Front cover image for The right to vote : the contested history of democracy in the United States

The right to vote : the contested history of democracy in the United States

Alexander Keyssar
A distinguished historian traces the history of American suffrage from an ethnic, gender, religious, and age perspective and documents the expansion and contraction of American democracy through the years, arguing that the primary impetus for promoting voting rights has been war and that the primary factors for delaying such rights have been class tension and conflict. Reprint.
Print Book, English, 2009
Rev. ed View all formats and editions
Basic Books, New York, N.Y, 2009
Right to Vote.
467 Seiten : Illustrationen ; 24 cm
9780465005024, 9780465029693, 0465005020, 0465029698
695874905
Geschichte
USA
Wahlrecht
Preface to the Revised Editionxi
Preface to the Original Editionxv
Introductionxix
PART I THE ROAD TO PARTIAL DEMOCRACY1
1 In the Beginning
3
The Received Legacy,
4
The Revolution and the Vote,
7
The States and the Nation,
18
2 Democracy Ascendant
22
The Course of Things,
23
Sources of Expansion,
28
Ideas and Arguments,
35
3 Backsliding and Sideslipping
43
Women, African Americans, and Native Americans,
43
Paupers, Felons, and Migrants,
49
Registration and Immigration,
52
Democracy, the Working Class, and American Exceptionalism,
54
A Case in Point: The War in Rhode Island,
56
PART II NARROWING THE PORTALS61
4 Know-Nothings, Radicals, and Redeemers
64
Immigrants and Know-Nothings,
65
Race, War, and Reconstruction,
69
The Strange Odyssey of the Fifteenth Amendment,
74
The Lesser Effects of War,
83
The South Redeemed,
83
5 The Redemption of the North
94
Losing Faith,
96
Purifying the Electorate,
103
Two Special Cases,
131
Sovereignty and Self-Rule,
134
The New Electoral Universe,
136
6 Women's Suffrage
139
From Seneca Falls to the Fifteenth Amendment,
140
Citizenship and Taxes,
145
Regrouping,
148
Doldrums and Democracy,
158
A Mass Movement,
163
The Nineteenth Amendment,
170
Aftermath,
175
PART III TOWARD UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE��AND BEYOND179
7 The Quiet Years
180
Stasis and Its Sources,
181
Franklin Roosevelt and the Death of Blackstone,
190
War and Race,
195
"Our Oldest National Minority,"
202
8 Breaking Barriers
205
Race and the Second Reconstruction,
206
Universal Suffrage,
217
The Value of the Vote,
230
Two Uneasy Pieces,
246
Getting the Electorate to the Polls,
253
9 The Story Unfinished
258
November 2000,
258
What Is to Be Done?
263
Helping Americans Vote,
265
Crime and Punishment,
273
Suppression and Fraud,
277
Boundaries of Competence,
287
A Constitutional Right to Vote,
291
November 2008,
293
Conclusion: The Project of Democracy295
Appendix: State Suffrage Laws, 1775-1920303
List of Tables305
Appendix Sources369
Notes381
Index451
Inhaltsverzeichnis