The Black Voting Rights Issue in Pennsylvania, 1780-1900
DURING the nineteenth century most blacks viewed the voting franchise as a panacea for solving their problems. What they failed to realize was that their success or failure in achieving the goal of equal rights was dependent upon many variables operating in American society. Pennsylvania, a state where during the nineteenth century blacks encountered the determined opposition of prejudiced whites, offers an excellent example of the potential for improving their conditions and the problems which voting rights presented to northern blacks. The Pennsylvania Abolition Act of 1780 provided for the gradual abolition of slavery but made no comment as to the political status of free blacks. The question as to whether blacks could legally exercise the right to vote depended upon the interpretation of the state's Constitution of 1776 which extended the franchise to "every freeman of the full age of twenty-one years, having resided in this State for one whole year before the day of election for Representatives and paid public taxes during that time. . . ." The key word in this passage was freeman. Many white officials considered this term to exclude blacks due to their past status. Without a revision in the language of the Constitution or a ruling by the courts, the status of black voters remained ambiguous and was left to the discretion of local officials. An opportunity to clarify the wording of the Constitution developed in 1789 when the citizens of Pennsylvania called for a constitutional convention to revise that document. When the suffrage article was brought up for consideration, several antiblack