×


 x 

Shopping cart
Robert Michael Goldman - Free Ballot and a Fair Count - 9780823220830 - V9780823220830
Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.

Free Ballot and a Fair Count

€ 90.66
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Free Ballot and a Fair Count Hardback. "A Free Ballot and a Fair Count" examines the efforts by the Department of Justice to implement the federal legislation passed by Congress in 1870-71 known as the Enforcement Acts. Series: Reconstructing America. Num Pages: 222 pages, illustrations. BIC Classification: 1KBB; HBJK; HBLL; JPVH1; LND. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 234 x 157 x 20. Weight in Grams: 471.

“A Free Ballot and a Fair Count” examines the efforts by the Department of Justice to implement the federal legislation passed by Congress in 1870–71 known as the Enforcement Acts. These laws were designed to enforce the voting rights guarantees for African-Americans under the recently ratified Fifteenth Amendment. The Enforcement Acts set forth a range of federally enforceable crimes aimed at combating white southerners’ attempts to deny or restrict black suffrage.
There are several aspects of this work that distinguish it from other, earlier works in this area. Contrary to older interpretative studies, Goldman’s primary thesis is that, the federal government’s attempts to protect black voting rights in the South did not cease with the Supreme Court’s hostile rulings in U.S. v. Reese and U.S. v. Cruikshank in 1875. Nor, it is argued, did enforcement efforts cease at the end of Reconstruction and the so-called Compromise of 1877. Rather, federal enforcement efforts after 1877 reflected the continued commitment of Republican Party leaders, for both humanitarian and partisan reasons, to what came to be called “the free ballot and a fair count.”
Another unique aspect of this book is its focus on the role of the federal Department of Justice and its officials in the South in the continued enforcement effort. Created as a cabinet-level executive department in 1870, the Justice Department proved ill-equipped to respond to the widespread legal and extra-legal resistance to black suffrage by white southern Democrats in the years during and after Reconstruction. The Department faced a variety of internal problems such as insufficient resources, poor communications, and local personnel often appointed more for their political acceptability than their prosecutorial or legal skills. By the early 1890s, when the election laws were finally repealed by Congress, enforcement efforts were sporadic at best and largely unsuccessful. The end of federal involvement, coupled with the wave of southern state constitution revisions, resulted in the disfranchisement of the vast majority of African-American voters in the South by the beginning of the Twentieth Century. It would not be until the 1960s and the “Second Reconstruction” that the federal government, and the Justice Department, would once again attempt to ensure the “free ballot and a fair count”.

Product Details

Format
Hardback
Publication date
2001
Publisher
Fordham University Press United States
Number of pages
222
Condition
New
Series
Reconstructing America
Number of Pages
222
Place of Publication
New York, United States
ISBN
9780823220830
SKU
V9780823220830
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-15

About Robert Michael Goldman
Robert M. Goldman is Professor of History and Political Science at Virginia Union University.

Reviews for Free Ballot and a Fair Count
"A classic account of the difficulty with which the United States made the transition to a truly national polity fully capable of enforcing its own laws...a heroic but ultimately failing effort to realize the nation's great decision to make African Americans full members of the American political community."
-Michael Les Benedict The Ohio State University

Goodreads reviews for Free Ballot and a Fair Count


Subscribe to our newsletter

News on special offers, signed editions & more!