The Story of the First Black Voter in the United States

On this episode of Our American Stories, shortly after ratifying the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude", Thomas Mundy Peterson made history and became our nation's first black voter.  Here to tell this great American story is the Jack Miller Center's Editorial Officer and historian, Elliott Drago.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And here to
tell another great American story is the Jack Miller Center's
editorial officer and historian, Eliot Drago. This is the story
of what happened shortly after the ratification of the fifteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the federal government

(00:33):
and each state from denying or abridging citizen's right to
vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Americans today understand the saying every vote matters, But what
did every vote matters? Voting and citizenship mean in the
early history of the United States. Unlike today's federal laws,
which are designed to protect voters and voting rights, last times,
individual states determined who could vote and in a sense,

(01:04):
determined who was a citizen. During the early Republic, many
states legislated voting rights and citizenship as the purview of
white property owning men. By the eighteen thirties, however, as
the United States expanded its territory and witnessed the arrival
of millions of immigrants in the creation of a new
two party system, most states enfranchised all white men. Women,

(01:26):
and black Americans were generally written out of state voting
rights legislation, leading to a suffrage movement that galvanized many
of the nation's most aggressive activists. These women struggles bore
fruit with the ratification of the nineteenth Amendment, albeit decades
after the founders of the movement had passed away. Black Americans, too,
fought for the right to vote throughout the nineteenth century.

(01:47):
Like their female counterparts, men like Robert Purvis and Frederick
Douglas delivered fiery speeches to agitate and then attract national attention.
In eighteen fifty seven, the dread Scott Decision reinforced the
notion of Black Americans as non citizens, further hampering their
right to vote. As the nation itself faced the consequences

(02:08):
of slavery. During the Civil War, black men who fought
and bled for the Union argued that their wartime service
entitled them to vote. After the war, the rise of
the Republican Party in the South, an election of black
political leaders to local, state, and national office initiated the
process of debating and drafting a new voting rights amendment.

(02:29):
Five years after the war ended, Congress ratified the fifteenth Amendment,
which read in the Right of Citizens of the United
States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any State on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude. Making the Fifteenth Amendment a

(02:49):
tangible reality required one thing, a black man exercising his
right to vote. This man was Thomas Mundy Peterson, the
son of a freedwoman. Peterson resided in perth Amboy, New Jersey,
once a major hub of the colonial slave trade. While
New Jersey did pass gradual emancipation laws in eighteen oh four,

(03:11):
the state contained two thirds of all enslaved people living
in the North in the eighteen thirties and would not
formally abolish slavery until eighteen forty six. Within twenty four
hours of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish certifying the Fifteenth Amendment,
Peterson exercised his freedom and citizenship by becoming the first
black American to vote in the United States election under

(03:32):
the protection of the federal government. The election itself was
a referendum to either revise or jettison perth Amboy's town charter.
Peterson explained, as I advanced to the polls, one man
offered me a ticket bearing the words revised Charter, and
another one marked no charter. I thought I would not

(03:53):
vote to give up our charter after holding it so long,
so I chose a revised charter ballot. Ballot in hand,
he went to perth Amboy's City Hall and cast his
vote to amend, rather than eliminate, the town's charter. Two
crucial points can be made about Peterson's historic vote. First,

(04:13):
as the historian Gordon Bond pointed out, this was the
first time that anyone had cast a ballot that was
both guaranteed and protected by the US Constitution. Thomas Peterson
consummated our modern understanding of the relationship between citizenship and
suffrage in the fullest possible sense. At the time, while
it would take decades for American women to receive the

(04:35):
right to vote, Peterson's vote and the votes of other
black men showed how the Constitution could protect citizens from
being denied their voting rights. This active and protective function
of the Fifteenth Amendment gave weight to the words of
President Ulysses S. Grant, who, after the amendment's ratification, delivered
a special message to Congress in which he called the
amendment measure of grander importance than any other one act

(04:57):
of the kind from the foundation of our free government
to the present day. Second, though Peterson's vote to amend
did not eliminate the town Charter seems mundane, it in
fact emphasized how the strength of the Constitution lies in
its flexibility. As Americans worked towards their cherished founding ideals,

(05:18):
they exhausted much blood and treasure to bring about constitutional
change in the form of amendments. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth amendments to the Constitution arguably represented the most radical
changes in American history. While not as seemingly radical as
those amendments, Peterson's choice to amend the town Charter reflects
something many Americans take for granted. The people themselves can

(05:41):
change the Constitution to better realize our founding principles. Though important,
Thomas Mundy Peterson's vote does not overshadow the terrible rollback
of voting rights that permeated the nation after Reconstruction ended
in eighteen seventy seven. The rise of white supremacists in
the South of the terror of the KKKA, and arbitrary

(06:01):
voting requirements prevented many Black Americans from participating in the
nation's body politic. Constitutional protections that failed on the short
term ended up seeding in the long term, however, as
more Americans began working together to reinstitute the true meaning
of citizenship and voting. At times, this noble endeavor to
secure the vote for Black Americans and women was marked

(06:22):
by notable setbacks. That said, the Fifteenth Amendment's ratification and
immediate realization by Peterson solidified the right to vote as
an attainable ideal of citizenship, making every vote matters, a
notion worth preserving and celebrating each election cycle.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Elliot Drago.
He's the Jack Miller Center's editorial officer and historian. Jack
Miller Center is a nationwide network of scholars and teachers
dedicated to educating the next generation about America's founding principles
and history. To learn more or go to Jackmillercenter dot org.

(07:02):
That's Jackmillercenter dot org. The story of America's most important franchise,
and that is the right to Vote and what it
means and why voting matters. That story and how the
franchise was expanded to African Americans. Thomas Mundy Peterson being
the first black to vote after the Fifteenth Amendment. That

(07:24):
story here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib,
host of our American Stories. Every day we set out
to tell the stories of Americans past and present, from
small towns to big cities, and from all walks of
life doing extraordinary things. But we truly can't do this
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(07:46):
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