Blocks of Five

Blocks of Five

The Blocks of Five were groups of electors who sold their votes to the United States Republican Party for the United States presidential election of 1888.

Background

In the Gilded Age, prior to the adoption of the secret ballot in Federal elections, political parties printed ballots and distributed them to their voters, who then cast them at their polling stations. Republican campaigner William Wade Dudley sent a circular on October 24 1888 to Indiana Republican officials, telling them to "divide the floaters ["vote sellers"] into blocks of five" and appoint a trusted leader who would be given the money to pay them for their fraud.

The plan was exposed when a railroad official turned one up and it was subsequently publicized. The Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison was elected anyway. The publicity of the notoriously brazen fraud is credited with aiding states' adoption of the secret ballot.

References

* "Dictionary of American History" by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940
* [http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/1998/november/object_nov98.php The Object at Hand: The Vote That Failed — Smithsonian Magazine]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Five Points (Atlanta) — Five Points is an area of Atlanta, Georgia, United States, the primary reference for the downtown area. The name refers to the convergence of Marietta Street, Edgewood Avenue, Decatur Street, and two legs of Peachtree Street (the Southern leg was …   Wikipedia

  • Five Corners, Jersey City — Five Corners is the local name of an intersection of three streets in Jersey City, New Jersey, and of the community that surrounds it. The streets are Summit Avenue, Newark Avenue and Hoboken Avenue. It is home to the Five Corners branch library… …   Wikipedia

  • Five-by-five (basketball) — A five by five is where a basketball player gets at least five in each of the positive categories (points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks) in one game.cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/3572650.html|title=Statist… …   Wikipedia

  • Five Dynasties — Period in Chinese history betweeen the fall of the Tang dynasty (907) and the founding of the Song dynasty (960), when five would be dynasties (the Hou Liang, the Hou Tang, the Hou Jin, the Hou Han, and the Hou Zhou) followed one another in quick …   Universalium

  • Five Dock, New South Wales — Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb name = Five Dock city = Sydney state = nsw caption = Old bank building on Great North Road, FiveDock lga = City of Canada Bay postcode = 2046 est = 1794 pop = 7,328 area = 2.45 propval = $742,000 stategov …   Wikipedia

  • North Park Blocks — A statue of Elephants in the North Park Blocks Type Urban park Location Portland, Oregon …   Wikipedia

  • Fokker periodicity blocks — are a concept in tuning theory used to mathematically relate musical intervals in just intonation to those in equal tuning. They are named after Adriaan Daniël Fokker.The basic idea of Fokker s periodicity blocks is to represent just ratios as… …   Wikipedia

  • Mesh blocks — are a small geographic unit used in the census of several countries. Contents 1 New Zealand 2 Australia 3 References 4 External links …   Wikipedia

  • King Edward VI Five Ways — Infobox UK school name = King Edward VI Five Ways School size = latitude = 52.43058 longitude = 2.00143 dms = motto = Dieu et mon droit (God and my right.) motto pl = established = 1883 approx = closed = c approx = type = Grammar voluntary aided… …   Wikipedia

  • Seven Blocks of Granite — The Seven Blocks of Granite was a nickname given to the 1936 Fordham University football team s offensive line. The Seven Blocks of Granite were: Leo Paquin, Johnny Druze, Alex Wojciechowicz, Ed Franco, Al Babartsky, Natty Pierce, and Vince… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”