A Bit of History

The Right to VOTE… “T he question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro.” “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of of the citizens of the nation are heart,” President Lincoln said excluded from its privileges,” on April 11, 1865 his last public

President and former Union address. “The [Confederate]

General Ulysses S. Grant [R-IL] evacuation of Petersburg and said in 1870. Amendment 15, Richmond, and the surrender

Section 1, as ratified on March of the principal insurgent army, 30, 1870 gave black men the give hope of a righteous and right to vote. speedy peace…By these recent

“Apprehension seems to successes the re-inauguration exist among the people of of the national authority— the Southern States that by reconstruction—which has had the accession of a Republican a large share of thought from

Administration their property the first, is pressed more closely and their peace and personal upon our attention. It is fraught security are to be endangered,” with great difficulty.” incoming President Abraham “Unlike the case of a war

Lincoln [R-IL] said on March between independent nationals, 4, 1861. there is no authorized organ

“In legal contemplation the for us to treat with,” Lincoln

Union is perpetual, confirmed continued. “No one man by the history of the Union has authority to give up the itself,” Lincoln continued. “[O] rebellion for any other man. ne of the declared objects for We simply must begin with, and ordaining and establishing the mould from, disorganized and

Constitution was ‘to form a discordant elements. Nor is it a more perfect Union.’” Seven small additional embarrassment southern states had seceded as that we, the loyal people, differ of February 23, 1861: Alabama, among ourselves as to the

Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, mode, manner, and means of

Mississippi, South Carolina and reconstruction.”

Texas. “We all agree that the seceded

“Plainly the central idea States, so called, are out of of secession is the essence of their proper relation with the anarchy,” Lincoln concluded. Union,” Lincoln concluded,

“In your hands, my dissatisfied “and that the sole object of the fellow-countrymen, and not government, civil and military, in mine, is the momentous in regard to those States is issue of Civil War…[As I have to again get them into that said previously]—I have no proper practical relation.” He purpose, directly or indirectly, also mentioned “the elective to interfere with the institution franchise,” his want to confer it of slavery in the States where it “on the colored man.” exists.” On March 18, 2016,

On March 21, 1861, NAACP President Cornell

Confederate States of America Brooks sharply criticized voter officeholder Alexander H. identification laws, noting “the

Stephens [Whig, Democrat and 2016 election is the first election

CSA-GA] responded. “Our in 50 years without the full new government is founded protection of the 1965 Voting upon…the great truth that the Rights Act [VRA].” In 2013, negro is not equal to the white in Shelby County, Alabama, man; that slavery subordination Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., to the superior race is his Attorney General, et.al., the U.S. natural and normal condition… Supreme Court ruled portions

With us, all of the white race, of the VRA unconstitutional.

Credit: U.S. National Archives Voting propaganda poster.

The VRA enabled the Federal government to suspend all literacy, knowledge or character tests for voting in areas where less than 50 percent of the voting age population is registered. “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 employed extraordinary measures to address an extraordinary problem,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote on June 25, 2013.

“Section 5 of the Act required States to obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting—a drastic departure from the basic principle of federalism,” Roberts continued. “And Section 4 of the Act applied that requirement only to some States—an equally dramatic departure from the principle that all States enjoy equal sovereignty. This was strong medicine, but Congress determined it was needed to address entrenched racial determination in voting, ‘an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.’”

In April 1865 the Federal government divided the South into five occupied military districts. Freed black men were often homeless; without money and at loose ends in a society tainted by the hostilities of war. Their wants: ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments; privileges and immunities, and independence through education. Amendment 13 ratified December 6, 1865, abolished slavery. Virginia’s Black Code, its Vagrant Act became law in January 1866.

“By constitutional amendment…[a] large portion of the population had become, instead of mere chattels, free men and citizens,” the U.S.

Credit: U.S. National Archives President Gerald R. Ford Greeting Roy Wilkins, Vernon Jordan, and Others Prior to the Signing Ceremony for H.R. 6219, Extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

House of Representatives Joint

Committee on Reconstruction wrote in 1866. “Slavery, by building up a ruling and dominant class, had produced a spirit of oligarchy adverse to republican institutions, which finally inaugurated Civil War.

The tendency of continuing the domination of such a class, by leaving it in the exclusive possession of political power, would be to encourage the same spirit, and lead to a similar result [Jim Crow and the Lost

Cause].” The Committee’s conclusion: “the right of [male] suffrage should be granted, without distinction of color or race.”

“Underlying Reconstruction lay principles important to modern civilized nations,” historian Arthur M.

Schlesinger, Jr., wrote. “Civil rights, racial equality, federal powers.”

The Federal Congress passed its first Civil Rights Bill on

April 6, 1866. It granted full citizenship to all persons, except for Indians, born on

United States soil. Black men, for the first time, had the right to enforce contracts; to sue, give evidence, and buy property.

A reunited, Reconstruction

Congress passed the Civil

Rights Act of 1875. The Act was first introduced by U.S. Senator Charles Sumner, an 1870 Massachusetts Radical Republican. It provided that all persons, regardless of race, were entitled to “the full and equal employment” of accommodations, public transportation, and places of amusement.”

“You say you have emancipated us,” Frederick Douglass told the 1876 Republican National Convention. “But what is your emancipation? What is your enfranchisement? What does it all amount to, if the black man, after having been made free by the letter of your law, is unable to exercise that freedom, and, after having been freed from the slaveholder’s lash, he is to be subject to the slaveholder’s shotgun.”

“Ours is the most extraordinary case of any people ever emancipated on the globe,” Douglass concluded. “When you turned us loose… you turned us loose to the sky, to the storm, to the whirlwind, and, worst of all, you turned us loose to the wrath of our infuriated masters.”

Six ex-Confederate soldiers formed the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, on December 24, 1865—for

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“amusement.” Founding member Frank O. McCord was “elected first Grand Cyclops.” Founding member James E. Crowe was “chosen first Grand Turk.” The Klan’s Invisible Empire of the South was established in 1869. The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1870 permitted Congress to deal forcibly with those whites determined to defy the 15th Amendment. The Virginia KKK, Alexandria’s robed Klavern #47 thrived—until 1930.

Voter suppression: the authority of a State to determine the mode and manner by which its citizens may cast their ballots; to discriminate on account of gender, race or color. Women received the right to vote only 100 years ago, on August 26, 1920.

“Discouragement is the most powerful voter suppression tool in America today,” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said in 2016.

“The Shelby County decision was dubious when it first was issued and it looks even worse today,” the Brennan Center for Justice decided. “John Roberts court…invited Congress to fix what the court had said was broken in the law…but they had no way of knowing in June 2013 that Donald Trump would within three years become a Republican nominee for President and that voter suppression and the disenfranchisement of minority voters would become a pillar of his campaign.”

“In the Court’s view, the very success of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 demands its dormancy,” former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote, dissenting. “Congress was of another mind. Recognizing that large progress has been made, Congress determined…that the scourge of discrimination was not yet extirpated.”

“The question this case presents is who decides whether, as currently operative, Section 5 remains justifiable… this Court, or a Congress charged [Amendment 15, Section 2] with the obligation to enforce the post-Civil War Amendments ‘by appropriate legislation,’” Ginsberg penned. “Particularly effective is the VRA’s requirement of federal preclearance for all changes to voting laws in the regions of the country with the most aggravated records of rank discrimination against minority voting rights.” In the six years following the 2013 Shelby ruling, “13 states slashed nearly 1,700 polling places.” Texas limited “its drop off box locations” effective October 2020.

As of July 6, 2017 Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, 20 states in total denied Republican President Donald Trump’s White House Commission on Election Integrity’s request for state generated voter registration information. Credit: U.S. National Archives Passers by looking at window display at the headquarters of National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. 1919 In most cases the Privacy Republican legislators struggle. Act of 1974 prohibits the federal On October 18, 2019 a federal government from recording citizens’ party affiliations. Several state laws forbid the release of partial social security numbers and birth dates. November 3 is Election Day and for the last several months President Trump has challenged the efficacy, the reliability if not the legitimacy of mail-in ballots. A devotee of Florida’s mail-in ballot, Trump now claims that mail-in voting is “substantially fraudulent.” FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress on September 17 that “while there is little evidence for mail-in voter fraud, there is hard evidence that Russia is meddling….” The Commonwealth of Virginia’s much anticipated anti-gerrymandering Amendment is on this month’s ballot. “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to establish a redistricting commission, consisting of eight members of judge ruled “that Florida [a 2020 battleground state] cannot deny the right to vote to felons who have served their sentences but are ‘genuinely unable’ to pay ‘legal financial obligations… restitutions.’” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has now “called for an investigation into Mike Bloomberg’s work to pay off [qualified felons] fines and fees…to [successfully] pay off [the seeming equivalent of a race-based] ‘poll tax.’” The Constitution, Amendment 24 as ratified January 23, 1964, Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” Kindly stated the September the General Assembly and eight 29 presidential debate fell short. citizens of the Commonwealth The President “played down” that is responsible for drawing the pandemic then soon after the congressional and state tested positive for COVID-19. legislative districts that will be In truth neither candidate subsequently voted on….” The has wholly explained their Amendment has the support of economic recovery strategy. former U.S. Attorney General How you vote is yours Eric Holder; the electorate’s to decide. Vote! Wait for decision is expected soon. As the results, then enjoy the are the 2020 Census results. Thanksgiving holiday.

Candidate Joe Biden’s “greatest concern: this President is trying to steal this election.” Sarah Becker started writing for The Economist while a graduate President Trump advocates student in England. Similar “double voting” absentee and publications followed. She joined in-person. “The election is the Crier in 1996 while serving rigged,” Trump told a Carson on the Alexandria Convention City crowd. “It’s the only way and Visitors Association Board. we are going to lose.” Her interest in antiquities began

Washington State federal as a World Bank hire, with Judge Stanley Bastian recently Indonesia’s need to generate hard “halted cost-cutting changes currency. Balinese history, i.e. to the Postal Service.” He tourism provided the means. found “that the state attorneys The New York Times describes general proved ‘that the United Becker’s book, Off Your Duffs & States Postal Service and the Up the Assets, as “a blueprint for Postmaster General violated thousands of nonprofit managers.” and infringed on the States’ A former museum director, constitutional authority to SLAM’s saving grace Sarah regulate elections and the received Alexandria’s Salute to people’s right to vote.” Women Award in 2007. Email:

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