No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The South, Slavery, and Competition in Early US House Elections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2018
Abstract
In this study of the early US Congress (First through Nineteenth: 1789–1827), we assess the impact of slavery on the electoral competitiveness of House elections. Slavery and other forms of labor repressive agriculture have long been known to undermine democracy. Using district-level measures of electoral competitiveness and slavery, we find that a higher percentage of slaves in a district negatively impacts competition, even when we limit our models to Southern elections. Our findings indicate that from the nation's founding up to the age of Andrew Jackson, slavery strongly accounts for a pronounced disparity in the competitiveness of House elections.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2018
References
Abernethy, T. (2009) The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815–1828. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D., and Robinson, J. (2006) Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Acharya, A., Blackwell, M., and Sen, M. (2016) “The political legacy of American slavery.” Journal of Politics 78 (3): 621–41.Google Scholar
Aldrich, J. H. (1995) Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, L. (1991) “Constituency opinion and congressional policy-making: The Reagan defense build-up.” American Political Science Review 85 (2): 457–74.Google Scholar
Beeman, R. R. (1992) “Deference, Republicanism, and the emergence of popular politics in eighteenth-century America.” William and Mary Quarterly 49 (3): 401–30.Google Scholar
Bensel, R. F. (2004) The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Black, E., and Black, M. (2002) The Rise of Southern Republicans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bolton, C. (1994) Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Boucher, C. S. (1921) “In Re that aggressive slaveocracy.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 8 (1/2): 13–80.Google Scholar
Burnham, W. D. (1970) Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Burnham, W. D. (2010) Voting in American Elections: The Shaping of the American Political Universe since 1788. Bethesda, MD: Academica Press.Google Scholar
Carey, A. G. (1997) Parties, Slavery, and the Union in Antebellum Georgia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Carson, J. L., and Crespin, M. (2004) “The effect of state redistricting methods on electoral competition in United States House of Representatives races.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 4 (4): 455–69.Google Scholar
Carson, J. L., and Engstrom, E. J. (2005) “Assessing the electoral connection: Evidence from the early United States.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (4): 746–57.Google Scholar
Carson, J. L., and Hood, M. V. III (2014) “Candidates, competition, and the partisan press: Congressional elections in the early antebellum era.” American Politics Research 42 (5): 760–83.Google Scholar
Carson, J. L., and Roberts, J. M. (2005) “Strategic politicians and US House elections, 1874–1914.” Journal of Politics 67 (2): 474–96.Google Scholar
Carson, J. L., and Roberts, J. M. (2013) Ambition, Competition, and Electoral Reform: The Politics of Congressional Elections Across Time. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Carter, D., and Signorino, C. (2010) “Back to the future: Modeling time dependence in binary data.” Political Analysis 18 (3): 271–92.Google Scholar
Cecil-Fronsman, B. (1992) Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Clark, W., and Golder, M. (2006) “Rehabilitating Duverger's theory: Testing the mechanical and strategic modifying effects of electoral laws.” Comparative Political Studies 39 (6): 679–708.Google Scholar
Collins, J., ed. (2015) Defining the Delta: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Lower Mississippi River Delta. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press.Google Scholar
Cox, G. (1997) Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cox, G., and Katz, J. (2002) Elbridge Gerry's Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, R. (1971) Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dallinger, F. W. (1897) Nomination for Elective Office. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Historical Studies.Google Scholar
Deyle, S. (2009) “An ‘abominable’ new trade: The closing of the African slave trade and the changing patterns of US political power, 1808–60.” William and Mary Quarterly 66 (4): 833–52.Google Scholar
Ehrenhalt, A. (1992) The United State of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Office. Pittsburgh, PA: Three Rivers Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, J. J. (2002) Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Engerman, S., and Sokoloff, K. (2012) Economic Development in the Americas since 1500. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Engstrom, E. J. (2006) “Stacking the states, stacking the House: The politics of Congressional redistricting in the 19th century.” American Political Science Review 100 (3): 419–27.Google Scholar
Engstrom, E. J. (2013) Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Engstrom, E. J., and Kernell, S. (2005) “Manufactured responsiveness: The impact of state electoral laws on unified party control of the Presidency and House of Representatives, 1840–1940.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 531–49.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, J. (1977) “On the decline of competition in congressional elections.” American Political Science Review 71 (1): 166–76.Google Scholar
Foner, E. (1988) Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Gaddie, R. K., and Bullock, C. S. III (2000) Elections to Open Seats in the US House: Where the Action Is. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Glassman, M. E., and Wilhelm, A. H. (2015) “Congressional careers: Service, tenure, and patterns of member service, 1789–2015.” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.Google Scholar
Huston, J. (1999) “Property rights and the coming of the Civil War.” Journal of Southern History 65 (2): 249–86.Google Scholar
Jacobson, G. C. (2004) The Politics of Congressional Elections, 6th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. A. (2004) “Partisanship and contested election cases in the House of Representatives, 1789–2002.” Studies in American Political Development 18 (2): 112–35.Google Scholar
Kernell, S. (1977) “Toward understanding 19th century congressional careers: Ambition, competition, and rotation.” American Journal of Political Science 21 (4): 669–93.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. (1949) Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Keyssar, A. (2009) The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
King, G., Tomz, M., and Wittenberg, J. (2000) “Making the most of statistical analyses: Improving interpretation and presentation.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (2): 341–55.Google Scholar
Kleppner, P. (1982) Who Voted? The Dynamics of Electoral Turnout, 1870–1980. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. M. (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kuklinski, J. H. (1977) “District competitiveness and legislative roll-call behavior: A reassessment of the marginality hypothesis.” American Journal of Political Science 21 (3): 627–38.Google Scholar
Laakso, M., and Taagepera, R. (1979) “Effective number of parties: A measure with application to Western Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 12 (1): 3–27.Google Scholar
Lampi, P. J. (2018) A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825. Online Archive: https://elections.lib.tufts.eduGoogle Scholar
Lewis, J. B., DeVine, B., Pitcher, L., and Martis, K. C. (2013) Digital Boundary Definitions of United States Congressional Districts, 1789–2012. Congressional districts 1–20. http://cdmaps.polisci.ucla.edu (accessed February 19, 2015).Google Scholar
Lijphart, A. (1994) Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945–1990. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MacRae, D. Jr. (1952) “The relation between roll call votes and constituencies in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.” American Political Science Review 46 (4): 1046–55.Google Scholar
Mayhew, D. R. (1974) Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Minnesota Population Center. (2011) National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, http://www.nhgis.org (accessed February 19, 2015).Google Scholar
Olsen, C. (2000) Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830–1860. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrogorski, M. (1964) Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Pessen, E. (1980) “How different from each other were the antebellum North and South?” American Historical Review 85 (5): 1119–49.Google Scholar
Polsby, N. W. (1968) “The institutionalization of the US House of Representatives.” American Political Science Review 62 (2): 144–68.Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, D. (2013) “The right to vote and the rise of democracy, 1787–1828.” Journal of the Early Republic 33 (2): 219–54.Google Scholar
Richards, L. L. (2009) The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780–1860. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Risjord, N. (1973) “How the common man voted in Jefferson's Virginia,” in Boles, John (ed.) America: The Middle Period; Essays in Honor of Bernard Mayo. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia: 36–64.Google Scholar
Rueschemeyer, D., Stephens, E. H., and Stephens, J. D. (1992) Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shade, W. G. (1987) “Society and politics in antebellum Virginia's Southside.” Journal of Southern History 53 (2): 163–93.Google Scholar
Siczewicz, P. (2011) “US historical counties dataset,” in Long, John H. (ed.) Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Chicago: The Newberry Library, http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp (accessed March 15, 2015).Google Scholar
Smith, R. M. (1993) “Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The multiple traditions in America.” American Political Science Review 87 (3): 549–66.Google Scholar
Sydnor, C. (1948) The Development of Southern Sectionalism 1819–1948. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Sydnor, C. (1952) Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Parties in Washington's Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Taagepera, R., and Shugart, M. S. (1989) Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Van Cleve, G. W. (2010) A Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, Politics, and the Constitution in the Early American Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Watson, H. L. (1985) “Conflict and collaboration: Yeoman, slaveholders, and politics in the antebellum South.” Social History 10 (3): 273–98.Google Scholar
Wells, J. D. (2009) “The Southern middle class.” Journal of Southern History 75 (3): 651–62.Google Scholar
Wilentz, S. (2005) The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Williamson, C. (1960) American Suffrage from Property to Democracy, 1760–1860. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar