Vol. 11 No. 5 (May 2001) pp. 234-236.

THE RIGHT TO VOTE: THE CONTESTED HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES by Alexander Keyssar. New York: Basic Books. 467 pp. Cloth $30.00. ISBN: 0-456-02968-X.

Reviewed by Mark E. Rush, Department of Politics, Washington and Lee University.

Alexander Keyssar has written an enjoyable, informative, extensively documented study of "the contested history of Democracy in the United States." It is an exhaustive narrative that will be an eye-opening read to those new to the field of voting rights and a useful resource and reference to those already familiar with it.

Keyssar notes at the outset that THE RIGHT TO VOTE actually arose as a result of discoveries he encountered in his research on working class participation. He found early on that the beliefs he had held about the scope of and access to the franchise throughout American history were not supported by the trends of American political development. He therefore seeks to demonstrate that the expansion and development of democracy in the United States is "less unique than has oftentimes been claimed" (p. xxiii) and that the story of the right to vote has many twists-not all of which enhanced our democratic development.

The book is divided into eight chapters organized into three principal parts. In Part I, Keyssar discusses the colonial origins of the franchise while parts II and III broadly address the 19th and 20th centuries.

The franchise was not uniformly accessible or widespread during the colonial era. In many cases its scope varied because the franchise was, essentially, a right acquired as part of one's membership in the cities and towns in their corporate capacities. Accordingly, the franchise was not originally a "democratic," political right so much as it was comparable to shares in a corporation.

Keyssar nicely documents the many conflicting tensions that gave rise to the fits and starts that characterized American democratic development in the post-revolutionary era and throughout the 19th century. For example, in the older states, property and economic qualifications arose both as attempts to prevent certain parts of the populace from voting but also in the context of debates concerning the rights, privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. Thus, franchise restrictions had as much to do with political self-definition (and, by extension, self-government) as with any malicious attempt to discriminate.

In contrast, in the territories seeking population and therefore statehood, concerns about limiting and defining the polity were less important than husbanding it. Accordingly, who counted as a citizen or resident and whether they were alien or held property were less important. Warm bodies meant statehood-regardless of their naturalization.

Readers unfamiliar with the history of voting rights will find discussions such as this regarding the attempts to expand the

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franchise and the motives underpinning those attempts to be quite illuminating. Attempts to expand the franchise were not always altruistically driven. Similarly, measures that restricted it were not always malignant. Keyssar accordingly notes the ironic impact of some well-intentioned, progressive reforms. In some cases, these attempts to purify the political process could also produce barriers to participation whose impact compared to that of property qualifications, literacy tests and so forth. Thus, the anti-machine sentiments that led to the push for the Australian ballot also made it more difficult for the less-educated and less-literate citizen to vote. Similarly, while we may chafe at the use of literacy tests to prevent the poor from voting, their implementation was sometimes informed by a desire to provide an incentive for the poor to educate themselves and immigrants to assimilate.

The discussion of the women's suffrage movement is perhaps the most fascinating. In contrast to the enfranchisement of blacks as a result of the Civil War, the women's suffrage movement moved along much more incrementally- -never seeming able to acquire enough momentum or political allies to be successful in the 19th century. At points, the account is indeed gripping as he describes the suffragists' efforts to join forces with reformers, nativists, labor movements and so forth-in a desperate attempt to gain allies in their struggle for women's enfranchisement.

The final chapters deal with the Second Reconstruction and the implementation of the voting rights act. He nicely notes that the VRA shifted the locus of the conflict "from the right to vote to the value of the vote" (p. 265). In this part of the book, Keyssar essentially documents the first two of what voting rights scholars have come to regard as the "three generations" of voting rights: ensuring access to the ballot and then preventing its dilution via gerrymandering or other methods of manipulation. He then concludes with a discussion of the ongoing controversies concerning the (dis) enfranchisement of felons, extending the franchise to resident aliens and so forth.

Ultimately, THE RIGHT TO VOTE is a satisfying overview of the development and expansion of the franchise. It is extensively footnoted and documented and an enjoyable read. Keyssar does a thorough job not only of chronicling the development of voting rights in the United States but also demonstrating the extent to which the development and expansion of the franchise was intimately related to debates concerning citizenship, constitutionalism and so on.

Readers will come away from THE RIGHT TO VOTE appreciating the fact that the historical development of the franchise in the United States was by no means unique. It took time and no shortage of effort to change prevailing visions of democracy, citizenship rights and so forth throughout the world. Keyssar emphasizes at the end that while the existence of slavery and terrible racial oppression in the United States certainly adds distinction to the American democratic story, "the contested history of democracy in the United States" is not all that remarkable when cast in terms of the contested history of democracy throughout the world.

Scholars already familiar with the history and expansion of the franchise might find themselves wishing for more than the historical discussion Keyssar offers. THE RIGHT TO VOTE is an ideal introduction to the study of voting rights and would also

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serve nicely as a preface to other works such as Pole's POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN ENGLAND AND THE ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC (1966), Davidson and Grofman's QUIET REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH (1994), and Kousser's COLORBLIND INJUSTICE (1999). Nonetheless, it is a book that will certainly find space on the bookshelf of any scholar interested in the study of voting and elections in the United States.

REFERENCES:

Davidson, Chandler and Bernard Grofman, Ed. 1994. QUIET REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH: THE IMPACT OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT, 1965-1990. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kousser, J. Morgan. 1999. COLORBLIND INJUSTICE: MINORITY VOTING RIGHTS AND THE UNDOING OF THE SECOND RECONSTRUCTION. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Pole, J. R. 1966. POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN ENGLAND AND THE ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. New York, St. Martin's Press