The History of Black Voting Rights [Great read!]

WallBuilders.com ^ | 3/2003 | David Barton

[Dataman]

Barton is great. He's probably the number one irritation for American history revisionists who want to remove God from government.

[jtminton]

This needs to be sent to Je$$e Jack$on, Al $harpton, and the rest of the unelected 'Leaders of the Black Community' that badmouth Republicans.

[stainlessbanner]

b-

[Paradox]

Wow, great essay! Bookmarked!

[FairWitness]

Following is excerpted from a book I bought lately:

State	Year of Statehood2	Year of Requirement	Race
Alabama	1819	1819	White
Arkansas	1836	1836	White
California	1850	1849	White
Connecticut	1788	1715 1818	No Requirement White
Delaware	1787	1737 1792	No Requirement White
Florida	1845	1838	White
Georgia	1788	1789	No Requirement3
Illinois	1818	1818	White
Indiana	1816	1816	White
Iowa	1846	1846	White
Kentucky	1792	1792 1799	No Requirement White
Louisiana	1812	1812	White
Maine	1820	1819	No Requirement
Maryland	1788	1776 1801	No Requirement White
Massachusetts	1788	1780 1821	No Requirement No Requirement
Michigan	1837	1835	White
Mississippi	1817	1817	White
Missouri	1821	1820	White
New Hampshire	1788	1792	No Requirement
New Jersey	1787	1776 1807	No Requirement White
New York	1788	1777 1821	No Requirement White, or "Man of Color, meeting property/tax requirements.
North Carolina	1789	1776 1835	No Requirement White
Ohio	1803	1802	White
Pennsylvania	1787	1790 1838	No Requirement White
Rhode Island	1790	1762 1842	No Requirement No Requirement
South Carolina	1788	1790	White
Tennessee	1796	1796 1834	No Requirement White4
Texas	1845	1845	"Africans, and descendants of Africans" excluded
Vermont	1791	1786	No Requirement
Virginia	1788	1762	White
Wisconsin	1848	1848	White

¹Source = The Right to Vote; The contested History of Democracy in the United States, by Alexander Keyssar, Basic Books, New York, 2000. The above is an abbreviated version of a Table which also lists citizenship and "Native American" requirements. Cases where a state changed their original requirement are indicated, with date, in the Table; there were also many cases where a state reiterated their original requirement, at a later date, by statute or constitutional change, but these are omitted for brevity.
²Or date admitted to Union for original 13.
³Georgia's 1777 constitution explicitly limited the franchise to whites, but their constitutions of 1789 and 1798 did not. All secondary sources agree that blacks could not vote, but a very extensive search has not turned up a clear legal basis for that exclusion.
⁴White, "provided that no person shall be disqualified from voting in any election on account of color, who is now, by the laws of this State, a competent witness in a court of justice against a white man".

[TomServo]

Bookmarked..

[Dataman]

a Democratic-controlled US Supreme Court observed that blacks “had no rights which a white man was bound to respect;

Something you won't find in public school history texts.

[South40]

There is no black voting rights. We must vote democRAT or we're traitors.

[Squawk 8888]

more progress was made to end slavery and achieve civil rights for blacks in America at that time than was made in any other nation in the world.

Not true. Slavery was banned outright in Upper Canada (now Ontario) in the early 1790s. Additionally, the laws of Upper Canada made no racial distinctions at all- blacks could vote and hold office.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

You can't let facts and history get in the way of "The Agenda" It's too important.


/S -off

[cwb]

Some great reference material, here. I look back at LBJ's embrace of the 1964 Civil Rights Act...and realize what a fraud he and the Democrats pulled on the American people. It was only a few years early, that he, as Senate Majority Leader, gutted most of Ike's Civil Rights Acts of '57 and '60. For all the talk of helping po' black folk, it was LBJ who not only supported a poll tax to keep blacks from voting, he was also against federal lynching laws. At least he (and the NAACP) had the courage to recognize that it was Republican, Everett Dirkson, who deserved the credit for tirelessly working to get the 1964 CRA passed.

What most people don't realize...but was even acknowledged by Congressional Quarterly, was that Eisenhower was responsible for the greatest advances in Civil Rights in the past 80 years. As has even been noted here, most of what was in the 1964 Act, was what Ike and Herbert Brownell (Ike's AG) proposed in their original drafts of the '57 and '60 Civil Rights Acts, but were watered down by Democrats such as LBJ. These facts need to get out.

[elbucko]

Excellent post: i.e. Its language was taken from the wording of Eisenhower’s original civil rights bill (before it was gutted by Democrats) and from proposals made by Eisenhower’s civil rights commission. [136]

Republicans have consistently used the motto of Ronald Reagan; "It's remarkable what you can get done if you don't care who takes the credit". A Republican president, Eisenhower, was the first Chief Executive since the Civil War to send federal, active duty troops (not Nat.Grd.), into the South to enforce the Constitution. The Democrats have never forgiven Republicans and, at the same time, have taken all the credit for the advancement of civil rights.

[elbucko]

As well you won't find repeated in the history books that:

a Democratic-controlled US Supreme Court observed that blacks “had no rights which a white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” [3]

Now the Democrats believe that last line applies to the taxpayer as well.

[elbucko]

Not true. Slavery was banned outright in Upper Canada (now Ontario) in the early 1790s.

Canada doesn't count.

[Squawk 8888]

Eisenhower was responsible for the greatest advances in Civil Rights in the past 80 years

I wasn't aware of that, but given what he saw and accomplished in Europe I'm not surprised. I'd be willing to bet that witnessing the end result of the Nazi racial laws influenced his thinking.

[cwb]

"I wasn't aware of that..."

The sad thing is, many people aren't, thanks to our left-wing dominated public education system. Even worse, I've seen revisionism to point were college professors say Ike wasn't in favor of Civil Rights because of his disagreements with Earl Warren. Ike's appointments of Herbert Brownell as his Attorney General and even Earl Warren as Chief Justice, were fundamental to the advancements that Civil Rights undertook during this period. And while Ike and Warren clashed over certain issues, Ike new that the "government" couldn't just force this change on America all at once. Ike knew that if the government proceeded too recklessly, that the Southern segregationists would just abandon public education and turn to private institutions that would continue to segregate. So while he publically separated himself from the Brown vs Board decision, it was his AG that led the charge in that case...with some saying Ike even wrote some of the arguements.

I watched a C-Span roundtable years ago with the very liberal scholar, Blanche Wisen Cooke, who even conceded that Ike's administration was fundamental to the changes in CR. He wasn't only the first president in 80 years to propose new Civil Rights legislaton, he was the first to substantively address affordable housing for blacks. While Truman paid lip-service to integration in the military, Ike made high-ranking officers pay if they didn't integrate. That is also why he issued an Executive Order eliminating any segregation that still existed in the Military, the District of Columbia and in US Government bureaucracy. It was also Ike who was the first president to use federal troops to enforce Brown vs Board in the Little Rock Nine case.

Just as his appointments of Warren and Brownell were significant, so were his appointments of 5 other moderate Republicans to positions in the Federal (Southern) Judiciary that would see Brown V. Board through to its final conslusion...which was desegregation of the South. Unlike the Democrats of their day, Ike practiced what he preached when he appointed Frederic Morrow, the first black, to an executive position on his White House Staff...which included appoitments for others all over government. All of this, along with his support for the '57/'60 CRAs and his creation of the Civil Rights Commission, make Eisenhower one of the true leaders of Civil Rights in America. Unfortunately, you won't hear this in your history or Poli-sci classes.

[cyborg]

lol

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[farmfriend]

Bookmarked for later read. Pinging the short list.