Democracy or Not?

Democracy is a government in which the power is held by the people. However, democracy was different in 19^th century America than it is today. Back then, people had less power in controlling the government. This means that the United States was less democratic in the 19^th century than it is today.

 

One reason the United States was less democratic was less people could vote. Not only did voters have to be white males, there also were property and tax-paying requirements in many states for a large part of the 19^th century. This limited the number of people able to vote significantly because many people did not own the required amount of property. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies….and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?” The property held the as much the right to vote as the person because they could not vote without property. The number of states with both the property and tax-paying requirements gradually declined as the century progressed. Also, in the beginning of the 19^th century presidential electors were chosen by the legislature. This means that there was three degrees of separation between the voters and the president. As the century progressed most states changed to electing electors by popular vote as is still used today.

The County Election by George Bingham, 1852

 Some other problems of the election process were depicted in George Bingham’s painting, The County Election. One problem is that people could vote intoxicated. This is not a good thing because people can accidently vote for the wrong candidate or be easily persuaded. Also, votes were written down on a piece of paper the voter could not see so there was no way to know if the vote was counted and accurate. This also means the vote was not private. Only five people in the painting took the voting seriously, as few did back then, and a man is beaten up showing the violence present at elections back then. In most states reform in the election process was peaceful, but in Rhode Island it was violent and called the Dorr War. Thomas Dorr launched a campaign to draft a new state constitution and repeal voting restrictions. The governor declared Dorr guilty of insurrection and arrested him after he tried to take the state’s arsenal. Reforms in the state’s democracy were achieved as a result though. In the 19^th century the United States was less democratic than today, though improvements were made throughout the century.