African American men secure the right to vote in Washington, D.C. - January 8th, 1867

On this day in 1867, the U.S. Congress passed the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill, granting African American men the right to vote for the first time in the nation’s history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that gives a quick look it's something that
happened a long time ago. Today I'm Gay Bluesier, and
in this episode, we're examining the day when members of

(00:22):
Congress took a notable first step toward black enfranchiseman during
the Reconstruction era. The day was January eighth, eighteen sixty seven.

(00:42):
The US Congress passed the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill,
granting African American men the right to vote for the
first time in the nation's history. The bill's passage occurred
about two months before the Reconstruction Acts enfranchised black men
in the South, and three years before the Fifteenth Amendment

(01:03):
granted voting rights to all men regardless of race. Meanwhile,
black women, like all women in the United States, wouldn't
gain the rights to vote until nineteen twenty. The DC
Bill may have been the first law to grant suffrage
to African American men, but it still came with plenty
of caveats. The exceptions were male residents under the age

(01:27):
of twenty one, as well as anyone on welfare. Anyone
under someone else's guardianship, those who had been convicted of
a major crime, and those who had voluntarily sheltered Confederate
soldiers during the Civil War. At the time, the federal
government had direct control over the elections and voting rights
of the district. Citizens of d C were allowed to

(01:51):
vote for a local legislature called a council, but they
didn't have any representation in Congress, and they weren't allowed
to vote in presidential elections. All of that eventually changed,
but even today, the district remains woefully underrepresented in Congress,
and it's the only city budget in the country that

(02:11):
still requires Congressional approval. Federal oversight certainly has its downsides,
but in eighteen sixty seven, it actually worked in the
resident's favor for once. By the time the Civil War
ended in eighteen sixty five, the secession of Southern States
had cleared almost all of the Democrats out of Congress.

(02:33):
This put Lincoln's Republican Party firmly in charge, and one
of the first items on their agenda was to enfranchise
black men wherever they could. This inevitably led them to
focus on Washington, d C. Where Congress had the power
to do away with racial qualifications for voting, but there

(02:53):
was still one obstacle to overcome, and his name was
President Andrew Johnson. He had assumed the presidency following the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln in eighteen sixty five, and unlike
his predecessor, Johnson wasn't a Republican. He was a Unionist Democrat.
That means he hadn't favored secession, but still sided with

(03:16):
Southern states on many other matters. Lincoln had chosen Johnson
as his running mate in the eighteen sixty four election
in order to promote the idea of a newly unified nation. However,
that bipartisan gesture backfired when Johnson took over as president,
setting the executive branch at odds with a Republican legislature.

(03:39):
As President, Johnson put more importance on reconciling with the
former Confederate States than he did on securing equal rights
for citizens. As a result, when Congress first passed the
d C Suffrage Bill in early January of eighteen sixty seven,
President Johnson issued a veto to kill it. Still, in

(04:00):
the end, that was just a feudal gesture. Congress reconvened
three days later on January eight, and voted to override
Johnson's veto. The measure passed easily with a vote of
twenty nine to ten in the Senate and a hundred
and twelve to thirty eight in the House. President Johnson
would continue to fight the so called radical Reconstructionists and

(04:24):
Congress for the remainder of his presidency. His constant opposition
and frequent vetos eventually led to him becoming the first
US president ever to be impeached, though he wasn't convicted
of a crime or removed from office. The first chance
for black men in the District of Columbia to exercise

(04:45):
their new found right came in the summer of that
same year when the city's municipal elections were held. By
the time of election day, black men accounted for a
stunning fifty percent of d C regis stirred voters, despite
being only thirty percent of the city's population. They had
finally won the right to vote, and they intended to

(05:09):
use it. The DC Suffrage Bill certainly had its limitations,
but it was a solid wind for the early civil
rights movement, and a hard fought one at that. This
particular victory hinged on the actions of white leaders in
the federal government. But it's important to remember that African
Americans had been fighting for freedom and equal rights themselves

(05:31):
since the earliest days of the country. During the Civil War,
black leaders used the social upheaval of the moment to
frame a strong political argument in favor of black male suffrage.
For example, during an address in eighteen sixty three, Frederick
Douglas argued that extending the vote to formerly enslaved citizens

(05:53):
would help preserve the Union's victory in the Civil War.
He said that if given the right to vote, African
Americans would become the country's quote best protector against the
traders and the descendants of those traders, who will inherit
the hate, the bitter revenge, which shall crystallize all over

(06:14):
the South and seek to circumvent the government that they
could not throw off. You may need him to uphold
in peace as he is now upholding in war. The
Star Spangled banner. Douglas had hit upon a practical appeal
for extending voting rights to black citizens. The party that

(06:36):
did so would likely win their votes for some time
to come. Republican members of Congress seem to have gotten
the memo and were swayed by the argument. By eighteen
sixty seven, they were finally ready to get to work
on the nationwide and franchisement of African American men, even
if mainly for their own ends. The district law was

(07:00):
a precursor to the Reconstruction Acts and constitutional amendments that
would follow it. Today, it's remembered as a small but
critical step on the long winding road to equal rights.
Over a century and a half later, that journey still
has no end in sight, But with so much on
the line, the important thing is that we just keep going.

(07:25):
I'm Gabe Louisier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
enjoyed the show, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and
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you have any comments or suggestions, you can only send
them my way by writing to this Day at i

(07:47):
heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing
the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
back here again tomorrow for another Day in History Class
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