How Did Suffrage Occur In North America

The practice of limiting suffrage arrived in North America with the first settlers from England. Every colony imposed a property qualification for voting, and many denied the franchise to Catholics, Jews, Native Americans, and freed black slaves; women were rarely allowed to vote. Many of these restrictions made it through the Revolution intact; only about half of the free adult male population was eligible to vote at the time the Constitution was adopted. The right to vote has progressed to virtually all citizens eighteen years and older who are not in prisons or mental institutions. The success of nearly universal adult suffrage reflects the powerful appeal of democratic ideas, combined with deep socials changes, the struggles of dedicated activists, and the continuous scramble of politicians for votes. The property qualifications and voting …show more content…
Most adults during this time were poor, illiterate, and dependent; they were servants, tenants, hired hands, or paupers. Members of the upper-class minority-a well-born, prosperous, and educated elite-took for granted their right to govern. They were not about to risk the present social order, which served them so well, by extending voting rights to people whose interests might be better served by changing it. In the colonies, land was easier to obtain and far more evenly distributed in the than in England, a larger proportion of adult males qualified to vote. By the revolutionary period any “respectable” man-meaning white, protestant, and gainfully employed-was in practice, allowed to vote in many places. More important and long-lasting, the ringing statements in the Declaration of Independence that