ISBN10: 0823220842, ISBN13: 9780823220847, [publisher: Fordham University Press 2001-01-31, New York] Softcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2001]

ISBN10: 0823220842, ISBN13: 9780823220847, [publisher: Fordham University Press, New York] Softcover Paperback. "A Free Ballot and a Fair Count" examines the efforts by the Department of Justice to implement the federal legislation passed by Congress in 1870-71 known as the Enforcement Acrs. These laws were designed to enforce the voting rights guarantees for African-Americans under the recently ratified Fifteenth Amendment. The Enforcement Acrs set forth a range of federally enforceable crimes aimed at combating white southerners' attempts to deny or restrict black suffrage. There are several aspects of this work that distinguish it from other, earlier works in this area. Contrary to older interpretative studies, Goldman's primary thesis is that, the federal government's attempts to protect black voting rights in the South did not cease with the Supreme Court's hostile rulings in U.S. u Reese and U.S. u Cruikshank in 1875. Nor, it is argued, did enforcement efforts cease at the end of Reconstruction and the so-called Compromise of 1877. Rather, federal enforcement efforts after 1877 reflected the continued commitment of Republican Party leaders, for both humanitarian and partisan reasons, to what came to be called "the free ballot and a fair count."Another unique aspect of this book is its focus on the role of the federal Department of Justice and its officials in the South in the continued enforcement effort. Created as a ...