by Christopher Malone. New York: Routledge, 2008. 272pp. Paper. $28.95. ISBN: 9780415956970. Reviewed by Michelle D. Deardorff, Department of Political Science, Jackson State University. Email: michelle.d.deardorff [at] jsums.edu.
pp.235-238
It is a rare and memorable joy to encounter a book that seamlessly interweaves two disciplines in order to provide meaningful analysis of a previously unexplained phenomenon; this book is such a source of pleasure. In BETWEEN FREEDOM AND BONDAGE, Christopher Malone endeavors to explain the discrepancies between four Northern states in their responses to black suffrage claims during the antebellum years. He accurately notes that until recently the primary narrative regarding black male suffrage focuses upon the passage and evasions of the Fifteenth Amendment ignoring the many states where enfranchisement was not limited by race until the states began rewriting their constitutions after the Revolutionary War. The first state to isolate voting to whites was not surprisingly Virginia in 1762; however, West Virginia did not restrict the franchise to white males until 1863. Yet, some states, like Massachusetts, never restricted suffrage by race. Malone argues that within these years an intriguing story waits to be told. While there have been some recent scholarship detailing the development of the right to vote – Alexander Keyssar’s THE RIGHT TO VOTE in particular comes to mind – there has been very little examination of the development of voting rights beyond detailed examinations of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (e.g., Davidson and Grofman 1994; Valelly 2004; Valelly 2005; Landsberg 2007), interpretations of the implementation of majority/minority districts and their implications (e.g., Peacock 1997; Canon 1999; Kousser 1999; Yarbrough 2002), and outside of the law reviews. As Malone convincingly argues,
the story of black enfranchisement in the antebellum period does not fit into a simple, unidirectional synthesis. . . There was no long steady march toward democracy for northern blacks. The right to vote was not characterized by irresistible expansion. Neither was its attainment, when it did occur, astonishingly easy. With no federal statutes on the books to which blacks could appeal to for protection, it was unclear whether blacks were meant to be included in the social contract instantiated in the first state constitutions drafted after the Revolutionary War . . . . In short, all across the North throughout the antebellum period blacks lived somewhere, to quote the noted historian Charles Wesley, “between freedom and bondage.” (p.5)
In chapter one, “The Beginning of the Story: Black Enfranchisement in the Antebellum Era,” Malone considers the limitations of current historical analysis of the development of voting rights. He argues that the absence of an overarching theoretical framework has [*236] resulted in an inchoate understanding of this very rich history. To remedy this inadequacy, Malone applies the analytical tools of three different subfields of political science to help understand the sources of these changes and to attempt to interpret contemporary aspects of racial conflict within the political arena of the United States. Attempting to develop a more complete understanding of race formation, Malone pulls from research on the “economic structure of racial conflict,” the “racial structure of partisan competition” and development, and the “discursive structure of racial coalition formation.” To test the validity and intersections of these explanations he investigates four separate case studies, chosen because of the highly diverse manner in which blacks were treated in these states: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. Drawing the case studies from the very detailed historical record and secondary scholarship of antebellum history, he hypotheses that in order for black disenfranchisement to occur, there will be three conditions:
(1) when racial conflict took place as an outgrowth of rapid economic and demographic change; (2) when political actors seeking electoral advantage were in a position to successfully prey on this racial conflict by arousing poorer white working classes: and (3) when an ascriptive racial belief system became the dominant racial paradigm for understanding citizenship rights for blacks. (p.18)
For each case study, he carefully investigates the historical factors (increased immigration of a white working class, new political party formation and nationalization of the party structure, and the sway a narrative assuming the natural inferiority of blacks held over a more paternalistic rhetoric in the public space) to explain the consequences for enfranchisement in the state.
The second chapter, “’The Minds of Blacks are Not Competent to Vote:’ Racial Voting Restrictions in New York,” details the first case study. New York is particularly interesting because, although New York never restricted the franchise to white men, it did place a property qualification on black male voters while simultaneously dropping such qualifications for whites in 1821. After a thoughtful and well-written description of the political and economic development of the state, Malone finds that racial conflict was intensified because of internal economic and demographic transitions, particularly the increasing conflict between the newly freed blacks and a growing working class white population over employment and housing opportunities. In addition, conflict within the New York Republican party from the Bucktail Republicans who sought to challenge Federalist control of state politics and who encouraged their members to engage in racially ascriptive language to capture the votes of the growing white immigrant class.
Chapter three, “’An Asylum for the Oppressed Injured Sons of Europe:’ The Disenfranchisement of Blacks in Pennsylvania,” examines a state that disenfranchised its black male population after protecting their right to vote for almost fifty years. While blacks were frequently prevented from voting due to intimidation in the late 1830s, they were not legally disenfranchised [*237] until party competition ended single-party control in Pennsylvania. Malone notes that these conflicts were “undergirded by a racialized discourse framed on two sides by competing racial belief systems. If the dominant view of Pennsylvania’s leaders was paternalistic in its outlook toward blacks during the Revolutionary period, this view lost out to the dominant ascriptive ideology of the state’s leaders by the 1830s” (p.63). Finally, the rapid growth of the black population in Philadelphia and an increasing poor white immigrant population throughout the state, led to competition for resources and employment and created a political environment receptive to the arguments and claims made by ascriptive ideologues.
Within chapter four, “’Servility is not Confined to Color:’ The Disenfranchisement and Reenfranchisement of Blacks in Rhode Island,” Malone examines what he deems the “most bizarre case.” Rhode Island statutorily disenfranchised black men in 1822 and then reenfranchised them in 1843 after the Dorr War. Again, Malone finds his model clearly explains these conflicting results. He argues that historically all three of his conditions were met in the 1820s at the time of the denial of black suffrage; however, by the 1840s and the beginning of the Dorr War, these three conditions no longer existed. Blacks joined racial paternalists during the political maneuverings and were then rewarded with the franchise. Consequently, Malone finds the ascriptive discourse was not powerful and condition three was not met.
The final state, Massachusetts, is discussed in chapter five, “’The Vaunted Superiority of the White Race Imposes Corresponding Duties:’ Massachusetts—The Exception to the Rule.” Masschusetts, alone among the case studies, ensured the right to vote for black men in the early 1780s and never retracted it. Applying his theoretical construct, Malone determines it also explains this outlier. He discovers that the power of the Garrisonians and the strength of abolitionist movement and its rhetoric ensured that ascriptive racism never took the same root in Massachusetts as it did elsewhere. Demographically, the black population in Massachusetts was consistently small, and the vast influx of Irish immigrants did not occur until later in the nineteenth century. Consequently, the so-called race threat was not part of public discourse in Massachusetts as it was in other states.
It is difficult to communicate the detail of the research provided by Malone in his discussion of the case studies in a forum such as this. He has provided a carefully researched historical study that is well-complemented by a carefully developed theoretical framework. It also seems ironic to be reviewing this book for the LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW. While often the outcomes of these political pressures on voting rights were legislation and although some of the factors influencing the political culture he assesses are litigation and judicial decisions, this book is less directly about the law or Constitution. It does, however, provide keen insight regarding how these types of constitutional and statutory protections and alienations are contrived and interpreted. One obvious criticism of this book, which Malone recognizes, is the lack black or female voices in the history that he recounts. However, since the [*238] purpose of the book is to examine how the political institutions responded to pressure regarding black male suffrage, the dominant (but not sole) voices are those already wielding political power.
While Malone attempts to apply his model beyond his designated timeframe to the traditional Civil Rights Era in his epilogue, “Reconstructing the Two Reconstructions: Antebellum Race Formation and the Nationalization of Party Politics,” his comparison of the First and Second Reconstructions is the weakest element of his work. This is not because his model does not work, but because the epilogue is too brief to develop his argument adequately or explore the counterfactuals to his analysis. His argument as to the validity of this model to other eras of racial conflict and in less carefully chosen case studies must wait to be tested.
REFERENCES:
Canon, David T. 1999. RACE, REDISTRICTING, AND REPRESENTATION: THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF BLACK MAJORITY DISTRICTS. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Davidson, Chandler and Bernard Grofman (eds). 1994. QUIET REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH: THE IMPACT OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT 1965-1990. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Keyssar, Alexander. 2000. THE RIGHT TO VOTE: THE CONTESTED HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES. New York: Basic Books.
Kousser, J. Morgan. 1999. COLORBLIND JUSTICE: MINORITY VOTING RIGHTS AND THE UNDOING OF THE SECOND RECONSTRUCTION. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Landsberg, Brian K. 2007. FREE AT LAST TO VOTE: THE ALABAMA ORIGINS OF THE 1965 VOTING RIGHTS ACT. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.
Peacock, Anthony A. (ed). 1997. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND REPRESENTATION: SHAW V. RENO AND THE FUTURE OF VOTING RIGHTS. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Valelly, Richard. 2004. THE TWO RECONSTRUCTIONS: THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK ENFRANCHISEMENT. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Valelly, Richard M. (ed). 2005. THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT: SECURING THE BALLOT. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Yarbrough, Tinsley E. 2002. RACE AND REDISTRICTING: THE SHAW-CROMARTIE CASES. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press.
© Copyright 2008 by the author, Michelle D. Deardorff.
