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The Dorr Rebellion (1841–1842) was a failed attempt to force broader democracy in the U.S. state of Rhode Island, where a small rural elite was in control of government. It was led by Thomas Wilson Dorr, who mobilized the disenfranchised to demand changes to the state's electoral rules. The state used as its constitution the 1663 colonial charter that required a man to own $134 in property to vote, and gave an equal weight in the Rhode Island General Assembly to all towns no matter what their population. The effect in the 1830s was that the rapidly growing industrial cities were far outnumbered in the legislature, to the annoyance of businessmen and industrialists. Furthermore few immigrants or factory workers could vote, despite their growing numbers. All other states in 1840 saw a huge surge in turnout,〔http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1840〕 but nothing happened in Rhode Island. At first the middle classes (like Dorr himself—he was a Harvard man) took the lead. However the Charter government, controlled by rural elites, fought back hard. For six weeks in 1842 there were two rival governments. The Dorrites, led by self-proclaimed governor Dorr, pulled back from violence (after their cannon misfired). Only one person died: a bystander killed by accident. The Charter government compromised. It wrote a new constitution in 1843 that dropped the property requirement for men born in the United States but kept it for foreign-born citizens, and it gave more seats in the legislature to the cities.〔http://www.wordservice.org/State%20Constitutions/usa1031.htm〕 That satisfied the native born protesters, who gave up on the Rhode Island Suffrage Association. It did not satisfy the Irish immigrants who rallied behind him. The state government had the upper hand; the national government refused to intervene and Democrats in other states gave Dorr only verbal encouragement. His cause was hopeless—he and five lieutenants were sentenced to life in prison. They were pardoned in 1845 when the agitation had ended. Not until 1888 were the property qualifications dropped for immigrants.〔Chaput (2013)〕〔Dennison (1976)〕〔Gettleman, (1973)〕 In the next Presidential election held after the Dorr Rebellion, in 1844, 12,296 votes were cast from Rhode Island, a significant increase from the 8,621 cast in 1840.〔http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1840&fips=44&f=0&off=0&elect=0〕〔http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1844&fips=44&f=0&off=0&elect=0〕 == Precursors == Under Rhode Island's colonial charter, originally received in 1663, only landowners could vote. At the time, when most of the citizens of the colonies were farmers, this was considered fairly democratic. By the 1840s, landed property worth at least $134 was required in order to vote. However, as the Industrial Revolution reached North America and people moved to the cities, large numbers of people could no longer meet the minimum requirement to vote. By 1829, 60% of the state's free white men were ineligible to vote (as were all women and most non-white men). Many were recent Irish Catholic immigrants or other Roman Catholics. Some 〔''See Luther v. Borden'', 48 U.S. 1 (1849).〕 argued that an electorate made up of only 40% of the state's white men, and based on a colonial charter signed by the British monarch, was un-republican and violated the United States Constitution's Guarantee Clause, Art. IV: Sec. 4 ("The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government ()"). Before the 1840s, there were several attempts to replace the colonial charter with a new state constitution that provided broader voting rights, but all failed. The Charter lacked a procedure for amendment. The Rhode Island General Assembly had consistently failed to liberalize the constitution by extending voting rights, enacting a bill of rights, or reapportioning the legislature. By 1841, most states of the United States had removed property requirements and other restrictions on voting (see Jacksonian democracy), leaving Rhode Island as almost the only state falling significantly short of universal white manhood suffrage. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dorr Rebellion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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