Minnesota's Long Road to BLACK SUFFRAGE 1849-1868 W IL L I AM D . GREEN n the morning of Septembe r 24, The legislator did not argue on behalf of lhe 1849, Representative Bcrtiamin Weth­ bill or partici pa te in the debate, th e m ost erell Brunson, a 26-year-old lawyer involved of any duri ng that first legislative ses­ a nd surveyor, left his Sl. Paul home for the sion. In fact, his bill merely replicated provi­ Cen tra l House, a cla pboarded log bui ld ing at siorls in the congressional act that had created the corner of Minnesota and Bench Streets, Minnesota Terri tory a few months earlier. This where the business of the newly created Ter­ organic act, ~ fra med in tlIe form already lJ'adi­ riWl1' of Minnesota \ms being conducted. Li vi ng ti onal" according to historian William Watts in the house next to his was James Thompson, a Folwell, authorized residents to establish a legis­ man whom Bnmson had known for half of his lature and limited the voting rights needed to life, a fo nner slave who had been purchased do so to free white males. The act, however, left and freed by Brunson's missionary father and it to thc ncw legislature to determine whether who had .,·orked .vith the elder Bru nson to pros­ suffntge would be extended to any other Min+ elytize among the Dakota a t nearby Kaposia. nesot.'l residents.\! Thompson had amassed enough personal prop­ " The n Lh e time came, Brunson voted against crty to provide lumber, shingles, a nd cash to Gideon Pond's motion to broaden suffrage by help the Brunsons build SL Paul's first Meth­ d eleting the ....· ord "white" fro m the b ill . odist church. Thompson's economic standing Likewise, he helped d efeat Pond's motion to in carly St. Paul and his long relationship to th e add the phrase "and all free male colored per­ legisla tor's family, however, did not prevent sons over 21 years of age." A series of amend­ Benjamin Brunson from helping to create Min­ ments that followed soughl to extend suffrage nesota's own "peculiar institution" that would rights to p e rsons of mixed blood. Re pre- relegatc blacks in the sentative Morton S. te n ilo ry to second­ William D. Gret.'JI, Ph.D. ,J.D., is assislall' professor of Wilkinson , who later class citizensh ip . Bill history at Augshurg (AHfege alld chair of/he Milllleopolis represented Minnesola No. 11 , which Brunson school board. ClIlT'e1ltly u'Ornillgoll a book aboutlhe h;t; in th e U.S. Sen a te, ill ll'oduced, decreed lory ofcivi l righls iF! Mimlesola, he is the aufhor of moved tha t "all civi­ that o n ly 21-year-old "Race m,d Segregation ill St. Pallt's Pllblic Schools, li zed persons of Indian white males should J 84~9, '" which 1.0011 the SolollI Blick (lWOrcl for Ihe des ce nt ~ should have have th e right 10 vote.l besl omrle published ill Minnesota HistOry;1I /996. voting rights. He nry I William W. Fol..... ell. A Hixlrny 0/ JI,1i/llusoia (re.... ed., SL Paul: Min nesota Historical Society [MHS], 1956). I :253:J. Fletcher Williams, A Hislory oJIIl~ City oJSI. Paz,/ to 1875 (1876; reprint, 51. Paul: MHS Press. 1983). 46,228; Patricia C. Harpole and Mary D. Nagle. eds. • Mirlllesoia Ttrritorial CmsU.!", 1850 (St. Paul: MHS. 1972).44; Chauncey 1·loban, Hix/ory oJ Mnhodixm in Mirmt'.JcJla (Red Wing: Red Wing Printing Co., 1887), 19; Earl Spangler, The Nrgro in M illllaola (Minneapolis: T. S. Den ison and Co.. 1961), 19-20; MinnaDla Chronickand RegUleT (51. Paul). Sept. 29. 1849. p. 2, Oct. 13, 1849, p. I ; Minnesota T crrilOry,joumo.loJliu Ho~, 1849. p. 53. ~ Here and hdow,jorJnlUl oJ /lit HI'IILSt, 1849. p. 62. For the organic act. see any issue Of lhc M ilrnaolll Ltgislalivt Mll rrr/(/t, st:t: also Foh"cll, Hix/Qry oJMhl rUi50Ia, ! :247-48. SUMMER 1998 69 Jackson approved of suffrage fo r mixed-race struggle, there were approximately 700 blacks men provid ed th at the), did no t have African livi ng ill MinrH.:,:so la .~ blood. In the end, however, all motio ns seeking to include fo.·linnesota's people of color-black, Indian, 01' mixed-failed. By a vote of nine to n the am ebcl1um North , free Afri can Am er­ sevell , thc tcrritorial House o f Representatives I icans we re, in effect, walking paradoxes, ado pted Bill No. II. Their p lace in no rth ern socie ty was ever mar­ Deliberalions in the legislature's upper ginal. Theil' sense of security-at al1 times tenu­ chamber, the TenitO ri al Council, we re less con­ olls-reSled in their ability to remain innocu­ tentious. Although its members extended suf­ OllS, Like James Thompson, they could associate frage rights to ~persons of a mixture of white with wh ile people, perhaps e njoy their fri end­ and Indian blood " who "adopted the habits and ships, even gain their respect, but thc), could customs of civili zed men," no one moved to never expect to slmre in the decision-making consider bl<lck Minnesotans. On November 1, p!'Ocess of their cOllllllunity, in the brokerilge of 1849, the amended Bill No. 11 became law.' p ower. Altho ug h th e ir n e ig h bors we re pre­ lIS e ITect was expone ntial. By d enying black pared-indeed, ever vigil a n t-against th e Ill en lhe ri g h t to vote, th e law barred th em spread of sl ave ry, blacks had no ne of the civil from servin g o n county juries, si nce rights thaI came wi th citi zenship. Their p<l ra­ jurors were selected from voting d oxical existen ce wa s firm ly grounded in the lists. By 1851 blacks were further very nature of things; Lhey were free, yet never barred from serving as referees full y free, frozen in a state of civic ambiguity, in civil cases b ecause such They would be included in (he census <IS resi­ candidates had to be qual­ dents but nothing more. ified as jurors and fro m The white men who defined and governed r unning in vill age elec­ society were very much men of thei r times. tions because any person The)' re presented <I whi te const ituency, the elected to office had to be Ill,yority o f whom, at least. before the Ci,·il War, "entitled to vote at th e d id not believe in g ivi ng free blacks full civil election at which he shall rights. Federal law itself \vas o blivious to citi zen­ be elected," An 1853 terri­ ship for free black Americans. In 1857 Roger B. torial law prohibited black Taney, ChiefJu stice of the U.S. Supreme Courl, participation in town meet­ sealed the fa te of free bhlcks in Dred Scott v, ings. Allhough these sub­ SalldJ0I11 when he wrote Lhat, to the framers of sequent laws were n Ot lhe Consti tution, b lacks "had no right... which necessarily inte r1li o nal ex­ the wh ite man was bound to respect,~ were not pressions of antiblack senli- intended to be in cluded under the word "citi­ Benjamin w: BI'II'1lSon, ajirsl m e nt b ut, rathel', logical zens," and could 110t claim ;'any of the rights lieutenant in Ihe Cillil WaI; incremen ts of citize nship, and privileges which that instrument provides." their cu mulative effect in­ f\'lo reover, Taney added that no sta te o r territory /)/lOlogra/)Jied b)'}(){!l Whilney c reasingly restri c te d th e could, by its own action, introduce into th e r ighlli o f Minnesota's free poli tical community created by the Constitution black inh<lbilants. While they numbered only 39 an)' new me mbers o r an)' pe rsons "" ,ho we re not in 1850 (2 l males, 14 of them o\'er the age o f inte nded to be e murAced in this new politic<ll 20), by the end o f the decade the territo ry's famil y, which th e ConSl itution brou ght into African American po pulation had increased to existen ce, uut wcre intended to be exclud ed 259. And by 1868, when the state finally from it. H Taney's decision , eight years after approved b lack suffrage after a p rotracted Brunson's Bill o. 11 had become law, codified ~ Min nesota Tenitory.Jollmal of tIlL Comlril, 1849, p. 123, 146. 149; Minnesota Terrilof)', ACL'i,joilll ~1l/iQns, 1111(1 Memorials, 1849, p. 6. ~ Minnesota TerritOlY, Acts, 1849, p. 53-54. For the laws prohibiting blacks rrorn being referees ami from hold­ ing office in \'illagcs, see l\'linnesota Territory, Revised S/rllilles, 1851 , p. 358-59, and 1854, p. 83; Minl!csom Terri tol)', H OIISllJollmnl, 1854, p. 255. Sec also sec CalY Libman, -MillllCsO ta and the Stmggle ror Black SulTntge, 1849-1870; A Study in I'any M Olh"'l i oll~ (Ph. D. diss., Uni\'erllil)' oO.-linncso\a, 1972), 11-13; United States, 1850 U!II$ IIS: S/(l(isliml Vitw of Ihe Stales and TerritoriI'S, 1853, p. ~}90-93; David V, Taylor, -The Blacks," in Till)' Clune l"'i11l1 1s0In: A StHlIffJ of II II', State'!!!.{I",;, Croll/J$, ed.