The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Unlike modern elections, the American polling place of the mid-nineteenth century was thoroughly endowed with symbolic meaning for individuals who otherwise would not have had the least interest in politics. This made the polls exciting and encouraged men to vote at far higher rates than they do today. Men who approached a polling place were met by agents of the major political parties. They treated the voters with whiskey, gave them petty bribes, and urged that they should be loyal to their ethnic and religious communities. As reported in the eyewitness accounts of ordinary voters, the polls were almost always crowded, noisy, and often, violent.

During the middle of the nineteenth century, Americans voted in saloons in the most derelict sections of great cities, in hamlets swarming with Union soldiers, or in wooden cabins so isolated that even neighbors had difficulty finding them. Their votes have come down to us as election returns reporting tens of millions of officially sanctioned democratic acts. Neatly arrayed in columns by office, candidate, and party, these returns are routinely interpreted as reflections of the preferences of individual voters and thus seem to unambiguously document the existence of a robust democratic ethos. By carefully examining political activity in and around the polling place, this book suggests some important caveats which must attend this conclusion. These caveats, in turn, help to bridge the interpretive chasm now separating ethno-cultural descriptions of popular politics from political economic analyses of state and national policy-making.

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Structure and practice of elections; 3. Social construction of identity in Eastern rural communities; 4. Ethno-cultural stereotypes and voting in large cities; 5. Frontier democracy; 6. Loyal oaths, troops, and elections during the civil war; 7. Conclusion.

By carefully examining political activity in and around the polling place in the nineteenth century, this book suggests some important caveats which must attend this conclusion. These caveats help to bridge the interpretive chasm now separating ethno-cultural descriptions of popular politics from political economic analyses of state and national policy-making.