ABSTRACT
It remained possible, despite the existence of two-party competition, that no electoral motivation emerged among incumbents to remove the property qualification, largely because inclusion of the disenfranchised would have disturbed constituency interests within both parties. Given mounting frustration, neglected population segments resorted eventually to mobilization outside and opposed to the normal channels of politics, including angry protests and even rebellion, prompting concessions for the purpose of restored government legitimacy. This situation pertained only once in the United States, in Rhode Island (1842), with the insurgent People’s Convention and subsequent Dorr’s Rebellion. Urban Whigs, who were anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic, worried that new voters would upset local dominance. Rural Democrats were afraid that expanded franchise would shift representation to the towns and cities. The growing suffrage movement had little option but to call its own constitutional convention, organize its own elections, and attempt to install a government antagonistic to that selected according to the state’s formal property qualification, with somewhat disastrous results.
