Between freedom and bondage: Racial voting restrictions in the antebellum North.
Item
-
Title
-
Between freedom and bondage: Racial voting restrictions in the antebellum North.
-
Identifier
-
AAI3037419
-
identifier
-
3037419
-
Creator
-
Malone, Christopher Joseph.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Frances Fox Piven
-
Date
-
2002
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Political Science, General | History, Black | History, European | Law
-
Abstract
-
The United States was the first country to distribute the franchise widely to its citizens. These reforms began at the turn of the nineteenth century and continued throughout the antebellum period. By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the U.S. could boast of achieving what no other country had---universal white male suffrage. While universal white male suffrage was sweeping across both the Northern and Southern United States in the antebellum period, the franchise was granted to black males on an extremely uneven basis.;This dissertation addresses the problem of racial voting restrictions in the antebellum North. The framework put forth for explaining racial voting restrictions in the antebellum North brings together socio-economic, ideological, and institutional arguments about racial conflict. It addresses these issues through four case studies---four states, all in the North, all with different outcomes with respect to racial voting restrictions: New York, which placed a {dollar}250 property qualification on black males at the same time it dropped property qualifications for white males (1821); Pennsylvania, which disenfranchised black males completely (1838); Massachusetts, which enfranchised black males in the early 1780s and never denied them that right; and Rhode Island, which disenfranchised black males by state statute (1822) and re-enfranchised them in the wake of the Dorr War (1843).;The main argument of this dissertation is that racial voting restrictions across state lines, despite the different outcomes, can be understood by accounting for three overarching factors: how racial conflict is structured through socio-economic competition; how partisan competition is structured by racial cleavages; and how racial coalition formation is structured through a racialized discourse---what is referred to as race culture. It argues that racial voting restrictions in the Northern states occurred when racial conflict took place as an outgrowth of rapid socio-economic and demographic change; when political actors seeking electoral advantage were in a position to successfully prey upon this racial conflict by arousing newly enfranchised white (ethnic) voters; and when an ascriptive race culture became the dominant racial paradigm for understanding citizenship rights.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
