals 1850s

8

Maine Missouri

Cumulative Totals Source: Table 5.10.

Slave

Free Border Slave Slave

Louisiana Indiana Mississippi Illinois Alabama

Cumulative Totals

87

–1

s

0

1820 1821

7

Ohio

Cumulative Totals

Border Slave Border Slave Free Free Slave Free Free Border Slave Slave Free Slave Free Slave Free

Vermont Kentucky Tennessee

Cumulative Totals

13 13

12 12

1791 1792 1796

Cumulative Totals

22

0

Cumulative Number of States in the Union

1790s

Free

Delaware Pennsylvania New Jersey Georgia Connecticut Massachusetts Maryland South Carolina New Hampshire Virginia New York North Carolina Rhode Island

Cumulative Totals Figure 5.2  Numerical Parity of Free and Slave States in the United States by Decade, 1787–1860s

20

109

4

11

Free Free Free Free 22

4

11

Free States Slave States Border Slave States

22 11  4

59.5% 29.7% 10.8%

Source: Adapted from Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975), p. 38. Calculations by the authors. a

By year of ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

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Chapter 5

Figure 5.3  Number of House of Representatives Seats Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s 30

Number of House Seats

25

20

15

10

5

Decade

0

Number of HR Seats Mean

1787–1790

1790s

1800s

1810s

1820s

1830s

1840s

1850s

1860s

10 18

11 18

14 18

19 18

21 18

24 18

21 18

20 18

19 18

Sources: Tables 5.1–5.9.

Figure 5.4  Percentage of House of Representatives Seats Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s 18% 16%

Percent of House Seats

14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0%

1787–1790

1790s

1800s

1810s

1820s

1830s

1840s

1850s

1860s

% of HR Seats

15.4%

10.4%

9.9%

10.2%

9.9%

9.9%

9.1%

8.4%

7.8%

Mean % of HR Seats*

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

10.1%

Decade

Sources: Tables 5.1–5.9.



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

these seats (with the rest among the border slave states) and kept this advantage as slavery concentrated in its grip and the percentage of attributable seats steadily declined. The causes of this decline included a steadily increasing national population with most of the growth in the free states, the increasing number of people represented by each House seat, and the constricted size of the House of Representatives beginning with the reapportionment of 1840. The mean percentage of the seats in the House of Representatives attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause stood at 10.1% for the eight decades covered during this period. The graphic data are a reflection of the tabular data. In both data sets the decade of the 1830s is revealed as the turning point in terms of the number and percentage of seats attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause. Again, analyzing these data from the perspective of percentages, Figure 5.5 indicates that both initially and for the next two decades, the 1790s and 1800s, the percentages of Three-Fifths Clause electoral votes that the slave states could cast in the Electoral College declined from 11.0% to 8.0%, just above the mean of 7.9% for the period (1787–1860s). Through the decades of the 1810s, 1820s, and 1830s, the electoral votes given by the ThreeFifths Clause stood near and slightly above the mean. Then, in 1840, the turning point came with a decline which continued below the mean until 1860. In the final analysis, what happened with the numbers and percentages of seats in the House of Representatives is reflected in the numbers and percentages of the Electoral College votes. The slave states steadily lost both seats and electoral votes in the competition with the free states. Power

was lost in both the House of Representatives and the Electoral College in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, and the slave states never again increased their political and electoral power. Figure 5.6 (p. 112) shows the total number of electoral votes cast each decade in relationship to the number of votes that were attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause and the mean of the clause votes over the Antebellum period. The growing number of states in the Union and the growing population of the nation greatly increased the total number of votes in the Electoral College. The electoral votes attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause were basically overwhelmed. From the initial conception of the nation these votes declined steadily as a political advantage for the slave states. Still, only three-fifths of the slaves counted in this scheme. There was no way, given the ban on importation of slaves after 1820, for the formula to maintain parity with the other populations, where each person, including the Free-Menand-Women-of-Color, was counted at 100% in apportionments for representation. The slave states had to discount two-fifths of their slaves in the political bargain of the Three-Fifths Clause. They fell victim to a power arrangement that was supposed to yield a sustaining political advantage from their slave populations. Ultimately, the formula could not protect the slave states from the diminishing returns of slavery in a growing and evolving nation. Somehow, their leadership did not see this coming or could not find a way to overcome it. The duality of African American demography was dynamic and continued to grow and expand throughout the expansion of

Figure 5.5  Percentage of Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s 12%

Percent of Electoral Votes

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

Decade

0%

% of Electoral Votes Mean % of Electoral Votes* Sources: Tables 5.1–5.9.

111

1787–1790

1790s

1800s

1810s

1820s

1830s

1840s

1850s

1860s

11.0% 7.9%

8.0% 7.9%

8.0% 7.9%

8.3% 7.9%

8.0% 7.9%

8.2% 7.9%

7.2% 7.9%

6.6% 7.9%

6.0% 7.9%

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Figure 5.6  Total Electoral Votes and Number of Electoral Votes Attributable to the Three-Fifths Clause by Decade, 1787–1860s 350

Number of Electoral Votes

300

250

200

150

100

50

Decade Number of Electoral Votes

0

1787–1790 91

1790s 138

1800s 176

1810s 230

1820s 261

1830s 294

1840s 290

1850s 303

1860s 315

10 18

11 18

14 18

19 18

21 18

24 18

21 18

20 18

19 18

Number of 3/5 Clause Votes Mean of 3/5 Clause Votes Sources: Tables 5.1–5.9.

the new nation. Figure 5.7 demonstrates the evolution of these dual populations over the eight decades in this era. The slave population grew substantially during this period, reaching some 4 million individuals. The population of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color increased much more slowly and reached about 500,000. The growth rate of the slave population and application of the ThreeFifths Clause yielded a rather steady percentage—about 23%—of the House of Representatives and electoral vote delegations for the slave states.19 While with more limited growth and few states willing

Figure 5.7  African American Population Growth in the United States by Slavery Status, 1790–1860

to grant them suffrage rights, the free population contributed little to their states’ congressional delegations and electoral votes. Yet the problem overall for the slave states was that their total population never amounted to much more than half that of the free states. Figure 5.8 illustrates that the white population in the slave states did not keep pace with the white population in the free states. In free states Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color counted as whole persons and counted equally in reapportionments for seats in the House of Representatives, even though many of these

Figure 5.8  White Population Growth in the United States by Slavery Status of Residence, 1790–1860

4.5 3.5

Population (Millions)

Population (Millions)

4.0 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

1790

1800

1810

1820 1830 Census Year

African American Slaves

1840

1850

1860

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

1790s

1800s

1810s

1820s

1830s

1840s

1850s

1860s

Census Year Free African Americans

Source: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57.

Free States

Slave States

Border Slave States

Sources: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57.

The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

states forbade them from voting. Since there were few Free-Menand-Women-of-Color in the slave states, their numbers did not contribute nearly as much to garnering House seats for slave states as did counting 60% of the much more numerous slave population. In addition, the free states that had slaves could still count them under the Three-Fifths Clause. Thus, the free states, with collectively a greater population that was fully counted, had an advantage over the slave states. Figure 5.9 highlights this dilemma and the problem inherent within the Three-Fifths Clause for the slave states by juxtaposing the population growth of these groups against one another. It becomes quite clear that the white population grew much faster than the slave population. Thus, since the slave population, concentrated in the slave states, did not grow as rapidly as total white population, the slave states’ reliance on the Three-Fifths Clause appears, in hindsight, to have had diminishing benefit over time. Finally, Figure 5.10 provides a longitudinal portrait of how the Three-Fifths Clause contributed to the electoral votes of the slave states. There is no question that the slave states initially

113

Figure 5.9  African American and White Population Growth in the United States, 1790–1860 35 30 Population (Millions)



25 20 15 10 5 0

1790s

1800s

1810s

1820s 1830s Census Year

Whites Free African Americans

1840s

1850s

1860s

African American Slaves Whites + African Americans

Source: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57.

Figure 5.10  Number of Electoral Votes by Slavery Status Grouping of States, 1787–1860s 350

Number of Electoral Votes

300 250 200 150 100 50 0

1787–1790

1790s

1800s

1810s

1820s

1830s

1840s

1850s

1860s

Total Votes

91

138

176

230

261

294

290

303

315

Free States

49

73

95

127

147

168

169

183

200

Slave States

31

48

59

76

83

94

91

88

83

Border Slave States

11

17

22

27

31

32

30

32

32

Decade

Source: Joint Committee on Printing, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988).

received a significant boost in electoral votes through the ThreeFifths Clause, but as previous data analyses have shown, the turning point came after the 1830 reapportionment when this electoral vote advantage began to dissipate. Secondly, from the outset of the nation the free states had a clear electoral advantage over the slave states; over time this advantage increased despite the constitutional reapportionment mechanism that had been intended to maintain a measure of political parity between free and slave states.

Population growth in the largely rural slave states simply did not keep pace with that of the free states. Matching the free states in number rather than population was more practical and realistic for the slave states because they wanted both to continue with slavery and to remain politically competitive with the free states, and they could not legally import slaves after 1808. In 1830 the population gap between the two regions had become wide and continued to grow ever wider.

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Accounting for the Missing “Two-Fifths of a Person” The Three-Fifths Clause enhanced the power of the slave states in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Such a constitutional clause not only depicted the other two-fifths (2/5ths) of every slave as a non-person/non-human and simply property but the whole of these slaves as non-political forces and factors. The clause put 40% of the slave population tally completely outside of the political system in order to limit the political enrichment of slave states. But certainly the concept may very well have had the result of discounting full suffrage rights for Free-Men-andWomen-of-Color, even in non-slave states. In fact, no previous scholarly work on the Three-Fifths Clause has ever empirically analyzed the 2/5ths feature longitudinally. By presenting only 60% of a people, one leaves out the other 40%, and the resultant portrait is only a partial one. Discussion of this second dimension permits a complete portrait. Nor has anyone, at this writing, empirically analyzed what eventually happened to the Three-Fifths Clause in terms of the representation of former slave states in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College when action of the federal government eventually reversed the Three-Fifths Clause. Figure 5.11 shows the political meaning of the 2/5ths feature throughout the Antebellum Era. Holding slaves generated more representation and enhanced political power for the slave states up until 1830. Although the overall slave population steadily declined as a proportion of total population, among slave states the uncounted 2/5ths portion of slaves still remained as a potential reapportionment bonanza. But realizing this voting power would have required removing the yoke of slavery from most African Americans in slave states. The equivalent of nearly one million slaves were excluded from the 1840 House of Representatives reapportionment. Since the southern political leaders felt that their political power was being slowly eroded by the entrance of new states and the growing population in the north, they might have considered revisiting the lost 2/5ths component of the African American slave population as a strategy to regain empowerment, but this idea never surfaced as a tool to re-empowerment. Not only did it not surface amidst a large Figure 5.11  Two-Fifths of African American Slave Population as a Share of Total U.S. Population, 1790–1860

Percent of U.S. Population

8% 7%

7.3%

6.7%

6.6%

6%

6.4%

6.2%

5.8%

5.6%

5%

5.1%

4% 3% 2% 1% 0%

1790

1800

1810

1820 1830 Census Year

1840

1850

1860

Two-Fifths of African American Slave Population Source: Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), pp. 44–45, 57.

array of southern tactics and strategies, but redeeming this population would not in the end have helped very much with the losses of political power and economic riches. Undoubtedly, to count this lost population in favor of the slave states was a conjecture that the free states saw as ludicrous, without granting full citizenship to African Americans in the slave states and destroying the institution of slavery. However, recognizing African Americans, even in the free states, as equal human beings and citizens was a thought that was beyond the imagination of most of the electorate.

The Death of the Three-Fifths Clause Now we turn to the second aspect of the federal government and suffrage rights: government action to reverse the Three-Fifths Clause came about not as a determined and carefully worked out approach. It came instead with the secession of South Carolina from the Union in 1861, followed by ten other southern states, launching the Civil War. Constitutional scholar Nieman opines that “in the spring and summer of 1861, few predicted the revolutionary consequences of the Civil War for American constitutionalism and the rights of blacks.”20 The next step in this unplanned process to reverse the Three-Fifths Clause was the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which was supposed to free the slaves in the states of the Rebellion and not in the four border slave states that remained and fought with the Union. Hence, only the eleven states of the Confederacy lost their right to the Three-Fifths Clause representation in the House of Representatives. But since these states had already withdrawn from the Union, the question about their use of the Three-Fifths Clause was moot and academic. Nevertheless, the Three-Fifths Clause was still legally binding for the states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Thus, initially the Three-Fifths Clause was not eliminated but only partially reversed. The actual death of the Three-Fifths Clause came when the North won the Civil War in 1865 as the president and later the Congress would set the terms for the re-admission of the former Confederate states to the Union. In addition, there was the matter of the limitations and weaknesses embedded in the Emancipation Proclamation: Because the Proclamation left many slaves—including most of those in the border states—in bondage and was almost certain to be challenged in the courts, Republicans employed the amendment process to make emancipation universal and irreversible. Senate Republicans mustered enough votes to pass an antislavery amendment in early 1864, but despite solid Republican support, the House fell several votes shy of the two-thirds majority necessary to pass it. On January 31, 1865, however, with Lincoln promising patronage to gain votes from the opposition, Congress passed an amendment prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States and giving Congress authority to enforce the prohibition. Before the year was out, three-fourths of the state legislatures had given their assent, and the Thirteenth Amendment became a part of the Constitution.21



The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788–1861

Ratification of this amendment took place on December 6, 1865, and later the Fourteenth Amendment on July 9, 1868; with that, the Three-Fifths Clause passed into oblivion. It had been at this point in time legally destroyed. The federal government had finally reversed both the Three-Fifths Clause and the 2/5ths feature of that clause. The subsequent Civil War amendment, the Fifteenth, which was ratified on February 3, 1870, further buried the Three-Fifths Clause. And long before the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment the Military Reconstruction Acts, which “passed over a presidential veto in March 1867,” provided that military commanders in ten of the southern states register African American voters to participate in the state constitutional conventions as well as to elect representatives to state legislatures and Congress.22 Such actions allowed even former slaves to become members of Congress. Table 5.11 shows the number of representatives that each of the states of the Confederacy had in the House of Representatives in 1860 with the Three-Fifths Clause in place and the number in 1872 and 1882 after these states had been re-admitted to the Union and reapportionment had occurred. The data in this table show that most of the states of the Confederacy, which had been advantaged by the Three-Fifths Clause, gained even more advantage after the Civil War and their re-admittance to the Union simply because now the entire African American population was counted. In 1872 these eleven states had five more representatives than they had when they seceded from the Union in 1861. After another decade, in 1882, these eleven states would have eighteen more seats in the House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College than they had before they seceded. Table 5.11  Number of Seats in the House of Representatives Held by the Slave States during and after the Period of the Three-Fifths Clause, 1860, 1872, and 1882 During the Three-Fifths Clause States

After the Period of the Three-Fifths Clause

Difference (1860–1882)

1860

1872

1882

Alabama

7a

7

8b

1

Arkansas

2

4

5

3

Florida

a

2

2

b

2

0

Georgia

8a

9

10b

2

Louisiana

a

4

6

b

6

2

Mississippi

5a

6

7b

2

North Carolina

a

8

8

b

9

1

South Carolina

6a

5

7b

1

10a

10

10b

0

a

2

Virginia

13a

Total

67a

Tennessee Texas

a

b

6

b

11

9

9

10b

-3

72

85b

18

Source: Adapted from Guide to U.S. Elections, 4th Edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2001), pp. 889–891, 910–913, and 930–933. a

Elections for the House of Representatives in these states were held in 1859.

b

Elections for the House of Representatives in Texas were held in 1871.

115

In 1860, the range of seats in the House of Representatives ran from a low of two in Florida to a high of thirteen in Virginia. This range worked out to a mean of 6.1 seats per state. By 1872 the range ran from a low of two in Florida to a high of ten in Tennessee, with a mean of 6.6 seats per state. And in 1882, the range went from a low of two seats in Florida to a high of eleven in Texas, for a mean of 7.7 seats per state. Thus, the slave states of the Confederacy not only gained a political advantage in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College by the Three-Fifths Clause but these very same states got a second advantage with the removal of the Clause. African Americans were disadvantaged by the Clause because the vast majority never got any representation in the federal system when it was in place. Even after its demise they received only limited representation because the racial prejudices which the slave system made possible survived the Civil War and Reconstruction and subsequently made winning congressional contests difficult for African American candidates.

Summary and Conclusions on the Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause With the establishment of the federal government at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, there was a new institutional player in the voting system in America. During the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, voting qualifications were essentially left to the colonial and local governments. Creation of a federal government, with two houses of congress and a presidency, led to voting becoming a national, as well as a state and local, matter. Although the national government left the matter of voting qualifications up to the states, the Constitution did establish an indirect voting qualification, the Three-Fifths Clause, in terms of counting individuals to be represented by a seat in the House of Representatives. Such an indirect qualification sent a signal to the states about what they might decide to do about their African American populations. Nearly all of the new states that entered the Union, from the Northwest Territory, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Southwest Territory, prohibited, or eventually prohibited, free blacks from voting. Because the federal government set part of the electoral context with the Three-Fifths Clause, new states followed suit and discriminated against free blacks.

Notes   1. Samuel Kernell and Gary Jacobson, The Logic of American Politics (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), p. 500.   2. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006), p. 303.   3. Ibid., p. 305.   4. Charles Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of ConstitutionMaking, 1787–1865,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 32 (April 1947), p. 146.   5. Donald Nieman, Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 11.   6. Ibid., p. 14.   7. Ibid., p. 8.   8. Ibid., p. 28.

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  9. Wesley, p. 149. 10. Garry Wills, “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), p. 24. See also, Albert Simpson, “The Political Significance of Slave Representation, 1787–1821,” Journal of Southern History Vol. 71 (1941), pp. 321–341. 11. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 7th Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), p. 192. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., p. 193. 16. Ibid.

17. Ibid. 18. Michael Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 931–950, 983–984. 19. This percentage is calculated as the number of House seats attributable to the slave population divided by the total number of Representatives in the Border and southern slave states. The percentage ranges from 33.3% in 1789 down to 21.5% in 1800. The average is 23.3%. See Tables 5.1 to 5.9 for the numbers of Representatives in the Border and southern slave states. 20. Nieman, p. 52. 21. Ibid., pp. 55–56. 22. Ibid., p. 71.

CHAPTER 6

The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867 Potential African American Voters in Antebellum and Civil War America

118

Table 6.1 Suffrage Rights of Free-Men-of-Color in the New States, 1791–1867

118

Table 6.2 Year of Eventual Suffrage Exclusion for Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color in the Thirteen Original States

119

Table 6.3 Free African American Population in States That Provided Suffrage Rights to African Americans, 1790–1867

120

African American Partisanship in State Elections, 1788–1866

120

African American Voting in Federal Elections, 1788–1866

126

Table 6.4 Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates in Massachusetts and New York, 1828–1860

129

Table 6.5 Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, 1828–1860

130

Table 6.6 Partial Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates, 1828–1860

130

Summary and Conclusions on the African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America

131



Notes 131

118

Chapter 6

T

he 1787 Constitution enabled the transition from a confederation of states organized under the Articles of Confederation and operating through the Continental Congress to a federalist system of government. In the Continental Congress only representatives of states could vote, and state legislatures decided which delegates would represent the state in the Continental Congress, not the voters. Now with the Constitution in place, national elections had to be held in the same way as state, county, and local contests. However, no federal apparatus or structure was created to set the rules and regulations for who could participate in these new elections. Thus, in the states where African Americans had the legal right to vote and did vote, they could now continue to vote in national elections as long as the states did not modify or reverse that right. Yet in most states this reversal is exactly what happened in the Antebellum and Civil War eras. This problem of reversal and modification of suffrage rights did not just exist in the original thirteen states; the purchase of the Louisiana Territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 literally doubled the size of the new nation and set the stage for the entrance of new states into the Union. Each of these new states would have to decide whether the Free-Men-of-Color within their borders would be granted suffrage rights or be denied them in each of the original state constitutions. As discussed in Chapter Four, the federal government allowed Free-Men-of-Color suffrage rights in the Northwest Territory, but a few states that emerged out of this territory, such as Indiana, rescinded that right even before writing a state constitution. Thus, new states emerging out of this new territory were not hindered in any way by suffrage rights granted by the national government prior to their entrance into the Union. States had the final decision on this matter.

Table 6.1  Suffrage Rights of Free-Men-of-Color in the New States, 1791–1867a

Year Black Suffrage Denied

State/ Territory

Potential African American Voters in Antebellum and Civil War America Coming out of the Revolutionary War Era nine of the thirteen original states accorded suffrage rights to free African Americans. Twenty-four new states were admitted into the Union between 1790 and 1867. Table 6.1 lists these states in chronological order according to when each entered the Union and indicates the year when they denied Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color suffrage rights. The very last column of the table shows the number of years between their entrance into the Union and the date of denial of suffrage rights to free African Americans. This table also shows that there were three new states that never denied Free-Menof-Color their suffrage rights: Vermont, Maine, and Nebraska. Interestingly, two of these states are in the New England region, where suffrage rights had been granted to Free-Men-of-Color since the Colonial and Revolutionary eras. This tradition of both suffrage and voting extends back for more than a century. In the immediate wake of the Civil War, Nebraska also granted freedom, citizenship, and suffrage rights to African Americans.

States that Initially Allowed Suffrage upon Entry to the Union Of the twenty-four states shown in Table 6.1, both Kentucky and Tennessee entered the Union with state constitutions that allowed Free-Men-of-Color to have suffrage rights and kept those

Year Black Denial Admitted Suffrage After Union in in to Union Denied Admissionb Territory State

Years of Black Suffrage

Vermont

1791





 

 

Continual

Kentucky

1792





 

1799

7

Tennessee

1796





 

1834

38

District of Columbiac

1802





1802

 

0

Ohio

1803





 

1803

0

Louisiana

1812





 

1812

0

Indiana

1816





 

1816

0

Mississippi

1817





 

1817

0

Illinois

1818





 

1818

0

Alabama

1819





 

1819

0

Maine

1820





 

 

Continual

Missouri

1821





 

1821

0

Arkansas

1836





 

1836

0

Michigan

1837





1835

1837

0

Texas

1845





 

1845

0

Florida

1845





 

1845

0

Iowa

1846





 

1846

0

Wisconsin

1848





 

1848

0

California

1850





1849

1850

0

Minnesota

1858





 

1858

0

Oregon

1859





 

1859

0

Kansas

1861





 

1861

0

West Virginia

1863





 

1863

0

Nevada

1864





 

1864

0

Nebraska

1867





 

 

Continual

Sources: Adapted from Charles Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution-Making, 1787–1865,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32 (April 1947), pp. 153–154; Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 349–353; Emil Obrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912). a

Excludes the Thirteen Original States.

Indication that African American suffrage was denied after date of state or territory admission to the United States. b

c

Territory.

constitutions for several years. Although Kentucky permitted suffrage rights for seven years after admission to the Union, African Americans retained these rights in Tennessee for thirty-eight years. Tennessee’s stance is explained, in part, by its origin in the westward expansion of North Carolina, itself one of the original states that granted suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color until 1835. This is somewhat surprising because both Kentucky and Tennessee were in a region where slavery was predominant. However, along with North Carolina and Georgia, these southern states gave the ballot to their free African American male populations.



The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867 119

States that Forbade Suffrage upon Entry to the Union A clear-cut majority of new states that entered the Union during 1800–1860, nineteen out of twenty-four states, regardless of whether slavery was permitted within their boundaries, entered the Union with state constitutions that excluded and barred suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color. None of these states would ever revise their constitutions to permit Free-Men-of-Color to have suffrage rights before the Fifteenth Amendment. During this period, geographic region did not matter in the politics of exclusion. Far western states like California and Oregon, midwestern states like Michigan and Illinois, southern states like Texas and Arkansas, and coastal states like Florida and Louisiana all denied African Americans suffrage rights. Even the federal District of Columbia, from the date of its incorporation, refused suffrage rights to African Americans. Seven states—Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, and Michigan—held additional state constitutional conventions after their admittance to the Union, which allowed them one or sometimes two opportunities to remove the words “white only” from their constitutions, but none of them ever made this modification. The suffrage ban on African Americans remained in place. Another oddity is that two states, Michigan and California, specifically excluded Free-Men-of-Color from voting even while they were territories. Exclusion occurred in the Michigan territory in 1835, two years before Michigan became a state, and in California in 1849, one year before it entered the Union and forbade slavery in its state constitution. Overall, the twenty-four states that joined the Union during the Antebellum Era were less eager to extend suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color than the original thirteen colonies had been. Few states, even those evolved from territories without extensive slavery, desired to encourage suffrage rights for free African Americans. If the new states did not enlarge the pool of eligible Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color voters, did those states that denied and excluded African Americans during the Colonial and Revolutionary eras change their political minds and re-grant suffrage rights? Table 6.2 offers insights into this query. This table shows the dates that eight of the original thirteen states legally denied Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color suffrage rights. Two colonies, Virginia and South Carolina, excluded these individuals during the Colonial Era. During the Revolutionary and Antebellum eras, six of the original states—Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—revised their constitutions and/or passed legislation excluding African American voters. Four of the six states passed multiple exclusionary procedures, such as moving from statutory exclusions to state constitutional exclusions, or revised older state constitutions and replaced them with new ones that continued to exclude African Americans.

States that Considered Reduction of African American Suffrage Rights Of the five remaining states where exclusion did not exist—at least on a permanent basis—during the Revolutionary and Antebellum eras, two made moves toward exclusion. New York, which had permitted Free-Men-of-Color to exercise suffrage

Table 6.2  Year of Eventual Suffrage Exclusion for Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color in the Thirteen Original States

Year Black Suffrage Evenually Denied to Women

to Men

Suffrage Never Denied

Multiple Exclusions

1699

1723





South Carolina

a

1716





Delaware

a

1792





Maryland

a

1801





New Jersey

1807

1807





Connecticut

a

1818





North Carolina

a

1835





Pennsylvania

a

1838





Massachusetts

a





New Hampshire

a





Georgia

a





Rhode Island

a





New Yorkc

a





State Virginia

b

Source: Adapted from Chapters 3 and 4. a

African American women were never accorded suffrage in these states.

In 1841, Rhode Island had an insurgent government that excluded African Americans from voting during its one year in power. Their suffrage rights were restored in the following year. b

c

In 1821 New York raised property qualifications for African American suffrage.

rights, reconsidered the matter at the 1821 state constitutional convention, for both partisan and racial reasons. Though they did not totally deny suffrage rights to blacks, they eventually added several onerous restrictions. Once the debate ended, a “provision was adopted on October 8, 1821, which placed the qualification for whites at the forty pound freehold but required Negroes to have a two-hundred-and-fifty dollar freehold. Negroes were also required to live in the state for three years and to have paid taxes. White men could vote after one year’s residence and the payment of taxes or the rendering of highway or military service.”1 Rhode Island, which had allowed Free-Men-of-Color to vote since it was founded, had an “insurgent take-over” in 1841: a property-less group took over state government from the landed gentry and stayed in control for a little more than a year. During that year the insurgent forces denied African Americans the right to vote and considered adopting a constitution that would have permanently denied the right of suffrage to blacks. In the next year, however, suffrage rights were permanently restored. Thus, in the decades leading up to the Civil War, only five of the original thirteen states gave suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color. During the transition from the Colonial Era to the Antebellum Era, the transition to constitutional government and federalism did not expand suffrage rights for African Americans but rather restricted them. Moreover, during this era of new states came the presidency of Andrew Jackson, from 1829 to 1837, and the birth of the mass-based Democratic Party. In the Jacksonian period suffrage rights were expanded and extended to the so-called common man, as states dropped their

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property qualifications. According to some historians, this led to a greatly expanded electorate and the rise of the first broad based political party in America. However, in a tremendous contradiction, Tables 6.1 and 6.2 reveal that in the Jacksonian time frame, two of the original states, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and one of the new states, Tennessee, curtailed suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color. During the Antebellum Era, suffrage rights for African Americans underwent a serious contraction in existing states and saw very limited expansion in the states that were newly

admitted to the Union. Table 6.3 offers a composite portrait of the original and new states that allowed suffrage rights to African Americans through the entire Revolutionary, Antebellum, and Civil War periods. Of the thirty-seven states that belonged to the Union during these periods, only eight, or less than one-fifth of them, allowed Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color to have the legal right to vote. The historical record shows that some African Americans did exercise their electoral power in the first federal elections, i.e., the initial presidential and congressional elections of 1788–1789.

Table 6.3  Free African American Population in States that Provided Suffrage Rights to African Americans, 1790–1867 Original Thirteen States 1790

1800

1810

1820

1830

1840

1850

1860

Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total*

State Massachusetts New Hampshire Rhode Island Georgia

5,369

1.4%

6,452

1.5%

6,737

1.4%

6,740

1.3%

7,048

1.2%

8,669

1.2%

9,064

0.9%

9,602

0.8%

630

0.4%

852

0.5%

970

0.5%

786

0.3%

604

0.2%

537

0.2%

520

0.2%

494

0.2%

3,484

5.1%

3,304

4.8%

3,609

4.7%

3,554

4.3%

3,561

3.7%

3,238

3.0%

3,670

2.5%

3,952

2.3%

398

0.7%

1,019

1.0%

1,801

1.2%

1,763

0.9%

2,486

0.8%

2,753

0.7%

2,931

0.6%

3,500

0.6%

New York

4,682

1.5%

10,417

1.8%

25,333

2.7%

29,279

2.1%

44,870

2.3%

50,027

2.1%

49,069

1.6%

49,005

1.3%

Subtotals

14,563

1.5%

22,044

1.6%

38,450

2.1%

42,122

1.8%

58,569

1.8%

65,224

1.6%

65,254

1.3%

66,553

1.1%

New States 1790

1800

1810

1820

1830

1840

1850

1860

Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Free Black % of Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total* Population Total*

State Vermont

269

0.3%

557

0.4%

750

0.3%

903

0.4%

881

0.3%

730

0.3%

718

0.2%

709

0.2%

Maine

536

0.6%

818

0.5%

969

0.4%

929

0.3%

1,190

0.3%

1,355

0.3%

1,356

0.2%

1,327

0.2%

 

0

 

67

0.2%

Nebraska Subtotals Grand Totals

0

 

0

0

 

0

 

0

 

0

 

805

0.4%

1,375

0.4%

1,719

0.4%

1,832

0.3%

2,071

0.3%

2,085

0.3%

2,074

0.2%

2,103

0.2%

15,368

1.3%

23,419

1.4%

40,169

1.7%

43,954

1.5%

60,640

1.6%

67,309

1.4%

67,328

1.1%

68,656

1.0%

Sources: Adapted from Tables 6.1 and 6.2; Bureau of the Census, Negro Population: 1790–1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), p. 57. *

Percent of total free population (total free white population + total free African American population).

African American Partisanship in State Elections, 1788–1866 Given the fact that five of the original thirteen states granted suffrage rights to African Americans, this electorate could participate in the first elections for members of Congress and the president. House elections took place in 1788 and the presidential election followed in 1789. Merrill Jensen and Robert Becker’s four-volume study, The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, was started during the bicentennial of the nation in 1976 and completed in 1989. These volumes contain documents covering the initial congressional elections in each of the thirteen states as well as the first election for president and vice president. This comprehensive and systematic work includes “the official documents, such as legislative journals, debates, and laws relating to the elections, and materials from letters, diaries, newspapers and other sources” and manuscripts that pertained

to these congressional elections.”2 These four volumes provide a rich source of data on the participation of African Americans in the first federal elections. Although the extant documents show that only free Negroes in New Jersey voted in the initial congressional election, African Americans were themselves a political issue in congressional elections elsewhere, in Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, and Rhode Island. In Georgia, a seeker after a seat in the U.S. Senate, General Anthony Wayne, sought to overcome residency issues by proclaiming his credentials as a slave owner.3 Similarly, in South Carolina, a candidate for the House of Representatives, Dr. David Ramsey, lost an election in part due to accusations of sympathy for abolitionism, which he subsequently vehemently denied in a campaign of letters to the editor.4 In Rhode Island, where abolitionism was more popular, a key issue in the contest for U.S. representatives was a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning the slave trade immediately.5 Finally, the records



The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867 121

include the following remark made by one Maryland observer after the state convention had ratified the Constitution: “I expect the rule of tythes will be their guide—that is, to take in three fifths of the blacks, the which, I conceive to be right, as our delegation is increased by that rule, and we are also to be taxed accordingly.”6 All of these interesting documents give a glimpse of the context in which the first African American voters had to operate. Before we begin a discussion of Free-Men-of-Color voters in the early presidential elections, we will focus on their voting behavior and activity at the state level, so as to provide insights into their acquisition of political partisanship and party affiliation in the different political contexts in each state. Put another way, different states had different political partisan dominances, for the balanced two-party system did not exist at the state level in this period. We have chosen to rely on studies of these early factions, like the Federalists in New York, because in the absence of reliable state and local voting data on Free-Men-of-Color during the Antebellum Era, we adopted a methodological approach of examining factional affiliation in order to get some indications about African American voting behavior. Such findings from these factional groupings not only reveal how, and the manner in which, these African Americans came to vote in the early years of the Republic in state and local elections, but also how free African Americans acquired their partisanship in comparison to other contemporary Americans. In New York, for this first time in American political history, we now know that these Free-Voters-of-Color began their partisan attachments with personal factions or cliques of individual Federalists, and then transitioned into attachments and affiliations with a specific wing of the Whigs or in certain areas of the state with Democrats, because each faction backed an extension of suffrage rights in the state for the African American community. Later, when the anti-slavery parties allowed full participation at their state and national conventions, some African Americans became identified and aligned with these party organizations.

New Jersey In the initial congressional election for New Jersey the top four vote-getters, out of the fifteen candidates running, were sent to the House of Representatives. One of these four was Middlesex County candidate James Schureman who had been in the New Jersey state legislature and who, during his tenure there, led the successful effort to pass the “Law . . . to free the Poor Negroes,” and they “have all voted for him.”7 When the governor certified the vote to the clerk of the House of Representatives, congressional candidate Schureman got the most votes, 12,597, while his closest competitor, Lambert Cadwalader, got 8,685 votes, and the remaining top competitors, Elias Boudinot and Thomas Sinnickson, received 8,603 and 8,240, respectively. Extant documents tell us that “the Federal Constitution was very popular in New Jersey (the state Convention had ratified it unanimously)” and that congressional candidate James Schureman, due to his voting behavior and popularity among his constituents, was a Federalist.8 As for the 1789 presidential election, the free Negroes that voted in the congressional election for Schureman of Middlesex

County could not vote for the presidential candidates simply because New Jersey was one of the states where presidential electors were instead “chosen by the state legislature.”9 New Jersey at this time did not have popular voting in presidential elections as it had in congressional elections. Popular voting for the president in this first federal election occurred in only six of the thirteen states.10

Maryland African American historian Benjamin Quarles wrote about an instance in which an African American male not only voted but ran for office at the state level: Five of the thirteen states forming the new nation— New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina—did not exclude blacks from voting. Indeed, in one of these states, Maryland, a black candidate ran for public office in 1792, very likely the first of his color ever to take this bold step. Thomas Brown, a horse doctor, sought one of the two seats allotted to Baltimore in the House of Delegates.11 Quarles assessed Brown’s effort and impact by saying: His vote so minuscule as not to have been recorded, Brown was defeated in his bid for office, a circumstance reflecting the times. In but a few scattered instances were blacks a political factor during the eighteenth century, and black enfranchisement in postrevolutionary America was generally short-lived. In fact after 1810 Thomas Brown himself could not even have voted, Maryland having barred blacks from the polls as of that year.12

New York During this same time frame African Americans in New York were becoming active in the Federalist Party. Historian Dixon Ryan Fox described how this African American partisan identification evolved. First, noted Fox, “the Negroes had been reared in Federalist households; their cause had been advocated by distinguished Federalists, and now under the auspices of that party freedom was provided. When they reached the estate of citizens, their political attachment could be easily foretold.”13 The reason that all of this came about according to Fox was that “the Federalist party was the party of the aristocracy, especially in large communities, the party of the wealth won by a century of trade.”14 These men of wealth, property, and comfort hired slaves as “household servants” and treated them “with a careful kindliness,” making these slaves in this colony/state “a luxury rather than an investment in agriculture.”15 Moreover, these Federalist masters preferred to see their Negroes free, and led the movement in New York state for their betterment. Governor John Jay, who was one of the three authors of the Federalist Papers, organized the Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves and became its first president in 1785. He was succeeded by fellow Federalist Papers author, Alexander Hamilton.16 “It was a Federalist legislature and a Federalist governor who enacted the law of 1799 [gradual and general emancipation],

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by almost a straight party voted of sixty-eight to twenty-three.” New York’s Federalist political leaders voted for the principle of gradual and general emancipation in the state.17 Eventually, the Federalists would organize “among the Negroes a chapter of their partisan fraternity, the Washington Benevolent Society,” for political indoctrination and education.18 Finally, noted Fox, in opposition to equal suffrage rights the Democratic-Republican Party captured the state legislature in 1811 and enacted a law that severely restricted suffrage rights for African Americans despite strong objections from the Federalists. Reacting to this obstacle to suffrage posed by the new political party, “the votes of three hundred Negroes in the city of New York, in 1813, decided the election in favor of the Federal party, and also decided the political character of the legislature of the state. Not the number of the Negroes who were qualified made them formidable, but the strategic strength of their location.”19 Future president Martin Van Buren, a founding organizer of the mass-based Democratic Party along with President Andrew Jackson, observed the following about the African American identification and alliance with the Federalist Party in New York: The Negroes, with scarcely an exception, adhered to the Federalists. Their number in the city of New York was very great, and parties in that city were so evenly divided, that it was often sufficient to hold the balance between them, at times, too, when the vote of New York, in the legislature, not unfrequently decided the majority of that body.20 Van Buren, seeking to hinder his opponents in the Federalist Party, inserted a higher property qualification clause into New York’s 1821 state constitution that greatly restricted the voting rights of Free-Men-of-Color in state and local elections. On this point, historian Lee Benson notes: “the conservative majority led by Van Buren [and joined by even ‘liberal’ Democrats] supported . . . efforts to write a property restriction clause into the Constitution that limited suffrage to a small fraction of the Negro population.”21 Moreover, Van Buren’s Democratic Party would continue to deny unrestricted voting rights to Free-Men-of-Color in the 1846, 1860, and 1869 statewide referenda. In fact, the Van Buren “qualification of two hundred and fifty dollars passed into the fundamental law to remain until 1870.”22 This enduring property qualification for blacks only was not removed until the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and even then the Democratic Party in the state bitterly protested the Amendment’s existence. Simply put, “it was the Democratic legislature which retained the qualification for the blacks” in the state of New York.23 During this nearly five-decade period of restricted suffrage rights, 1821–1870, Free-Men-of-Color identified with the political party in the state that was pro-suffrage for them. If the Federalist Party began to decline, nationally, after the War of 1812, Fox told us that on the state level in New York, “the Federalist party as an organization in 1821 was already passing into history;” and eventually, as the leading Federalist party transitioned into the newly emerging Whig party, so did the party identification of African Americans. Benson noted that “since the

Whigs had favored equal suffrage before 1846, the Negroes’ solid vote can partly be attributed to their pursuing a political goal,” vital to the interest of Free-Men-of-Color.24 To strengthen his observation, Benson adduced this additional insight: Thus, it seems reasonable to say that Negro voting behavior in New York was primarily determined by this factor: men most hostile to them tended to be Democrats, men most favorable to them tended to be Whigs. Put another way, once we find that Democrats were considerably more likely to be “Nigger-Haters,“ we can deduce from our theory of American voting behavior that Negroes would range themselves solidly against the Democratic Party.25 However, in a more recent and statistically sophisticated analysis, John Stanley challenged the Fox and Benson argument about the linear continuity of African American partisanship in the state. Analyzing vote return data from the 1846 statewide referendum on extension of suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color, John Stanley wrote: “As far as party leadership was concerned, there is little doubt that the Democrats opposed suffrage with near unanimity. . . . Similarly, it is true that most men in public life who supported Negro suffrage were Whigs. This is a far cry, however, from saying that the Whigs as a party supported the principle of Negro suffrage.”26 Stanley concluded that “suffrage was not an issue between the parties, but rather a question that split Whig party leaders into two fairly even camps.”27 From his data he found that “at best only forty percent of Whig voters actually supported Negro suffrage.”28 Stanley continued: “Surely it would have been in the interest of Whig leaders and the rankand-file partisans to have obtained Negro suffrage in full. . . . Yet it was precisely in those areas in which the Whigs as a party had the most to gain from Negro suffrage that voting against suffrage was the heaviest and in which enfranchisement was most offensive to Whig voters.”29 Therefore, this anti-suffrage stance of about 60% of the Whigs led to a split within areas of the free African American electorate and in voting behavior in state and local elections. Essentially, in New York of 1846, African Americans identified with the (Horace) Greeley-(William) Seward(Thurlow) Weed wing of the Whig party and the candidates whom those leaders backed. Also, not all of the free New York blacks voted for Whigs. Some voted for other anti-slavery parties like the Liberty and Free-Soil parties.30 What the research of Fox and Benson and Stanley does not tell us is that while the suffrage issue split the Whigs in New York, it eventually fragmented the Democratic Party there as well. Stanley did show that several predominantly Democratic communities voted in favor of the 1846 referendum, i.e., for the extension of unrestricted suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color, but he treated this as an exception. Stanley declared: “the leading prosuffrage county in the state, Clinton, was a Democratic county. Town-by-town results show that in two cities in Clinton County the number of pro-suffrage votes exceeded the number of combined Whig and Liberty votes . . . and . . . three of the ten pro-suffrage counties were Democratic. . . .”31



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Stanley found that in a very competitive part of the state, Courtland County, the local newspaper, the Cortland Democrat, during this 1846 referendum election “announced its support of Negro suffrage and accused the Whigs of being ‘secretly’ hostile to giving the right of suffrage to the colored population . . . and . . . the Cortland County Democratic party resolved to abolish the property qualification for Negroes.”32 Finally, during the 1846 referendum election, an unusual observation was made. “A black Democratic club in Clifton Springs was continually mentioned as an illustration of fondness of blacks for the Democratic Party.”33 This is the earliest extant record to date of the formation of African Americans into a Democratic Party organization. Prior to the fragmenting of the Democratic Party over the suffrage issue and the splintering of the Whig party into two opposing groups, the Liberty Party was organized in the state of New York “on April 1, 1840, at Albany” with the purpose and intent “to overthrow slavery” in the nation.34 This new party attracted African American leaders from its inception to the founding convention and converted some of them to its banner in support of its state and local candidates. The unequivocal, principled stand of the Liberty Party on the anti-slavery issue expanded African American public policy options beyond the issue of suffrage rights. However, after the Liberty Party’s founding, Free-Menof-Color voters in New York saw limited electoral success and continual failures of the party at the ballot box both at the state and the national levels. According to Benson, who studied the Liberty Party in state elections, its share of election votes went from 0.6% in 1840 to 4.1% in 1847. The highest percentage came in the 1846 election, with 4.7%, and the average over the eight state elections of this period was 3.0%. From this election data Benson concludes that “the Liberty Party’s gain had actually been scored between presidential years, and the party’s numerical vote remained relatively stable between 1843 and 1847, inclusive, whether cast in a state or national election.”35 With this minimal level of electoral support, Field found that it “remained politically impotent, never winning a single elective office,” in the state.36 At the very moment that their strength and influence had stalled at the ballot box, Free-Men-of-Color came under great pressure not to align themselves with the Liberty Party because the leader of the abolitionist movement, William Lloyd Garrison, urged his members and followers to use “moral suasion” instead of political and electoral power to defeat slavery in the nation. The leading African American spokesperson, Frederick Douglass, initially agreed with this philosophy and urged fellow New Yorkers to follow this idea.37 Eventually Douglass broke with Garrison and supported partisan voting, but while he held the nonpartisan approach it dampened the vote from the African American community, despite the fact that lesser-known African American leaders in the state were quite active in and for the party. Therefore, given the continual failures of the Liberty Party at the ballot box in the state of New York, “desertions increased as skepticism rose and enthusiasm [waned]. Many anti-slavery proponents moved back to their old parties. Knowing that their vote was small and that the Liberty party was collapsing, Negro

leaders were not desirous of fixing their allegiance. They, too, moved on to a more influential party.”38 Some Free-Men-of-Color moved into the Liberty League with the famous white abolitionist Gerrit Smith and his 1848 political vehicle, the National Liberty Party, while others attended the founding convention of the Free-Soil Party. “The actual organization of this party [Free-Soil] began at its Convention in Buffalo, August 9, 1848, where an effort was made to unite the discontented elements of the Whigs, Democrats, the Barnburners, the Free Democrats, the Hunkers and the political Abolitionists. They resolved to inscribe on their banners, ‘Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men.’ ”39 At this founding convention, there were leading Free-Men-of-Color from throughout the state: “Samuel R. Ward, Henry Highland Garnet, Charles L. Remond, Henry Bibb, . . . Frederick Douglass . . . and . . . other colored gentlemen.”40 Three of these men, Garnet, Ward, and Douglass, were “permitted to give a speech, but none received any notable appointments,” to the convention organizational committees nor to the party’s national or New York state organization.41 This marginalization was just a harbinger of things to come for the African Americans. “Over 20,000 elected and self-appointed delegates poured into Buffalo for the August convention. Uniformly zealous, they were a heterogeneous lot . . . and they included three main groups: antislavery Whigs from New England and the Midwest, antislavery Democrats, including New York’s Barnburners, and Liberty men.”42 At earlier and separate conventions the New York Barnburner Democrats had nominated former president Martin Van Buren, while the Liberty Party men had nominated Senator John Hale of New Hampshire. However, at the August Convention the Barnburners “primarily wanted Van Buren; they were less concerned about the platform, which they thus used to pacify Libertymen and Whigs.”43 Thus, the convention nominated Martin Van Buren for its presidential candidate and Charles Francis Adam for vice president. The nomination of former Democratic president Van Buren caused great consternation among the Free-Men-of-Color at the convention and in the state of New York. The main historian of the party, Frederick Blue, has written: Opposition to Van Buren was based primarily on the contradictions between his past record and free-soil principles. As vice-president, in 1834, he cast the deciding vote in the Senate for a bill to suppress abolitionist literature in the slave states. As president, he opposed the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of the slave states. In the Amistad case he tried, through an executive order, to force the black mutineers back into slavery. He endorsed the gag rule, a rule many northerners considered to be a gross infringement upon freedom of speech. He insisted that slavery in the South be left to the discretion of the southerners.44 Beyond his previous actions on public policies for the free and slave African American communities, there were additional problems of his candidacy which alarmed the free colored voters.

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“Predictably, most of the platform addressed the slavery question. Although it pledged noninterference with slavery in the states where it existed, it incorporated [the] demand that the federal government divorce itself from slavery . . . in the District of Columbia . . . and the [federal] territories. . . . [I]t insisted that Congress bar slavery from all free territory and that there be ‘no more slave states and no more slave territory.’ ”45 With this type of platform and the past history of Van Buren, several of the African Americans at the founding convention were quite skeptical of Van Buren’s true commitment, as well as that of the party as a whole, to African American rights. Since “the party did not demand equal social and political rights for Free Negroes, as did the earlier [anti-slavery] parties,”46 Douglass and others severely criticized the party and urged African Americans not to support it because it had a very limited anti-slavery program and policy.47 According to historian Eric Foner, “it was because of the Barnburners’ opposition that no call for equal rights for free Negroes of the North had been included in the Free-Soil platform of August, 1848.” As for the reason given, Foner says, “the Barnburners had emphasized that their opposition to the extension of slavery was motivated solely by concern for the interests of free white laborers, who would be ‘degraded’ by association with ‘the labor of the black race.’”48 Like the Democratic, Whig, and Liberty parties, the Free-Soilers had individual party members who held prejudices and stereotypical views about racial inferiority. “Almost all accepted the prevailing belief in the Negro’s intellectual inferiority, and many were uneasy about the prospect of a permanent Negro population in their own states.”49 Nonetheless, several Free-Men-of-Color voted for the party in the state of New York and at the national level. “By 1850, the Barnburners had returned to the Democratic Party, leaving the Free-Soil party in the hands of former Whigs and Liberty men, who viewed more favorably the demand for equal rights by Northern Negroes. But the national Free-Soil platform of 1852 continued to avoid this issue.”50 The national convention of the party met on August 11, 1852, “at Pittsburgh for the purpose of nominating party candidates for national office. . . . One of the first acts of this convention was to elect Frederick Douglass a secretary by acclamation. He was also invited to speak on entering the hall.”51 In his speech he urged the party to take a stronger stand on equal rights for Free-Menof-Color. However, the platform of that year did not reflect stronger stands for equal rights for African Americans. After this election the Free-Soilers fell from political sight, leaving African American members to seek other partisan homes. The last party to emerge in the Antebellum Era in New York was the Republican Party. Formally organized in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854, the party surfaced a year later organizationally in New York. Phyllis Field, a historian of this era, wrote: “In 1855 the Republican Party appeared for the first time and provided a more permanent organizational structure for many of the fusion groups of the previous year. These new parties [Republican and others] attracted some former Democrats but also repelled many ex-Whigs, thereby changing the nature of the Democratic coalition, already hopelessly split between the Soft and Hard factions.”52 One year later during the party’s initial presidential

election in 1856, “a black state convention endorsed the Republican ticket. Henry Highland Garnet, the main speaker, admitted that the party was far from perfect, but it did come closest to positions on suffrage and slavery favored by blacks and should be supported ‘regardless of the unkind things uttered by some of the Republican leaders.’”53 Field adds on this point of an emerging alliance between Free-Men-of-Color and the fledgling Republican party in the state of New York: Certainly the Republicans had contributed support for equal suffrage in the legislature, but Garnet was also drawn to them by the increasing number of antiblack immigrants in the Democratic ranks: ‘The oppressed Irismen (sic), once naturalized, are the loudest shouters for Buch(anan) and Breck(enridge) and Slavery extension, and the bitterest foes of the negro.’54 The rising free African American partisan identification and allegiance with the Republicans did not stop with Garnet’s call. “By 1858 . . . a black suffrage convention met in Troy, New York, and advised ‘the eleven thousand colored voters of this state to concentrate their strength upon the Republican ticket for governor.’”55 Two years later, the newly created Republican Party and Free-Men-of-Color would be on the same side politically during the 1860 statewide referendum on suffrage rights for African Americans. Very early in the life of the nation, Free-Men-of-Color forged party affiliations that allowed them to vote at the state and local levels for candidates in their best interests. Then, gradually, these initial partisan affiliations transformed as the political context evolved, and African Americans began to ally themselves with the coalition that best fit their interests, concerns, and public policy needs. During the seventy years or so following independence, the American political party system was in the throes of forming, reorganizing, and evolving. Simply put, the American party system was in its infancy, and instead of political parties the nation had, in the words of James Madison’s Federalist Paper Number 10, factions: “By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregated interest of the community.”56 Although all of the founding fathers opposed these factions,57 personally or group based, they would evolve into the modern political parties visible starting around the 1840s.58

Michigan African American party affiliation in Michigan began, in part, with a free African American candidate for the state legislature. In Michigan, free African Americans were seemingly attracted to the Liberty Party in 1843 on the basis of the anti-slavery issues but were not allowed political participation. Historian Theodore Clarke Smith wrote: “At the State Convention a ludicrous incident occurred: two colored delegates were not allowed to participate in nominating because they were not legal voters [in the



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state].”59 Although free African Americans acquired partisanship affiliation on the basis of issues, they were not allowed to vote. Hence, partisanship evolved even before the legal right to vote.60

Tennessee and North Carolina Moving from the Northwest to the South, we learn from the historical record how Free-Men-of-Color in Tennessee acquired their party voting behavior. Emil Olbrich wrote: “John Bell and Cave Johnson said that they were elected to Congress by the aid of colored men’s votes, the latter boasting that he owed his election in 1828 to one hundred and forty-four free negroes who worked in his mills.”61 Attraction to this personal faction/clique was not just due to economic employment, because Olbrich said that “opposing candidates, for the once oblivious of social distinction and intent only on catching votes, hobnobbed with the men and swung corners all with dusky damsels at elections balls.”62 What this insight tells us is that social recognition and decent treatment was extended to this voting segment of the African American community. In North Carolina, especially in selected counties, “it was said that there were 300 colored voters in Halifax, 150 in Hertford, 50 in Chowan, and 75 in Pasquotank,” who tended to vote for those abolitionists who spoke against slavery and for similar individuals who supported suffrage rights for the group.63 Again, here is voting behavior predicated upon personal factions/cliques. Since in both Tennessee and North Carolina the right of African Americans to vote was reversed in 1834 and 1835, respectively, party identification and affiliation never had a chance to evolve and mature to the extent that it did in places like New York.

Maine Finally, there are the states of New England, where from the beginning Free-Men-of-Color had the right to vote. The issue of suffrage rights never really entered into their faction or subsequent party voting behavior. The key issues here were matters of anti-slavery and other equal rights, like schools, employment, interracial marriages, and holding elective and appointed offices. One historian describes these other rights very vividly: [N]orthern Negroes found themselves systematically separated from the white community. They were either excluded altogether from railway cars, omnibuses, stage coaches, and steamboats, or assigned to special “Jim Crow” sections; they sat in secluded and remote corners of theaters; they could enter most hotels, restaurants, and resorts only as servants; and they prayed in ”Negro pews” in the white churches. Moreover, they were educated in segregated schools, punished in segregated prisons, nursed in segregated hospitals, and buried in segregated cemeteries.64 In battling these forms of racial discrimination the FreeMen-of-Color in Maine had choices, such as the Maine Liberty Party up until 1848, then the Free-Soil Party after it was organized on September 27, 1848, with “nearly two thousand

excited and hopeful delegates . . . participating in the business of organization formation.”65 Eventually, with the failure of the Free-Soil Party at the ballot box, “abolitionists changed the party designation from Free-Soil to Free Democracy. . . . Next, the Maine Free-Soilers allied themselves with other Free Democrats in the nation by adopting the platform drafted by the national convention of the Free Democracy of the Union at Pittsburgh in August, 1852.”66 Later, to improve their ballot box support the organization became the Liberty League. The Liberty League was commissioned to secure party unity, to circulate antislavery documents, and to keep lecturers constantly in the field. A constitution was drafted and a membership of twenty-cents levied. But despite its high aims and the seal of its founders, the League did not measure up to their expectations.67 Thus, in Maine the electoral context did not sustain the antislavery parties, and the abolitionists in the state had to finally re-name themselves the Free Democrats while others took up the banner of the anti-slavery Whigs. And by 1854, “the die had been cast—Liberty and Free-Soil lived on in the new Republican Party which was formed out of these elements” in the state.68 FreeMen-of-Color voters found in Maine’s political context little support for the anti-slavery third parties. Here, they had to align with the major parties.

New Hampshire The political situation was different in New Hampshire. The leading anti-slavery individual in the state during the Antebellum Era was John Hale, who began as an independent Democrat but found the party not as strong in its anti-slavery position as he wanted. He then exited the party to become a Liberty Party man, and later the presidential nominee of the Free-Soil Party in 1852. Initially, there was reluctance on his part to accept the third-party route simple because he “had been elected to the Senate by the New Hampshire legislature in a political bargain with the aid of Liberty, Whig, and Independent Democratic support. . . . He agreed with the Liberty party’s anti-extension position, but Liberty identification might label him an extremist and harm his Senate career before it even started.”69 Nevertheless, he accepted and became the type of political leader with whom some of the FreeMen-of-Color voters in the state wanted to align. Outside of the state, African American abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, supported him.

Massachusetts In Massachusetts, Free-Men-of-Color voters had a host of individual anti-slavery leaders and political parties with which to affiliate in state and local elections. Individuals associated with the anti-slavery cause included people like John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Palfrey, James Russell Lowell, Joshua Leavitt, John G, Whittier, and Charles Francis Adams, to name just a few. In terms of parties there were the “Conscience” Whigs, the Liberty Party, the FreeSoilers, Independent Democrats, and eventually the Republicans.

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Beginning in February 1844, African American abolitionist leader Henry Highland Garnet was invited to speak at the Liberty Party State Convention in Massachusetts. There, he endorsed the party as well as its state and local candidates. Later, African American leaders from other states, such as Douglass, were brought in to endorse national, state, and local candidates of the Free-Soilers and the Republicans. Thus, in Massachusetts, the Free-Men-of-Color voters had partisan identification, affiliation, and voting choices for national, state, and local elections. Consequently, this group of voters had choices of personal factions/ cliques and the anti-slavery parties, as well as the anti-slavery wings of the Whigs and the Democrats. Free African Americans could get their voting cues and affiliations from any individual or organization, including the anti-slavery societies and the state auxiliary of the National Negro Convention Movement. There was never a shortage of individuals or organizations in the state of Massachusetts. Collectively, the historical narrative offers useful insights and data on how Free-Men-of-Color shaped their voting behavior and party identification in the Antebellum period. The dominant issues that were important to this group—suffrage rights, anti-slavery matters, and equal rights—all had political avenues for opposition and protest and reform within the context of the state and local environs. By combining knowledge of the historical narrative from the state and local levels with that occurring on the national level, a picture of African American participation in the Antebellum period begins to develop.

African American Voting in Federal Elections, 1788–1866 Little evidence has been located on African American voting behavior in the first presidential election. Nevertheless, some information is available about the states that permitted popular voting in the presidential elections. By matching up the demography of the African American population with county-level voting for the presidential candidates/electors, some insight is possible.

First Federal Election In 1788–1789 only Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Virginia allowed popular voting for the presidency. In this initial election only two states, Maryland and Pennsylvania, had popular voting statewide, while Delaware and Virginia allowed popular voting by some, but not all, of their internal election districts. New Hampshire allowed popular voting with the caveat that the state legislature would step in and make the choice if no candidate received an electoral majority. Massachusetts had popular voting within election districts, but then the state legislature would select between the top two popularly chosen candidates. By the time of this initial federal election, Free-Men-andWomen-of-Color could not vote in Virginia, but Free-Men-ofColor could vote in Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Therefore, of the ten original states that voted in this initial election, free African American males could have participated in five of these states. Although no evidence has yet been found to allow independent confirmation

of this electoral participation, population data shown in Table 6.3 indicates the size of the Free-Men-and-Women-ofColor population two years after the election and permits insight into the possibility of African American participation in the first presidential election. Recent historical research has uncovered rare county-level voting data in all of the five states where Free-Men-of-Color had the legal right to vote. Using the standard consensus estimate in historical research of taking 20% of the total population of free African Americans, this then becomes the estimate of the number of potential African American voters in the initial federal election of 1788–1789.70 In addition to this estimation procedure, several historical narratives and accounts for subsequent elections in some of the states in the Antebellum Era offer brief discussions of voting by Free-Men-of-Color in state and local elections.

Anti-Slavery Parties of the 1840s and 1850s Due to limited data, the historical narrative is sketchy and incomplete for the Free-Men-of-Color voters in the first federal election. After the rise of the anti-slavery political parties in the 1840s, the narrative becomes more complete because of better data and coverage of the Free-Men-of-Color party and voting activism. Anti-slavery parties allowed African Americans to participate in their national conventions. The Anti-Masonic party held the first national nominating convention in Baltimore, on September, 26–28, 1831; the Democratic Party became the first of the major parties to hold a national convention on May 21–23, 1832, also in Baltimore. The Liberty Party held its initial national convention on November 13, 1839, in Warsaw, New York. Both of the Liberty candidates, James Birney and Francis Lemoyne, declined the nomination for president. Then, on April 1, 1840, the Liberty Party held another national nominating convention in Albany, New York, and James Birney and Thomas Earle accepted the presidential and vice presidential nominations, respectively. Of this new national political vehicle “Negro leaders began to express interest in the Liberty Party and to associate themselves with it. Samuel Ringgold Ward . . . allied himself with this party,” along with Henry Highland Garnet, J.W. Loguem, and William Wells Brown.71 Both Logeum and Brown became lecturers for this new political party during the 1840 presidential campaign. These supporters faced a major obstacle in their community in the early 1830s when William Lloyd Garrison “established the Liberator [newspaper] and formed the New England Antislavery Society” because he forbade and “denounced all political activity.” “The Garrisonians were sure that moral suasion would overcome the slavocracy.”72 Politics for them did not operate from pure motives and actions disentangled from mundane obligations. Simply put, Garrison and his followers were opposed to the Liberty Party, and among his followers were many Free-Men-of-Color, including the great Frederick Douglass. Hence, such men became ambivalent about supporting this new political party. Some Negroes tried to remain in both camps, supporting both the moral suasionists and political activists. Due to the schisms among the free blacks, and “on account of its poor organization and the divisions among its ranks”



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and near total media blackout, the party received less than 7,053 votes, which was less than 1% of the total votes cast in the presidential election of 1840. Some of these votes were cast by Free-Men-of-Color.73 This led to further African American participation with the party in sundry state and local conventions and elections. However, the most historic moment came at its next national convention held at Buffalo, New York on August 30, 1843: Several Negro delegates were present. Among these were the distinguished public figures of Henry Highland Garnet, Charles B. Ray and Samuel R. Ward. Garnet was appointed on the committee on nominations of officers, . . . Charles B. Ray was appointed on the committee to make a roll of the convention and was elected one of the convention secretaries. Samuel R. Ward led the convention in prayer and delivered an address. This was the first time in American history that Negro citizens were actively in the leadership of a political convention.74 Besides making history as participants in a national convention, Garnet offered and got adopted a resolution. This, too, became another historic first. This resolution read as follows: Resolved, that the Liberty Party has not been organized for any temporary purpose, by interested politicians, but has arisen from among the people, in consequence of a conviction, hourly gaining ground, that gaining ground, that no other party in the country represents the true principles of American Liberty, or the true spirit of the Constitution of the United States.75 During the national convention, James G. Birney was once again nominated as the party’s presidential candidate, and Thomas Morris got the bid for vice president. Next, the party platform included two planks for African Americans. The 35th resolution read: Resolved, that this Convention recommend to the friends of Liberty in all those free States where any inequality of rights and privileges exist on account of color, to employ their utmost energies to remove all such remnants and effects of the slave system.76 The thirty-sixth resolution read: Resolved, that we cordially welcome our colored fellow citizens to fraternity with us in the Liberty Party, in its great contest to secure the rights of mankind, and the religion of our common country.77 No other political party, major or minor, up to this point had made use of a party platform to welcome African American political and electoral participation. In the 1844 presidential

election the party received 62,197 votes, about 3% of the total votes cast. Hence, in 1843–1844 the Liberty Party made history and would continue to do so in the national elections of 1848, 1852, 1856, and 1860. African American voting and participation continued in a dwindling manner throughout the life of the party. Other, smaller third parties, like the National Liberty Party and the Political Abolition Party, received support from the FreeMen-of-Color voters. But they in turn received competition from the Liberty Party and the new Free-Soil Party that arose in 1848.78 As noted earlier, at their founding national convention in Buffalo, New York, on August 9–10, 1848, “the discontented elements of the Whigs, Democrats, the Barnburners, the Free Democrats, the Hunkers, and the political abolitionists,” as well as free blacks, came together and helped form the Free-Soil Party.79 However, because so many different motives led to the founding of this new political party, with the dominant one being to attract more followers and voters than the Liberty Party, “the Free-Soil Party only went so far as to oppose the extension of slavery into newly acquired territories; to cull the support of Democrats and Whigs, it did not advocate action against states where slavery already existed.”80 Therefore, several of the free black delegates in attendance at this founding convention were like Samuel Ward, who urged in his “Address to the Four Thousand Colored Voters of the State of New York” that they not vote for the Free-Soil Party and its candidate, former president Martin Van Buren. In his address he stated: Vote according to your principles of abhorrence of slavery; vote in accordance with your desire for enfranchisement of all the colored men of the State; vote against the extension of slavery, by voting against its existence; vote with a party that is true to all the great interests of the crushed, poor, black or white, bond or free, a party that has not deserted us to rally around the standard of one of our most implacable foes; vote so as to maintain your own self-respect, so that your children shall not be ashamed to own you as fathers; . . .81 Ward wanted his community to vote for the Liberty Party. In fact, Douglass, who was also a delegate, agreed with Ward, and he editorialized in his newspaper urging his readers not to vote for the Free-Soil Party and Van Buren. In the 1848 presidential election the Free-Soilers captured 291,263 votes to 2,733 for the National Liberty Party. This was a much greater national showing than the initial Liberty Party effort. According to the historical record, “the Negro voters in New Bedford, Massachusetts, who were . . . between six hundred and seven hundred, were reported to have voted, ‘almost to a man,’ for the Free-Soil ticket. Frederick Douglass is the authority for the statement that this was the case in all parts of Massachusetts.”82 To obtain this level of support the majority of abolitionists and anti-slavery and Liberty Party men moved into the emerging Free-Soil Party and attracted the Free-Men-of-Color with them. However, not all of the Free-Men-of Color voters in 1848 went for the Free-Soilers and the smaller anti-slavery parties: “in Rhode Island, the situation was a different one. The Colored

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Voters in Providence are said to have ‘almost unanimously supported the [Zachary] Taylor ticket,’” the Whig candidate for president.83 Historically, the state “Law and Order” party (as the Whigs were named in Rhode Island) in 1842 restored suffrage rights to free black voters after they had been taken away in 1822. Thus, in the words of Frederick Douglass, who had traveled to the state during this crisis: “This circumstance has given the Whigs almost complete control of the colored voters; so that if the Whigs should nominate Satan himself, they might calculate upon a large dark vote in Rhode Island.”84 Accordingly, since the elites of the party knew this, they issued during the 1848 presidential campaign an address to the African American electorate in the state entitled “Address of the Whigs to Colored Voters,” which reminded them in no uncertain terms that this was not the time for them to show their “ingratitude.” However, in 1850, two years after the Free-Soil defeat, “the Barnburners had returned to the Democratic Party, leaving the Free-Soil Party in the hands of former Whigs and Liberty men, who viewed more favorably the demand for equal rights by Northern Negroes. But the national Free-Soil platform of 1852 continued to avoid this issue [equal rights for African Americans].”85 Historian Foner tells us that racial prejudices, which had plagued the party from its inception, continued to do so in the presidential election of 1852 simply because party leaders “realized that in a society characterized by an all but universal belief in white supremacy, no political party could function effectively which included a call for equal rights in its national platform.”86 When the second national convention of the Free-Soil party convened in Pittsburgh on August 11, 1852, and nominated John Hale for president and George Julian for vice president, several African American delegates were present. Douglass, who spoke to the convention, “was elected secretary of the Convention. Upon receiving the appointment he completely endorsed the party and its endeavors. . . . During the year, Douglass also entered the ranks of the old Liberty party and worked for both parties and their candidates throughout the elections.”87 Seemingly, Douglass took this unprecedented party activism because the convention “adopted a resolution favoring the enfranchisement of all men without regard to color.”88 In this the party’s final election appearance, it “polled 156,297 votes in the election; the Liberty party 72. . . . After this defeat, the Free-Soil party dissolved.”89 Afterwards, the Liberty Party, along with a couple of smaller anti-slavery parties, labored on, but all of them gave way in 1856 to a new party, the Republican Party.

The Republican Party On June, 17–19, 1856, the newly formed Republican Party met at Music Fund Hall in Philadelphia and nominated John Fremont for president and William Dayton for vice president. Historian Charles Wesley noted: “The participation of Negroes in early Republican Party politics is uncertain. In the first place, this party was not an anti-slavery political party. . . . It proposed not to interfere with slavery where it existed.”90 It was only opposed to the extension of slavery, like the Free-Soilers. As far as the extant historical record shows there were no free

black delegates at this initial Republican National Convention. There is no clear historical data on how Douglass and others responded to this new party. From the party’s inception in 1854, Douglass’s newspaper, Frederick Douglass’ Paper, carried notices about meetings of the party. But in the 1856 election, “there is no indication that any special effort was made to attract Negro voters nor to interest the American people in extending the suffrage to Negroes.”91 In the 1856 presidential election the party received 38.5% of the total votes cast and 114 electoral votes (compared to the 174 electoral votes for the Democratic Party) and instantly became the second major political party in the nation. Therefore, when the Republicans held their second national convention in Chicago on May 16, 1860, nominating Abraham Lincoln for president and Hannibal Hamlin for vice president, African Americans took notice but no delegates attended the convention. At nearly the same time, leading African American spokespersons were in attendance at a Political Anti-Slavery Convention in Boston on May 29, 1860. Later, on August 29, 1860, at the party convention of the Radical Political Abolitionists, the remnant faction of the Liberty Party, Douglass “was appointed to the business committee . . . and was chosen as one of two electors-at-large. Again this was the first time that an American Negro had been nominated for such a party position.”92 After the convention Douglass declared his support for his long time abolitionist friend Gerrit Smith, who would be running as the presidential candidate of the party. Douglass in this 1860 election eventually changed his mind as he watched the Lincoln campaign become clearer on the question of limiting the expansion of slavery vis-à-vis the Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas, who embraced each state’s electorate deciding the existence of slavery. Thus, Frederick Douglass, late in the campaign, “ended up endorsing Lincoln and campaigning for him in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa,” states where FreeMen-of-Color did not have suffrage rights.93 Nevertheless, Lincoln and the Republican Party won with 59.4% of the vote and 180 electoral votes, primarily because the Democratic Party in the election had split and splintered into three different factions, each one having its own set of candidates. Lincoln would win reelection in 1864, and white Lincoln delegates from the South were elected at the national convention, of Lincoln’s reelection. At the 1868 Republican National Convention, African American delegates would appear at a major political party convention for the very first time. And since 1868, African American delegates have been present at every one of the national conventions of the Republican Party.

Statistical Analyses for the Antebellum Era At this point, the historical literature and narratives that discuss and describe how the Free-Men-of-Color voted in national elections during the Antebellum Era comes to an end. This is very similar to the literature on their voting in the first federal election. Historians and political scientists have not focused on the years shortly after the 1860s. Thus, we now seek to determine if an empirical analysis can provide further insights and findings not embedded in the historical and political science literature.



The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867 129

In order to gather the necessary empirical data, we turn to the United States censuses conducted during the Antebellum Era. First, we must take into account the limitations in the census data during this era. No gender breakdown by race was presented in the census data until 1820. Hence, there is no such data usable to isolate African American voters for the census years of 1790, 1800, and 1810. However, beginning with the 1820 census, the number and percentages of voting age Free-Men-of-Color in counties of every state that allowed them to vote is given. Next, we obtained the votes and percentages of the vote in counties of these states for each political party in every presidential election from 1828 through 1860. This county-level presidential voting data and Free-Men-of-Color population data have been combined for the first time ever and placed in Appendix A of this volume. Secondly, with this county-level census data and the countylevel presidential voting data, we can, for the first time, use the statistical technique of correlation to see if there is an association of the Free-Men-of-Color voters with any of the political parties that the historical literature illuminated. Typically, historians and political scientists correlate the total African American countylevel population with the county-level presidential vote. Such

an approach tends to overstate the relationship between the two variables because the total population includes women, children, and infirm individuals who did not or could not vote. For our analysis, we eliminated that problem by taking only African American males and using only the states where they had the legal right to vote to determine if a significant statistical correlation occurred. Our analysis shows that such a relationship occurred almost continuously in two states, Massachusetts and New York, for presidential elections during the Antebellum Era. Table 6.4 shows the strengths of those state-level correlations in a longitudinal manner. Although the correlations are low, this is to be expected simply because of the numbers; the electorate percentages of Free-Men-of-Color voters are small. However, the correlations are statistically significant. For example, Table 6.4 shows that at the 95% confidence level nearly 30% of each percentage increase of the vote in New York for Jackson in the presidential election of 1832 was associated with the presence of Free-Men-of-Color. Another example, in Table 6.5, shows that 42% of each percentage increase of the opposition vote in Pennsylvania against Jackson in the same election was associated with the presence of Free-Men-of-Color. The statistically significant correlations

Table 6.4  Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates in Massachusetts and New York, 1828–1860

State

Year

Number of Counties

Candidate

Political Party

Massachusetts

1828 1828 1832 1844 1844 1844 1848 1848

13 13 14 14 14 14 14 14

J.Q. Adams Others Clay Birney Clay Others Others Taylor

National Republican 

1832

55

1832 1844 1848 1848 1848 1852 1852 1856 1856 1856 1860 1860

55 56 56 56 56 59 59 59 59 59 60 60

New York  

Correlation

Significance Level

Whig

–0.7761 0.6911 0.5332 –0.6565 0.5540 0.7062 0.8448 0.5821

0.01 0.01 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.05

Clay

National Republican

–0.2938

0.05

Jackson Birney Cass Taylor Van Buren Hale Pierce Buchanan Fillmore Fremont Breckinridge Lincoln

Democratic Republican Liberty Democratic Whig Free Soil Free Soil Democratic Democratic American Know Nothing Republican S. Democratic Republican

0.2938 –0.5449 0.3169 0.4328 –0.4780 –0.4856 0.3719 0.4398 0.5166 –0.5778 0.4891 –0.4894

0.05 0.01 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01

National Republican Liberty Whig  

Sources: ICPSR Study No. 1, United States Historical Election Returns, 1824–1968, 2nd ICPSR ed. [Computer File], http://dx.doi.org:10.3886/ICPSR00001 (Ann Abor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale, ICPSR Study No. 8611, Electoral Data for Counties in the United States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840–1972 [Computer File], http://dx.doi.org:10.3886/ICPSR08611 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; and Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html (Charlottesville: University of Virginia), retrieved April 13, 2008. See Appendices 6.A.1–6.A.9.

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suggest that the historical literature is quite meaningful. These data tell us that at least in these two states Free-Men-of-Color voters were almost always either active or influential in these presidential elections. Table 6.5 reveals that in the states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Rhode Island Free-Men-of-Color voters were intermittently active in presidential elections. As we have mentioned, North Carolina and Pennsylvania African Americans lost the right to vote in 1835 and 1838, respectively. Thus, these limited voting data occurred in part because of legal realities. In Rhode Island, Free-Men-of-Color voters were denied their suffrage rights in 1822 but gained them back in 1842, so legal reasons also existed there. Finally, after establishing that a significant statistical correlation existed between free blacks and certain presidential parties, we performed some partial correlational analyses where we controlled

for competing party variables. We found that significant partial correlations existed for some years in Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. Table 6.6 indicates the presidential election years in which the partial correlations occurred and gives us the strength of those partial correlations. And while these partials occurred across time, they did so in only a selected number of years. Moreover, these partial correlations tell us that the relationships between the free black voters and these presidential parties held even when everything else was controlled for. Hence, out of our empirical analyses, we obtain the insight and suggestion that the data help to corroborate the findings and insights in the historical literature. African Americans in national elections voted for those candidates and parties that their political context and culture allowed them to identify and affiliate with, as well as for those who spoke to their interests about suffrage rights, slavery, and equal rights.

Table 6.5  Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, 1828–1860 State

Year

Number of Counties Candidate

North Carolina

1828

62

Others

Pennsylvania

1828 1828 1832 1832

47 47 49 49

Rhode Island

1852

 5

Political Party

Correlation

Significance Level

 

0.5374

0.01

Jackson J.Q. Adams Jackson Wirt

Democratic Republican National Republican Democratic Republican Anti-Masonic

–0.4254 0.4254 –0.4934 0.4934

0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01

Hale

Free Soil

–0.8833

0.05

Sources: ICPSR Study No. 1, United States Historical Election Returns, 1824–1968, 2nd ICPSR ed. [Computer File], http://dx.doi.org:10.3886/ICPSR00001 (Ann Abor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale, ICPSR Study No. 8611, Electoral Data for Counties in the United States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840–1972 [Computer File], http://dx.doi.org:10.3886/ICPSR08611 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; and Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html (Charlottesville: University of Virginia), retrieved April 13, 2008. See Appendices 6.A.1–6.A.9.

Table 6.6  Partial Correlations of Voting Behavior Percentages: Voting Age African Americans and Votes for U.S. Presidential Candidates, 1828–1860 State

Year

Number of Counties Candidate

Political Party

Correlation

Significance Level

New Hampshire

1848 1848 1848

8 8 8

Cass Taylor Van Buren

Democratic Whig Free Soil

–0.8928 –0.8928 –0.8918

0.017 0.017 0.017

New York

1832 1836 1836

55 55 55

Clay Harrison Van Buren

National Republican Whig Democrat

–0.2938 0.3067 0.3067

0.029 0.024 0.024

North Carolina

1828

62

Others

0.5297

0.000

Pennsylvania

1828

47

Jackson

Democratic Republican

–0.4254

0.003

Sources: ICPSR Study No. 1, United States Historical Election Returns, 1824–1968, 2nd ICPSR ed. [Computer File], http://dx.doi.org:10.3886/ICPSR00001 (Ann Abor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale, ICPSR Study No. 8611, Electoral Data for Counties in the United States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840–1972 [Computer File], http://dx.doi.org:10.3886/ICPSR08611 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; and Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html (Charlottesville: University of Virginia), retrieved April 13, 2008. See Appendices 6.A.1–6.A.9.



The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788–1867 131

Summary and Conclusions on the African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America With the establishment of the federal government at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, there was a new institutional player in the voting system in America. During the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, voting qualifications were essentially left to the colonial and local governments. Creation of a federal government, with two houses of congress and a presidency, led to voting becoming a national, as well as a state and local, matter. Although the national government left the matter of voting qualifications up to the states, the Constitution did establish an indirect voting qualification, the Three-Fifths Clause, for counting individuals to be represented by a seat in the House of Representatives. Such an indirect qualification sent a signal to the states about what they might decide to do about their African American populations. Nearly all of the new states that entered the Union—from the Northwest Territory, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Southwest Territory that were ceded to the United States after the Mexican War—prohibited, or eventually prohibited, free blacks from voting. Because the federal government set part of the electoral context with the Three-Fifths Clause, new states followed suit and discriminated against free blacks. How did free African Americans vote in the very first federal election? The historical record shows that in several of the thirteen original states some African Americans did vote and in other states, issues of central concern to the African American community arose even though they could not vote. But to be sure, there was limited African American voting in the earliest federal election. Since suffrage rights existed and had been exercised by free blacks in both the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, this form of political participation continued as the nation transformed. African American voting behavior at the state and local levels moved from political factions and personal cliques to the early precursor of national political parties, essentially the Federalists, and then to wings of the Whigs and eventually to the anti-slavery parties, and finally, to the Republican Party. There was also affiliation with the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic Party. The historical record shows significant African American support for several different anti-slavery parties. Finally, there is the matter of voting behavior in the subsequent federal elections after 1788–1789. Here, using both historical and empirical data, we show that the emerging political party system attracted continuous political and electoral participation throughout the Antebellum Era. Although African Americans could only exercise their suffrage rights in a limited number of states, there was a great deal of political activity. The rise of both major and minor political parties helped greatly in this early voting. The anti-slavery parties, particularly the Liberty and the Free-Soil parties, despite the fact that both exhibited racial prejudices, attracted and cued the Free-Menof-Color on how and for whom to vote to advance their cause. Still, during this time of change and transition, a number of the

original states were reconsidering the suffrage rights that they had granted to Free-Men-of-Color and began the process of reversals.

Notes   1. Charles Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of ConstitutionMaking, 1787–1865,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 32 (April 1947), pp. 159–160.   2. Merrill Jensen and Robert Becker (eds.), The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, Vol. I (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), p. xi.   3. Gordon DenBoer, Lucy Trumbull Brown, and Charles Hagermann (eds.), The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, Vol. II (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 444 and 447.   4. Jensen and Becker, p. 187.   5. Gordon DenBoer, Lucy Trumbull Brown, Alfred Lindsay Skerpan, and Charles Hagermann (eds.), The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, Vol. IV (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), p. 436.   6. Gordon DenBoer, Lucy Trumbull Brown, and Charles Hagermann (eds.), The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, Vol. II (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), p. 373.   7. Ibid., p. 90.   8. Ibid., p. 116.   9. Michael Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788– 1860: The Official Results by County and State (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2002), p. 2. 10. Ibid., p. xii. 11. Benjamin Quarles, Black Mosaic: Essays in Afro-American History and Historiography (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), p. 62. 12. Ibid. 13. Dixon Ryan Fox, “The Negro Vote in Old New York,” Political Science Quarterly Vol. 32 (June 1917), p. 254. 14. Ibid., p. 253. 15. Ibid., pp. 252–253. 16. Ibid., p. 253. 17. Ibid., p. 254. 18. Ibid., p. 256. 19. Ibid., p. 257. See also Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution-Making, 1787–1865,” pp. 157–158. 20. Quoted in Fox, p. 263, footnote 2. 21. Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 8. 22. Fox, p. 262. 23. Ibid., p. 263. 24. Benson, p. 320. 25. Ibid. 26. John Stanley, “Majority Tyranny in Tocqueville’s America: The Failure of Negro Suffrage in 1846,” Political Science Quarterly Vol. 84 (September 1969), pp. 415–416. 27. Ibid., p. 417. 28. Ibid (emphasis in the original). 29. Ibid., p. 419. 30. Charles Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 29 (January 1944), pp. 47–55. 31. Stanley, p. 422. 32. Ibid., and footnote 23. 33. Phyllis Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 120. 34. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” p. 39. 35. Benson, pp. 135–136 (emphasis in the original).

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36. Field, p. 83. 37. On this point see Benjamin Quarles, “The Breach Between Douglass and Garrison,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 23 (April 1938), pp. 144–154. 38. Hanes Walton, Jr., The Negro in Third Party Politics (Philadelphia: Dorrance and Company, 1969), p. 15. 39. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” pp. 52–53. 40. Ibid., p. 53. 41. Walton, p. 15. 42. Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 338. 43. Steven Rosenstone, Roy Behr, and Edward Lazarus, Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 53. 44. Frederick Blue, The Free-Soilers: Third Party Politics, 1848–54 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), p. 61. 45. Holt, p. 339. 46. Walton, p. 16. 47. Wesley, pp. 54–58. 48. Eric Foner, “Politics and Prejudices: The Free-Soil Party and the Negro, 1849–1852,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 50 (October 1965), p. 239. 49. Foner, p. 240. See also Eric Foner, “Racial Attitudes of the Free-Soil Party in New York,” New York History Vol. 46 (October 1965), pp. 311–329. 50. Foner, “Politics and Prejudices: The Free-Soil Party and the Negro, 1849–1852,” p. 240. 51. Wesley, p. 64–65. 52. Field, p. 86. 53. Ibid., p. 95. 54. Ibid. 55. Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Politics (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1972), p. 84. 56. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006), p. 52. 57. Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), Chapter One. 58. Samuel Eldersveld and Hanes Walton, Jr., Political Parties in American Society, 2nd Edition (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000), pp. 43–64. 59. Theodore Smith, The Liberty and Free-Soil Parties in the Northwest (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1897), p. 58. 60. Ronald Formisano, “The Edge of Caste: Colored Suffrage in Michigan, 1827–1861,” Michigan History Vol. 56 (Spring 1972), pp. 19–41. See also, Willis Dunbar with William Shade, “The Black Man Gains the Vote: The Centennial of ‘Impartial Suffrage’ in Michigan,” pp. 42–57.

61. Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912), p. 40. 62. Ibid., pp. 39–40. 63. Ibid., pp. 42. 64. Leon Litwack, “The Abolitionist Dilemma: The Antislavery Movement and the Northern Negro,” New England Quarterly Vol. 34 (March 1961), p. 50. 65. Edward Schriver, “Antislavery: The Free-Soil and Free Democratic Parties in Maine, 1848–1855,” New England Quarterly Vol. 42 (March 1969), p. 83. 66. Ibid., p. 86. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid., p. 94. 69. Frederick J. Blue, The Free-Soilers: Third Party Politics, 1848– 54 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), p. 12. See also Richard Sewell, “John P. Hale and the Liberal Party, 1847–1848,” New England Quarterly Vol. 37 (March 1964), 200–223. 70. For a discussion of the one-fifth estimate consensus see William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and the Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 83, footnote b, and p. 105, footnote c. 71. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Antislavery Political Parties,” pp. 39–40. 72. Walton, The Negro in Third Party Politics, p. 10. 73. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” p. 40. 74. Ibid., p. 44–45. 75. Ibid., p. 45. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Walton, The Negro in Third Party Politics, pp. 17–20. 79. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” p. 52–53. 80. Rosenstone, Behr, and Lazarus, p. 51. 81. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” p. 54–55. 82. Quoted in ibid., p. 57. 83. Ibid., p. 57. 84. Ibid., p. 57–58. 85. Foner, “Politics and Prejudices: The Free-Soil Party and the Negro, 1847–1852,” p. 240. 86. Ibid. 87. Walton, The Negro in Third Party Politics, p. 19. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in the Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” p. 71. 91. Ibid., p. 72. 92. Ibid., p. 73. 93. Walton, The Negro in Third Party Politics, p. 20.

CHAPTER 7

The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788–1870 The Politics of Total Reversals: Denial of Suffrage Rights in Eight States during the Antebellum and Civil War Eras

134

Table 7.1 Number of Petitions For and Against African American Suffrage Rights in Pennsylvania: Selected Counties by Submission to the 1837–1838 State Constitutional Convention

136

The Politics of Partial Reversals: The Abridgement of Suffrage Rights in New York and Rhode Island

137

The Politics of Reversal: Granting Suffrage Rights in Louisiana: 1838–1860

139

Map 7.1 Rapides Parish, Louisiana 1840

139

Table 7.2 Presidential Election Vote and Voting Age African American Male Population in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, 1828–1860

140

Figure 7.1 Percent of Presidential Vote in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, for the Major and Third Political Parties, 1836–1860

141

Summary and Conclusions on the Reversals of African American Suffrage Rights

141

Map 7.2 States that Reversed Suffrage Rights for African Americans during the Antebellum Era

141

Notes 142

134

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A

constant problem for the early African American electorate was the retention of their suffrage rights. During the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Antebellum periods African Americans saw the ballot extended to them, then denied to them, then given back to them, by colonies, states, and the federal government. Indeed, the acquisition and retention of suffrage rights has been a significant part of the African American political agenda in every era. In elections prior to the Fifteenth Amendment (1788–1870), African American suffrage rights were denied in spite of the promises of freedom and liberty outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Andrew Jackson, as the leader of the Democratic Party, transformed his political organization from a party of elites to a party of the masses using the theme that the “common man” should vote for and run his own government.1 For President Jackson and his disciples, the older idea of a “stakeholder” or “property-based” electorate was inimical to America’s system of democratic government. Citizenship, not property, increasingly became the basis for voting. Yet it is precisely during this era, when mass political participation began, that the greatest number of states totally or partially reversed suffrage rights for Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color.

The Politics of Total Reversals: Denial of Suffrage Rights in Eight States during the Antebellum and Civil War Eras During the struggles to expand and broaden suffrage rights to a greater proportion of the white populace, eight different states reversed themselves and removed existing suffrage rights from Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color. Prevailing in this era in America were reform movements to eliminate property and taxpaying requirements to vote. Put differently, the concept of a “stakein-society” as the essential qualification for suffrage rights came under increasing attack after the Revolutionary War, initially by the militiamen. Slowly and gradually, these soldiers of the war attracted workingmen to their reform movement, and together they pressured and lobbied the state legislatures to eliminate the property and tax requirements. The final factor, which helped the reform movement to succeed, was the leadership of Andrew Jackson, from his failed presidential election bid in 1824 through his two terms in the White House that ended in 1837. Although the reform movement succeeded in some places before Jackson, elsewhere it needed the Jackson presence to undercut a recalcitrant opposition. Ironically, the reform movement to expand and extend suffrage to the “common man” resulted in the denial of suffrage rights to Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color who had possessed these rights in both Colonial and Revolutionary America.

Delaware Delaware was the first state, in 1792, to reverse previously granted suffrage rights for African Americans. This occurred in the very same year that Delaware dropped its property qualifications on whites for voting. “The constitution of 1792 employed the language, ‘Every white free man,’ to describe the voter. No other state constitution excluded Negroes from the electorate

during this period.”2 Delaware, in making the transition from its colonial charter to its first state constitution, reversed suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color while dropping property qualifications for white males. Delaware, one of the original thirteen colonies, had set in motion a trend toward reversals, the Revolution notwithstanding.

Kentucky The border state of Kentucky, which, like Delaware, entered in the Union in 1792, denied suffrage rights to African Americans seven years later in 1799. The new Kentucky state constitution in that year “recognized equality in the foundation of a social compact only in the case of ‘free men’ and confined the right to vote to free white male citizens.”3 The state had not enacted a property or tax qualification and did not enact one in its new 1799 state constitution. African Americans in Kentucky had the right to vote for only seven years.

Maryland Following Kentucky two years later, Maryland, in 1801, reversed its suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color by legislative statute while—almost simultaneously—eliminating its property qualification by statute. Of Maryland’s situation, one scholar writes: “Under the Maryland Constitution of 1776, free Negroes had been allowed to vote if they met certain property qualifications. In 1783 a state statute restricted this right to Negroes who were free prior to that year,”4 and “later the right to vote was specifically restricted to free whites in this state by a constitutional amendment of 1801 and by acts of 1802 and 1810.”5 The 1810 denial was a constitutional act, as was a second exclusion of Free-Menof-Color in a subsequent constitution in 1851. Maryland, like Delaware, expanded white suffrage by dropping its property qualification even while it ended African American suffrage rights.

New Jersey New Jersey originally permitted both Free-Men-of Color and Free-Women-of-Color to have suffrage rights. Previously, only Virginia had briefly permitted Free-Women-of-Color to vote, a right halted in 1699. New Jersey stood alone in providing the vote to both black men and women, but like other states it also had a property and/or tax qualification to vote. In 1807 when the state legislature passed a statute to deny Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color the vote, it also re-enacted an earlier (1776) property and/or tax qualification for the vote by free white males. Thus, when New Jersey denied free African Americans suffrage rights, it also maintained restrictions on the white male electorate. Historian Marion Thompson Wright noted of New Jersey that “in the years, 1776–1807, many of the instances of voting by Negroes came to light through contested elections which caused widespread public comment,” due to the fact that voting by the Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color had influenced the outcomes.6 A second motive behind the elimination of suffrage rights was partisan conflict: Because of the feeling existing among Democrats that Federalists were making use of Negroes in their efforts to win at the polls, the Democrats resisted in many cases the extension of suffrage to Negroes. Where the franchise was being



The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights, 1788–1870 135

exercised by them, Democrats sought to impose restrictions on their use of this privilege.7 A third factor arose: “in 1804, due to the activities of the Society of Friends and other liberal persons, the Legislature had passed a law providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the state.”8 The emancipation of slaves would cause larger numbers of Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color to become eligible to vote. New Jersey at the time had the largest percentage of FreePeople-of-Color in the nation, some 2%. The loudest complaints came following the election of 1802. A leading New Jersey politician, John Condict, argued that an 1802 deadlock in state politics was allegedly caused by the exercise of voting rights by Free-People-of-Color. Condict argued that “the vote of a Negro slave, herself the property of another slave, elected one of the Hunterdon [County] members on that occasion [1802], produced an equality of parties in the legislature, and deprived the state of a governor for a year.”9 This and other complaints of the difference made by the African American vote in hotly contested races converged with the state election of 1806, which produced more complaints and ultimately led to the reversal of state policy on suffrage rights. “Following the election of 1806 in which fraudulent balloting was said to have been rife, action was taken to restrict suffrage to free white males.”10 Thus, in this 1806 election, “women and girls, black and white, married and single, with and without qualification, voted again and again.”11 As a result the legislature passed a statute eliminating suffrage rights for African Americans. By 1844, a new state constitution replaced the statute to the same effect. Of the reversal in New Jersey, Wright said: “the Whigs and Republicans were more tolerant toward Negroes than were the Democrats. For many years even the Whigs or Republicans were lukewarm in the matter of including Negroes in the electorate. The Democrats were inexorable in their determination to deny the freedmen the privilege of white citizens.”12

Connecticut The year in which Connecticut was long assumed to have reversed its policy of suffrage rights for African Americans— 1814—has recently been proven incorrect. Political scientist James Adams wrote in 1925 that “Connecticut continued under . . . [its] old [colonial] charter, and in [that] state the qualifications for electors were fixed from time to time by legislative enactment.”13 Using this approach, he demonstrated that “at the May session of the Connecticut legislature in 1814, it was enacted that ‘no person shall be admitted a freeman in any town in this state, unless, in addition to the qualifications already required by law, he be a free white male person.’”14 Then “in the May session of 1818 it was again provided in an amendment to the election law that only ‘white male’ inhabitants might be made freemen [voters].”15 Thus, “in the constitution convention of the same year . . . the original draft, excluding Negroes, was then submitted and passed by a vote of 103 to 72. This race distinction was renewed in the constitutional amendment of 1845.”16 Emil Olbrich opined: “Connecticut’s Negro population was 8,041 with 267,161 white persons, and it is possible that Negro voters were becoming inconveniently numerous.”17 It is also

highly possible that simple racial prejudice was the underlying cause for this reversal in policy.

Tennessee The first state of the future southern Confederacy to reverse suffrage rights for African Americans during the Antebellum Era was Tennessee in 1834. There, Free-Men-of-Color had been voting for some thirty-eight years. Two men, John Bell and Cave Johnson, had credited their elections to Congress to “the aid of colored men’s votes, the latter boasting that he owed his election in 1828 to one hundred and forty-four free negroes who worked in his mills.”18 Despite this rather positive regard of two elected officials for black suffrage rights, mass sentiment and public opinion was changing against anti-slavery, and toward pro-slavery, ideas. Emil Olbrich wrote: “During the twenties, the anti-slavery agitation in the North and the growing pro-slavery sentiment in the South, produced throughout Tennessee, strong manifestation of opposition to negro citizenship. The laws against free negroes became stricter, and at length, on December 16, 1831, the legislature forbade them to enter the state. . . .”19 This law also declared that “slaves should not be freed except on condition that they be removed from the commonwealth as soon as they might be emancipated.”20 Thus, the constitutional convention of 1834 passed a white-only clause by a vote of thirty-three to twentythree. With this action, Tennessee had reversed suffrage rights in their state.

North Carolina North Carolina was the seventh state in which total reversal occurred. This southern state, which had been one of the thirteen original colonies, followed Tennessee by one year in denying suffrage rights to Free African Americans in 1835. In fact, North Carolina was one of those states that had multiple reversals. The state “gave blacks this freedom, the right to vote, in 1667 and withdrew it in 1715. This withdrawal was repealed in 1734 but the right to vote was again withdrawn in 1835.”21 The denial of African American suffrage rights in North Carolina, as in many other states, occurred simultaneously with the expansion of white suffrage rights as the state dropped property qualifications for white males in voting for candidates for the state House of Representatives and governor. Property qualifications were retained in voting for the state senate, requiring “freehold of 50 acres for 6 months prior to elections.”22 Olbrich tells us that when the constitutional convention began on June 12, 1835, “The friends of the African seem to have had no hope of securing for him equal voting privileges with white men. They put forth all their efforts to secure a property qualification that would permit some negroes to retain the valued right and offered several propositions looking to that end.”23 Some even pointed out how the limited number of free voters appeared inconsequential, with only “300 colored voters in Halifax [county], 150 in Hertford, 50 in Chowan, and 75 in Pasquotank,” but to no avail.24 When the debate ended over suffrage rights for free blacks, they had permanently lost their suffrage rights. And with this action, no southern state except Georgia left Free-Men-of-Color with the right to vote.

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Pennsylvania Two factors stand out in the reversal of suffrage rights for FreeMen-of-Color in Pennsylvania in 1838. First, there was a race riot in the city of Philadelphia in 1834, which generated significant racial antagonism and sentiments against Free Blacks. Thus, when the new state constitutional convention convened in 1837, “stridently racist views were galvanized by the fear of black migration: in New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, convention delegates claimed that enfranchising blacks would only encourage freedmen and runaway slaves to flock to their state.”25 Secondly, there was a complaint and subsequent court case lodged by the loser of an election in Bucks County. Of this conflict, historian Charles Wesley wrote: “In 1837, a candidate for office in Bucks County, who was defeated, claimed his opponent’s seat because Negroes had been permitted to vote for him and that such an action was contrary to law.”26 Another added “that the year before they had come within twelve votes of electing their candidate to congress.”27 Said criticism and protest caused the Democrats of this county to meet in convention and [to decide] that they would petition the legislature to oppose the voting of Negroes, that they would use the courts to prevent this activity by Negroes and that they would amend the constitution to this effect. In December [1837] the court decided that the election was legal and that the right of the Negro to vote in the state depended upon the interpretation of the constitution in its use of the word freeman.28 “In the fall of 1776,” when the colonial charter was transformed into a state constitution, that convention “produced the most democratic constitution in the thirteen original states: it abolished property requirements and enfranchised all taxpaying adult males as well as the nontaypaying sons of freeholders.”29 Under this initial state constitution, Free-Men-of-Color retained their suffrage rights. They were considered freemen. Therefore, “in Pennsylvania, in 1837, there were many Negro voters. It was roughly estimated by a member of the convention that some hundreds of colored men voted in York County, and some thirty or forty in Bucks county.”30 To halt this voting, the Democrats of Bucks County, after having lost in the courts, took their fight to the state constitutional convention on May 2, 1837. The first round of debate over the suffrage issue adjourned on July 14 but reconvened on October 17. In the interim, on July 8, eighty Free-Men-of-Color in Pittsburgh sent a petition entitled “Memorial of the Free Citizens of Color In Pittsburg and Its Vicinity Relative To the Right of Suffrage Read In Convention.” It immediately “aroused public interest, newspapers discussed the question and popular excitement spread over the whole state.”31 But the convention adjourned six days later without taking any action. In response to the petition, numerous other petitions and memorials were submitted to the convention when it reconvened on October 17, 1837. Table 7.1 reveals the fifteen counties whose residents submitted petitions for or against granting suffrage rights. There were seventy petitions (63.6%) against continuing to extend suffrage rights to African Americans and forty

Table 7.1  Number of Petitions For and Against African American Suffrage Rights in Pennsylvania: Selected Counties by Submission to the 1837–1838 State Constitutional Convention African American Suffrage Petitions

County Bucks

Number Against Suffrage

Number in Favor of Suffrage

Included an African Amercan Community Submission*

Total

26

7



33

Chester

0

15



15

Dauphin

0

1



1

Lancaster

0

1



1

Luzerne

1

4



5

Lycoming

0

1



1

Mifflin

2

2



4

Montgomery

18

2



20

Philadelphia

14

6



20

Schuylkill

1

0



1

Susquehanna

1

0



1

Washington

0

1



1

Westmoreland

5

0



5

York

2

0



2

70

40

 

110

63.6%

36.4%

 

 

Totals Percentages

Source: Adapted from Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912), p. 53. * All petitions submitted by African American communities were in favor of African American suffrage rights.

petitions (36.4%) for continuing to extend suffrage rights to African Americans. At least two of the petitions, both of which were for continuing suffrage rights, came from African American groups. But clearly, statewide public opinion was strongly against the continuance of suffrage rights for African Americans. However, this did not deter African American protest. In Chester and five other counties in the state, petitions for continuing African American suffrage rights outnumbered those in opposition to the continuation of suffrage rights. In Philadelphia, Frederick Hinton, an activist in the National Convention Movement and cofounder of the Philadelphia Library Company of Colored Persons joined forces with Reverend Charles W. Gardner, who was temporary pastor at the African Presbyterian Church. They began on June 5, 1837, drafting a petition to send to the state constitutional convention from Philadelphia. This petition was completed shortly after the “mass meeting of blacks held at the Bethel A.M.E. Church in” the city.32 A well-known Whig politician, James Biddle, presented the document to the convention on January 8, 1838, “shortly before the Pennsylvania Constitution Convention passed the black disenfranchisement amendment (Article III, Sec. 1), and can be viewed as a last-ditch effort by blacks of Philadelphia to persuade the convention body not to adopt the measure.”33 The convention decided “on January 27, 1838, by a vote of 77–45 that the suffrage should be limited to whites.”34



The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights, 1788–1870 137

In terms of the voting at the constitutional convention, one scholar reports it as follows: The convention was composed of senatorial and representative delegates. Of seven representative delegates from Philadelphia city, where the number of blacks was largest, four voted against the dis-franchising amendment. One out of eight from Philadelphia county, two of three from Bucks county, four of six from Lancaster, one of two from Adams, and all four from Chester also voted on the side of the black man.35 Pennsylvania became the last state to deny suffrage rights to African Americans in the Antebellum period. Although denied their long held suffrage rights, African Americans did not give up without a fight. Two months later, on March 14, 1838, a mass meeting of African Americans assembled at “the Presbyterian Church on Seventh Street below Shippen [Street]” to prepare a report protesting their disenfranchisement. “The report was adopted unanimously by the assembled audience. It is known as the Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened with Disfranchisement, to the People of Pennsylvania.”36 While this petition, like the others, had no effect, African Americans continued to protest. “Between 1839 and 1851 a total of eighty-one petitions and memorials by blacks on the voting issue reached the legislature.”37 It was not until 1873, some thirty-five years later, that their suffrage rights were fully restored. Out of Pennsylvania’s reversal came a political figure who would eventually have a tremendous impact on the issue of African American suffrage: Thaddeus Stevens. In fact, he was a delegate to the 1837–1838 state constitutional convention that stripped Free-Men-of-Color of their suffrage and did not even enter into the debate. But “when the constitution was finally adopted however, he refused to sign it because he could not sanction any discrimination on account of race or color.”38 According to Olbrich: Thaddeus Stevens, a native of Vermont, and a graduate of Dartmouth College, had come down into Pennsylvania and established himself as a lawyer in York county near the border of Maryland. Here he observed the workings of the fugitive slave law, saw one of the worst aspects of negro servitude, helped defend colored men claimed as fugitives, and developed an intense hatred of slavery.39 With this background Stevens entered the U.S. House of Representatives and became a major anti-slavery legislative force but also a restorer of the suffrage rights lost in the Antebellum period.

The Politics of Partial Reversals: The Abridgement of Suffrage Rights in New York and Rhode Island If the denial of African American suffrage rights was widespread, it was not necessarily inevitable. The Antebellum Era was the age of party formation and competition. Thus, it should come as no surprise that one of the issues over which parties competed was the suffrage right for Free-Men-of-Color. In the North, debate

about suffrage rights took place between the Federalists and their Democratic opponents in New York (1799–1821), between the Democrats in both of their manifestations (Jeffersonian and Jacksonians) and their Whig opponents (1832–1850), between the Northern Whigs and their opponents (1832–1852), and between the anti-slavery parties and their opponents (1840–1860). In the two northern states where partial reversals of suffrage rights occurred, New York and Rhode Island, there was a partisan debate and struggle in these electoral contests over suffrage.

New York Of the politics of partial reversals in New York, historian Phyllis Field wrote: The Age of the Common Man . . . theoretically began a new era in American politics, one in which all men became equals, and the requirement that voters own property was abolished forever. Following the trends of the times, New York in its 1821 constitutional convention changed its suffrage provisions. Non-propertyholding white males gained new rights, but, at the same time, black males found their right to vote restricted by a freehold qualification.40 This freehold qualification was a property qualification for Free-Men-of-Color of only $250 dollars. Professor Field concluded: “As has happened many times in American history, egalitarian ideals did not cross the color line.”41 What were the political motives that caused this partial reversal at the 1821 convention? Pioneering historian Emil Olbrich wrote: “In New York, in 1785, two-thirds of the senate and a majority of the assembly were in favor of forbidding negroes to vote; but the suffrage was preserved to black men by a veto of the Council of Revision.”42 Then, at the state legislative session in 1811, a law was passed that required each Free-Manof-Color to prove that he had been emancipated in order to have a right to vote. Later in 1814, a new section was added to that law, which applied only to New York City, “provided that certificates of freedom should be recorded in the office of the registrar; and that a copy of the record should be the certificate of freedom which a free black was required to produce at elections before he could vote.”43 Seemingly, political motives lurked behind these institutional requirements and the 1821 partial reversal. Olbrich noted, “in 1813 the votes of three hundred free negroes in New York City decided the election in favor of the Federalists and determined the character of the state legislature.”44 Then, he wrote, “one hundred and sixty-three Negroes . . . voted in New York at the spring election of 1821. There were more than five hundred, however, who tried to vote, and it was estimated that if all property qualifications were abolished, there would be twentyfive hundred Negro electors in the city of New York alone.”45 Historian Alexander Keyssar added: In New York . . . Republican factions were hostile to black voting between 1810 and 1820, in part because they feared (correctly) that blacks would constitute a

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Federalist voting bloc, especially in New York City; politically active blacks, throughout the North, tended to support the Federalists because of their opposition to slavery.46 Therefore, given the evolution of several new institutional restraints as well as these political motives, it should come as no surprise that, despite a vigorous debate at the 1821 convention, the new constitution partially reversed the right of African Americans to vote in the state. Of these new legal requirements historian Wesley says that a free African American male “had to own real estate worth two hundred and fifty dollars and he had to be a citizen of the state for three years, although no property qualification was required of whites and only one year of residence was required of them.”47 With these new legal requirements, Free-Men-of-Color had their suffrage rights partially reversed by a heightened property and residence requirement. This outcome could be seen as a victory of sorts, because in the legislative debates, a minority had sought the restriction of suffrage rights to white males only.

Rhode Island The elimination of African American suffrage rights, which nearly happened in New York in 1821, did happen a year later in Rhode Island during the struggle for the expansion of suffrage rights beyond property holders. Thus, following Connecticut in 1817, which eliminated suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color, and New York which severely restricted black suffrage in 1821, “Rhode Island altered its franchise law in 1822 so that only white male adults were eligible to be ‘freemen,’” those citizens designated eligible to vote in state and local elections.48 However, about twenty years later, Free-Men-of-Color in Rhode Island would be re-enfranchised as a result of the struggle to expand suffrage rights in the state to non-propertyholding males. Two historians state: “The Negro in Rhode Island regained the right to vote in the political turmoil resulting from a movement to expand the suffrage for whites. . . .”49 After the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island had not written a new state constitution but let its original colonial charter stay in force, which had limited voting only to property holders, i.e., “those who owned real estate valued at $134 or rented property for at least $7.”50 Those who had fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 sought suffrage reforms, and by the 1820s they were joined by the workingmen and “by sympathetic freeholders, the most famous of whom was Thomas Dorr.”51 This political activist, Dorr, had strenuously “supported the anti-slavery movement and worked for Negro rights,” but at the crucial moment of the creation of the Rhode Island Suffrage Association in March, 1840, found that “he could not overcome the ‘white only’ attitude of most in the suffrage movement,” which reconstituted itself in 1841 as the Suffrage Party in the State.52 Immediately, “in 1841, the Suffrage Party held a series of mass meetings and called an extralegal convention to write a constitution for the state. They held an election in July for delegates to the Suffrage or People’s Convention, and declared the voting to be open to all male citizens regardless of nativity or race.”53

When the African American political activists in Rhode Island tried to join the Suffrage Party led by Dorr and attempted to influence the inclusion of Free Blacks as voters, they quickly learned that the party was anti-Negro. “In early October,” 1841, the party’s convention “proposed to liberalize the franchise for all white-males, including foreign born, but excluded the Negro.”54 Although African Americans petitioned the convention to drop the “white only clause,” it was to no avail, and the convention proceeded to write a new state constitution with this clause in it. At the November, 1841, convention of the Dorr-led Suffrage Party, further entreaties and protests were made, and a concession was offered that after the proposed constitution was put forth to the Rhode Island male electorate in December and possibly approved, the party would put the Free-Men-of-Color matter itself to a referendum. Despite the exhortations of abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and other free African Americans who joined with the local Rhode Island AntiSlavery Society to cry for a reconsideration, the party approved its state constitution by a vote of 13,944 to 52. The Dorr-led constitutional convention did not establish a new constitution in Rhode Island; indeed, it constituted a political rebellion against the sitting and duly elected and constituted government already in place. The government, “in November, 1841 . . . [called] a Legal [freeholders] Convention” to write their own new state constitution, “and like the [Suffrage Party] People’s Constitution the draft proposal excluded Negro suffrage. . . . The Legal Convention reconvened in February, 1842, to complete the drafting of its constitution.”55 On March 21–23, 1842, they submitted their new constitution to the electorate of Rhode Island, but it was rejected. Once it was rejected, the Dorr-led Suffrage Party quickly moved to hold elections for state officials under their extralegal constitution in April 1842. In response, the state government, with promises of military support from President John Tyler (a Whig), passed a series of bills known as the Algerine Law “which levied heavy penalties on anyone accepting office or exercising power under the [Suffrage Party] People’s Constitution.”56 The Dorrites, on the other hand, were encouraged by declarations of support from Democrats such as Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. 57 The election was held despite the legal threats, Dorr was elected governor, and some of his supporters won seats in the state legislature. To ensure that they could take the seats of power, Dorr and his group “led an attempt to seize the Providence Arsenal. The attack fizzled and the Dorrites scattered . . . and Dorr fled from the state.”58 In the aftermath of the failed insurgency, the Legal Constitution group, renamed “themselves the Law and Order Party . . . called a new constitutional convention . . . and scheduled the election of delegates for August and . . . opened the voting to all native male citizens.”59 The convention drafted a new state constitution and deleted the word “white.” African Americans joined this new movement and, when this state constitution was accepted by voters in 1842, found their suffrage rights restored. J. Stanley Lemons and Michael McKenna, two historians of Rhode Island who have documented these events, wrote that the conservative members of the Law and Order Party “were more prejudiced against the foreign-born than they were against the Negroes. For their part, the blacks resented the Suffrage Party’s concern for the foreign-born voter while excluding native



The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights, 1788–1870 139

Americans only on the basis of color.”60 They added: “as a result of Negro support in the Dorrite disruptions, the Law and Order Party incurred an obligation to the black community which was repaid with the franchise. . . . The convention voted 45–15 to drop ‘white’ from the suffrage clause. The [new] constitution was approved in November, 1842 by a vote of 7,024–21, and Negroes voted almost unanimously for it.”61 Yet the Rhode Island grant of suffrage rights to African Americans carried a property qualification. In fact, when the Civil War began, only New York and Rhode Island still had property qualifications and only for African Americans.

The Politics of Reversal: Granting Suffrage Rights in Louisiana: 1838–1860 When Louisiana became a state in 1812, it denied suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color in its state constitution. However, the political elites of both major parties, Democrats and Whigs, mustered African Americans to the polls from 1838 until 1860 in Rapides Parish, located in central Louisiana.62 (A parish in Louisiana is equivalent to a county. See Map 7.1 for the location of Rapides Parish.) In Rapides Parish, partisans condoned an illegality, and the state government allowed it to happen. Free-Menof-Color were allowed to vote in this parish/county for some twenty-two years leading up to the Civil War. Historian Roger

Map 7.1  Rapides Parish, Louisiana 1840

0

100

200

miles

Claiborne

CLAIBORNE CLAIBORNE

Shreveport NATCHITOCHES NATCHITOCHES

Natchitoches

Catahoula

CATAHOULA CATAHOULA

Rapides

Avoyelles Baton Rouge

St Landry Calcasieu

CALCASIEU CALCASIEU

ST ST LANDRY LANDRY

New Orleans

0

100

200

miles

Sources: Adrian B. Ettlinger, The AniMap Plus County Boundary Historical Atlas, Version 3 Release 2, http://www.goldbug.com (Alamo, CA: Goldbug Software, 1991–2008), and Carville Earle, Historical United States County (HUSCO) Boundary Files, http://www..ga.lsu.edu/husco .html (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University GeoScience Publications, 1991–1999).

Wallace Shugg suggested that this situation was not unheard of: “despite the restriction of the franchise to white men in every ante-bellum constitution, local elections were sometimes so bitterly fought that rival candidates called Negroes to their aid.” He gives Rapides Parish as an example.63 The population of Free-Men-of-Color in Rapides Parish began from several emancipated slaves who migrated to central Louisiana from North Carolina in 1804 “and squatted on public lands. Their children were so closely related that when nearly sixty of them voted, a generation later, only a dozen answered to different names.”64 This group of Free-Men-and-Women-ofColor lived in an area known as “Ten Mile Precinct,” along Ten Mile Creek, which today is in Allen parish. Moreover, “relations between the Negroes and poor whites of this region were not so unfriendly as to prevent considerable miscegenation, for the color of their progeny was admitted to be no clue to their race.”65 By 1838, these light-skinned FreeMen-of-Color began “passing” for white voters in local, state, and federal elections. Only in 1857, some nineteen years after it had commenced, did a public outcry against this practice surface from the white community. Of this affair, Shugg wrote: The scandal of such people voting was first aired in the Louisiana press by the American or local KnowNothing party in a desperate effort to discredit the Democratic candidate in 1857. Colonel Robert A. Hunter, the nominee, was called an ”African suffragate” in affidavits filed by citizens of Rapides. They accused him of having armed and mustered Negroes to the polls in the Presidential election of 1856, and of now being ready to repeat this fraud in behalf of the Democratic State ticket.66 Court documents of the trial revealed that to prove their charges, members of the Know-Nothing party offered depositions from “a Democrat and nine old residents of the parish.”67 At the trial, these witnesses refused to blame Colonel Hunter, but they did say under oath “that more than two score ‘Africans’ had cast ballots in previous elections.”68 In addition, these witnesses for the Know-Nothing party let it be known that the names of these African voters “could be found in a register known as ‘Boyce’s list,’ and the so-called ‘Ten Mile precinct’ had been especially created to provide them with a safe and ostensibly legal polling place.”69 At the trial, “Colonial Hunter . . . did not deny that his party had enlisted the suffrage of a few colored people. With all the candor of a seasoned politician, he simply demurred.”70 Hunter, who was the defendant, got help from “the Democratic district attorney” simply because the sympathetic prosecutor “neglected to introduce enough evidence to prove that the defendants were colored.”71 Both the Democratic defendant and district attorney got even more help from “the Democratic Judge, who would not permit the jury to draw obvious conclusions from their appearance.”72 Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Democratic Party won their case, upholding their electoral victory over the Know-Nothings and upholding the votes of the Free-Men-of-Color.

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Later, “before an audience of conservative planters,” Colonel Hunter declared that it was the Whigs who had first marched Negroes to the polls in 1838: Since the constitution at that time limited the franchise to white men who had paid taxes or purchased public land, and the Negroes of Ten Mile Precinct were not tax-payers, public land was entered in their names by Whig politicians to give them some legal ground for voting. Three years later, in 1841, ”some of the Democratic boys got in among them and changed them over to their side.“ The Whigs, as surprised as they were indignant, ”kicked up against it, and a trial ensured,“ but the Democrats never failed thereafter to collect all the free Negro votes in Rapides.73 Writing about the outcome of the 1857 election, Shugg noted that: In his campaign for Treasurer in 1857, ”Ten-Mile Bob“ Hunter, as he was dubbed by his opponents, carried the parish by sixty-eight votes—presumably colored— and along with the rest of his ticket swept the State by several thousand—unquestionably white. In Rapides Parish, it is plain to be seen, free men of color held the balance of power at the polls.74 By 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, a traveling correspondent to the area wrote in the New Orleans Crescent newspaper that in Rapides Parish “about eighty colored men are voted at the Ten Mile by the unterrified Democracy whenever an emergency demands their loyal aid in carrying an election.” Thus, the 1857 trial did not stop this de facto granting of suffrage rights to FreeMen-of-Color, albeit illegally, by the two parties.

The situation of African American voters in central Louisiana contrasts with their fate in its largest city. In the 1840s, shortly after this voting began in Rapides parish, the Free-Menof-Color in New Orleans, who “were reputed to own one-fifth of the taxable property in New Orleans, . . . [petitioned] for admission to the municipal franchise.”75 The Conservative Whigs of the city refused to “allow urban Negroes to vote legally and for their own interest.”76 Owning property, paying taxes, and having light-colored skin were not enough in and of themselves to make an exception and permit the granting of suffrage rights for free African Americans in the big cities of Louisiana. Hence, the lone exception in the state was in the rural area of Rapides parish because of party competition. How many Free-Men-of-Color voted in Rapides parish in these contests? The extant historical record says sixty-eight in 1857 and “about eighty” in 1860. Table 7.2, using data from the 1820 through the 1860 censuses, sheds some further light on the subject. In 1820, the Census Bureau began to enumerate Free Blacks by gender. Thus, Free-Men-of-Color made up 3.5% of the population in 1820 and 1830, 5.6% in 1840, 2.3% in 1850, and less than 1.0% in the 1860 decade. From this table, it is clear that the Free Black males peaked in electoral strength in 1840 and began a steady decline in the parish thereafter, reaching their lowest level in the year just before the Civil War. This gendered data suggest, but do not confirm, two potential possibilities about the discrepancy. Either Free-Women-of-Color were allowed to vote to make up the difference between the census data and the vote, or male slaves voted and were declared to be Free-Men-ofColor for this election. And as shown in Map 7.1, the city of New Orleans was too far away to bring in Free-Men-of-Color from the Orleans Parish. Maybe Free-Men-of-Color were brought in from parishes adjacent to Rapides Parish. Since the political elites were already engaged in illegal activity by permitting these Free-Menof-Color to vote, these other possible illegal voting subterfuges do

Table 7.2  Presidential Election Vote and Voting Age African American Male Population in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, 1828–1860 African American Election Year

Total Vote

Winning Party

Census Year

Total Population

Total Electorate

White

Male Votersa

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Electorate

Males Votersa

Percent of Total Population

Percent of Electorate

1828

324

Democratic

1820

6,065

620

22

0.4%

3.5%

598

9.9%

96.5%

1832

250

Democratic

1830

7,575

664

23

0.3%

3.5%

641

8.5%

96.5%

1836

295

Whig

1830

7,575

664

23

0.3%

3.5%

641

8.5%

96.5%

1840

857

Whig

1840

14,132

1,062

60

0.4%

5.6%

1,002

7.1%

94.4%

1844

1,005

Democratic

1840

14,132

1,062

60

0.4%

5.6%

1,002

7.1%

94.4%

1848

926

Democratic

1840

14,132

1,062

60

0.4%

5.6%

1,002

7.1%

94.4%

1852

1,024

Democratic

1850

16,561

1,417

32

0.2%

2.3%

1,385

8.4%

97.7%

1856

1,347

Democratic

1850

16,561

1,417

32

0.2%

2.3%

1,385

8.4%

97.7%

1860

1,754

S. Democratic

1860

25,360

2,706

57

0.2%

2.1%

2,649

10.4%

97.9%

Sources: ICPSR Study No. 1, United States Historical Election Returns, 1824–1968, 2nd ICPSR ed. [Computer File], http://dx.doi:10.3886/ICPSR00001 (Ann Abor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale, ICPSR Study No. 8611, Electoral Data for Counties in the United States: Presidential and Congressional Races, 1840–1972 [Computer File], http://dx.doi:10.3886/ICPSR08611 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), retrieved June 2002; and Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html (Charlottesville: University of Virginia), retrieved April 13, 2008. a

Male Voters = number of eligible male voters.



The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights, 1788–1870 141 Map 7.2  States that Reversed Suffrage Rights for African Americans during the Antebellum Era

Figure 7.1  Percentage of Presidential Vote in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, for the Major and Third Political Parties, 1836–1860

Percent of Presidential Vote

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1836

ME

VT NH MA

Wisconsin Territory

RI

NY MI

1840

1844 1848 1852 Presidential Election Year

% Democrats

% Whigs

1856

1860

New Jersey OH

IN

IL

Delaware Delaw are

% Third Party

Mary land Maryland

VA MO

Kentucky

Sources: Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential Ballots, 1836–1892 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 494, and Michael J. Dubin, United States Presidential Elections 1788–1860: The Official Results by County and State (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2002), pp. 144 and 170. Calculations by the authors. Note: In 1856, the third-party candidate was former U.S. president Millard Fillmore, who appeared on the ballot in Rapides Parish as an American ("Know Nothing") Party candidate. John C. Breckinridge, of the splinter Southern Democratic Party, was the third-party candidate in 1860.

Connecticut

Pennsylvania

Iowa Territory

North Carolina Tennessee SC AR MS

GA

AL

LA

0

not seem out of the realm of the possible. In the decade between 1840 and 1850, this vote could have been quite influential in local and state elections. Hence, there is little wonder that the local party elites seized the moment to enhance their political power and impact. Finally, extant parish-level presidential voting data as shown in Figure 7.1 offer additional insights. In 1836 and 1840 the Whig party carried the parish, while in 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856 the parish was won by the Democratic Party. These presidential electoral outcomes nearly parallel the historical narrative about party victories at the state level and again suggest that the Free-Menof-Color vote served as a balance of power factor that helped both the Whigs and the Democrats to win. And the closeness between these two data sources further supports that there may be some validity to the stories about Free-Men-of-Color voting in Rapides parish between 1838 and 1860.

Summary and Conclusions on the Reversals of African American Suffrage Rights States, during the Antebellum Era, were just one of the institutional players that impacted suffrage rights. The new federal government made possible by the 1787 Constitutional Convention determined suffrage rights in the territories. These included the Northwest Territory, the territory conveyed by the Louisiana Purchase, and later the lands obtained after the Mexican War. In these areas, the federal government, specifically Congress, had the power to determine suffrage rights. Speaking on this point, historian Olbrich informed us that “the Federal Government passed the last act permitting negroes to vote in the territories in 1809 in organizing the Territory of Illinois.”77 Map 7.2 shows the states where suffrage rights were reversed—whether totally or partially—during the Antebellum

Florida Territory

100 200 miles

States Reversing African American Suffrage United States 1842

Sources: Hanes Walton, Jr., African American Power and Politics: The Political Context Variable (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 16, and Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 349–353, Table A4.

period. In all, the reversals took place in eight states and three territories administered by the federal government. Reversals took place in each and every region of the country. They occurred in the New England area, in the Middle Atlantic area, in the Border States, and in the South. They occurred in states with very small populations of Free-Men-and-Women of Color as well as in states with supposedly large free populations. Reversals took place in slave states and non-slave states. They took place in areas where all of the adjacent states permitted Free Blacks to vote. And they took place in states such as Tennessee and North Carolina in order to conform to the cultural habits and patterns in the region. Thus, geographically and demographically, there were no great distinctive markers and characteristics. Even historical traditions of letting African Americans vote in the Colonial and Revolutionary eras did not prevent some of these reversals. In these reversals, one sees the role and function played by the emerging political parties. The Democrats and the Whigs, present at the local and state levels, played roles, and where these national parties did not exist, the local parties affiliated with one or the other of the rising parties.

142

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Partisan competition could occasionally work in favor of suffrage, even without changing the law, as we saw in Louisiana. Partisan competition in the end mattered more than the law. Moreover, on no occasion in Rapides Parish in Louisiana did the state government step in and uphold state law prohibiting actual suffrage for free African Americans. Their voting continued for nearly a quarter of a century. Or partisan competition could change the law, as shown by Rhode Island, the one reversal that was overturned. Conservative whites in Rhode Island granted suffrage rights to African Americans because of their antipathy toward foreign whites and aliens as well as their need to stay in power against the reform movement in the state. Prejudice in this case was stronger against other whites than it was against free African Americans. And the flexibility and dynamic leadership of African American leaders in the state also contributed. Initially, they tried to join the reformers, only to be rebuffed, but they just as quickly switched sides and joined the “Law and Order Party.” The time frame is important to observe. All of the reversals at the state level were over and completed by 1838. Every state that engaged in the politics of reversals finished its changes within four decades in the new century. Only the reversals of the federal government came long after state action. And in terms of the nature of the times, the Post-Revolutionary War period and the coming “age of the common man,” the elimination of one barrier to suffrage rights—property-holding—was coupled with the erection of another—denial of suffrage rights to Free-Menand-Women-of-Color. Almost in every case these two contradictory changes went hand-in-hand. Reformers in Antebellum America carefully and intentionally left out the African American electorate. All kinds of factors intertwined in these reversals—political and personal motives; race, racial fears, and racial competition; partisan competition, lost elections and the fear of black migration to states with suffrage rights; and, needless to say, the matter of social distinction—those with the vote could use it to distinguish themselves from those without it. Usually, these factors worked in conjunction with each other to produce the reversals that mostly limited the extent of the African American electorate. In closing, it is worth considering another factor that helped to overcome these reversals in the end: personality and determined leadership. Thaddeus Stevens, the congressman for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, became a leader of Congressional Reconstruction as well as a legislative force behind the three Civil War Amendments that granted federally mandated suffrage rights for African Americans during post-Civil War America. Congressman Stevens in this quest helped to displace his own state’s reversal of 1838 and all of the others. And in the final analysis these reversals (at the time, these acts were not called disenfranchisement, yet this is exactly what they were) in the northern and southern states before the Civil War were the precursors to the South’s Era of Disenfranchisement (1888–1901). This new period of reversal came at the end of the Era of Black Reconstruction and the Compromise of 1877 and effectively ended that era. However, just as the earlier reversals in the northern and southern states were undone by the Civil War

Amendments, particularly the Fifteenth Amendment, so would the Civil Rights Acts of the twentieth century finally undo the Era of Disenfranchisement.

Notes   1. John Aldrich, Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 104–122.   2. Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912), p. 10.   3. Ibid., p. 21 (emphasis in original).   4. Margaret Law Callcott, The Negro in Maryland Politics, 1870– 1912 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 3, footnote 1.   5. Charles Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of ConstitutionMaking, 1787–1865,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32 (April 1947), p. 154.   6. Marion Thompson Wright, “Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1875,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 30 (April 1948), pp. 168–224. Quote on p. 174.   7. Ibid., p. 175.   8. Ibid., p. 177.   9. Ibid., p. 175. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., pp. 223–224. 13. James Adams, “Disfranchisement of Negroes in New England,” American Historical Review, Vol. 30 (April 1925), p. 545. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Olbrich, p. 24. 18. Ibid., p. 40. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Politics: A Theoretical and Structural Analysis (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1972), p. 33. 22. Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 345. 23. Olbrich, pp. 42–43. 24. Ibid., p. 43. 25. Keyssar, p. 57. 26. Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution-Making, 1787–1865,” pp. 162–163. 27. Olbrich, p. 51. 28. Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution-Making, 1787–1865,” p. 163. 29. Keyssar, p. 18. 30. Olbrich, p. 51. 31. Ibid., p. 52. 32. David McBride, “Black Protest Against Radical Politics: Gardner, Hinton, and their Memorial of 1838,” Pennsylvania History Vol. 46 (April 1979), pp. 155–156. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., p. 163. 35. Olbrich, p. 68. 36. Herbert Aptheker (ed.), “The Appeal of Forty Thousand Disfranchised Citizens of Pennsylvania,” in his A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States: From Colonial Times Through the Civil War (New York: Citadel Press, 1967), pp. 176–178. 37. McBride, p. 158, footnote 44. 38. Olbrich, p. 69. 39. Ibid., p. 68. 40. Phyllis Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 19.



The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights, 1788–1870 143

41. Ibid. 42. Olbrich, p. 29. 43. Ibid., p. 30. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Keyssar, p. 56. 47. Charles Wesley, “The Participation of Negroes in Anti-Slavery Political Parties,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 29 (January 1944), p. 35. 48. Ibid. 49. J. Stanley Lemons and Michael McKenna, “Re-enfranchisement of Rhode Island Negroes,” Rhode Island History Vol. 30 (February 1971), p. 3. 50. Keyssar, p. 71. 51. Lemons and McKenna, p. 7. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid., p. 8. 55. Ibid., p. 9. 56. Ibid., p. 10. 57. Keyssar, p. 74.

58. Lemons and McKenna, pp. 10–11. 59. Ibid., p. 11. 60. Ibid., pp. 11–12. 61. Ibid., p. 12 62. Roger Wallace Shugg, “Negro Voting in the Ante-Bellum South,” Journal of Negro History Vol. 21 (January 1936), p. 360. 63. Ibid., p. 359. 64. Ibid., p. 360. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., pp. 360–361. 67. Ibid., p. 341. 68. Ibid., p. 361. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid., p. 362. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., p. 363. 76. Ibid. 77. Olbrich, p. 69.

CHAPTER 8

Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870 The Nature and Scope of the Statewide Referenda, 1846–1870

146

Figure 8.1 Number of Referenda on Suffrage Rights for African Americans in States and Territories, 1846–1870

147

Table 8.1 Referenda on Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color in States and Federal Territories, 1846–1870

147

States with Multiple Statewide Referenda for Suffrage Rights, 1846–1870

148

Table 8.2 Results of Four Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Wisconsin, 1846, 1849, 1857, and 1870

149

Figure 8.2 Results of Four Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Wisconsin, 1847–1865

150

Table 8.3 Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in New York, 1846, 1860, and 1869

151

Figure 8.3 Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in New York, 1846–1869

151

Table 8.4 Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Minnesota, 1865, 1867, and 1868

151

Figure 8.4 Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Minnesota, 1865–1868

152

Table 8.5 Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Michigan, 1850, 1868, and 1870

153

Figure 8.5 Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Michigan, 1850–1870

154

Table 8.6 Results of Two Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Iowa, 1857 and 1868

155

Figure 8.6 Results of Two Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Iowa, 1857–1868

156

States with Single Statewide Referenda for Suffrage Rights, 1862–1868

156

Table 8.7 Results of Five Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Illinois (1862), Connecticut (1865), Kansas (1867), Ohio (1867), and Missouri (1868)

157

Figure 8.7 Results of Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Illinois, Connecticut, Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri, 1862–1868

157

The Failure of Suffrage Rights Referenda in Federal Territories after the Civil War, 1865–1868: Congress Steps In

157

Table 8.8 Results of Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Six Federal Territories and the District of Columbia, 1865–1868

157

Summary and Conclusions on African American Suffrage Referenda Prior to the Fifteenth Amendment

158

Map 8.1 States and Territories that Held Referenda on Suffrage Rights for African Americans, 1846–1870

159

Notes 159

146

D

Chapter 8

uring the Antebellum Era (1788–1860) and prior to the Fifteenth Amendment (1870), numerous states used referenda to determine if the white electorate in these states wanted to allow African American Free-Men-of-Color to have suffrage rights. Instead of state legislatures and/or constitutional conventions deciding on suffrage rights, referenda in these states allowed the voting populace to determine suffrage rights for African Americans. New York, for example, which had property qualifications only for Free-Men-of-Color, held three referenda on the question of removing said qualifications. Reversals, the loss of existing suffrage rights, were decided by state legislatures via legislative statutes, and by constitutional conventions placing “white only” clauses in the new state constitutions, which were then ratified by popular vote. Ratification, however, was for the entire document and not for or against specific clauses in a new constitutional document. Ten states and seven federal territories—prior to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment—submitted some twenty-seven suffrage referenda to their voters for approval. These referenda took the decisionmaking powers on suffrage rights away from elected officials and convention delegates and placed it in the hands of the white electorate. Twenty-seven total black suffrage related referenda were placed in the hands of the white electorate between 1846 and 1870, with multiple referenda being conducted in some states. Wisconsin, which had the most, held four separate referenda in 1847, 1849, 1857, and 1865, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court had to finally adjudicate the matter. The Dakota Territory and four states held one referendum each in 1867. None of the seven federal territories, which included the District of Columbia, held more than one referendum each prior the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. A referendum in New Jersey was blocked by the state legislature before it could take place. Of the twenty-seven referenda, only one state (Minnesota in its third referenda in 1868) and one territory (the Dakotas in 1867) approved suffrage rights for African Americans prior to the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. Michigan in its third referendum approved suffrage rights after the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. New York, which held three referenda, the last occurring in 1869 (one year before the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment), refused in all three referenda to lift the property qualification imposed only on Free-Men-of-Color. It would take the Fifteenth Amendment to remove the property qualification in New York and to grant the right to vote in the other states and territories. The last three reversals of suffrage rights that were not referenda-driven occurred in Tennessee in 1834, North Carolina in 1835, and Pennsylvania in 1838. Yet the launching of statewide referenda did not occur until 1846. A number of factors caused this reconsideration. The National Negro Convention Movement, founded in 1831, and the American Anti-Slavery Society, founded in 1833, spawned the larger abolitionist movement and crusade. In 1840 the creation of the Liberty Party launched a host of additional anti-slavery political parties. The Convention Movement with its broad-based and very active and aggressive state auxiliaries—along with the more radical and militant

anti-slavery parties—began the hue and cry for equal voting rights for African Americans.1 Black Abolitionists, many of whom became activists in the anti-slavery political parties, along with their allies submitted petitions, memorials, and prayers and engaged in pressure group activity upon state legislative and power elites to regain those suffrage rights denied them during the reversal period.2 The anti-slavery parties made a full-scale attack upon slavery and the extension of slavery to the new states and territories. Suffrage rights became a major political issue alongside the problem of slavery. Simply put, the reversal of suffrage rights soon produced an opposite reaction, the demand for suffrage rights and/or the restoration of denied suffrage rights.3 Another factor was the rise of mass-based political parties, the Democratic and Whig political parties. According to Professor John Aldrich’s pioneering work on the rise of the mass-based party, by 1828 six states had an organized Democratic party, four more in 1832, eight more in 1836, and an additional seven in 1840.4 These mass-based parties were driven by key issues. The Democratic Party, with a few exceptions in different states, took a tough, hard-line stance against both suffrage rights for Free-Menof-Color and any anti-slavery position or rhetoric. This continuing position of the initial mass-based party mobilized African American activists in the opposite direction, to support for the anti-slavery Whigs, Liberty, and Free-Soil parties. With these major and minor parties behind them, Free-Men-and-Womenof-Color fought for and got reconsideration of their suffrage rights by way of the referenda movement from 1846 until 1870.5

The Nature and Scope of the Statewide Referenda, 1846–1870 Figure 8.1 offers a longitudinal examination of the years from 1846 to 1870, in which statewide (or territory-wide) referenda occurred. The first occurred in New York in 1846 and the last in Michigan in 1870. The graph shows a clustering of referenda in the post-Civil War era. Illinois was the only state to hold a suffrage referendum during the Civil War period. In 1865, the year that the Civil War ended, three states and two federal territories held referenda. A referendum was held in Nebraska in 1866, while in 1867 three state referenda were held and another in a federal territory, for a grand total of four. (New Jersey never actually held a referendum because it was blocked by the state legislature.) The largest number of referenda ever held in a single year occurred in 1868, when referenda were held in four states and three federal territories, for a total of seven. Finally, Michigan held its third referendum in November 1870, some eight months after the Fifteenth Amendment had been adopted and ratified. Overall, in the period from 1865 to 1870, there were referenda in thirteen states and seven federal territories for a grand total of twenty in six years. Indeed, the end of the Civil War set off a rash of these suffrage rights referenda. Prior to this time period there had never been more than one referendum held in a single year, except in 1857 when referenda occurred in both Wisconsin and Iowa, and no referenda had been held between 1850 and 1856. Table 8.1 provides the votes and percentages for each of the state and federal territory referenda. Rank ordering the



Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870 147 Figure 8.1  Number of Referenda on Suffrage Rights for African Americans in States and Territories, 1846–1870 8 7

Number of Referenda

6 5 4 3 2 1

70

69

18

68

18

67

18

66

18

65

18

64

18

63

18

62

18

61

18

60

18

18

59

58

18

57

18

18

56

55

18

54

18

53

18

52

18

51

18

50

18

49

18

48

18

47

18

18

18

46

0 Year

Source: Table 8.1.

Table 8.1  Referenda on Suffrage Rights for Free-Men-of-Color in States and Federal Territories, 1846–1870 Against

Votes in the Federal Territories

In Favor

Year

State

Votes

Percent

1846

New York

224,336

72.4%

85,406

27.6%

Denied

1860

345,791

63.6%

197,889

36.4%

Denied

1869

282,403

53.1%

249,802

46.9%

Denied

14,615

65.9%

7,564

34.1%

Denied

1849

4,075

43.6%

5,265

56.4%

Approveda

1857

45,157

58.6%

31,964

41.4%

1865

55,454

54.3%

46,629

32,026

71.4%

1868

110,582

1870

50,598

1847

1850

Wisconsin

Michigan

Votes

Percent

Territory

Votes

Percent

1865

Colorado

4,192

89.8%

476

10.2%

Denied

1865

DC

7,333

99.5%

36

0.5%

Denied

1866

Nebraska

3,938

50.6%

3,838

49.4%

Denied

1867

Dakotas

(……………. Data not found …………….)

Approved

1868

Washington

(……………. Data not found …………….)

Denied

Denied

1868

Idaho

(……………. Data not found …………….)

Denied

45.7%

Denied

1868

Montana

(……………. Data not found …………….)

Denied

12,840

28.6%

Denied

60.7%

71,733

39.3%

Denied

48.3%

54,105

51.7%

Approved

Iowa

49,387

85.3%

8,489

14.7%

Denied

1868

 

81,119

43.5%

105,384

56.5%

Approved

1865

Minnesota

14,838

54.9%

12,170

45.1%

Denied

1867

 

28,759

51.2%

27,461

48.8%

Denied

29,906

43.2%

39,322

56.8%

Approved

211,405

84.9%

37,548

15.1%

Denied

1862

Illinois

1865

Connecticut

33,489

55.2%

27,217

44.8%

Denied

1867

Kansas

19,600

65.1%

10,529

34.9%

Denied

1867

Ohio

255,340

54.1%

216,987

45.9%

Denied

1867

New Jersey

1868

Missouri Totals

In Favor

Year

1857

1868

Against

Outcome

(…………. No referendum held ………….)

Deniedb

74,053

57.3%

55,236

42.7%

Denied

1,962,933

60.1%

1,303,540

39.9%

 

Totals

15,463

78.0%

Votes

4,350

Percent

22.0%

Outcome

 

Sources: Adapted from Emil Olbrich, The Development of Sentiment on Negro Suffrage to 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1912); William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969); Phyllis Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); John Mohr (ed.), Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics During Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976); and Richard Curry (ed.), Radicalism, Racism, and Party Realignment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962). Referendum data for Kansas in 1867, and for Missouri and Iowa in 1868, are from The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1967). In addition, the following articles were consulted: Michael McManus, "Wisconsin Republicans and Negro Suffrage: Attitudes and Behavior, 1857," Civil War History Vol. 25 (March 1979), pp. 36–54; John Rozett, "Racism and Republican Emergence in Illinois, 1848–1860: A Re-evaluation of Republican Negrophobia," Civil War History Vol. 22 (June 1976), pp. 101–115; Ronald Formisano, "The Edge of Caste: Colored Suffrage in Michigan," Michigan History Vol. 56 (Spring 1972), pp. 19–41; Marion Thompson, "Negro Suffage in New Jersey, 1776–1875," Journal of Negro History Vol. 33 (April 1948), pp. 168–224; Charles Wesley, "Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution Making, 1787–1865," in his Neglected History (Ohio: Central State College Press, 1965), pp. 41–55; S. B. Weeks, "The History of Negro Suffrage in the South," Political Science Quarterly Vol. 9 (December 1894), pp. 671–703; and Alice Hahn, "The Exercise of the Electoral Franchise in Iowa in Constitutional Referendum, 1838–1933" (master's thesis, Drake University, 1933). Calculations by the authors. The governor of Wisconsin set aside the referendum outcome that favored suffrage after claiming that he did not understand the results, thereby denying suffrage rights. Later, the state supreme court upheld the outcome that had been rendered by the electorate. a

The New Jersey legislature decided against allowing a state referendum, deliberating instead within their body to directly withhold suffrage rights from African Americans. b

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Chapter 8

percentages for these referenda at the state level shows that the range in favor of suffrage rights for African Americans went from a low of 14.7% in Iowa in 1857 to a high of 56.8% in Minnesota in 1868. The mean for the state level support stood at 40.7%. Conversely, the table shows that the percentages of the opposition (those against African American suffrage) ranged from a high of 85.3% in Iowa to the low in Minnesota of 43.2%. The mean number of individuals voting against suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color stood at 59.3%. Voting data and percentages exist for only three of the seven federal territories that held suffrage referenda. In those territories, the range of percentages in favor of extending suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color moves from a low of 0.5% of the voters in the District of Columbia to a high of 49.4% in the Nebraska territory. The mean vote for suffrage rights in these three territories stands at 20.0%. Likewise, the table shows that the range for vote percentages against suffrage rights went from a high of 99.5% to a low of 50.6%, with the mean standing at 80.0%. Interestingly, of these twenty-seven referenda, the nation’s capital voiced the greatest opposition to suffrage rights for Free-Men-ofColor. The District of Columbia, as the Border States of Maryland and Missouri had before and during the war, attracted a lot of white southerners, many of whom came to the District of Columbia primarily to spy for the Confederacy as well as to promote and lobby for their anti-slavery causes. Only four of the twenty-seven total referenda (three states and one territory) were approved: in the Dakota Territory in 1867 (although no data are available), in Iowa and Minnesota in 1868, and Michigan in 1870. An 1849 Wisconsin referendum approved suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color, but the governor set the results aside and denied that approval. (In 1866, the Wisconsin supreme court retroactively overturned the governor’s action and validated the referendum results.) Therefore, with only four successful suffrage rights referenda out of the twenty-eight considered by votes either popular or legislative, the success rate is only 14.3%; and if one counts the 1849 vote in Wisconsin the rate of success rises to 17.9%. Thus, it is amply demonstrated that most American states and territories, more than eight out of every ten times they had the opportunity, evidenced a strong majority opposition to granting or (in the case of New York) enhancing African American suffrage rights.

States with Multiple Statewide Referenda for Suffrage Rights, 1846–1870 If the longitudinal data offer empirical evidence on public opinion and sentiment about opposition to suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color, then further empirical evidence can be seen in those states that had multiple statewide referenda on the issue.

Wisconsin Wisconsin had the greatest number of statewide referenda, four, over a eighteen-year period from 1847 to 1865. The state’s second referendum, in 1849, actually resulted in approval of suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color, but the governor set the decision aside because a technicality arose that grew out of the second state constitutional convention held in Madison in December, 1847. “Debate on Negro suffrage began in earnest on January 3,

1848. It was neither extended nor extreme.”6 It ended with a final resolution that read: The Legislature shall at any time have the power to admit colored persons to the right of suffrage, but no such act of the Legislature shall become law until the same shall have been submitted to the electors at the next general election succeeding the passage of the same, and shall have received in its favor a majority of all the votes cast at such election.7 Shortly after this convention finished with the new state constitution, “it was approved by the voters without fanfare. The resolution about Negro suffrage received little attention. Wisconsin became the thirtieth state in the Union, and the first legislature acted on the resolution during its first session. Without significant debate, it authorized a referendum on Negro suffrage at the general election of 1849.”8 In this second referendum election on suffrage rights, “5,265 citizens voted ‘Aye’ and 4,045 voted ‘Nay’ on this issue, 31,759 voted in the gubernatorial election. Fifty-two hundred was not a majority of 31,700, not ‘a majority of all the votes cast at such election.’”9 Immediately, the State Board of Canvassers delivered a decision that neither the letter nor the spirit of the resolution had been met. The Governor simply set the outcome of the election aside, declaring that he did not understand what the election results meant. Then, “late in 1855, some Milwaukee Negroes gathered together to seek a way out of the impasse. At the time, there were only about 100 colored people in the city. . . . They resolved to distribute petitions for signatures throughout the state requesting the legislature to hold another referendum to give Negroes their ‘God-given right . . . most unjustly withheld from us as men.’”10 To get the signatures, the group enlisted others: One Charles Russell was authorized to gather signatures throughout the state. Russell got busy immediately and traveled to Janesville, Beloit, Madison, Liberty, Prairie, and Portage [counties] acquiring signatures. . . . [Further] the use of newspapers to publicize the effort and the appointment of an agent to secure signatures were two steps symbolizing a new awareness of political action by the Negro in Wisconsin. 11 During the time of the third referendum, African Americans— despite their even smaller population numbers—brought in the well-known and highly respected black abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond to speak and lecture to both the black and white communities about the need to give suffrage rights to Free-Men-of-Color. Hence, they introduced a new tactic to generate support for this third referendum, which both houses of the Wisconsin legislature put on the ballot for the November 1857 election. Additional support for “Negro suffrage” came from the newly organized Republican Party during this referendum election. Of the political party that arose around this issue historian Michael McManus has written:



Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870 149 During the months between the passage of the suffrage resolution and the state party conventions, Democratic partisans made a determined effort to insure that the Republican party would be unable to avoid the ‘nigger question’ in the coming campaign. Insisting that enfranchisement of the Negro was a cardinal principle of Republicanism, they defied the Republican leadership to proclaim so publicly.12

The Negro suffrage resolution went down to defeat. The complete returns show that 45,157 votes were cast against the measure, 31,964 in favor. In the general election . . . the Republicans recaptured the governorship by fewer than 100 votes out of 90,000 ballots cast. They also eked out narrow victories for two other state offices. The Democrats won four state offices and confidently predicted the rapid demise of the ‘nigger party.’19

At their August 1857 state party convention, the Democrats adopted the following plank: “Resolved, That we are unalterably opposed to the extension of the right of suffrage to the Negro race, and will never consent that the odious doctrine of Negro equality shall find a place upon the statute books of Wisconsin.”13 The Republicans at their state convention on September 2, 1857, responded to the Democratic Party’s challenge not by putting a plank on Negro Suffrage in their platform but instead by demanding “the complete abrogation of the Fugitive Slave Law, the restriction of slavery to the states where it already existed, the admission of no more slave states, and the prohibition of slavery from all territories under federal jurisdiction.”14 Nevertheless, although the party did not take up in a formal manner the “Negro Suffrage” issue, “of the 34 Republican [news]papers whose position it was possible to ascertain, 29 supported Negro suffrage, 3 opposed it, and 2 were neutral. Twelve Republican papers mounted FOR EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE on their bannerhead.”15 Therefore due to the vagueness, ambiguity, and indirect manner of the Republican Party response to the “Negro Suffrage” issue, the Democratic party launched an all-out effort to tie the party to the issue anyway and thereby defeat the statewide referendum in the 1857 election. Accordingly, the party “chided the feeble effort of the Republicans to disguise their stand and insisted that they had ‘swallowed the nigger whole, wool, boots, breaches and all.’ The Democrats also attempted to capitalize on white fears and hatred of the Negro. They fulminated against the ‘absurd and revolutionary’ Republican belief that Negroes could be elevated from their ‘condition of inferiority . . . to the white race.’”16 Historian McManus added:

In this election, the referendum and the general election were two separate voting items, and while the Republicans won at the state level they lost on the suffrage issue. Using the ecological regression statistical technique, historian McManus estimated that Republican and Democratic voters who participated in the gubernatorial election voted in a slightly different manner. About three-fifths (61.6%) of Republican voters supported the suffrage issue, while 10.4% opposed it, and some 28.0% did not vote in the referendum. As for Democrats, fully three-fourth (74.7%) opposed the issue, 5.6% supported for the suffrage issue, and 19.7% did not vote at all on the issue.20 Table 8.2 summarizes the results of all four of Wisconsin’s referenda on African American suffrage. But even after two defeats and one questionable victory, African Americans in the state of Wisconsin did not give up the fight for suffrage rights. “Late in January 1865, one hundred and two Negroes asked the legislature to authorize another referendum on Negro Suffrage. . . . The legislature responded with a bill authorizing another referendum on Negro suffrage. . . . On March 31, the Assembly passed the bill, 55–32, . . . and the Senate . . . passed it, 24–8. Three days later, the Governor returned the bill, signed the law.”21 This fourth referendum, coming as it did immediately after the Civil War, captured national attention together with other northern referenda. “President Andrew Johnson was more than passively interested in the conventions of Northern states, anxious to retain support for his Reconstruction plans. His friends in New York and Pennsylvania had already reported to him. His chief lieutenant in Wisconsin, Senator James R. Doolittle, was about to take charge in Wisconsin.”22 Senator Doolittle, who like President Johnson had been a Democrat before becoming a Republican, “embraced gradual emancipation and colonization, espousals, which were not altered by the facts of war.”23 Thus, at the state

The Democracy added to this bleak picture by assuring white Wisconsin that social equality and amalgamation naturally would follow the elevation of the Negro to political equality. . . . Finally, the Democrats courted Wisconsin’s large immigrant population. They claimed that the Republicans cared more for Negroes than foreigners, that they would subordinate their needs to those of Negroes.17 Finally, during this 1857 referendum election, “Republicans and Democrats were not alone in voicing their opinions on the suffrage questions. Wisconsin blacks demonstrated their increasing political awareness by ‘sending forth their orators’ to rally support for the measure. Predictably, the Democratic press ridiculed their efforts and referred to the black spokesmen in highly disparaging terms.”18 Thus, in such a heated and conflicted electoral contest, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Table 8.2  Results of Four Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Wisconsin, 1846, 1849, 1857, and 1870 For Suffrage Rights

Against Suffrage Rights

Year

Votes

Percent

Votes

Percent

Total Votes

Outcome

1847

7,564

34.1%

14,615

65.9%

22,179

Denied 

1849

5,265

56.4%

4,075

43.6%

9,340

Denieda

1857

31,964

41.4%

45,157

58.6%

77,121

Denied 

1865

46,629

45.7%

55,454

54.3%

102,083

Denied 

Source: Table 8.1. The governor of Wisconsin set aside the referendum outcome that favored suffrage after claiming that he did not understand the results, thereby denying suffrage. Later, the state supreme court upheld the outcome that had been rendered by the electorate. a

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convention of the Union Party (the renamed Republican party) in Wisconsin, the senator became “chairman of the committee on resolutions . . . [which] reported out the Doolittle resolution on suffrage” that sought to forestall the matter.24 Moreover, “Doolittle reported the affair to the President . . . [and] in blocking the minority report favoring Negro Suffrage and Congressional Reconstruction, Doolittle had provided his White House mentor with another state endorsement of Johnson’s national policies. . . . If Northern states refused to support Negro suffrage, there was less chance of it materializing in the South.”25 In this 1865 election, the Union party “was a mixture of Republicans and War Democrats, hot abolitionists and lukewarm anti-slavery men welded together by the stress of war and the elusive Madison Regency, a powerful political cabal.”26 With this wide ranging electoral coalition, the Union Party did not take a foursquare stand on the “Negro suffrage” issue any more than the Republicans had before the party’s name had changed during the Civil War. The so-called radical wing of the party, however, did take a stand for “Negro suffrage.” “The Radicals suffered sharply from the Union party’s calculated and successful strategy to isolate and ignore the Negro suffrage issue, even though it was on the ballot.”27 Thus, in the election both the Union and the Democratic gubernatorial candidates maneuvered so as to avoid taking a direct stand on the issue. In this silent election on “Negro suffrage,” the Union/ Republican Party candidate Lucius Fairchild won the governorship, and the Democrats defeated the suffrage amendment by 9,000 votes. The election results showed that: Out of fifty-seven counties, thirty-eight went for Fairchild and only twenty-four for suffrage; fourteen of Fairchild’s counties voted against suffrage and no county voted for the Democrats and suffrage. In all fifty-seven counties Fairchild led suffrage, polling more than 12,000 more votes than the suffrage ‘ayes.’ The soldiers’ vote, tabulated separately, gave Fairchild a 6 to 1 majority and suffrage a 6 to 1 setback.28 Still, this fourth defeat did not deter African Americans in the state. In Milwaukee, African American leaders were expecting a defeat and prepared for it by calling on October 9, 1865, a meeting to determine “the most practicable means to secure a fair and impartial expression of the voters at the coming fall election for the amendment to the constitution granting to all men the right of suffrage irrespective of color.”29 This call was signed by seven members of the community. The meeting was held and several resolutions were passed. “One of the signers of the call also helped to draft the resolution. His name was Ezekiel Gillespie and, like all of the men involved in the meeting, he was a Negro. . . . In January, he had signed one of the petitions to the Legislature requesting that a referendum on Negro suffrage be authorized.”30 It was his action at the meeting of colored men that led to this new legal strategy: Gillespie marched up to the board of registry of voters in his ward and asked that his name be placed on the list

as a voter. The board refused on the grounds that he was a person of ‘mixed African blood.’ On election day in November he appeared at the polls and offered his vote to the inspectors of election of the ward, Henry L. Palmer and associates. They refused it. Not quite three weeks later, Gillespie was in the office of an attorney, notarizing a statement that he had been prohibited from voting.31 His attorney filed a legal suit against the inspector of elections of that ward. “The case of Gillespie v. Palmer et al. was neatly arranged. Gillespie had appeared at the polls on election day in November armed with two affidavits, one explaining why he was not registered and one affirming, on behalf of two ‘householders,’ that he was a resident of the ward.”32 Once filed, the case “moved through the county court on a demurrer filed by the defendants, the inspectors of election of the seventh ward. . . . The case on appeal [went] to the [state] Supreme Court, January, 1866 session. . . . On February 15, the case was tried before the Supreme Court in Madison.”33 Then, by the end of March 1866, the three-member state supreme court rendered its decision, with two justices agreeing and one justice writing a separate concurring opinion. The court noted: “the simple majority by which the voters had favored Negro suffrage seventeen years ago was sufficient. Not only was the Negro of Wisconsin now empowered to vote, but irony of ironies, he had possessed that right since 1849.”34 Historian McManus opines: “to the more than 1,500 Negroes of Wisconsin, it was justice.”35 Therefore, in the first election where African Americans could vote, April, 1866, “in Madison . . . there were only about forty eligible Negro voters . . . and . . . a few Negroes voted the Democratic ticket, but most of them followed the Union party. And some, undoubtedly, exercised their newly won right by not voting.”36 Figure 8.2 shows that support for suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color in Wisconsin increased between the initial referendum of 1847 and 1849 by 22.3 percentage points. Then between 1849 and 1857 there was a decline of 15.0 percentage points, and between 1857 and 1865 a rise of white voter support of 4.3 percentage points. In terms of percent of votes cast, the Figure 8.2  Results of Four Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Wisconsin, 1847–1865

Percent Voting for African American Suffrage Rights

150

60%

56.4%

50% 40%

41.4%

45.7%

34.1%

30% 20% 10% 0%

1847

1849

1857 Year

Source: Table 8.1.

1865



Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870 151

highest level of support came in the second referendum with 56.4% and the lowest level of support was at the initial referendum in 1847. The last two referenda had greater support than the initial effort but did not reach the level of the second referendum. Ultimately, African American leaders had to go to court to resolve the referenda vote in the state in 1866.

New York New York was the very first state in Antebellum America to hold a statewide referendum on African American suffrage. Like Minnesota and Michigan, New York would hold three statewide suffrage referenda. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies and had allowed African Americans to vote since the Colonial Era. The three statewide referenda in New York concerned a property qualification that restricted suffrage rights, namely requiring ownership of $250 worth of property. Table 8.3 compares the 1846, 1860, and 1869 statewide suffrage referenda in New York. It includes the total number of votes cast in these special referenda elections, the votes for the elimination of property qualifications for Free-Men-of-Color, the votes against the elimination of property qualifications, as well as the percentages for and against. In all three cases, the referenda were voted down. Not surprisingly, “the most dedicated group supporting equal suffrage proved to be New York’s black community. Not only

Table 8.3  Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in New York, 1846, 1860, and 1869 For Suffrage Rightsa

Against Suffrage Rights

Year

Votes

Percent

Votes

Percent

Total Votes

1846

85,406

27.6%

224,336

72.4%

309,742

Outcome Denied

1860

197,889

36.4%

345,791

63.6%

543,680

Denied

1869

249,802

46.9%

282,403

53.1%

532,205

Denied 

Source: Table 8.1. The three statewide referenda in New York concerned a property qualification that restricted suffrage rights, namely requiring ownership of $250 worth of property. a

Percent Voting for African American Suffrage Rights

Figure 8.3  Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in New York, 1846–1869 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%

Source: Table 8.1.

46.9% 36.4%

did they actively lobby the [state constitutional] convention itself, but they also issued public addresses and letters throughout the referendum campaign to explain why they wanted and needed the franchise.”37 On the occasion of each of these three suffrage rights referenda, the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass “lobbied not only the white community but the state legislature, governor and the African American community as well.”38 In fact, the protest and lobbying efforts of African Americans in New York became the model for all of the other referenda states. Also notable in New York, African Americans who could meet the property qualification requirement voted in these statewide referenda. In Figure 8.3 one sees a linear rise in support for suffrage rights. Between the initial referendum of 1846 and the second one in 1860 support rose 8.8 percentage points and between 1860 and 1869 there was a rise of 10.5 percentage points. Yet despite the well organized African American efforts in New York, success was never achieved. All three of the referenda failed.

Minnesota Minnesota’s three suffrage referenda all came after the Civil War, between 1865 and 1868.39 This differentiates it from the other states with three or more suffrage referenda votes—Wisconsin, New York, and Michigan—each of which held at least one referendum before the war. In terms of partisan support, Minnesota reflected the common trend of Republican support for the issue and Democratic party opposition. Table 8.4 provides results for the three suffrage referenda held in Minnesota. Each time a referendum failed, the Republican-dominated state legislature authorized a new one. In the initial referendum of 1865, people voted against giving suffrage rights to blacks, with a majority of 2,670. In the second referendum in 1867 there was a smaller majority of 1,298 in opposition. Finally, in 1868, voters approved the third referendum with a majority of 9,416 votes. This time 56.8% of the white electorate voted to give African Americans the right to vote. To ensure passage on the third try, state Republicans had placed “the suffrage question on the presidential ballot to discourage ticket splitting, and concealing the issue by labeling the question not ‘Negro suffrage’ but rather ‘revision of section 1, article 7.’ ”40 Not only had “Minnesota Democrats termed the referendum a swindle,” they voted against the issue. 41 Gillette has written: “The hard core opposition to Negro suffrage came from ten counties along or near the Mississippi River. All these counties were strongly Democratic and voted against Negro Table 8.4  Results of Three Statewide Referenda on African American Suffrage Rights in Minnesota, 1865, 1867, and 1868

27.6%

For Suffrage Rights

1846

1860 Year

1869

Against Suffrage Rights

Year

Votes

Percent

Votes

Percent

Total Votes

1865

12,170

45.1%

14,838

54.9%

27,008

Denied

1867

27,461

48.8%

28,759

51.2%

56,220

Denied

1868

39,322

56.8%

29,906

43.2%

69,228

Approved

Source: Table 8.1.

Outcome

152

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suffrage in all three referendums. . . . Yet Hennepin county [Minneapolis], with a large proportion of the state’s Negro population, was consistently progressive, favoring Negro suffrage in all three elections, though by a close margin in 1865.”42 Gillette closes with the interesting observation that “it would thus appear that at least in Minnesota people opposed Negro suffrage more out of Democratic sympathy than out of fear of Negro presence.”43 Figure 8.4 shows the rise in the percentage of the white electorate that voted for suffrage rights for African Americans. Between the initial and second referenda there was a rise of 3.7 percentage points, and this increase in the rate of support was maintained between the second and third referenda, with a rise of 8.0 percentage points. Clearly, the strategy of choosing a presidential election year with the popular Ulysses S. Grant as the candidate worked quite favorably in achieving passage of the referendum. Figure 8.4  Results of Three Statewide Suffrage Rights Referenda in Minnesota, 1865–1868

Percent Voting for African American Suffrage Rights

60% 50%

56.8% 45.1%

48.8%

40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

1865

1867

1868

Year Source: Table 8.1.

Michigan Michigan held three referenda on Negro suffrage, but the early political context in the state became over time mired in the racism of a Negrophobic white majority. Historian Ronald Formisano, the leading scholar of caste in this state, found that “for some three decades before the Civil War this northwestern frontier state, where the egalitarian ethos otherwise reigned supreme, denied black citizens the right to vote. But almost continuously from 1835 to 1861 a black and white vanguard of reformers challenged this mainstay of caste, and even the very assumptions upon which it rested.”44 Formisano continued his description of the unusual political context in Michigan: Michigan’s experience supports the propositions that the broader the political movements against slavery extension became, the more free black rights were left out of them; . . . In the 1850s, particularly, sectional conflict between North and South, and white social group antagonisms within Northern society caused a heightening of racial consciousness, white fears, and

resistance to amelioration. White allies became defensive, cautiously pragmatic, or indifferent. By 1860 the colored suffrage issue in Michigan had become almost the sole property of blacks.45 There is another unique feature in the Michigan political context. “Colored suffrage . . . became politically intertwined with the issue of ‘alien suffrage,’ and interacted symbolically with the status of ethnic minorities, especially foreign immigrants.”46 This issue of giving aliens suffrage rights arose in a major way at the state Constitutional Convention of 1835. At that Convention, “Democrats favoring alien suffrage held a strong majority but failed to dominate proceedings completely because of an intraparty split.” One Democrat, Ross Wilkins of Lenawee County, wanted to strike “out the word white from the franchise article” and permit both aliens and blacks to have the right to vote. Another Democrat at the convention, John Norvell, was a “champion of Alien suffrage,” but opposed blacks having the right to vote. The matter came to a vote and the “Wilkins’ amendment failed by a vote of 63 to 17 with the few identifiable Whigs [who opposed alien suffrage] joining the Democratic bloc in opposing it. Democratic supporters of colored suffrage joined the Democratic bloc in opposing it. Democratic supporters of colored suffrage, however, tended also to be those who opposed alien suffrage.”47 Formisano wrote that “these patterns would reappear: supporters of alien suffrage tended to oppose nonwhite [Free-Men-of-Color] voting while advocates of colored suffrage tended to oppose non-citizen voting [alien].”48 This matter of alien suffrage rights, like party cohesion and unity in Minnesota, became the dominant issue and feature of the Negro suffrage struggle in Michigan. In fact, the first time that the suffrage issue surfaced was in 1834 when the Legislative Council of the then Territory of Michigan “briefly enfranchised Indians and ‘persons of color’ who paid taxes. . . . But the very next day the Council excluded non-whites as it broadened white suffrage to allow all free, white male inhabitants above 21 and three months resident to vote. . . . A minority of three Whigs and two Democrats opposed this bill, because they wanted voting limited to citizens and extended to non-whites.”49 Thus, Michigan, even before it entered the Union as a state, had barred Free-Men-of-Color from suffrage rights. The next time that the suffrage rights issue surfaced in Michigan was “in 1840–41 [with] the new Liberty party and its organ, the Ann Arbor Signal of Liberty, [making] colored suffrage the leading issue of abolition’s domestic war on slavery by launching a petition directed at the state legislature.”50 Each year after the formation of the Liberty Party, “local abolition societies and churches all over the state sent petitions to the legislature . . . praying that the legislature” would provide suffrage and other civil rights for Free-Men-and-Women-of-Color.51 The African American population in the state, inspired by the African American suffrage struggles in Pennsylvania in 1838 and New York in 1837, became increasingly politically active. Hence, “by 1842 Detroit had a Colored Vigilant Committee, formed to wage ‘moral and political warfare’ for equal rights.” Also, the National Negro Convention Movement was revitalized in 1843



Suffrage Referenda prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846–1870 153

and resumed national meetings in that year. Therefore, its state auxiliaries also became reactivated. “In its wake Michigan’s ‘Colored Citizens,’ like those of other states, held a state convention in October at Detroit.”52 After an eleven-day meeting, this state convention adjourned and sent another petition to the state legislature requesting suffrage rights. 53 While the state legislature had simply ignored prior suffrage petitions, there was a decision to respond to the 1843 submission— by denying it. A year later, in 1844, “hundreds of white voters over the entire state joined in the petition campaign. The legislators ignored them but the flow revived the next year, finally triggering two more opposing reports.”54 Nevertheless, the struggle for suffrage rights did not stop in 1845. For “in 1846 another black and white petition campaign elicited one more round of reports from the legislature on colored suffrage,” which again rejected the matter.55 A concern that surfaced in several of these legislative opposition reports were instances where Free-Men-of-Color had voted illegally in selected cities and counties despite the ban. One report noted that “Negroes appear to have voted in county elections in Washtenaw . . . and in Detroit in 1844.”56 When the other anti-slavery parties arrived in the state, the petition trend which the old Liberty Party set into motion was not carried on. “In 1848 Free Soilers and Whigs cooperated in congressional and local elections. By 1849 the two parties united on candidates for state office: their platform wholly ignored racial political equality.”57 Moreover, their candidate, Whig–Free Soiler Flavius Littlejohn, who had previously been a Democrat, “assumed black inferiority and opposed black suffrage” and never retracted this stance during the gubernatorial campaign.58 Thus, the new anti-slavery party in the state conveniently dropped the issue of Negro suffrage. Yet suffrage sentiment remained alive, especially among black leaders and white moral reformers. When a constitutional convention gathered in 1850, long petitions from all over the state arrived asking suffrage extension. A state convention of colored citizens assembled at Marshall in March to voice its grievance of taxation without representation.59 When the 1850 state Constitutional Convention had completed its business, “the convention as expected retained white suffrage, though it allowed detribalized Indians to vote and decided to submit colored suffrage to a popular referendum. Over 71.4 percent of the 44, 914 votes cast in the state went against colored suffrage.”60 Table 8.5 reveals the votes and percentages for and against suffrage rights for Free-Men-of-Color in the 1850, 1868, and 1870 suffrage referenda. Only 28.6% of the white voters supported suffrage rights in the initial 1850 referendum. Opposition votes amounted to nearly three-fourths of the white electorate (71.4%). Clearly, the white v