The First Vote. The famous November 16, 1867, Harper’s Weekly cover illustration depicts freedmen, free blacks, and Union soldiers proudly casting their ballots in the South for the first time.
By far, the above scene was the exception and not the rule. Of the eleven seceding states, Tennessee alone, on July 7, 1866, had agreed to ratify the pending 14th Amendment to gain voting rights for congressional representation and be readmitted to the Union.
To overrule President Johnson’s now-familiar veto and gather in the 10 remaining southern states, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts in March 1867, dividing these ten into five military districts, each with a commander tasked to oversee new state constitutions that allowed enfranchisement (voting rights) for all adult males. Most southern states complied the following year. Holdouts Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia were readmitted three years later, and their male citizens, finally, could vote.