We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,547,051.69 | Books Available: 800,553 | Members Online: 223

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Reconstruction and Black Suffrage: Losing the Vote in Reese and Cruikshank

Reconstruction and Black Suffrage Losing the Vote in Reese and Cruikshank
Author: Robert M. Goldman

On Easter Sunday in 1873, more than one hundred black men were gunned down in Grant Parish, Louisiana, for daring to assert their right to vote. Several months earlier, in Lexington, Kentucky, another black man was denied the right to vote for simply failing to pay a poll tax. Both events typified the intense opposition to the federal guarantee ... more »of black voting rights. Both events led to landmark Supreme Court decisions. And, as Robert Goldman shows, both events have much to tell us about an America that was still deeply divided over the status of blacks during the Reconstruction era. Goldman deftly highlights the cases of United States v. Reese and United States v. Cruikshank within the context of an ongoing power struggle between state and federal authorities and the realities of being black in postwar America. Focusing especially on the so-called Reconstruction Amendments and Enforcement Acts, he argues that the decisions in Reese and Cruikshank signaled an enormous gap between guaranteed and enforced rights. The Court's decisions denied the very existence of any such guarantee and, further, conferred upon the states the right to determine who may vote and under what circumstances. In both decisions, lower court convictions were overturned through suprisingly narrrow rulings, despite the larger constitutional issues involved. In Reese the Court justified its decision by voiding only two sections of the Enforcement Acts, while in Cruikshank it merely voided the original indictments as being "insufficient in law" by failing to allege that the Grant Parish murders had been explicitly motivated by racial prejudice. Such legalistic reasoning marked the grim beginning of a nearly century-long struggle to reclaim what the Fifteenth Amendment had supposedly guaranteed. As Goldman shows, the Court's decisions undermined the fledgling efforts of the newly formed justice department and made it increasingly difficult to control the racial violence, intimidation, poll taxes, and other less visible means used by white southern Democrats to "redeem" their political power. The result was a disenfranchised black society in a hostile and still segregated South. Only with the emergence of a nationwide civil rights movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 did things begin to change. Readable and insightful, Goldman's study offers students, scholars, and concerned citizens a strong reminder of what happens when courts refuse to enforce constitutional and legislated law-and what might happen again if we aren't vigilant in protecting the rights of all Americans. This book is part of the Landmark Law Cases and American Society series.

ISBN-13: 9780700610693
ISBN-10: 0700610693
Publication Date: 2/27/2001
Pages: 192
Rating:

Currently 5/5 Stars.

5 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

History >> Americas >> United States >> 19th Century >> Reconstruction
History >> Americas >> United States >> Black & African Americans >> History
Nonfiction >> Current Events >> Civil Rights & Liberties
Politics & Social Sciences >> Government >> Elections
Law >> Legal Theory & Systems >> Legal History
Engineering & Transportation >> Law >> Perspectives on Law >> Legal History

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Reconstruction and Black Suffrage: Losing the Vote in Reese and Cruikshank

Loading...