Disfranchisement after the American Civil War
Encyclopedia
The Fifteenth Amendment
to the United States 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 male citizen on account of his race.
African American
s were an absolute majority of the population in Mississippi
, Louisiana
and South Carolina
, and represented over 40% of the population in four other former Confederate states
. Southern whites resisted the freedmen's exercise of political power, fearing black domination. During Reconstruction, blacks controlled a majority of the vote in states such as South Carolina. White supremacist paramilitary organizations allied with the Democratic Party practiced intimidation, violence and assassinations to repress and prevent blacks exercising their civil and voting rights in elections from 1868 through the mid-1870s. In most Southern states, black voting decreased markedly under such pressure, and white Democrats
regained political control of Southern legislatures and governors' offices in the 1870s.
In the 1880s, white Southern legislators began devising statutes that created more barriers to voting by blacks and poor whites. Results could be seen in states such as Tennessee. After Reconstruction, Tennessee had the most "consistently competitive political system in the South". A bitter election battle in 1888 marked by unmatched corruption and violence resulted in white Democrats' taking over the state legislature. To consolidate their power, they worked to suppress the black vote and sharply reduced it through changes in voter registration, election procedures and poll taxes.
From 1890 to 1908, starting with Mississippi, Southern Democratic legislators created new constitutions with provisions for voter registration that effectively completed disfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites. They created a variety of barriers, including requirements for poll taxes, residency requirements, rule variations, literacy and understanding tests, that achieved power through selective application against minorities, or were particularly hard for the poor to fulfill.
The constitutional provisions survived Supreme Court
challenges in cases such as Williams v. Mississippi
(1898) and Giles v. Harris
(1903). In practice, these provisions, including white primaries
, created a maze that blocked most African Americans and many poor whites from voting in Southern states for decades after the turn of the century. Voter registration and turnout dropped sharply across the South. The impact and longevity of disfranchisement can be seen at the feature "Turnout for Presidential and Midterm Elections" at the University of Texas Politics: Historical Barriers to Voting page. It shows results for Texas, the South overall, and the rest of the United States.
Disfranchisement attracted attention of Congress, and some members proposed stripping the South of seats related to the numbers of people who were barred from voting. In the end, Congress did not act to change apportionment. For decades white Southern Democrats exercised Congressional representation derived from a full count of the population, but they disfranchised several million black and white citizens. Southern white Democrats comprised a powerful voting block in Congress until the mid-20th century. Their power allowed them to defeat legislation against lynching, among other issues. Because of the one-party control, many Southern Democrats achieved seniority in Congress and occupied chairmanships of significant Congressional committees, thus increasing their power over legislation, budgets and important patronage projects.
The Ku Klux Klan
(KKK) formed in 1865 and quickly became a powerful secret vigilante
group, with chapters across the South, during early Reconstruction. It was one form of insurgency after the Civil War, as armed veterans in the South began varied forms of resistance. The Klan tried to keep black citizens from using their new citizenship 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, and their property.
The Klan's murders moved the Congress
to pass laws to end it. In 1870 the strongly Republican
Congress passed an act imposing fines and damages for conspiracy to deprive blacks of the suffrage.
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 Ulysses S. 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.
More significant in terms of their effects were paramilitary organizations that arose in the 1870s as part of continuing insurgent resistance in the South. Groups included the White League
, formed in Louisiana
in 1874 out of white militias, with chapters forming in other Deep South states; the Red Shirts, formed in 1875 in Mississippi
but also active in North Carolina
and South Carolina
; and other "White Liners" such as rifle clubs. Compared to the Klan, they were open societies, better organized, and often solicited newspaper coverage for publicity. Made up of well-armed Confederate veterans, a class that covered most adult men who could have fought in the war, they worked for political aims: to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt their organizing, and use force to intimidate and terrorize freedmen to keep them from the polls. They have been described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party." They were instrumental in many southern states in driving blacks away from the polls and ensuring a white Democratic takeover in most states of legislatures and governorships in the elections of 1876.
With educational improvements, by 1891, the rate of black illiteracy in the South had declined to 58 percent. The white rate of illiteracy in the South was 31 percent. Some states used grandfather clause
s to exempt white voters from literacy tests. Other states required black voters to satisfy literacy and understanding administered by white registrars, who subjectively applied criteria, in the process rejecting most black voters. By 1900 the majority of blacks had achieved literacy, but even many of the best-educated "failed" literacy tests administered by white registrars.
The historian J. Morgan Kousser
noted, "Within the Democratic party, the chief impetus for restriction came from the black belt members," whom he identified as "always socioeconomically privileged." In addition to wanting to affirm white supremacy, the planter and business elite were also concerned about voting by lower-class and uneducated whites. "They disfranchised these whites as willingly as they deprived blacks of the vote." While other historians have found more complexity in the support of disfranchisement, competition between white elites and lower classes, and the attempt to prevent alliances between lower class whites and African Americans, have both formed part of the motivation for voter restrictions.
With passage of new constitutions, Southern states adopted provisions that caused disfranchisement of large portions of their populations by skirting US constitutional protections of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. While their voter registration requirements applied to all citizens, in practice they disfranchised most blacks and also "would remove [from voter registration rolls] the less educated, less organized, more impoverished whites as well - and that would ensure one-party Democratic rules through most of the 20th century in the South."
There were several negative effects of Reconstruction. For the Republican Party
Reconstruction rubbed salt into the wounds of Southern whites, exacerbating their animosity and driving them to the Democrats
for virtually a hundred years. For the Democrats, Reconstruction gave them a Southern anchor which was useful for congressional clout but which inhibited the party from fulfilling the role of center-left initiatives prior to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
. For the states of the former Confederacy, Reconstruction left behind a one-party Democratic voting pattern which interfered with political competitiveness and with willingness of Republican presidents (and Republicans in Congress as well) to take a positive view of the region. For African Americans, the end of Reconstruction led to disaster, as the reaction epitomized by Jim Crow laws
eroded the progress in civil rights and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were significantly undone by court decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson
.
Alabama delegates at first hesitated, concerned should illiterate whites lose their votes. But under the stipulation that the new constitution would not disfranchise any white voters and also that it would be submitted to the people for ratification, Alabama was able to pass 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 were 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. They acted to enfranchise whites over blacks.
South Carolina, Louisiana, and later, Virginia incorporated educational requirements as part of their new constitutions. In 1902 Virginia 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.
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.
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 passage of its new constitution, South Carolina white legislators were encouraged by the drop in black voters: by 1896, in a state where African Americans comprised a majority of the population, only 5,500 black voters had succeeded in registering.
State legislators created the constitution of 1898 that enacted the "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. The test for literacy would be made by the voting registrar. 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.
The result was predictably devastating to African American voters and by 1900 black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0.5 percent of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was."
took control of the North Carolina state legislature (and with it, the ability to elect two US Senators) and elected several US Representatives through electoral fusion
. The 1896 election saw even more impressive gains for the fusion coalition; their legislative majority expanded, Republican Daniel Lindsay Russell
won the gubernatorial race, and after the election over 1000 elected or appointed black officials, including US Congressman George H. White, served the state. In response to this loss of power, the Democrats decided to run on White Supremacy
and disfranchisement in the 1898 in an attempt to scare white voters away from the Republican/Populist coalition. After a bitter race-baiting campaign led by future US Senator Furnifold McLendel Simmons
and
The Raleigh News & Observer's
editor and publisher Josephus Daniels
, the North Carolina Democrats won the 1898 election and the following 1900 election, and used their power to disfranchise blacks and ensure that Democratic party and white power would not be threatened again.
After passing laws restricting voter registration, state Democrats adopted a constitutional suffrage amendment in 1900. It lengthened the term of residence before registration and enacted both an educational qualification (to be assessed by a registrar, which meant that it could be subjectively applied) and prepayment of poll tax. It exempted from the poll tax only those entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867.
The cumulative effect meant that black voters in North Carolina were completely eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896-1904. The growth of their thriving middle class was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, there were also the insidious effects of invisibility: "[W]ithin a decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians."
. The Readjuster Party held control from 1881 to 1883, electing a governor and controlling the legislature and thereby electing a US Senator. As in North Carolina, state Democrats were able to divide Readjuster supporters through appeals to White Supremacy, and after regaining power changed state laws to disfranchise blacks and ensure that their power would not be threatened. An 80-year stretch of Democratic control would only end in the late 1960s with the collapse of the Byrd Organization
machine.
, barring black and other minority voters who managed to get through other barriers. These became common for all elections, and as the Democratic Party was dominant, barring voters from the primaries meant they could not vote in the only competitive contest. After court challenges overturned party decisions to use the white primary, many states passed laws authorizing the Democratic Party to use the white primary. Texas, for instance, passed such a state law in 1923. It was used to bar Mexican Americans as well as African Americans.
at Columbia University
and other institutions.
Disfranchisement of African Americans in the South was covered by national newspapers and magazines as new constitutions were created, and many Northerners were outraged and alarmed. In 1900 as the Committee of Census of Congress considered proposals for adding more seats to the House of Representatives because of increased population, Edgar D. Crumpacker
(R-IN) proposed stripping Southern states of seats to reflect the numbers of people they had disfranchised. The Committee and House failed to agree on this proposal. Supporters of black suffrage worked to secure Congressional investigation of disfranchisement, but the concerted opposition of the Southern Democratic block was aroused, and the efforts failed.
From 1896-1900, the House of Representatives had acted in over 30 cases to set aside election results from Southern states where the House Elections Committee had concluded that "black voters had been excluded due to fraud, violence, or intimidation." In the late 1890s, however, it began to back off from its enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment and suggested that state and Federal courts should exercise oversight of this issue.
In 1904 Congress administered a coup de grâce to efforts to investigate disfranchisement in its decision in the 1904 South Carolina election challenge of Dantzler v. Lever. Despite its earlier actions in overturning flawed state elections, the House Committee on Elections upheld Lever's victory. Further, it suggested that citizens of South Carolina who felt their rights were denied should appropriately take their cases to the state courts, and ultimately, the Supreme Court.
Despite that decision, in later sessions, members continued to raise the issue of disfranchisement and apportionment. On December 6, 1920, Representative George H. Tinkham
from Massachusetts offered a resolution for the Committee of Census to investigate alleged disfranchisement of blacks. His intention was to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. In addition, he believed there should be reapportionment in the House related to the voting population of southern states, rather than the general population as enumerated in the census. Tinkham detailed how outsized the South's representation was related to its total voters:
, better known for what some called an accommodationist approach at Tuskegee Institute, called on northern backers to help finance legal challenges to disfranchisement and segregation. He thus helped raise funds and also arranged for representation on some cases, such as the two for Giles in Alabama.
In its ruling in Giles v. Harris
(1903), the United States Supreme Court under Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
, effectively upheld such voter registration provisions in dealing with a challenge to the Alabama constitution. Its decision said the provisions were not targeted at African Americans and thus did not deprive them of rights. This has been characterized as the "most momentous ignored decision" in constitutional history.
Trying to deal with the grounds of the Court's ruling, Giles mounted another challenge. In Giles v. Teasley (1904), the U.S. Supreme Court again upheld the disfranchising constitution. That same year the Congress refused to overturn a disputed election, and essentially sent plaintiffs back to the courts. It was not until later in the 20th century that such legal challenges on disfranchisement began to meet some success in the courts.
With the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) in 1909, the interracial group based in New York began to provide financial and strategic support to lawsuits on voting issues. What became the NAACP Legal Defense Fund organized and mounted numerous cases in repeated court and legal challenges to the many barriers of segregation, including disfranchisement provisions of the states. The NAACP often represented plaintiffs directly, or helped raise funds to support legal challenges. The NAACP also worked at public education, lobbying of Congress, demonstrations, and encouragement of theater and academic writing. NAACP chapters arose in cities across the country and membership increased rapidly in the South.
(1915), the Supreme Court invalidated the Oklahoma Constitution's "old soldier" and "grandfather" exemptions from literacy tests, which in practice had resulted in blacks being denied registration to vote, as had occurred in numerous Southern states. This decision affected similar provisions in the constitutions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia election rules. Oklahoma and other states quickly reacted by passing laws creating other rules for voter registration that worked against blacks and minorities. This was the first of many cases in which the NAACP filed a brief.
In Lane v. Wilson (1939), the Supreme Court again invalidated an Oklahoma provision designed to disfranchise blacks, the one adopted to replace the clause struck down in Guinn. This clause permanently disfranchised everyone qualified to vote who had not registered to vote in a twelve day window between April 30 and May 11, 1916, except for those who voted in 1914. While designed to be more resistant to facial challenges, as the law did not specifically mention race, it was struck down nonetheless, partially because it relied on the 1914 election which itself was held under the rule invalidated in Guinn.
In Smith v. Allwright
(1944), the Supreme Court reviewed a Texas case and ruled against the white-only primaries prevalent in the South. In major cities, civil rights organizations moved quickly to register black voters. For instance, in Georgia, in 1940 only 20,000 blacks had managed to register to vote. After the Supreme Court decision, the All-Citizens Registration Committee (ACRC) of Atlanta started organizing. By 1947 they and others had succeeded in getting 125,000 African Americans registered, 18.8% of those of eligible age.
Each legal victory was followed by renewed efforts to control black voting through different schemes. In 1958 Georgia passed a new registration act that required those who were illiterate to satisfy understanding tests by correctly answering 20 of 30 questions related to citizenship posed by the voting registrar. Despite advances by many blacks in education, since the voting registrar was the judge of whether the prospective voter answered correctly, the results in practice were a suppression of black voting. In Terrell County, for instance, which was 64% black, after passage of the act, in 1958 only 48 African Americans managed to register to vote.
introduced civil rights legislation before he was assassinated.
President Lyndon B. Johnson
took up the charge. 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 January 23, 1964, the 24th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, was ratified with the approval of South Dakota
, the 38th state to do so.
On June 21, civil rights workers Michael Schwerner
, Andrew Goodman
, and James Chaney
, disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi
. The three were volunteers aiding in the registration of black voters as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Forty-four days later the Federal Bureau of Investigation
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 murders; seven were convicted.
On July 2, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964
. 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 been used to disqualify African Americans and poor white voters.
As the United States Department of Justice
stated, "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
." This outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote. It also provided for recourse for local voters to Federal intervention and oversight, and monitoring of areas that had had historically low voter turnouts.
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
to the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
was ratified in 1870 to protect the suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
of freedmen after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. It prevented any state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
from denying the right to vote to any male citizen on account of his race.
African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s were an absolute majority of the population in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
and South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, and represented over 40% of the population in four other former Confederate states
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. Southern whites resisted the freedmen's exercise of political power, fearing black domination. During Reconstruction, blacks controlled a majority of the vote in states such as South Carolina. White supremacist paramilitary organizations allied with the Democratic Party practiced intimidation, violence and assassinations to repress and prevent blacks exercising their civil and voting rights in elections from 1868 through the mid-1870s. In most Southern states, black voting decreased markedly under such pressure, and white Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
regained political control of Southern legislatures and governors' offices in the 1870s.
In the 1880s, white Southern legislators began devising statutes that created more barriers to voting by blacks and poor whites. Results could be seen in states such as Tennessee. After Reconstruction, Tennessee had the most "consistently competitive political system in the South". A bitter election battle in 1888 marked by unmatched corruption and violence resulted in white Democrats' taking over the state legislature. To consolidate their power, they worked to suppress the black vote and sharply reduced it through changes in voter registration, election procedures and poll taxes.
From 1890 to 1908, starting with Mississippi, Southern Democratic legislators created new constitutions with provisions for voter registration that effectively completed disfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites. They created a variety of barriers, including requirements for poll taxes, residency requirements, rule variations, literacy and understanding tests, that achieved power through selective application against minorities, or were particularly hard for the poor to fulfill.
The constitutional provisions survived Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
challenges in cases such as Williams v. Mississippi
Williams v. Mississippi
Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the state constitution that set requirements for voter registration...
(1898) and Giles v. Harris
Giles v. Harris
Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 , was an early 20th century United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a state constitution's requirements for voter registration and qualifications...
(1903). In practice, these provisions, including white primaries
White primaries
White primaries were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating. White primaries were found in many Southern States after 1890 about until 1944...
, created a maze that blocked most African Americans and many poor whites from voting in Southern states for decades after the turn of the century. Voter registration and turnout dropped sharply across the South. The impact and longevity of disfranchisement can be seen at the feature "Turnout for Presidential and Midterm Elections" at the University of Texas Politics: Historical Barriers to Voting page. It shows results for Texas, the South overall, and the rest of the United States.
Disfranchisement attracted attention of Congress, and some members proposed stripping the South of seats related to the numbers of people who were barred from voting. In the end, Congress did not act to change apportionment. For decades white Southern Democrats exercised Congressional representation derived from a full count of the population, but they disfranchised several million black and white citizens. Southern white Democrats comprised a powerful voting block in Congress until the mid-20th century. Their power allowed them to defeat legislation against lynching, among other issues. Because of the one-party control, many Southern Democrats achieved seniority in Congress and occupied chairmanships of significant Congressional committees, thus increasing their power over legislation, budgets and important patronage projects.
Reconstruction, KKK, and redemption
Between 1864 and 1866 ten of the eleven Confederate 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 the state governments could be reconstructed.The Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
(KKK) formed in 1865 and quickly became a powerful secret vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
group, with chapters across the South, during early Reconstruction. It was one form of insurgency after the Civil War, as armed veterans in the South began varied forms of resistance. The Klan tried to keep black citizens from using their new citizenship 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, and their property.
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
to pass laws to end it. In 1870 the strongly Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Congress passed an act imposing fines and damages for conspiracy to deprive blacks of the suffrage.
The Force Act of 1870
Force Acts
Force Acts can refer to several groups of acts passed by the United States Congress. The term usually refers to the events after the American Civil War.-Andrew Jackson's Tariff Enforcement :The Force Bill, 4 Stat...
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
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
. For such organizations to appear in arms was made rebellion against the United States. The President could suspend habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
in that area.
President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
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.
More significant in terms of their effects were paramilitary organizations that arose in the 1870s as part of continuing insurgent resistance in the South. Groups included the White League
White League
The White League was a white paramilitary group started in 1874 that operated to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and political organizing. Its first chapter in Grant Parish, Louisiana was made up of many of the Confederate veterans who had participated in the...
, formed in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
in 1874 out of white militias, with chapters forming in other Deep South states; the Red Shirts, formed in 1875 in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
but also active in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
and South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
; and other "White Liners" such as rifle clubs. Compared to the Klan, they were open societies, better organized, and often solicited newspaper coverage for publicity. Made up of well-armed Confederate veterans, a class that covered most adult men who could have fought in the war, they worked for political aims: to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt their organizing, and use force to intimidate and terrorize freedmen to keep them from the polls. They have been described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party." They were instrumental in many southern states in driving blacks away from the polls and ensuring a white Democratic takeover in most states of legislatures and governorships in the elections of 1876.
State disfranchising constitutions, 1890-1908
Despite white Southerners' complaints about Reconstruction, several of the Southern states had kept most provisions of their Reconstruction constitutions for more than two decades, until late in the 19th century. In some states the number of blacks elected to local offices reached a peak in the 1880s. State legislatures passed more restrictions on African Americans. From laws that made election rules and voter registration more complicated, the legislatures moved to new constitutions. Florida passed a new constitution in 1885 that included provisions for poll taxes as a prerequisite for voter registration and voting. From 1890 to 1908, ten of the eleven Southern states rewrote their constitutions. All included provisions that restricted voter registration and suffrage, including new requirements for poll taxes, residency and literacy tests.With educational improvements, by 1891, the rate of black illiteracy in the South had declined to 58 percent. The white rate of illiteracy in the South was 31 percent. Some states used grandfather clause
Grandfather clause
Grandfather clause is a legal term used to describe a situation in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations, while a new rule will apply to all future situations. It is often used as a verb: to grandfather means to grant such an exemption...
s to exempt white voters from literacy tests. Other states required black voters to satisfy literacy and understanding administered by white registrars, who subjectively applied criteria, in the process rejecting most black voters. By 1900 the majority of blacks had achieved literacy, but even many of the best-educated "failed" literacy tests administered by white registrars.
The historian J. Morgan Kousser
J. Morgan Kousser
Joseph Morgan Kousser is a professor of history and social sciences at the California Institute of Technology. Kousser is author of The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910 and Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and...
noted, "Within the Democratic party, the chief impetus for restriction came from the black belt members," whom he identified as "always socioeconomically privileged." In addition to wanting to affirm white supremacy, the planter and business elite were also concerned about voting by lower-class and uneducated whites. "They disfranchised these whites as willingly as they deprived blacks of the vote." While other historians have found more complexity in the support of disfranchisement, competition between white elites and lower classes, and the attempt to prevent alliances between lower class whites and African Americans, have both formed part of the motivation for voter restrictions.
With passage of new constitutions, Southern states adopted provisions that caused disfranchisement of large portions of their populations by skirting US constitutional protections of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. While their voter registration requirements applied to all citizens, in practice they disfranchised most blacks and also "would remove [from voter registration rolls] the less educated, less organized, more impoverished whites as well - and that would ensure one-party Democratic rules through most of the 20th century in the South."
There were several negative effects of Reconstruction. For the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Reconstruction rubbed salt into the wounds of Southern whites, exacerbating their animosity and driving them to the Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
for virtually a hundred years. For the Democrats, Reconstruction gave them a Southern anchor which was useful for congressional clout but which inhibited the party from fulfilling the role of center-left initiatives prior to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. For the states of the former Confederacy, Reconstruction left behind a one-party Democratic voting pattern which interfered with political competitiveness and with willingness of Republican presidents (and Republicans in Congress as well) to take a positive view of the region. For African Americans, the end of Reconstruction led to disaster, as the reaction epitomized by Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
eroded the progress in civil rights and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were significantly undone by court decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses , under the doctrine of "separate but equal".The decision was handed...
.
Poll taxes
In Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and in some northern and western states, 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. Texas added a requirement for a poll tax by state law in 1901. Such taxes excluded poor whites as well at the turn of the century. Many states required payment of the poll tax at a time separate from the election, and then required voters to bring receipts with them to the polls. If they could not locate such receipts, they could not vote. Many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements. These were particularly difficult for sharecropper and tenant farmers to comply with, as they moved frequently.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 should illiterate whites lose their votes. But under the stipulation that the new constitution would not disfranchise any white voters and also that it would be submitted to the people for ratification, Alabama was able to pass 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 were 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. They acted to enfranchise whites over blacks.
South Carolina, Louisiana, and later, Virginia incorporated educational requirements as part of their new constitutions. In 1902 Virginia 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.
Eight box law
By 1882, the Democrats in South Carolina were firmly in power. Republicans were contained in the heavily black counties of BeaufortBeaufort County, South Carolina
-National protected areas:*Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge *Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 155,215 people, 45,532 households, and 33,056 families residing in the county. The population density was 206 people per...
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
South Carolina General Assembly
The South Carolina General Assembly, also called the South Carolina Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The legislature is bicameral and consists of the lower South Carolina House of Representatives and the upper South Carolina Senate. Altogether, the General...
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.
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 passage of its new constitution, South Carolina white legislators were encouraged by the drop in black voters: by 1896, in a state where African Americans comprised a majority of the population, only 5,500 black voters had succeeded in registering.
Grandfather Clause
The grandfather clause was a provision that allowed a man to vote if his grandfather or father voted on January First, 1867. Because no African American in the South could have voted then, this denied nearly all of the freedmen their right to vote.Louisiana
With a population evenly divided between races, in 1896 there were 130,334 black voters on the registration rolls and about the same number of whites.State legislators created the constitution of 1898 that enacted the "grandfather" clause
Grandfather clause
Grandfather clause is a legal term used to describe a situation in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations, while a new rule will apply to all future situations. It is often used as a verb: to grandfather means to grant such an exemption...
. The would-be voter must be able to read and write English or his native tongue, or own property assessed at $300 or more. The test for literacy would be made by the voting registrar. 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.
The result was predictably devastating to African American voters and by 1900 black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0.5 percent of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was."
North Carolina
In 1894, a coalition of Republicans and Populist PartyPopulist Party (United States)
The People's Party, also known as the "Populists", was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1891. It was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away...
took control of the North Carolina state legislature (and with it, the ability to elect two US Senators) and elected several US Representatives through electoral fusion
Electoral fusion
Electoral fusion is an arrangement where two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate...
. The 1896 election saw even more impressive gains for the fusion coalition; their legislative majority expanded, Republican Daniel Lindsay Russell
Daniel Lindsay Russell
Daniel Lindsay Russell, Jr. was the 49th Governor of North Carolina from 1897 to 1901, an attorney and judge, and a politician. Although he fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War, he and his father were both Unionists...
won the gubernatorial race, and after the election over 1000 elected or appointed black officials, including US Congressman George H. White, served the state. In response to this loss of power, the Democrats decided to run on White Supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
and disfranchisement in the 1898 in an attempt to scare white voters away from the Republican/Populist coalition. After a bitter race-baiting campaign led by future US Senator Furnifold McLendel Simmons
Furnifold McLendel Simmons
Furnifold McLendel Simmons was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1887 to 1889 and U.S. senator from the state of North Carolina between 1901 and 1931. He served as chairman of the powerful Committee on Finance from 1913 - 1919...
and
The Raleigh News & Observer's
The News & Observer
The News & Observer is the regional daily newspaper of the Research Triangle area of the U.S. State of North Carolina. The N&O, as it is popularly called, is based in Raleigh and also covers Durham, Cary, and Chapel Hill. The paper also has substantial readership in most of the state east of...
editor and publisher Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels was a newspaper editor and publisher from North Carolina who was appointed by United States President Woodrow Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Navy during World War I...
, the North Carolina Democrats won the 1898 election and the following 1900 election, and used their power to disfranchise blacks and ensure that Democratic party and white power would not be threatened again.
After passing laws restricting voter registration, state Democrats adopted a constitutional suffrage amendment in 1900. It lengthened the term of residence before registration and enacted both an educational qualification (to be assessed by a registrar, which meant that it could be subjectively applied) and prepayment of poll tax. It exempted from the poll tax only those entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867.
The cumulative effect meant that black voters in North Carolina were completely eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896-1904. The growth of their thriving middle class was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, there were also the insidious effects of invisibility: "[W]ithin a decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians."
Virginia
In Virginia, disfranchisement was also in response to a coalition of white and black Republicans with populist Democrats, though in Virginia the coalition was formalized as the Readjuster PartyReadjuster Party
The Readjuster Party was a political coalition formed in Virginia in the late 1870s during the turbulent period following the American Civil War. Readjusters aspired "to break the power of wealth and established privilege" and to promote public education, a program which attracted biracial support....
. The Readjuster Party held control from 1881 to 1883, electing a governor and controlling the legislature and thereby electing a US Senator. As in North Carolina, state Democrats were able to divide Readjuster supporters through appeals to White Supremacy, and after regaining power changed state laws to disfranchise blacks and ensure that their power would not be threatened. An 80-year stretch of Democratic control would only end in the late 1960s with the collapse of the Byrd Organization
Byrd Organization
The Byrd Organization was a political machine led by former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. that dominated Virginia politics for much of the middle portion of the 20th century...
machine.
White Primary
About the turn of the century, the Democratic Party in some southern states began to treat its operations as a "private club" and insist on white primariesWhite primaries
White primaries were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating. White primaries were found in many Southern States after 1890 about until 1944...
, barring black and other minority voters who managed to get through other barriers. These became common for all elections, and as the Democratic Party was dominant, barring voters from the primaries meant they could not vote in the only competitive contest. After court challenges overturned party decisions to use the white primary, many states passed laws authorizing the Democratic Party to use the white primary. Texas, for instance, passed such a state law in 1923. It was used to bar Mexican Americans as well as African Americans.
Laws or Constitutions Permitting "White Primaries" in former Confederacy in 1900
| No. of African Americans | % of Population | Year of law or constitution | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama Alabama Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland... |
827,545 | 45.26 | 1901 |
| Arkansas Arkansas Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River... |
366,984 | 27.98 | 1891 |
| Florida Florida Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it... |
231,209 | 43.74 | 1885–1889 |
| Georgia Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788... |
1,035,037 | 46.70 | 1908 |
| Louisiana Louisiana Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties... |
652,013 | 47.19 | 1898 |
| Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi... |
910,060 | 58.66 | 1890 |
| North Carolina North Carolina North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte... |
630,207 | 33.28 | 1900 |
| South Carolina South Carolina South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence... |
782,509 | 58.38 | 1895 |
| Tennessee Tennessee Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area... |
480,430 | 23.77 | 1889 laws |
| Texas Texas Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in... |
622,041 | 20.40 | 1901 / 1923 laws |
| Virginia Virginia The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there... |
661,329 | 35.69 | 1902 |
| Total | 7,199,364 | 37.94 | — |
Congressional response
The North had heard the South's version of Reconstruction abuses, such as financial corruption, high taxes and incompetent freedmen. Industry wanted to invest in the South and not worry about political problems. The early 1900s were a peak of reconciliation between white veterans of the North and South armies. As historian David Blight demonstrated in Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, reconciliation meant the pushing aside by whites 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 was confirmed in ensuing decades by influential historians of the Dunning SchoolDunning School
The Dunning School refers to a group of historians who shared a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history .-About:...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and other institutions.
Disfranchisement of African Americans in the South was covered by national newspapers and magazines as new constitutions were created, and many Northerners were outraged and alarmed. In 1900 as the Committee of Census of Congress considered proposals for adding more seats to the House of Representatives because of increased population, Edgar D. Crumpacker
Edgar D. Crumpacker
Edgar Dean Crumpacker was a U.S. Representative from Indiana, father of Maurice Edgar Crumpacker and cousin of Shepard J...
(R-IN) proposed stripping Southern states of seats to reflect the numbers of people they had disfranchised. The Committee and House failed to agree on this proposal. Supporters of black suffrage worked to secure Congressional investigation of disfranchisement, but the concerted opposition of the Southern Democratic block was aroused, and the efforts failed.
From 1896-1900, the House of Representatives had acted in over 30 cases to set aside election results from Southern states where the House Elections Committee had concluded that "black voters had been excluded due to fraud, violence, or intimidation." In the late 1890s, however, it began to back off from its enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment and suggested that state and Federal courts should exercise oversight of this issue.
In 1904 Congress administered a coup de grâce to efforts to investigate disfranchisement in its decision in the 1904 South Carolina election challenge of Dantzler v. Lever. Despite its earlier actions in overturning flawed state elections, the House Committee on Elections upheld Lever's victory. Further, it suggested that citizens of South Carolina who felt their rights were denied should appropriately take their cases to the state courts, and ultimately, the Supreme Court.
Despite that decision, in later sessions, members continued to raise the issue of disfranchisement and apportionment. On December 6, 1920, Representative George H. Tinkham
George H. Tinkham
George Holden Tinkham was a member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Massachusetts....
from Massachusetts offered a resolution for the Committee of Census to investigate alleged disfranchisement of blacks. His intention was to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. In addition, he believed there should be reapportionment in the House related to the voting population of southern states, rather than the general population as enumerated in the census. Tinkham detailed how outsized the South's representation was related to its total voters:
- States with 10 representatives:
- Alabama, with total vote of 62,345.
- Minnesota, with total vote of 299,127.
- Iowa, with total vote of 316,377.
- California, with 11 representatives, had a total vote of 644,790.
- States with 12 representatives:
- Georgia, with vote of 59,196.
- New Jersey, with vote of 338,461.
- Indiana, with 13 seats and total vote of 565,216.
- States with 8 representatives:
- Louisiana, with total vote of 44,794.
- Kansas, with vote of 425,641.
- States with four representatives:
- Florida, with total vote of 31,613.
- Colorado, with vote of 208,855.
- Maine, with vote of 121,836.
- States with six or seven representatives:
- South Carolina, 7, with total vote of 25,433.
- Nebraska, 6, with vote of 216,014.
- West Virginia, 6, with vote of 211,643.
20th century Supreme Court decisions
African Americans and their allies worked hard to regain their ability to exercise rights of citizens. Booker T. WashingtonBooker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
, better known for what some called an accommodationist approach at Tuskegee Institute, called on northern backers to help finance legal challenges to disfranchisement and segregation. He thus helped raise funds and also arranged for representation on some cases, such as the two for Giles in Alabama.
In its ruling in Giles v. Harris
Giles v. Harris
Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 , was an early 20th century United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a state constitution's requirements for voter registration and qualifications...
(1903), the United States Supreme Court under Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
, effectively upheld such voter registration provisions in dealing with a challenge to the Alabama constitution. Its decision said the provisions were not targeted at African Americans and thus did not deprive them of rights. This has been characterized as the "most momentous ignored decision" in constitutional history.
Trying to deal with the grounds of the Court's ruling, Giles mounted another challenge. In Giles v. Teasley (1904), the U.S. Supreme Court again upheld the disfranchising constitution. That same year the Congress refused to overturn a disputed election, and essentially sent plaintiffs back to the courts. It was not until later in the 20th century that such legal challenges on disfranchisement began to meet some success in the courts.
With the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
(NAACP) in 1909, the interracial group based in New York began to provide financial and strategic support to lawsuits on voting issues. What became the NAACP Legal Defense Fund organized and mounted numerous cases in repeated court and legal challenges to the many barriers of segregation, including disfranchisement provisions of the states. The NAACP often represented plaintiffs directly, or helped raise funds to support legal challenges. The NAACP also worked at public education, lobbying of Congress, demonstrations, and encouragement of theater and academic writing. NAACP chapters arose in cities across the country and membership increased rapidly in the South.
Successful challenges
In Guinn v. United StatesGuinn v. United States
Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 , was an important United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with provisions of state constitutions that set qualifications for voters. It found grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests to be unconstitutional...
(1915), the Supreme Court invalidated the Oklahoma Constitution's "old soldier" and "grandfather" exemptions from literacy tests, which in practice had resulted in blacks being denied registration to vote, as had occurred in numerous Southern states. This decision affected similar provisions in the constitutions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia election rules. Oklahoma and other states quickly reacted by passing laws creating other rules for voter registration that worked against blacks and minorities. This was the first of many cases in which the NAACP filed a brief.
In Lane v. Wilson (1939), the Supreme Court again invalidated an Oklahoma provision designed to disfranchise blacks, the one adopted to replace the clause struck down in Guinn. This clause permanently disfranchised everyone qualified to vote who had not registered to vote in a twelve day window between April 30 and May 11, 1916, except for those who voted in 1914. While designed to be more resistant to facial challenges, as the law did not specifically mention race, it was struck down nonetheless, partially because it relied on the 1914 election which itself was held under the rule invalidated in Guinn.
In Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright , 321 U.S. 649 , was a very important decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Democratic Party's use of all-white primaries in Texas, and other states where the party used the...
(1944), the Supreme Court reviewed a Texas case and ruled against the white-only primaries prevalent in the South. In major cities, civil rights organizations moved quickly to register black voters. For instance, in Georgia, in 1940 only 20,000 blacks had managed to register to vote. After the Supreme Court decision, the All-Citizens Registration Committee (ACRC) of Atlanta started organizing. By 1947 they and others had succeeded in getting 125,000 African Americans registered, 18.8% of those of eligible age.
Each legal victory was followed by renewed efforts to control black voting through different schemes. In 1958 Georgia passed a new registration act that required those who were illiterate to satisfy understanding tests by correctly answering 20 of 30 questions related to citizenship posed by the voting registrar. Despite advances by many blacks in education, since the voting registrar was the judge of whether the prospective voter answered correctly, the results in practice were a suppression of black voting. In Terrell County, for instance, which was 64% black, after passage of the act, in 1958 only 48 African Americans managed to register to vote.
Civil Rights Movement
The NAACP's steady progress on individual cases was thwarted by southern states' continuing resistance and passage of new statutory barriers to expansion of the franchise. Through the 1950s and 1960s, private citizens enlarged the effort by becoming activists throughout the South, led by many African-American churches and their leaders, and joined by young and older activists from northern states. Nonviolent confrontation and demonstrations were mounted in numerous Southern cities, often provoking violent reaction by white bystanders and authorities. The moral crusade of the Civil Rights Movement gained national media coverage, attention across the country, and a growing national outcry for change. Violence and murders in Alabama in 1963 and Mississippi in 1964 gained support for the activists' cause at the national level. President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
introduced civil rights legislation before he was assassinated.
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
took up the charge. 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 January 23, 1964, the 24th Amendment
Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax...
to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, was ratified with the approval of South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
, the 38th state to do so.
On June 21, civil rights workers Michael Schwerner
Michael Schwerner
Michael Henry Schwerner , was one of three Congress of Racial Equality field workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by the Ku Klux Klan in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among Mississippi African Americans...
, Andrew Goodman
Andrew Goodman
Andrew Goodman was one of three American civil rights activists murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.-Early life and education:...
, and James Chaney
James Chaney
James Earl "J.E." Chaney , from Meridian, Mississippi, was one of three American civil rights workers who were murdered during Freedom Summer by members of the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia...
, disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi
Neshoba County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 28,684 people, 10,694 households, and 7,742 families residing in the county. The population density was 50 people per square mile . There were 11,980 housing units at an average density of 21 per square mile...
. The three were volunteers aiding in the registration of black voters as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Forty-four days later the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
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 murders; seven were convicted.
On July 2, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
. 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 been used to disqualify African Americans and poor white voters.
As the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
stated, "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
Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia is a city in and the county seat of Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,303 at the 2000 census.- History :...
, 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
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
, en route to the state capitol in Montgomery
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
, 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
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S....
." This outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote. It also provided for recourse for local voters to Federal intervention and oversight, and monitoring of areas that had had historically low voter turnouts.
See also
- Electoral fraudElectoral fraudElectoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
- Jim Crow lawsJim Crow lawsThe Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
- Nadir of American race relationsNadir of American race relationsThe "nadir of American race relations" is a term that refers to the period in United States history from the end of Reconstruction through the early 20th century, when racism in the country is deemed to have been worse than in any other period after the American Civil War. During this period,...
- Race legislation in the United States
- Voting rights in the United StatesVoting rights in the United StatesThe issue of voting rights in the United States has been contentious throughout the country's history. Eligibility to vote in the U.S. is determined by both Federal and state law. Currently, only citizens can vote in U.S. elections . Who is a citizen is governed on a national basis by Federal law...