1860 New York suffrage referendum

New York ballot measure New York black suffrage referendum 1846 1869 November 6, 1860 Question of Negro Suffrage 197889 345791 543680 350px County results Yes #B6C8D9 50-60%#7D9CBB 60-70% No #DEDEBD 50-60%#BCBC83 60-70%#8B8B54 70-80%#5D5D2D 80-90%#32320C 90-100% Unknown/No Vote #808080 A referendum on Black suffrage was held in New York in 1860. Voters were asked whether universal suffrage for Black men 21 years of age and older should be introduced. At the time, Black voters were required to meet certain property-owning criteria. Black men who owned the required amount of property could still vote in the state, and many did vote in the referendum.Hanes Walton Jr, Sherman Puckett, Donald R Deskins Jr The African American Electorate, p151 The referendum question failed, with 64% voting against the change, and property restrictions to vote were maintained for Black voters. The referendum was most heavily supported by voters in Upstate New York. The Five Boroughs of New York City, as well as most of the area around the city, voted against the proposed amendment.http://facweb.furman.edu/~bensonlloyd/civwar/NYBlackSuffrage1860.png Archived copy 2015-02-12 2015-02-12 https://web.archive.org/web/20150212025916/http://facweb.furman.edu/~bensonlloyd/civwar/NYBlackSuffrage1860.png live Using township level data, opponents of suffrage were correlated with higher amounts of Dutch Reformed adherents (mostly located along the Hudson Valley) as well as Irish and German immigrants (mostly located in New York City). Proponents tended to be evangelicals and those of New England birth. The areas that had most stridently supported suffrage also tended to have lower concentrations of Black residents, as well as having little history with slavery (which had been concentrated in the Hudson Valley and New York City when it was legal). These trends had been similar in the 1846 referendum on suffrage.Field Phyllis F. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv2n7f2t The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era 1982 Cornell University Press 978-0-8014-1408-4 10.7591/j.ctv2n7f2t.8?seq=2 1 July 2025 10.7591/j.ctv2n7f2t See also 1860 New York state election Universal suffrage Constitution of New York References Category:1860 referendums Category:Referendums in the United States Category:1860 in New York (state) Category:Suffrage referendums Category:African-American history of New York (state) Category:Pre-emancipation African-American history Category:History of African-American civil rights Category:November 1860 in the United States