Abstract
Despite the intense flurry of activity during the Civil War to ensure that soldiers in the field could cast votes, the interest in maintaining that access quickly waned with the end of the war. Most of the legislation framed the absentee soldier vote as a wartime measure. Many of the laws had sunset provisions in them mandating that they would expire at some point. By 1870, most states no longer had any statutes specifically permitting soldiers out of their home state to vote. Legislators clearly saw a difference between soldiers in the regular US Army and volunteers fighting in state regiments.
The true reason of requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is to exclude such persons as are in so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.
William Blackstone, 17651
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Notes
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© 2016 Donald S. Inbody
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Inbody, D.S. (2016). The Forgotten Soldier. In: The Soldier Vote. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137519207_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137519207_4
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