Disfranchisement after the Civil War

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The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, was ratified in 1870 to protect the suffrage of freedmen after the American Civil War. It prevented any state from denying the right to vote to any citizen on account of his race. Opponents in the South, through paramilitary and white interest organizations, practiced intimidation, violence and outright assassinations during the mid-1870s to repress and prevent blacks' exercising their civil rights. In most Southern states, black voting decreased drastically under such pressure, and white Southern Democrats gained political control in the 1870s.

In the 1890s and at the turn of the century, Southern states wrote new constitutions and passed legislation to formalize their disfranchisement of African Americans. They created a variety of barriers to African-American suffrage, barriers that passed narrow court reviews because they were not ostensibly discriminatory against one group. In practice, however, poll taxes, record keeping requirements, literacy tests, and local rule variations subject to interpretation created a maze that blocked most African Americans from voting in Southern states after the turn of the century.

Thus white Southern Democrats exercised all the voting power derived from a full count of the population but effectively they disfranchised their several millions of black citizens. They were in a better position, with more voting clout, than before the war, when African American slaves counted only as three-fifths of a person. Southern Democrats comprised a powerful voting block in Congress until mid-century. Because of their effectively one-party control of so many districts, many Southern Democrats achieved seniority in Congress and occupied important chairmanships of Congressional committees, thus increasing their power over legislation and important Federal patronage projects.

Contents 1 Intimidation after the Civil War 2 Constitutional reforms 3 Restrictions 3.1 Ballot reform 4 Black disfranchisement 4.1 Poll taxes 4.2 Educational and character requirements 4.3 Mississippi plan 5 South Carolina's labyrinth 5.1 Eight box law 6 Grandfather clause 6.1 Louisiana 6.2 North Carolina 7 Twentieth century 8 End of disfranchisement and legal segregation 9 See also 10 References

[edit] Intimidation after the Civil War

Between 1864 and 1866 ten of the southern states inaugurated governments that did not provide suffrage and equal civil rights to freedmen. Because of this, Congress refused to readmit these states to the Union and established military districts to oversee affairs until until the state governments could be reconstructed.

The first Ku Klux Klan (KKK) became powerful during early Reconstruction. After Congress provided freedmen with full citizenship and suffrage, the Klan was one of several organizations that tried to keep black citizens from using their new freedom and voting power.

Starting in 1866, the KKK tried to prevent blacks from voting and from participating in new governments. It carried out lynchings, intimidation, and other attacks against blacks and allied whites.

The Klan became so powerful in the South that Congress passed laws to end it. In 1870 the strongly Republican Congress passed an act imposing fines and damages for a conspiracy to deprive blacks of the suffrage.^[1]

The Force Act of 1870 was used to reduce the power of the KKK. The Federal government banned the use of terror, force or bribery to prevent someone from voting because of his race. It empowered the President to employ the armed forces to suppress organizations which deprived people of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. For such organizations to appear in arms was made rebellion against the United States. The President could suspend habeas corpus in that area.

President Grant used these provisions in parts of the Carolinas in the fall of 1871. United States marshals supervised state voter registrations and elections, so they could command the help of military or naval forces if needed.^[1] Thousands of Klansmen were arrested and numerous men were tried. The first Klan was almost eradicated within a year.

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 protected southern blacks from the Ku Klux Klan by providing a civil remedy and Federal enforcement against contemporary abuses.

[edit] Constitutional reforms

The aftermath of the Civil War and changing social conditions prompted late 19th century revisions of numerous state constitutions.

New England clung to instruments adopted before the Civil War, though in most cases considerably amended. New Jersey was equally conservative, as were also Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In 1894 New York adopted a new constitution which became operative January 1, 1895. Of the "old" states beyond the Mississippi River, only Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Oregon kept their antebellum constitutions.

In a little more than a generation, beginning with Minnesota in 1858, fourteen new states entered the Union. All but West Virginia and Nebraska retained their first constitutions at the end of the century. In some of these cases, however, copious amendments had rendered the constitutions in effect new.^[1]

Despite early complaints, several of the Southern states kept most provisions of their Reconstruction constitutions until late in the 19th century. By 1896, however, ten of the eleven Southern states rewrote their constitutions.

[edit] Restrictions

[edit] Ballot reform

Main article: Secret ballot

From 1888 to 1894 states attempted reform by adopting a measure known as the "Australian ballot". Essentially it provided for the voter to prepare and fold his ballot in a stall by himself, with no one to dictate, molest, or observe. Massachusetts and the city of Louisville, Kentucky, used this system of voting as early as 1888. The following year ten states adopted similar voting methods. In 1890 four more followed, and in 1891 fourteen more. By 1898 thirty-nine states, all the members of the Union but six, had taken up "kangaroo voting", as its foes dubbed it. Of the six states that did not reform their balloting, five were Southern.

States also adopted an official ballot to replace the privately—often dishonestly—prepared party ballots, formerly pushed on voters by political workers. The new ballot was a "blanket", bearing a list of all the candidates for each office to be filled.

States varied in how they arranged the candidates' names. One style of ticket made it easy for the illiterate or the straight-out party man to mark party candidates. Another made voting difficult for the ignorant, but it was simple for those who were more educated.

The new ballot, though certainly an improvement, failed to produce the full results expected of it. The connivance of election officials and corrupt voters often annulled its virtue. As politicians became acquainted with the reform, they passed devices growing in variety and ingenuity to bypass its efficacy.

Statutes and sometimes constitutions went further, making the count of ballots public, ordering it carried out near the polling place, and allowing municipalities to insure a still more secret vote and an instantaneous, unerring tally by the use of voting machines.

In the North and West the tendency of the new laws was to widen the suffrage, rendering it, for males over twenty-one years of age, practically universal. States expanded women's suffrage, especially on local and educational matters. Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah women voted upon exactly the same terms as men. In Idaho women sat in the legislature. There was much agitation for minority representation. Illinois set an example by the experiment of cumulative voting in the election of lower house members of the legislature.

[edit] Black disfranchisement

Turn of the century constitutional reform in Southern states included effective disfranchisement of most African Americans and some poor whites. Reformers tried to develop legal means to accomplish the same ends as the preceding decades' violence. New constitutions were designed to eliminate legally most of the black vote. ^[1]

[edit] Poll taxes

In Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, North and South Carolina (and in some northern and western states, too), proof of having paid taxes or poll taxes was made a prerequisite to voting. The poll tax was sometimes used alone or together with a literacy qualification. Virginia used this policy until 1882 and resumed it again in 1902. They excluded voters who had not paid, or could not find receipts for payment to bring to the polls. Many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements. ^[1]

[edit] Educational and character requirements

Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina established an educational requirement, with review by a local registrar of a voter's qualifications. In 1898 Georgia rejected such a device.

Alabama delegates at first hesitated, concerned that illiterate whites should lose their votes. With the stipulation that the new constitution should disfranchise no white voter and that it should be submitted to the people for ratification, Alabama also passed an educational requirement. It was ratified at the polls November 1901. Its distinctive feature was the "good character clause" (also known as the "grandfather clause"). An appointment board in each county could register "all voters under the present [previous] law" who are veterans or the lawful descendants of such, and "all who are of good character and understand the duties and obligations of citizenship." This gave the board authority essentially to approve voters on a case by case basis, and acted to enfranchise whites over blacks.^[1]

South Carolina, Louisiana, and later Virginia and Delaware, incorporated educational requirements as part of their new constitutions.

Virginia In 1902 it adopted a constitution with the "understanding" clause as a literacy requirement to use until 1904. After that date, Virginia used a poll tax to control suffrage. In addition, application for registration had to be in the applicant's handwriting and written in the presence of the registrar. Thus, someone who could not write, could not vote.^[1]

[edit] Mississippi plan

Mississippi led efforts, both legal and extralegal, to prevent black domination. Historians credit Senator James Z. George with the "Mississippi plan", featuring a registry tax and an educational qualification. Each voter had to pay a poll tax of at least $2.00 and never to exceed $3.00. He then had to produce for the election overseers "satisfactory evidence" of having paid such poll and all other legal taxes. He had to be registered "as provided by law", and "be able to read any section of the constitution of the State, to understand the same when read to him, or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof." Local registrars could pick sections to be interpreted and were the final judges of whether a person gave "a reasonable interpretation". In municipal elections, electors were required to have "such additional qualifications as might be prescribed by law". Essentially, this variability left all decisions about voter qualifications in the hands of local officials, who used the provisions to block African Americans from voting.

Opponents attacked the constitution as not having been submitted to the people for ratification and as violating Congress's readmission of Mississippi as a state that provided for freedmen's suffrage. The state Supreme Court, under control of whites, sustained the voter registration provisions. The United States Supreme Court effectively upheld such provisions in dealing with a similar challenge to the Louisiana constitution. Its decision said the provisions were not targeted at African Americans and thus did not deprive them of rights.

The number of Mississippi blacks who were accepted as voters rose from 9,036 in 1892 to 16,965 in 1895, but this was far below the number of men who should have been able to vote. African American voting had been drastically reduced from numbers in the 1870s as a result of that era's violent intimidation and assassination of blacks.

The small rise in black voting was not sufficient to deter South Carolina from adopting features similar to the Mississippi Plan. Whites had returned to control in South Carolina with the Conservative Democrats, known as Bourbons, in the 1870s.

[edit] South Carolina's labyrinth

As early as 1882 South Carolina passed a registration act which created a complicated series of steps and record keeping for voter registration. Amended in 1893 and 1894, the constitution required voter registration four months before regular elections. Registration certificates then had to be produced when voters went to the polls. Such record keeping was difficult for the many sharecroppers, renters and laborers among the poorer classes, who tended to move often when following work.

[edit] Eight box law

By 1882, the Democrats in South Carolina were firmly in power. Republicans were contained in the heavily black counties of Beaufort and Georgetown. Because the state had a large black majority, white Democrats still feared a possible resurgence of black voters at the polls.

To remove the black threat, the General Assembly created an indirect literacy test, called the "Eight Box Law". The law stipulated that there must be separate boxes for each office, and that the voter had to insert the ballot into the corresponding box or it would not count. The ballots could not have party symbols on them. They had to be of a correct size and type of paper. Many ballots were arbitrarily thrown out because they slightly deviated from the proposed requirements. Ballots would also randomly be thrown out if there were more ballots in a box than registered voters.^[2]

The multiple ballot box requirements were challenged in court. On May 8, 1895, Judge Goff of the United States Circuit Court declared the provision unconstitutional and enjoined the state from taking further action under it. But in June 1895 the US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Goff and dissolved the injunction, leaving the way open for a convention.

The convention met on September 10 and adjourned on December 4, 1895. By the new constitution, South Carolina adopted the Mississippi Plan until January 1, 1898. Any male citizen could be registered who was able to read a section of the constitution or to satisfy the election officer that he understood it when read to him. Those thus registered were to remain voters for life.

After 1898, applicants for registration must be able to both read and to write any section of the constitution or to show tax receipts for poll tax and for taxes on at least $300 worth of property. The property and the literacy qualifications were each met with strenuous opposition. Democrats nonetheless pushed both through, because most blacks had already been prevented from voting.

[edit] Grandfather clause

[edit] Louisiana

Its constitution of 1898 enacted the celebrated "grandfather" clause. The would-be voter must be able to read and write English or his native tongue, or own property assessed at $300 or more. Any citizen who was a voter on January 1, 1867, or his son or grandson, or any person naturalized prior to January 1, 1898, if applying for registration before September 1, 1898, might vote, notwithstanding illiteracy or poverty. Separate registration lists were kept for whites and blacks. The constitution of 1898 required a longer term of residence in the state, county, parish, and precinct before voting than did the constitution of 1879.

[edit] North Carolina

It adopted a suffrage amendment in 1900. It lengthened the term of residence before registration and enacted both an educational qualification and prepayment of poll tax. It exempted from the poll tax only those entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867.

[edit] Twentieth century

Most states which overthrew black suffrage seemed glad to think of the new regime as involving no perjury, fraud, or violence.

Alabama's spokesmen paid scant attention to Federal questions involved. "The constitution of '75", they said, "recognized the Fifteenth Amendment, which Alabama never adopted, and guaranteed the negro all the rights of suffrage the white man enjoys. The new constitution omits that section. Under its suffrage provisions, the white man will rule for all time in Alabama."^[1]

The North had heard the South's version of Reconstruction abuses, such as financial corruption and high taxes. Industry wanted to invest in the South and not worry about political problems. The early 1900s were a peak of reconciliation between veterans of the North and South. As David Blight demonstrated in his 2001 history Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, reconciliation meant the pushing aside of the major issues of race and suffrage. The Southern whites were effective for many years at having their version of history accepted, especially as it seemed to be confirmed by influential historians of the Dunning School. Supporters of black suffrage made efforts in Congress to secure investigation of black disfranchisement, but they evoked the concerted opposition of the Southern Democratic block and failed. ^[1]

The Supreme Court began to overturn discriminatory election laws on constitutional grounds. In 1915 the court held in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 that an Oklahoma law that denied the right to vote to non-white citizens was unconstitutional. In 1944 the Supreme Court outlawed the white primary election in Smith v. Allwright 321 US 649 (1944). Nonetheless, the majority of blacks were unable to vote in most states in the Deep South until the 1960s because of more finely drawn discriminatory measures.

[edit] End of disfranchisement and legal segregation

In January, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson met with civil rights leaders. On January 8, during his first State of the Union address, Johnson asked Congress to "let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined."

On June 21, civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The three were volunteers traveling to Mississippi to aid in the registration of black voters as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Forty-four days later the FBI recovered their bodies from an earthen dam where they were buried. The Neshoba County deputy sheriff, Cecil Price and 16 others, all Klan members, were indicted for the crimes; seven were convicted.

On July 2, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.^[3] This Act prohibited segregation in public places and barred unequal application of voter registration requirements. It did not abolish literacy tests, however, and these had chiefly been used to disqualify African Americans and poor white voters.

According to the United States Department of Justice, "By 1965 concerted efforts to break the grip of state disfranchisement had been under way for some time, but had achieved only modest success overall and in some areas had proved almost entirely ineffectual. The murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, gained national attention, along with numerous other acts of violence and terrorism. Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, en route to the state capitol in Montgomery, persuaded the President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights legislation. President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings began soon thereafter on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act."^[4] This outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote.

[edit] See also

• Electoral fraud
• Jim Crow laws
• Nadir of American race relations
• Race legislation in the United States
• Voting rights in the United States

[edit] References