Disfranchisement after the Civil War Totally Explained

Everything about Disfranchisement After The Civil War totally explained

The Fifteenth Amendment to the 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 citizen on account of his race. Because African Americans 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, whites feared they'd dominate if they were allowed to continue to vote. During Reconstruction, they didn't elect a majority of black representatives to state offices, but often voted for whites. White supremacist paramilitary organizations, practiced intimidation, violence and assassinations to repress and prevent blacks' exercising their civil and voting rights during the mid-1870s. In most Southern states, black voting decreased markedly under such pressure, and white Democrats regained political control in the 1870s. In the 1880s, Southern states began devising statutes that created more barriers to voting by blacks and poor whites. After Reconstruction Tennessee had the most "consistently competitive political system in the South". A bitter election battle marked by unmatched corruption and violence in 1888 resulted in white Democrats taking over the state legislature. To consolidate their power, they worked to suppress the black vote. In 1889 they passed three laws: registration 20 days before each election, secret ballot, separate ballot boxes for state and Federal elections, and implemented the poll tax (part of the 1870 constitution), measures which taken together sharply reduced voting by blacks and poor whites. In Texas such restrictions were also barriers to voting by Mexican Americans.
From 1890 to 1908, starting with Mississippi, Southern states 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.(External Link

) 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 didn't 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. 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 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. 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 clauses 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 [fromvoter 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." 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 couldn't locate such receipts, they couldn't vote. Many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements.
   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 elite 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

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.

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 primaries, 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 couldn't 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.

African Americans in former Confederacy in 1900

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