| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. By Richard Franklin Bensel. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xviii, 302 pp. Cloth, $65.00, ISBN 0-521-83101-6. Paper, $24.00, ISBN 0-521-53786-X.)

As our current administration justifies what on other grounds seems to be an unjust and immoral war in terms of bringing democracy to parts of the world where it has not existed, it is incumbent upon historians and political scientists to examine the quality of democracy at home. In this book Richard Franklin Bensel sets out to do just that by examining the actual process of voting in the mid-nineteenth century. We have known for a long time that after 1840 turnouts of the eligible voters were high and elections vigorously contested. As Bensel paints it, unlike George Caleb Bingham who actually did paint it, it is not a pretty picture. In chapter after chapter with narratives featuring long quotations of individual cases, he seems to agree with one of the hacks he quotes: "'Pshaw! What is the ballot box but a farce'" (p. 162). The author does not make it clear what he actually believes in this often awkwardly written book.

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