Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Iowa restores the voting rights of felons who completed their prison sentences. [59] Nebraska ends lifetime disenfranchisement of people with felonies but adds a five-year waiting period. [62] 2006. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was extended for the fourth time by President George W. Bush, being the second extension of 25 years. [64]
U.S. presidential election popular vote totals as a percentage of the total U.S. population. Note the surge in 1828 (extension of suffrage to non-property-owning white men), the drop from 1890 to 1910 (when Southern states disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites), and another surge in 1920 (extension of suffrage to women).
In the early 1800s, many states removed their property requirements for voting, while at the same time several states disenfranchised women and free African-Americans. [ 3 ] By 1840, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia were the only states that still had property requirements to vote.
Groups excluded from voting included laborers, tenant farmers, unskilled workers and indentured servants. These were considered to lack a "stake in society" and to be vulnerable to corruption. [34] Tax issues and budget decisions originated in the assembly. Part of the budget went toward the cost of raising and equipping the colonial militia ...
During the American colonial period a freeman was a person who was not a slave. The term originated in 12th-century Europe. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman; in neighboring Plymouth Colony a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be elected to this privilege by the General Court.
The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the early 16th century until the uniting of the Thirteen English Colonies and creation of the United States in 1776, during the Revolutionary War.
The history of direct democracy amongst non-Native Americans in the United States dates from the 1630s in the New England Colonies. [1]The legislatures of the New England colonies were initially governed as popular assemblies, with every freeman eligible to directly vote in the election of officers and drafting of laws.
Dorr had originally supported granting voting rights to blacks, but he changed his position in 1840 because of pressure from white immigrants who wanted to gain the vote first. At the same time, the state's General Assembly formed a rival convention and drafted the Freemen's Constitution, with some concessions to democratic demands.