The 1864 Union Soldier Vote
3
have long since taken for granted: Can the circulation of mediated messages be
substituted for the physical presence of corporeal persons at the polls?
Briefly, a historical overview:
The presidential election of 1864 came at the climax of a four-year war. The
official platform of the Democratic Party crystallized dissent against the war, calling it a
“failure.” Candidate George B. McClellan (the former commander of the Army of the
Potomac) rejected that particular plank in his acceptance of the nomination, but
vigorously criticized the Administration’s prosecution of the war. The Republican
platform was simple: full prosecution of the war until the South’s concession to Northern
demands. Democrats and Republicans both claimed that the soldiers would support their
candidate. By 1864, as many as 1.6 million soldiers served in the field. Approximately
3.9 million voters had participated in the 1860 Presidential election; although not all
soldiers could vote, the electoral stakes were very high. The administration of military
balloting was as pressing an issue as who the soldiers would choose, and the two were
closely intertwined in the debates over legislation for bringing the soldiers’ votes back to
their home states. Speakers on both sides of the debate consistently argued that their goal
was not to change current qualifications for voting, but to preserve them. Both sides
claimed to be in the business of preventing change, in ensuring that the soldier voting
regulations continued to exclude the unqualified. A system was needed to compensate
or control for the exigencies of war and remain logically consistent with peacetime
elections. Critical attention to this debate reveals historically specific ideas about the
sufficiency of communication technologies to represent citizens who were absent, both
physically and experientially.
Society and Suffrage
Bristol, UK; Portland, OR: Intellect.
Convention