Alexander Keysar’s The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States should be required reading for every voter in America, and certainly for every civics and social studies teacher. Keysar unveils the little-known history of both the expansion and contraction of voting rights in the United States.
For example, in some colonial-era Massachusetts and New York towns, propertied widows could vote (p. 6). Women in New Jersey could vote until 1807 (p. 54), and some Michigan women could vote in school elections in 1855 (p. 399). This was all long before the passage of the XIX Amendment in 1920.
Keysar documents the see-saw nature of voting rights in America, and how uniquely place-specific the right to vote was determined. In some states, only property owners could vote. In others, only taxpayers (which could include widows and single women) were eligible. As the U.S. population grew and expanded westward, forming new states and territories, state constitutions laid out the criteria. A person could be a resident of one state and not be able to vote; they could move to another state, and find that they were eligible. The opposite could happen as well.
Race was often used as an explicit qualification for voting eligibility; or to the contrary, it could be used to deny voting rights. Frequently, laws or state constitutions might specify that only “white” men or persons could vote, while other states (like New Jersey, above) might mention “inhabitants” thus adding leeway for a broader interpretation. In some locales, there was confusion about the eligibility of Native Americans to vote. Were they to be considered “white”? What if they had begun to be assimilated into white culture, and owned property and paid taxes? Would they be eligible to vote, then? Such matters sometimes sparked fierce debates on the state house floor.
And what about free Blacks? In Tennessee free Black men had the right to vote until a new constitution was written in 1834. [Oddly, the summary posted at the Secretary of State‘s office fails to mention this important change in the law.] Keyssar finds that Black access to the ballot steadily declined from 1790 to 1850. While states such as New York and Connecticut granted Black men the vote shortly after American independence, by 1820, those rights had been taken away, and they were steadily eroded elsewhere. Notably, as late as 1855, just a few years before the Civil War, five Northern states still permitted Black men to vote (p. 55). It would not be until the passage of the XV Amendment that Black men throughout the United States gained the legal right to vote, but it would take almost a century for them to vote without violence or intimidation in the South.
These are just some of the stories Keyssar tells in his book. He also looks at age, wealth and economic status, labor unions, political views, citizenship, immigration status, military service, language, religion, race, and ethnicity. He traces the history of absentee ballots, the right of citizens to petition the government, and more.
It’s so easy for us today to think that the majority of Americans enjoy the right to vote. But it hasn’t always been that way, and as recent elections have shown, new qualifications and impediments to expand and restrict the franchise are still being debated and instituted today.
