Voting Restrictions in the Golden Era of Democracy: Race, Party and Race Culture in the Antebellum North.

The paper is a draft of the first chapter of a manuscript on race and voting rights in the antebellum North. It sketches out the theoretical framework for the larger work by focusing on three interacting factors and explains why racial voting restrictions were (or were not) enacted in four northern states before the Civil War: first, how racial conflict is structured through economic competition; second, how partisan competition is structured by racial cleavages; and third, how racial coalition formation is structured through racial narratives and a racialized discourse - what I call race culture. I argue that racial voting restrictions in the four Northern states occurred: 1) when racial conflict took place as an outgrowth of rapid economic and demographic change; 2) when political actors seeking electoral advantage were in a position to successfully prey upon this racial conflict by arousing newly enfranchised white (ethnic) voters; and 3) when an ascriptive race culture became the dominant racial paradigm for understanding citizenship rights for blacks. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]