Swarthmore College Works Political Science Faculty Works Political Science 2016 How Suffrage Politics Made—And Makes—America Richard M. Valelly , '75 Swarthmore College,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-poli-sci Part of the Political Science Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits ouy Recommended Citation Richard M. Valelly , '75. (2016). "How Suffrage Politics Made—And Makes—America". Oxford Handbook Of American Political Development. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199697915.013.34 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-poli-sci/622 This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CHAPTER 22 HOW SUFFRAGE POLITICS MADE — AND MAKES — AMERICA RICHARD M. VALELLY Suffrage politics emerged very early in American political development.* In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, constitutional conventions and state legis latures debated the right to vote—and such assemblies expanded the suffrage for white adult men. Another leap in suffrage expansion came after the Civil War when black adult males joined the electorate and the Fifteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution. The march of democratization seemed unstoppable. But this second great extension abruptly faced fierce white supremacist resistance as the Ku Klux Klan spread across the South. Congress enacted several federal elections statutes to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. Though this is little known, the federal government did shut the Klan down—and acted vigorously in other ways to protect black voting rights.