A Liberal
Dose
November 4,
2021
Troy D.
Smith
“The
History of Voting in America, Part 1”
In November, most peoples’ thoughts (in the U.S., anyway)
turn to two things: Thanksgiving, and voting. Among other things, we are taught
from childhood to be thankful for liberty and freedom; the vote (sometimes
referred to as “the franchise”) is a fundamental part of that freedom, and is
therefore one of the things we should be most thankful for. “No taxation
without representation” was one of the principles that led to the American Revolution
and the creation of our nation. And yet, we probably take voting for granted
more than just about any country. This is demonstrated by the fact that we have
the lowest voter turnout anywhere in the western world. The right to vote was
hard-fought and hard-won, with enormous struggle and sacrifice along the way,
and if taken for granted could easily slip away. As Benjamin Franklin was leaving
the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a woman in the crowd asked him, “Well,
what have you given us?” He responded, “A republic, madame, if you can keep it.”
Despite Thomas Jefferson’s assertion in the Declaration of
Independence that “all men were created equal” (leaving women out entirely),
not even all men were equal in the early republic where voting was concerned.
Male slaves and male Native Americans, of course, did not have the franchise
-but, and a lot of folks nowadays don’t realize this, neither did poor people.
Each of the thirteen states continued the policy they had followed when they
were colonies: you could only vote if you owned a certain amount of property.
So, if you were a free, white male aged 21 or older but you worked in a
factory, or were hired labor on a farm, or were in training for a trade, you
had no voice. The people in power, though, looked at it differently. They would
tell you that you DID have a voice- theirs. This was the same argument
Parliament gave to the colonists in the lead-up to the Revolution. Elected
officials represent the whole country (or county, or district), so they
represent you and your interests -you’re just not allowed to participate.
Patriots were not willing to settle for that, yet at first they, too, limited
the franchise.
Their argument was that, if you have a landlord or an employer,
you are not really independent; there was a good chance you would vote, not
your own conscience, but the will of the person who controlled your livelihood
or your living conditions. A person of property, on the other hand, had an
investment in the community and could be trusted to have a broader view.
Interestingly, in the early days of the southern colonies -and in 10 of the
first 13 states (Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina being the exceptions) -a
free black man, if he owned property, could vote (free blacks had been able to vote
in Virginia in the mid-1600s). This means that a free black man with a sizeable
farm or a business in North Carolina could vote when many white men in his community
could not. Race was obviously a major factor in his life, but -at the time -so
was class.
And so, too, was religion. Among the original 13 colonies,
when they were colonies, only New York allowed Jewish people to vote. This
changed when the new republic was established -but not everywhere. Jews were
still not allowed to vote in many states, especially in the South. Those states
argued that the Constitutional ban on having religious requirements to hold
office applied on the federal level, not the state. Maryland was the last state
to pass a law allowing non-Christians to vote, in 1826. Its many critics called
it “The Jew Bill.”
For the first 50 years of America, then, only roughly 10 to
20 percent of citizens could vote. Next, we’ll examine how that started to
change -positively, for some, but not for all.
(Note: one of my mentors, Orville Vernon Burton, has a new book out -co-written with Armand Derfner -called Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court. It deals with some of these same issues, and I highly recommend it.)
--Troy D. Smith,
a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech.
His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
A complete list of Liberal Dose columns can be found HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
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