Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-61). / The racial status quo in the American South persisted through an unspoken detente between the federal government and the Southern state governments during the second half of the 19 th century. The political disenfranchisement of blacks took place in distinct stages following Reconstruction. In the 1880s, Jim Crowe had not yet been enacted but Reconstruction was over. Blacks were technically allowed to vote, but turnout was around five percent at any given election. The prevailing historical theory is that the threat of violence was a form of de facto disenfranchisement that prevented blacks from turning out to vote. Both historians and political scientists assume lynching to be the method through which the white population of the American South prevented political and social equality. Lynching is a form of ethnic violence, but there has not yet been a rigorous methodological examination of it as a potential form of political violence. In the following thesis I will examine the claims regarding the use of political violence within lynching in the southern United States. Under what circumstances would political violence be used or not be used in equilibrium? I begin with the assumption that lynching increases due to an impending election. Violence would be a function of the temporal proximity of a certain election. I will examine this claim using the dates of lynching and elections from 1880 to 1890. The second analysis of the paper examines whether or not political violence is due to factional politics. Violence would then be a function of the margin of the Republican or Democrat victory. The temptation to engage in political violence to manipulate election outcomes increases as the election draws closer. In this analysis, we examine the violence leading up to the election date with controls, including fixed effects (by state and county), census data and clustered standard error. / (cont.) When the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, free male blacks could vote in Maine, Tennessee and Vermont. In 1865, free male blacks could vote in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island. In 1866, only 5% of eligible blacks voted in former Confederate states. One year of extending the franchise to blacks and the percent rose to 80.5% (Valelly 2004, pg. 3). The black vote enraged elements of the white population, substantively crystallized in movements such as the KKK, which was founded in 1868. During the 5 3 rd Congress (1893-1895), 94% of the voting rights measures legislated during Reconstruction were repealed (Valelly 2004, pg. 1). The national rates of lynching fell shortly afterwards. Violence in the American South escalated throughout the second half of the 19 th century. The homicide rate in the South was the highest in the United States and among the highest for industrialized nations (Ayers 1992, pg. 155). From 1882-1931, 4,589 people were lynched with a peak in the 1890s of 154 victims per year (Horowitz 1983). Historians see lynching as a reassertion of white Supremacy in light of the abolition of slavery and the carpetbagger occupation of the South (Horowitz 1983). Political violence during Reconstruction vastly surpassed the political violence we note in our decade of interest (1880-1890). After 1877, Republican assassinations and the threat of violence had all but suppressed opposition to the Democratic Party (Kousser 1999, pg. 22). Republicans still garnered respectable vote shares throughout the 1880s, though there were drops in their vote share immediately following violence (Kousser 1999, pg. 23). Violence was as common a tool as miscounting Republican votes (Vallely 2004, pg. 50). While Kousser believes that the vote drop-off cannot be solely attributed to the violence, he does allege a connection between elections and violence, a claim consistently present in the following literature review. Political violence was not an effective long term deterrent, repetition was necessary in order to disenfranchise blacks. / (cont.) As "redemption" ended and the "restoration" of the South began (the time periods will be subsequently discussed) lynching decreased. The national rate of lynching dropped as disenfranchisement became permanent and legal (Vallely 2004, pg. 144). Again, regardless of the effectiveness of political violence or the direct correlation to turnout, lynching persisted throughout the 1880s. Lynching peaked in the 1890s, while Jim Crowe and other legal "reforms" were being instituted, only to fall by 1900 and decrease each decade after (noted in both our dataset and the historical literature). Blacks are being excluded from voting through intimidation. If violence increases before a federal election, the powers that be are attempting to prevent an influx of blacks voting for the Republican Party or third party movements, such as Populism or Greenbacks. In the brief period where adult male blacks had the right to vote, there was evidence that the social and political structure of the South would be irrevocably altered, as over 80% of the eligible black voting population voted, even electing black representatives to Congress. The Reconstruction configuration of elites allowed the disfranchisement of a large (in some areas, a majority) group. The disenfranchisement process created high voting penalties. The Australian ballot and other double edged election reforms lowered the cost of voting "incorrectly" by privileging one's vote; at the same time, the cost of voting increases as political violence is strategically implemented to prevent blacks from going to the polls. Any lynching causal mechanism returns to this historical claim of lynching increasing before elections. Whether the impetuses for violence are an attempt to prevent wealth redistribution or reduce Republican turnout, both allege violence to be politically motivated prior to elections. / by Kimberly Menaster. / S.M.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/54604 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Menaster, Kimberly (Kimberly Ann) |
| Contributors | James Snyder., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. |
| Publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 61 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 |
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