The end of the
Civil War ushered in an era of dramatic constitutional change.
Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865
abolished slavery in the United States. Ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment in July 1868 bestowed citizenship on all
persons born or naturalized in the United States and offered
them equal protection of the laws, among other rights. The
result officially, though indirectly, recognized blacks as part
of the American constitutional system. The basic right to vote,
however, was not protected in the U.S. Constitution against
discrimination based on race until ratification of the Fifteenth
Amendment in March 1870. It took many years for the political
consensus, primarily within the ruling Republican Party, to
accept the legitimacy of even partial federal oversight of
voting qualifications in the states.
Although slaves could not vote, it was legal in most states
for free black men to cast ballots during the early years of the American
republic. In 1790, only three of the original thirteen
states—Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina—barred voters on
account of race. Over the first half of the nineteenth century,
however, many states adopted constitutions or laws that
disfranchised blacks, so that they were ineligible to vote in 25
of 31 states by 1850. At that time, five New England
states—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode
Island—were the only states with no racial disqualification for
voting, but they were home to just four percent of the nation’s
free blacks (and an even tinier fraction of the country’s total
black population, the vast majority of whom were slaves).
Most black men in New York were
prevented from voting by the state constitution’s residency and
property qualifications, neither of which applied to white men.
From
1857
to
1869, Harper’s Weekly chronicled
attempts to remove “the absurd and barbarous discrimination,” in
the words of editor George William Curtis, a white abolitionist
and advocate of black civil rights. While the reform was
opposed by Democratic
legislators, the proposed
change in the state constitution was ultimately rejected by
white voters from all parties in popular referenda. It was not
until the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in March 1870 that
the property and residential requirements on blacks voters in
New York were finally nullified.
Before the Civil War, Congress barred blacks from voting in
the federal territories, and in 1861 and 1863, respectively,
Kansas and West Virginia entered the Union with state
constitutions limiting suffrage to white men. In the
Harper’s Weekly issue of July 4, 1863 (published June 24),
George William Curtis
noted
that black men in Pennsylvania had been officially called upon
to help defend the state against the Confederate invasion (which
would soon be turned back at the Battle of Gettysburg).
The columnist (and future editor) hoped that their military
service would cause loyal white Pennsylvanians to be ashamed
that those same black men were disfranchised by their state.
While Black men
responded enthusiastically to the call to arms,
Frederick Douglass and other black leaders
declared
that the war to save the Union must also be a fight for
equal rights. In October 1864, a group of free black men met in
Syracuse, New York, and established the National Equal Rights
League to fight racial barriers in the Union states. They
passed resolutions endorsing the abolition of slavery, legal
equality regardless of color or race, and black manhood
suffrage. |
1)
April 4, 1857, p. 214, c. 3
“Domestic
Intelligence” column, “State Legislatures”
2)
February 13, 1869, p. 99, c. 2
editorial, “The
New Constitution of New York”
3)
November 20, 1869, p. 738, c. 1
paragraphs 1 and
2, editorial, “The Meaning of Democratic Success”
4)
July 4, 1863, p. 418, c. 3
“The Lounger” column,
“Loyal Citizens”
5)
July 18, 1863, p. 460
illustration, “The
Invasion of the North—Street Scenes in Philadelphia,” Thomas Nast
6)
July 18, 1863, p. 459, c. 1
news item, “Action of
the Colored People”
|