Kentucky is unique. Because it did not secede from the Union, Kentucky was not required to drop its viva voce voting system as a condition of readmission. Large numbers of African American men were enfranchised in Kentucky, a former slave state, with the ratification of the 15th Amendment. Consequently, Kentucky is the only state in which we can explore the stories of individual African American men voting en masse using evidence from the poll books.

Torn Loyalties

Kentucky was the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States during the Civil War and also Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Their towns of their birth (Lincoln’s Hodgeville and Davis’ Fairview) are only 125 miles apart.

Kentucky’s torn loyalties were symbolized by the birthplaces of these captains of the Civil War and in its awkward stance as a “Border State” during the war. Kentucky held a secessionist convention, contributed troops to the armies of both Lincoln and Davis, but remained grudgingly loyal to the North.

Regardless of its affiliation with the Union, slavery was fundamental to the state. Kentucky, with 20 percent of its population enslaved African Americans, was the Union’s largest slave state. In 1860, there were more enslaved African Americans (225,483) in Kentucky than in three states that seceded and there were more white owners of slaves (38,645) than in seven of the secessionist states. Kentucky’s political economy was based on slavery; it gave up slavery only with the greatest reluctance.

Kentucky, a Slave State, Exempt from Reconstruction

The US Congress controlled the readmission of Confederate states to the Union and required new constitutions recognizing black rights as a condition of re-entry. White Virginians had long voted by voice, but Virginia, another state with deep roots in slavery, was forced to give up viva voce to rejoin the Union. Oregon was the only other state to continue to require votes by voice after the Civil War but Oregon, never a slave state, had only a tiny black population.

Kentucky was not required to write a new constitution as it had remained loyal to the Union. The state Constitution of 1851, with its requirement for viva voce voting, remained in force. Thus, Kentucky was a unique laboratory in which we can study how African Americans used the vote in the 19th century. The incontrovertible evidence we have is the names of black men and white men recorded in the poll books, used in all elections from president to town marshals and local referenda.

African Americans had never voted in Kentucky before the 15th Amendment came into force. With the formal adoption of the 15th Amendment on March 30, 1870, overnight Kentucky had 18 percent more voters. Like white men, African Americans voted by voice in Kentucky.

The survival of the hand written poll books allow us to explore how individual African Americans (as well as white men) voted and who they voted for in every election for over the next 21 years. This is remarkable data, available only for Kentucky. One of the important discoveries is that in many elections the new black voters participated at about the same rate as white voters.

So startling was the enthusiasm with which African American men took up the vote, that several of the election clerks in Todd County annotated each black voter with the code “colored” in the poll books and in Garrard County, black and white voters appear to have formed separate lines, manifesting in the poll books as alternating black and white voters, with no two African American men allowed to cast their votes consecutively.

The poll books reveal that among the many factors that influenced how frequently black men voted was military service in the Civil War. Matching the poll books with the military records of the black men who went to war with Union forces as “colored troops,” the white men who were in Union armies, as well as those who fought for the Confederates, reveals an important social network, with black soldiers turning out in high numbers and turning out together.

“By voice” voting continued longer in Kentucky than any other American state. With the adoption of a new state constitution in 1892 Kentucky moved directly to the Australian secret ballot. Kentucky was the only state to move directly from oral voting to secret voting, without ever having a system of ticket voting. With that decision, viva voce voting ceased in Kentucky, and disappeared from America.