In Search of Federal Enforcement

The Moral Authority of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Integrity of the Black Ballot, 1870–1965

Vanessa A. Holloway

In Search of Federal Enforcement is a call to investigate the history of federal oversight to secure and preserve black Americans’ voting rights over a ninety-five-year interregnum. This book satiates the reader’s harboring curiosity as to why the national government was culpably negligent in protecting the exercise of the franchise for black Americans until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As Holloway explains, much of this problem stemmed from Southern Democrats operating in tandem with the power of private actors to circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment. This mutual-advantage partnership codified disfranchisement, safeguarded the interests of recalcitrant Southern states and localities, and defended local systems of privilege. In the pages of this timely study, Holloway lays bare the abject failure of the national government and critically evaluates how the Southern status quo stimulated chaos at the national level. Despite market paradigms, In Search of Federal Enforcement confronts this historical conundrum and offers keen observations about voting manipulations and electoral abuse by both incumbents and private actors.

University Press of America

Pages: 140 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-7618-6576-6 • Hardback • May 2015 • $76.00 • (£58.00)

978-0-7618-6577-3 • eBook • May 2015 • $72.00 • (£55.00)

Subjects: Political Science / Civil Rights, History / Social History, History / United States / 20th Century, Political Science / American Government / Legislative Branch, Political Science / American Government / National, Political Science / Institutions, Political Science / Policy Analysis, Social Science / Social Change

In Search of Federal Enforcement

The Moral Authority of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Integrity of the Black Ballot, 1870–1965

Hardback

eBook

Summary

In Search of Federal Enforcement is a call to investigate the history of federal oversight to secure and preserve black Americans’ voting rights over a ninety-five-year interregnum. This book satiates the reader’s harboring curiosity as to why the national government was culpably negligent in protecting the exercise of the franchise for black Americans until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As Holloway explains, much of this problem stemmed from Southern Democrats operating in tandem with the power of private actors to circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment. This mutual-advantage partnership codified disfranchisement, safeguarded the interests of recalcitrant Southern states and localities, and defended local systems of privilege. In the pages of this timely study, Holloway lays bare the abject failure of the national government and critically evaluates how the Southern status quo stimulated chaos at the national level. Despite market paradigms, In Search of Federal Enforcement confronts this historical conundrum and offers keen observations about voting manipulations and electoral abuse by both incumbents and private actors.

Details

University Press of America

Pages: 140 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-7618-6576-6 • Hardback • May 2015 • $76.00 • (£58.00)

978-0-7618-6577-3 • eBook • May 2015 • $72.00 • (£55.00)

Subjects: Political Science / Civil Rights, History / Social History, History / United States / 20th Century, Political Science / American Government / Legislative Branch, Political Science / American Government / National, Political Science / Institutions, Political Science / Policy Analysis, Social Science / Social Change

Author

Vanessa A. Holloway teaches history courses at the City University of New York Medgar Evers College. She is also the author of Getting Away with Murder: The Twentieth-Century Struggle for Civil Rights in the U.S. Senate (University Press of America, 2014).

Table of Contents

Introduction. The Culpable Congress: The Enforcement Acts Repealed
1. Protecting Local Credos, Protecting Whiteness: Some Consequences of Administrational Subterfuge
2. The “Do-Nothing” Congresses: Legal Efforts Met with Failure
3. The Wrong Kind of Politics: Disfranchisement Proceeds Apace
4. Voting Rights, Voting Wrongs: More Legal Chicanery
5. Ensuing Challenges, Which Way is to Daylight?
Appendix A. Profiles of the 41^st-89^th Congress
Appendix B. Southern Democratic Senators, 41^st-89^th Congress
Selected Bibliography