Former Slaves in the South Registering to Vote for the First Time. An illustration from the June 4, 1870, Harper’s Weekly portrays voter registration in Richmond, Virginia, the former capitol of the Confederacy.
Not all states were able to enfranchise voters simultaneously. Between 1863 and 1870, fifteen northern states and territories rejected proposals to extend suffrage to blacks. Moreover, in the South, rampant violence (in which many hundreds of African Americans and white Republicans were murdered), property qualification laws, gerrymandering, intimidation, and fraud prevented blacks from voting. While Congress passed the 14th and 15th Amendments to remedy this, the 1877 removal of federal troops under the Hayes-Tilden Presidential Election Compromise, as well as the 1891 defeat of the Federal Elections Bill (which would have empowered the federal government to supervise elections, prevent voter suppression, and overturn fraudulent elections), effectively suspended congressional efforts to enforce black voting rights for 88 years, until LBJ’s Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforced compliance.