The Colonial Context

By about 1850, race was a highly salient US social division, but it emerged slowly from a plethora of social differences. Settlement patterns had varied widely, so the colonies had their own religions, governments, constitutions, laws, languages, histories, and ethnic characters (Anderson Reference Anderson1991: 499; Commager Reference Commager1975: 160–64; Greene Reference Greene1982: 17–20, 24; Hawke Reference Hawke1988: 16–30; Petersen Reference Petersen, Alonso and Starr1987: 191–92). Colonists identified with their region, for example, as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, or with their home country as English or British, rather than as Americans (Greene Reference Greene1982: 22–25; Rozbicki Reference Rozbicki, Greene and Pole2000: 69).

In contrast, there was less economic diversity. Most inhabitants were farmers, and there was little industry (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 178; Main Reference Main1965: 66; Nugent Reference Nugent1981: 63; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 312). The Southern colonies were organized around slavery and large plantation economies (tobacco was the main commercial crop) (Anderson Reference Anderson1991: 499; Greene Reference Greene1982: 26; Main Reference Main1965: 44, 54). The Northern ones consisted mostly of small owner-operated farms, though the New England terrain was relatively inhospitable to agriculture, so colonists had diversified somewhat into trade and small manufacture (Anderson Reference Anderson1991: 499; Main Reference Main1965: 42). Elites were large landowners and merchants; nonelites were smallholders, laborers, artisans, and small tradesmen (Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 9–10; Main Reference Main1965: 41–43, 219).

Many Revolutionary leaders were wealthy slave-holding plantation owners from Virginia (Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 375–76; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 172; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 121–22). Like other colonial leaders and political leaders in Britain at the time, few were full-time, professional politicians, and most returned to their landholdings or other occupations whenever possible (Rakove Reference Rakove1979: xvii). Serving in assemblies was a public duty that accompanied elite status (Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 64–65; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 287–88). These leaders became formidable opponents of British colonial policies, and they developed an ideology of republicanism, personal independence, liberty, and distrust of authority—at least applied to whites—that became widespread among all social groups (Greene Reference Greene1982: 30–31; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 376; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 173; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 109, 171). Revolutionary leaders forged compromises between the conservative elites, who were fearful and suspicious of democracy and nonelites, and the radical masses, who had material grievances against the elites (Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 11–12, 16; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 27, 172). Elites formed cross-class alliances with small and aspiring landowners, who felt that their interests were closer to those of plantation owners than to those of poor blacks or slaves (Fields Reference Fields1990: 108–9; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 364–69, 376–87; Reference Morgan1988: 168–69; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 173). Most colonialists had been dominated by the elite, so they were sympathetic to the republican ideology of linking taxation to representation (Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 10; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 364).

In the United States, differences in wealth and status were relatively small and unstable in comparison to European ones (Handlin and Handlin Reference Handlin and Handlin1982: 55–56; Main Reference Main1965: 221, 275; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 113). Most differences between whites in the United States were finely differentiated relationships between people, so they were highly relational, not categorical as between whites and blacks (Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 24). Furthermore, westward expansion created at least the possibility of social mobility for everyone, except for slaves and displaced Native Americans (Main Reference Main1965: 193–96, 221, 280; Nugent Reference Nugent1981: 64–79). While slaves, who comprised about 20 percent of the population, were held in permanent bondage, perhaps as many as three-quarters of poor whites eventually became small property owners (Hawke Reference Hawke1988: 128; Main Reference Main1965: 271).

American racial ideology was closely and paradoxically connected with the rise of democracy and republican ideology. Masses of poor whites—widespread throughout Europe—who could form politically threatening mobs were largely absent from the United States (McDonald Reference McDonald1985: 100–101; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 380; Reference Morgan1988: 168; Wood Reference Woolf, Perrot and Woolf1992: 122). Unfree labor was viable in societies that tolerated inequalities of civil and political status because everyone stood in a relation of inherited subordination to someone else (Fields Reference Fields1990: 114; cf. Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 96). But the American Revolution, based on men's supposedly innate rights to liberty, problematized slavery (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1935: 3). The concept of race, which in this context defined blacks as biologically inferior humans, eventually resolved this problem by explaining slavery as a result of innate differences (Fields Reference Fields1990: 114). Thus, white solidarity among ethnically different Europeans was fostered by definitions of self-interest and self-definition in opposition to black slaves and Native Americans (Rozbicki Reference Rozbicki, Greene and Pole2000: 69). Consequently, in the United States, the major social difference was not between social classes of European immigrants but between free and unfree, which over time became coincidental with race.

The Racialization of Legal Status

The racialization of slavery, however, was gradual (Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 98). In the first half of the seventeenth century, slavery was only partly racialized, and the difference between slavery and indentured servitude was smaller than in later years. Slavery was not confined to any particular race. Though within-race slavery was rare in Western Europe at the initiation of colonization, it existed in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Americas (Blackburn Reference Blackburn1997: 83–84; Lovejoy Reference Lovejoy2012: 21; Snyder Reference Snyder2010: 4). In the United States, the poor, captured, and criminal of various groups, including Native Americans, English, Irish, and Scottish, were unfree laborers held in indentured servitude and slavery (Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 328–30; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 96–97, 101–2; Stampp Reference Stampp1956: 16). Indentured servants could be bought and sold, gambled away, or won in lawsuits (Fields Reference Fields1990: 102). The conceptual status, treatment, and rights of African laborers and indentured servants were similar (Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 154–55). “Slave,” for example, sometimes referred to unfree laborers of European descent, and Africans sometimes purchased or won their freedom after a period of labor or conversion to Christianity (ibid.: 155, 331; Stampp Reference Stampp1956: 21). The first African slaves in Virginia came from Barbados, so they probably spoke some English while working alongside white indentured servants, reducing the social distance between them (Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 327; Stampp Reference Stampp1956: 21–22).

The incidence of indentured servitude, however, declined over time. In Virginia, indentured servants were more common than slaves in the first half of the seventeenth century, but as the mortality rate dropped, slave labor became more profitable than indentured labor (Fields Reference Fields1990: 104–5; Ford Reference Ford2009: 27; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 297–98). Additionally, slave labor became preferred because freed indentured servants or semifree laborers had rising expectations and were thus more likely to rebel than slaves (Fields Reference Fields1990: 105; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 309; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 103–4).

The imposition of permanent chattel slavery on African descendants was a process that started to develop in the second half of the seventeenth century and continued into the nineteenth century. It consisted of laws and traditions that increasingly differentiated between servants of European descent and slaves of African descent (Hawke Reference Hawke1988: 127–28; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 328–37; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 98, 100; Stampp Reference Stampp1956: 22; Wiecek Reference Wiecek1977: 263–64). Laws began to specify that slaves were black, Indian, or mixed-race individuals and that they were presumed to be unfree unless they could prove otherwise (Wiecek Reference Wiecek1977: 263). Additionally, laws began to restrict the rights of both free and enslaved individuals of African, Native American, and mixed descent and separated them from the European immigrant population. Though colonial, state, and federal laws were different and sometimes contradictory, overall, they restricted the rights of nonwhites to vote, bear arms, engage in commerce, participate in politics and education, own property, and congregate in public (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1935: 6–8, 10; Litwack Reference Litwack1958: 261–62; Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 332–33; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 94, 98–99; Smith Reference Smith1997: 65, 143; Wiecek Reference Wiecek1977: 267–69). They also limited manumission, imposed curfews, and restricted marriage and interracial sex (Morgan Reference Morgan1975: 331–37; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 98–99). Although individuals of African descent had more rights in Northern states than in Southern ones, no Northern states granted them the same rights as those of European descent, and in all states, free blacks were treated as legally and socially inferior citizens (Higginbotham Reference Higginbotham1978: 98, 305–10).

Racial identity also emerged among African descendants because of slavery (Cornell Reference Cornell1990: 368; Fields Reference Fields1990: 114; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 106). Africans came from diverse locations, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds (Cornell Reference Cornell1990: 376; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 106–7). Some slavers put Africans from different tribes together on ships so that they could not communicate with each other, and when they arrived in the United States, they had few social characteristics in common except their classification as blacks and their enslavement (Hawke Reference Hawke1988: 129). The combination of ethnic mixing and racial subordination quickly created a new common and distinctive African American culture with similar kinship systems, religions, customary practices, and the use of English (Cornell Reference Cornell1990: 377).

Like blacks, Native Americans were racialized but through different processes (Sheehan Reference Sheehan1973: 101). Though Native Americans were originally more powerful than Europeans, they lost their advantage by the end of the seventeenth century (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 60, 89). Nevertheless, Native Americans, unlike imported Africans and their descendants, could not suffice as the labor source for a white-owned, slave-based plantation economy. Unlike blacks living far from their homelands, Native Americans belonged to well-organized cultural groups with strong social identities that tried to recapture enslaved members (Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 104–5). They knew the territory well, so escape into the hinterlands was always possible (ibid.). In addition, Native Americans were quickly decimated by war and disease, so they were never a potentially large labor force (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 58, 122; Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 104; Smith Reference Smith1997: 61). Some survivors, free or enslaved, remained within white settlements, but many moved westward to new communities with survivors of other tribes (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 89, 103, 123).

Because massive enslavement was impossible, obtaining Native American land became the remaining concern of European settlers (Cornell Reference Cornell1990: 380–81; Sheehan Reference Sheehan1973: 167). Not surprisingly, US laws treated Native Americans inconsistently, though like blacks, they had fewer rights than whites (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 82–83, 119–20; Smith Reference Smith1997: 60, 132, 215; Wallace Reference Wallace1993: 75). But unlike blacks, who were dealt with individually, Native Americans were viewed as citizens of sovereign but inferior nations (Jobe Reference Jobe2004: 68–69; Smith Reference Smith1997: 63, 106, 132). Thus, both the British and the US governments made treaties with Native American tribes, though they were usually shams or afterthoughts obtained through deception, bribery, or coercion to displace the Native Americans (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 82, 150; Smith Reference Smith1997: 106, 108; Wallace Reference Wallace1993: 38). In addition to voluntary migration and treaties, Native Americans were moved westward through forced migration that culminated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 163–64; Smith Reference Smith1997: 181–82, 235–36; Wallace Reference Wallace1993: 4–6, 52–56).

Racially, Native Americans were classified between whites and blacks (Sheehan Reference Sheehan1973: 24; Smith Reference Smith1997: 174). Most whites viewed them as savages but considered their inferiority a consequence of their cultural and social environment, not their biology, and suggested that they could be civilized and assimilated into white society (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 148, 169, 178; Sheehan Reference Sheehan1973: 4–5, 42, 249–50; Smith Reference Smith1997: 61, 106, 108–9; Wallace Reference Wallace1993: 33–34). This possible “reform” of Native Americans paradoxically reinforced and ideologically justified forced removal policies (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 179; Sheehan Reference Sheehan1973: 243; Wallace Reference Wallace1993: 33–41). Because Native Americans could in theory be like whites but in practice they attempted to retain their tribal cultures, they had to be relocated westward, where they could be civilized before being incorporated into white society (Nichols Reference Nichols1998: 178; Sheehan Reference Sheehan1973: 148; Smith Reference Smith1997: 181; Wallace Reference Wallace1993: 42, 65).

Thus, by the late 1700s, slavery was largely restricted to blacks, free blacks’ rights were curtailed, and Native Americans were largely eliminated from most white settlements. Racialization, however, was not complete. Enlightenment thought, especially influential around the American Revolution, suggested that observed social and cultural differences were environmental (Landsman Reference Landsman1997: 87–89; May Reference May1976: 134; Nobles Reference Nobles2000: 27; Smith Reference Smith1997: 105, 174). In addition, in contrast to the twentieth century, when the application of the “one-drop rule” was widely used to classify individuals with any amount of African ancestry as black, in the 1700s, mixed-race individuals of primarily European ancestry were legally white, or they formed a separate group between white and black (Davis Reference Davis1991: 5, 33–37, 55). Though British children's legal status followed their father's status, in the colonies, it followed their mother's (Wiecek Reference Wiecek1977: 262–63). Thus, children of mixed-raced slave mothers could be legally white but also slaves (e.g., Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings's children; Gordon-Reed Reference Gordon-Reed2008: 597–98). Finally, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, some factors limited slavery. All states began to ban foreign slave trade, and the Northern states began to restrict slavery, usually through gradual emancipation (Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 311–12; Robinson Reference Robinson1971: 24–36, 426–27; Smith Reference Smith1997: 104; Stampp Reference Stampp1956: 19–20, 25). Northerners slowly began to challenge slavery on moral grounds or because of economic, political, and other practical reasons, such as slave revolts, deterring new settlers, hindering economic growth, giving the South too much power, and undermining national defense (Finkelman Reference Finkelman1996: 31–32; Higginbotham Reference Higginbotham1978: 378). The need for slaves in the upper South decreased as agriculture shifted from tobacco to foodstuffs (Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 315; Ford Reference Ford2009: 27).

Nevertheless, at the same time, the demand for cotton for English and American factories and the development of efficient gins to process raw cotton made its production highly profitable with slave labor and thus spurred a huge growth in slavery in the lower South (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1935: 4–5; Ford Reference Ford2009: 95–96; Lakwete Reference Lakwete2003: viii–ix; Robinson Reference Robinson1971: 51, 429). Throughout the entire South, whites strove to maintain their supremacy and safety alongside an oppressive slave labor system and a free black population facing extensive discrimination. The states of the upper South hoped to reduce gradually the number of slaves and free blacks through manumission, dispersing slavery into newly admitted states, selling slaves to the lower South, and return migration to Africa (Ford Reference Ford2009: 6–7). In the lower South, however, an ideology gradually developed to justify slavery that construed racial differences as entirely biological, advocated for slaves’ paternalist treatment, and claimed whites’ equality despite vast class differences (DuBois Reference Du Bois1935: 5, 9; Ford Reference Ford2009: 508, 532). The racial ideology of small self-sufficient landowners, who formed the largest social group in the South and who did not usually own slaves, was more virulent than that of the planter aristocracy (Fields Reference Fields1990: 108–9; Genovese Reference Genovese1971: 111; Stampp Reference Stampp1956: 29). They combined hostility to black and northern labor with a fierce insistence on the equality of all whites based on democratic ideals (Fields Reference Fields1990: 109; Fredrickson Reference Fredrickson1971: 61; Saxton Reference Saxton1990: 67–72, 148). Gradually, theories of the white race's innate superiority replaced Enlightenment ideas (May Reference May1976: 134; Nobles Reference Nobles2000: 27; Smith Reference Smith1997: 174).

Free blacks challenged slavery's racial justification (Ford Reference Ford2009: 195). Starting at the end of the eighteenth century and during the first half of the nineteenth century, many states disenfranchised free blacks, legally reinforcing the connection between race and unfreedom (DuBois Reference Du Bois1935: 7–8; Ford Reference Ford2009: 9; Fredrickson Reference Fredrickson1971: 91; Smith Reference Smith1997: 179). Under Jacksonian democracy, white male suffrage and black disenfranchisement expanded simultaneously (Ford Reference Ford2009: 443–45; Fredrickson Reference Fredrickson1971: 90–91; Saxton Reference Saxton1990: 67–72). Though free white males were always presumptive citizens, free black males’ citizenship was ambiguous because they were taxed but were denied other rights that varied by state (Nobles Reference Nobles2000: 28–29; Smith Reference Smith1997: 179).

In sum, around 1850, race, not class, had become the most important determinant of legal rights in the United States (especially in contrast to Europe) (Ford Reference Ford2009: 509; Saxton Reference Saxton1990: 387–88). Rights were highly racialized: blacks, even if free, were assumed to be biologically inferior to whites, and slavery was restricted to blacks (Ford Reference Ford2009: 9). The emergence of race was a social process. Individuals of European and African descent came from diverse national origin and ethnic groups, so their skin color was often the most noticeable similarity within these groups and the most noticeable difference between European and African groups. These diverse African descendants were forcibly thrown together into slavery against their will, which, along with skin color, formed the most prominent features of their identity. European descendants differed by status and wealth, but in contrast to their European experience, these differences were downplayed by ideologies of equality and by the possibility of landholding. Poor whites, with little other than legal freedom to differentiate themselves from blacks, were particularly invested in the racial boundary, as their whiteness was their only advantage. Race thus emerged at the intersection of a democratic political system and a slaved-based plantation economy (Ford Reference Ford2009: 10). Native Americans and blacks were most similar in their marginalization (Smedley Reference Smedley1999: 99). Native Americans were culturally different from whites and blacks; they were more often from relatively egalitarian, seminomadic societies that were politically distinct from those of European immigrants. They became defined as racially distinct from whites in a different way from blacks. These three racial divisions consequently formed highly salient US social divisions.

At the end of the 1700s, blacks and Native Americans were defined as inferior, without the full rights of whites, but racial distinctions were not as sharp as they would later become. First, individuals who were free but not white retained some rights that were gradually eliminated over time. Second, individuals of Native American and mixed descent (European, African, and Native American) formed an inferior but ambiguous category between blacks and whites. Individuals of mixed European and African descent could be white if the fraction of their European descent was large enough. Some were free; some were slaves. This possibility was gradually eliminated during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as individuals with any African descent were increasingly classified as black. Those of Native American or mixed Native American and European descent could be white if they adopted the living style of European settlers. Native Americans who were members of tribes were viewed as citizens of sovereign nations; whites used this classification to justify war against them. Thus, Native Americans were assimilated, killed, or moved further westward out of the everyday consciousness of most Americans. As this middle category was gradually eliminated, the line between black and white became sharper.

In the 1790s, at the time of the Constitutional Convention that established the first US census, these middle categories still existed, so the racialization of rights took a particular form: whiteness, freedom, and full citizenship were synonymous. Blackness and slavery, however, did not have the same correspondence. Slavery was mostly, though not completely, confined to those whose skins appeared to be black or whose ancestry was unambiguously African. And, in this sense, slaves were black. However, the reverse was not true; free blacks had some, but not all, of the rights of whites. As we shall show, the censuses categories corresponded to these groups with racialized legal rights: white, slave, and an ambiguous middle category, while Native Americans living in tribes were explicitly excluded.

Linking Taxation and Representation: Precedents in the Continental Congresses and Articles of Confederation

As early as 1754, Benjamin Franklin (Reference Franklin, Labaree, Bell, Boatfield and Fineman1962: 405, 407; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 9) suggested using wealth, presumably proportional to population, to distribute representation in a colony-wide assembly. At the First Continental Congress in 1774, Patrick Henry, the Virginia delegate, proposed that the number of each colony's free inhabitants determine voting rights in the assembly, while Thomas Lynch of South Carolina suggested using property as well as population (Adams Reference Adams and Francis Adams1850: 367; Adams Reference Adams1980: 40; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 167; Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 189; Ford Reference Ford1904: 14). Several delegates noted that they lacked sufficient information to implement these suggestions (Adams Reference Adams and Francis Adams1850: 367; Adams Reference Adams1980: 278–79; Ford Reference Ford1904: 25). Though Congress had population estimates for all the colonies except Georgia, the delegates considered them to be unreliable (Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 189). Samuel Ward of Rhode Island argued that each colony should have one vote by noting the precedent established by Virginia, where each county had two representatives in the state assembly, regardless of size (Adams Reference Adams and Francis Adams1850: 367; Adams Reference Adams1980: 40). The delegates settled on Ward's proposal but noted objections to it to prevent it from becoming precedential (Adams Reference Adams1980: 40; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 168; Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 189; Ford Reference Ford1904: 25; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 141; Rakove Reference Rakove1979: 141; cf. Adams 2011a: 318–19).

Once the Revolutionary War started in 1775, the Second Continental Congress reconvened with the pressing problem of funding the war (Adams Reference Adams1980: 279; Ford Reference Ford1905: 11; Morgan Reference Morgan1988: 263). Franklin suggested that male population between the ages of 16 and 60, determined by a triennial count, determine the distribution of the war expenses, taxation, and the number of delegates to a national assembly (Adams Reference Adams1980: 279–80; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 182; Ford Reference Ford1905: 196–97; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 141; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 10–11). Instead, Congress agreed to distribute war costs according to the colonies’ total populations (including “negroes and mulattoes”) using existing estimates (except in Georgia) (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 168; Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 192–93; Ford Reference Ford1905: 221–22; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 3–4; Wright Reference Wright1900: 12). The colonies were supposed to provide more exact figures, and although Rhode Island and Massachusetts conducted censuses in 1776, the other colonies apparently never did (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 168; Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 192–93; Ford Reference Ford1905: 222; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 4).

The Declaration of Independence in July 1776 necessitated increased coordination among the states, initially constituted under the Articles of Confederation (Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 109). Small states objected to population-based representation because they feared domination by large states, while large states objected to equal representation for each state because they feared domination by the small states (Adams Reference Adams1980: 285–86; Adams Reference Adams and Wood2011b: 97–99; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 181; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 140–45). The small states won: each state received one vote (Ford Reference Ford1907: 778–82; Rakove Reference Rakove1979: 158–59, 179).

In the 1776 version of the Articles of Confederation, taxation was proportional to the number of states’ inhabitants (excluding untaxed Indians; as presumed citizens of sovereign nations they owed no US taxes [Jobe Reference Jobe2004: 68–69]), determined triennially (Adams Reference Adams1980: 281; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 182; Ford Reference Ford1906: 548, 677–78). The original phrasing, specifying that the enumeration should distinguish “Inhabitants who are not slaves” from the rest of population, was changed to “white Inhabitants,” though apparently neither legal status nor race affected taxation (Ford Reference Ford1906: 548). States with large slave populations, however, did not want the number of slaves to affect taxation (Adams Reference Adams1980: 284; Adams Reference Adams and Wood2011b: 96–97; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 181; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 146). Samuel Chase of Maryland proposed that taxation be based only on the white population (Einhorn Reference Einhorn2006: 120–21; Jefferson Reference Jefferson1904: 47; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 146; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 383; Rakove Reference Rakove1979: 159). As a compromise, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia proposed that two slaves count as one free person (Jefferson Reference Jefferson1904: 47; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 147; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 12; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 383). Furthermore, the Southern states supported taxation based on land values, which were lower in the South than in the North (Adams Reference Adams1980: 283; Ford Reference Ford1907: 801; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 149). The Southern states won, and the final version of the Articles in 1777 adopted taxation based on land values (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 182; Ford Reference Ford1907: 913–14; Jensen Reference Jensen1940: 149; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 12; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 385; Rakove Reference Rakove1979: 179; Wright Reference Wright1900: 12). By early 1783, however, no land valuation had been undertaken: states’ inputs were necessary to value land, but they could not make impartial assessments (Adams Reference Adams1980: 283; Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 182; Anderson Reference Anderson1988: 12; Einhorn Reference Einhorn2006: 124–25; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 386–87).

Given the impossibility of using land values, an amendment of March 6, 1783, proposed that taxation be proportional to the total number of inhabitants, enumerated triennially, excluding “Indians not taxed” and persons “bound to servitude for life” between a range of unspecified ages (Fitzpatrick Reference Fitzpatrick1934: 102; Hunt Reference Hunt1922: 173–74; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 13). The final version of this amendment on April 18, 1783, however, counted all inhabitants except untaxed Indians but enumerated slaves as three-fifths of a person (Einhorn Reference Einhorn2006: 142–43; Hunt Reference Hunt1922: 191, 260; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 13). The wording combined racial and legal terms: taxation was proportional to “the whole number of white and other free citizens and inhabitants” and “three-fifths of all other persons” (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 182; Hunt Reference Hunt1922: 260; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 13–14; Wright Reference Wright1900: 12). The Constitution followed this wording, though applied it to both taxation and representation (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 183). New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland had documented their population sizes, but other states’ figures had to be estimated (Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 212; Hunt Reference Hunt1922: 230–32; Madison Reference Madison and Gilpin1841: 431–32). Though Congress passed the amendment, the states never ratified it (Hunt Reference Hunt1922: 256–61; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 387–88; Rakove Reference Rakove1979: 338). Though Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland provided Congress with revised population figures, no state returned them in the requested format (Fitzpatrick Reference Fitzpatrick1934: 103–4).

Linking Taxation and Representation in the Constitution: How the Census Solved a Practical Problem

In May 1787, delegates from all states except Rhode Island, which never participated in the Constitutional Convention, met in Philadelphia, and they again debated taxation and representation (Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 16–17; Leitao Reference Leitao1996: 38; Morgan Reference Morgan1988: 266–67). The Virginia plan, by James Madison and Edmund Randolph, proposed a bicameral legislature with representation proportional to the states’ “free inhabitants,” but it was quickly amended to the number of “white and other free citizens and inhabitants” and indentured servants and to three-fifths of slaves, thereby adopting the taxation language from the amended Articles (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 183; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 20–22, 193; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 14–16; Morgan Reference Morgan1988: 270–71; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 388–89; Zagarri Reference Zagarri1987: 73). Although this proposal passed on June 11, the small states strongly opposed it, and on June 15, William Paterson of New Jersey offered a plan with a single-house legislative body with equal representation for each state as under the Articles but proposed that taxation be proportional to the number of “white and other free citizens,” indentured servants, and three-fifths of other persons, excluding untaxed Indians (Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 195–96, 242–45; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 15–17; Zagarri Reference Zagarri1987: 73). On June 19, a vote favored the Virginia plan, but on July 2, when the delegates reconsidered equal representation in the upper house, the vote was tied (Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 313, 510; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 17; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 391; Zagarri Reference Zagarri1987: 73, 78, 152). A committee then proposed the “Great Compromise” creating a lower house with proportional representation and an upper house with equal representation, thereby reconciling large and small states’ interests (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 184; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 522–23; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 17; Morgan Reference Morgan1988: 274; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 392, 394; Zagarri Reference Zagarri1987: 79).

The delegates approved the creation of two houses on July 7 and then debated the specifics of counting people before the final vote on the Great Compromise on July 16 (Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 549, II: 15; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 392; Stewart Reference Stewart2007: 114–26). The committee had proposed one delegate for each 40,000 inhabitants, and on July 10, population estimates, presumably from previous censuses, were presented (Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 212; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 523, 572–74; Wright Reference Wright1900: 10–11; cf. Farrand Reference Farrand1911, I: 190, III: 253). Edmund Randolph of Virginia proposed that a regularly taken census apportion representation in the lower house (Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 564, 570–71, cf. Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 205). Many delegates favored apportionment based on wealth, over, or in addition to, population, but most considered it easier to count population than wealth (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 184–85; Anderson Reference Anderson1988: 12; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 557–62, 581–88, 593–96; Halacy Reference Halacy1980: 31–32; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 18; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 42).

The debates over counting the population reignited the controversy about counting slaves (Stewart Reference Stewart2007: 118). Many regarded the three-fifths clause, with precedents in the Articles and in previous debates, as a resolution: it could represent the de facto social condition that slaves could not live as full persons, the economic position that slave's wealth-producing capacity was roughly three-fifths of a free person, or a compromise between views of slaves as people and as property (Anderson Reference Anderson1988: 12; Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 154; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 204–6, 561, 580–88; 591–97, 600–6; Hamilton et al. 1788; McKay Reference McKay1981: 1443; Nobles Reference Nobles2000: 26–27; Scott Reference Scott1968: 13; Stewart Reference Stewart2007: 119–24; cf. Finkelman Reference Finkelman1996: 9–10). Not surprisingly, then, Hugh Williamson of North Carolina added an amendment to the Great Compromise that slaves counted as three-fifths of a person for determining representation (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 185; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 575, 579; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 392; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 42). Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania proposed that taxation be proportional to representation, essentially extending the three-fifths rule to taxation (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 186; Einhorn Reference Einhorn2006: 165; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 589–92; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 18; Morrow Reference Morrow1910: 393). Applying the same population-counting rules to representation and taxation helped assure accurate information because their reporting incentives were opposite (a larger population would increase taxation and representation; a smaller population would lower taxation and representation) (Anderson Reference Anderson1988:10; Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 213–14; Clemence Reference Clemence1985: 357; Hamilton et al. 1788; Wright Reference Wright1900: 13). Most politicians realized that without compromise, the country would split apart (Petersen Reference Petersen, Alonso and Starr1987: 192).

Thus, the final wording of this section of the Constitution was:

This section, then, referred only to legal status and dropped all references to the race of enumerated individuals (“Indians” remained racially marked but not enumerated), by mentioning only “free” and “other” persons (Fields Reference Fields1990: 99). The words “white and other” that had preceded “free” were deleted as superfluous (Farrand Reference Farrand1911: II: 350; Krüger Reference Krüger1991: 21). During the debates, the terms “black,” “Negro,” and “slave” were used interchangeably; the small number of free blacks did not affect legislative representation (Clemence Reference Clemence1985: 356; e.g., Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 204–8, 559–62, 578–88, 591–97, cf. Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 155; Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 83–84). Delegates, however, usually avoided explicit mention of slavery because of their discomfort with it (Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 214–15, 335; Einhorn Reference Einhorn2006: 118; Finkelman Reference Finkelman1996: 3; Lynd Reference Lynd1967: 159–60; Robinson Reference Robinson1971: 245; Smith Reference Smith1997: 133).

Though representation, taxation, and slavery had been hotly debated, the census was not controversial (Anderson Reference Anderson1988: 9). Colonial and state censuses set precedents for a national one. Colonial censuses had been common, and they generally collected information about age and sex, though age was recorded only in rough groupings (Wells Reference Wells1975: 40). The ages of 10 and 16 commonly separated children from adults in colonial censuses (Wells 2012b: 127). Sixteen was often the youngest age for paying taxes and serving in the military (Walsh Reference Walsh1981: 250; Wells Reference Wells1975: 40). Some censuses also enumerated convicts, servants, and clergy (Cassedy Reference Cassedy1969: 71). Virtually all censuses separated “whites” from “blacks,” “Negros,” and “slaves” (Wells Reference Wells1975: 38–39). The major distinction, however, was a legal one between the free and slaves (ibid.: 39). Initially, the few free blacks were occasionally recorded as white, but starting about 1750, censuses began to record free blacks or those of mixed race separately (ibid.). Many colonial censuses contained more information than the first US ones (Cohen Reference Cohen1982: 159; Wells Reference Wells, Anderson, Citro and Salvo2012a: 126). Colonial censuses, not surprisingly given their mercantilist emphasis on the power of the metropole, focused on white settlers, not Native Americans (though the latter were sometimes included) (Halacy Reference Halacy1980: 30; Wells Reference Wells1975: 39). The British generally considered Native Americans to be outside their legal jurisdiction (Wells Reference Wells1975: 39). States had also collected censuses. The questions in the Rhode Island census of 1774 were almost identical with those in 1790 US census (Alterman Reference Alterman1969: 175; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 3). Several state legislatures apportioned their votes using population, including Pennsylvania in 1776 and New York in 1777 (Zagarri Reference Zagarri1987: 41–42, 70). The first national enumeration in 1790 went more quickly in the states that had already taken a census than elsewhere (Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 46; Scott Reference Scott1968: 16).

Thus, political decisions about the census were largely a strategic compromise. The state actors who established the US census were private citizens who saw political service as part of their duty as elites. From 1754 to 1790, these actors, both as private citizens and as politicians, who spanned political orientation and geographical location, repeatedly proposed censuses as a practical solution to the ideological goal of linking taxation and political representation. They were practical because they had been repeatedly collected in the colonies and states. Southern and Northern delegates generally held views that were consistent with their political interests of representing their states to gain advantages of increasing political representation and lowering taxation. These views were also consistent with their positions as private citizens, and in particular whether they owned slaves. However, neither Southern nor Northern delegates achieved all their goals. Most compromised to support the overall nation-building project. Thus, while state actors’ personal and political agendas certainly influenced the adoption of a census, it was not primarily an outcome of these specific agendas. Their decision to use a census stemmed from their overall ideological commitment to linking taxation and representation.

Debates over the Expansion of Information in the 1790 Census

Censuses often had broad roots in political arithmetic and the Enlightenment. American revolutionary leaders were familiar with Enlightenment government and science, and these ideas influenced the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (Balinski and Young 2001: 6; Landsman Reference Landsman1997: 84–86; May Reference May1976: 97–101, 129–32, 161–67, 212–18, 278; Meyer Reference Meyer1976: 179–80, 182–88). However, the US census clause was largely driven by pragmatic political compromise, not philosophical or scientific considerations; consequently, there was little thought that it might provide systematic data beyond what was necessary for apportionment (Clemence Reference Clemence1985: 356–57; Wright Reference Wright1900: 13).

James Madison made one of the few, and largely unsuccessful, attempts to expand the censuses informationally. Thus, at that time, his efforts represented a divergence from the US tradition of using censuses to assess resources. He served on the subcommittee that wrote the enumeration bill, and for the schedule, he proposed five demographic categories based on age, legal status, sex, and race (i.e., “Free white Males above 16 years, including heads of Families,” “Free white Males under sixteen years,” “Free white females, including heads of Families,” “Free Blacks,” and “Slaves”) and 30 occupational categories (for males) (see figure 1; US House of Representatives 1790a) (Anderson Reference Anderson1994: 12–13; Cohen Reference Cohen1982: 159; Davis Reference Davis and Daniels1972: 155; Veit et al. Reference Veit, Bickford, Bowling and diGiacomantonio1995: 70, 73). The text of the bill, which gave a set of overall instructions, stated that the enumerators should distinguish “the ages, sexes, colours, conditions, and occupations” of US inhabitants (US House of Representatives 1790a). The extant debates do not reveal specifically why he proposed the demographic categories, but he argued that the occupational categories would provide the government with concrete information about agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing (Anderson Reference Anderson1988: 14; Clemence Reference Clemence1985: 358; Cohen Reference Cohen1982: 160–61; Davis Reference Davis and Daniels1972: 154–55; Halacy Reference Halacy1980: 32–33; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 42; Scott Reference Scott1968: 14–15; US Congress 1834: 1115). More generally, Madison argued for the descriptive usefulness of the census, because the legislature could pass laws that reflected the “real situation” of their constituents based on knowledge from it (Halacy Reference Halacy1980: 32; US Congress 1834: 1146) and because it was “much wanted for the science of Political Economy” (Madison Reference Madison1867: 507). Though Madison's intent with respect to demographic categories is not fully recorded, we will show that they described legal rights that socially coincided with race, gender, and age.

Figure 1.

Reproduction of the 1790 enumeration schedule without annotation. Source: US House of Representatives (1790a).

The separate category for slaves obviously fulfilled the requirement of apportionment. Most of these slaves were of African descent and were assumed to be black. A few were of mixed European, African, or Native American descent, but none had any appreciable rights, so their race was not coincidental with the absence of rights.

Madison's other categories delineated among individuals who counted as free persons for legislative representation but had differing legal and political rights. White men above the age of 16 were citizens, with the most legal rights. They could in principle serve in the military, be taxed, and vote (though in practice, the franchise and military service were generally based on property ownership or social status [Gundersen Reference Gundersen1987: 61–62; Keyssar Reference Keyssar2000: 24–25; Morgan Reference Morgan1988: 159–65; Zinn Reference Zinn1980: 77–78, 96]). White males under the age of 16 could be taxed, and they would attain the rights and responsibilities of other adult white males at age 16. White women had fewer rights than men, and they would never attain them as would white male youths. However, they could not be enslaved, and through marriage or family ties, they could attain a relatively high social status (they did not serve in the military). Women were sometimes excluded from taxation, though women who were heads of household paid taxes on male members of their households (Gundersen Reference Gundersen1987: 62). Only in New Jersey, between 1776 and 1807, did women have a constitutionally protected right to vote (like men's right to vote, it depended on property ownership) (ibid.: 66).

Madison's category of free blacks is the most difficult to interpret because it included men, women, and children who had different rights and because these rights were highly variable. The rights of free black adult men were probably the most ambiguous, because their freedom and gender granted them rights in principle that were not always honored in practice. They generally had fewer rights than white men. In principle, and sometimes in practice, they had more rights than white women. Black free women, like white free women, had few legal and political rights, but black women had lower social status. Black children had few rights.

Overall, then, Madison's categories correspond to sets of individuals’ rights, except that they do not differentiate among the rights of free black men, women, and children. Though we cannot completely explain why all free blacks were lumped into a single category, their numbers were small, and whites were probably relatively uninterested in specifying their few, ambiguous, and highly variable rights. Thus, although Madison's initial proposal included the explicit racial markers, black and white, and some identifiers for age and gender, he most likely intended for the categories to be legal, not racial, gender, or age categories, but because race, gender, and age were socially coincidental with these rights, his proposed categories were mixtures of legal, racial, gender, and age categories. This interpretation is consistent with Madison's general argument that census information had descriptive value. Furthermore, Madison was a delegate from Virginia, where slavery was legal, and he owned slaves (Beeman Reference Beeman2009: 309–10). Thus, he was invested in maintaining slavery both personally and politically, and he understood the social relationship between legal status and race. Furthermore, while his primary intention seems to have been the specification of legal categories in his proposal, it is also possible to speculate that the middle category and his use of the racial marker, black, may have been an attempt to narrow the definition of white.

Madison's opponents argued that the Constitution authorized only an enumeration by legal status (Cohen Reference Cohen1982: 162; Herald of Freedom 1790: 146; Veit et al. Reference Veit, Bickford, Bowling and diGiacomantonio1995: 73). Nevertheless, Madison's proposal passed the House, but the Senate dropped his occupational categories, while essentially preserving his five demographic categories (Cohen Reference Cohen1982: 160; Davis Reference Davis and Daniels1972: 155; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 43). Additionally, either the House or Senate revised the phrasing. Madison's wording of “Blacks” in the category “Free Blacks” was first changed in handwriting to “Negros and Mulattos” and then the entire category was changed, again in handwriting, to “all other Free Persons,” thereby eliminating the racial marker and creating the final wording of the schedule of 1790 census (see figure 2 and the detail of the handwriting in figure 3; US House of Representatives 1790b; US Congress Reference Peters1845a: 102). The reasons for these alterations are not transparent, as we cannot find debates related to them, though an amendment to the schedule on February 18, 1790 changed “Free Blacks” to “all other free persons” (De Pauw et al. Reference De Pauw, Bangs Bickford and Siegel Hauptman1972: 244). However, the revisers must have realized that the label “Free Blacks” did not necessarily describe the individuals not already classified as whites or slaves. These individuals could have been free blacks of African descent, but they also could have had African and European ancestors and therefore better described by the first revision, “Negroes and Mulattos.” Additionally, they could have had Native American ancestors (taxed Indians, living among white immigrants and settlers) or mixed Native American, European, and African ancestors. Thus, the final wording may have been changed to all other free persons, regardless of race, to include all these free individuals not explicitly classified as whites. Despite these changes in the schedule, however, the text of the bill specifying the more general instructions remained unchanged, specifying that enumerators should distinguish the “colours of free persons,” as in Madison's original proposal (US Congress Reference Peters1845a: 101; cf. Anderson 2002: 272).

Figure 2.

Reproduction of the 1790 enumeration schedule with handwritten annotation.Source: US House of Representatives (1790b).

Figure 3.

Detail of the handwritten annotation on the 1790 enumeration schedule Source: US House of Representatives (1790b).

Thus, although the final wording “all other free persons” had no explicit racial marker, it was derived from a racialized legal category and, in fact, had evolved from a racially marked legal category. It was probably intended to mark a legal distinction between free whites and free individuals of other races, thereby distinguishing among individuals who counted for determining legislative apportionment but had different rights. Madison's original proposal marked this category racially as black. However, this marking was not consistent with the social understanding of the category. Though most of these individuals might have been considered to be black later in history (e.g., according to the one-drop rule), the revisions show that this classification was not appropriate in 1790. The revisers first attempted to specify more clearly their understanding of the races of those in the middle category, but when they failed to find a concise term, they abandoned this effort at racial classification. They were probably primarily interested in preserving Madison's attempt to specify legal rights. This mismatched marking of race—the schedule marked “white” but not the race of other free or enslaved individuals, while the bill explicitly referenced race—continued in the 1800 and 1810 censuses (US Congress Reference Peters1845b: 11–12; Reference Peters1845c: 565–66; cf. Anderson Reference Anderson, Perlmann and Waters2002: 272).

The use of age also supports the idea that the categories described racialized legal rights. Age 16 commonly delimited between children and adults. In 1790, age information was collected only for white males. The intent then was to separate white males, who at the age of 16 would have the most extensive citizenship rights, from everyone else (cf. Nobles Reference Nobles2000: 28). Thus, the category of adult white males separated the most likely voters, workers, and soldiers from the rest of the population (Clemence Reference Clemence1985: 358; Cohen Reference Cohen1982: 159; Gauthier Reference Gauthier2002: 4; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1909: 43; Scott Reference Scott1968: 15; Wright Reference Wright1900: 13). It was also considered inappropriate to ask women their ages (Veit et al. Reference Veit, Bickford, Bowling and diGiacomantonio1995: 73).

The basic format of the 1790 census (see figure 4; US Congress 1845a) was used until 1850, when a fully nominative census recorded the race of all persons, both slave and free. In the censuses from 1790 to 1840, the race, sex, and age categories became increasingly differentiated and applied to more legal categories (Anderson Reference Anderson1988: 14, 18, 23; Halacy Reference Halacy1980: 33; Wright Reference Wright1900: 132–44). Racial markers were consistently applied to whites and inconsistently but increasingly applied to free individuals of African, Native American, or mixed descent, but they were never applied to slaves (cf. Anderson Reference Anderson2003: 32).

Figure 4.

Reproduction of the final 1790 enumeration schedule Source: US Congress (Reference Peters1845a).

The adoption of Madison's demographic categories—albeit revised—stands in contrast to the outright rejection of his occupational categories. Though little evidence suggests why the occupational categories were not adopted in 1790, one legislator objected to them because most individuals practiced several occupations each year (US Congress 1834: 1146). His objection suggests that occupational categories were not widely recognized as socially relevant. In contrast, race was a primary social and political cleavage, even though apportionment depended upon legal, not racial, status (Nobles Reference Nobles2000: 27, 30). Because legal categories had been racialized, at the time of the Convention, race and legal status were highly coincidental, and Madison's categories were apparently intended to capture these degrees of rights among those entitled to full legislative representation. Thus, Madison's efforts to expand the census informationally were largely unsuccessful, and they succeeded only where they could be easily understood in terms of commonly used social categories and corresponded to relevant social differences.

Finally, though race was certainly discussed in the debates over the form of government, we found no evidence in them suggesting that state actors intended for the census to shape race or slavery or that the census was collecting information about race per se (cf. ibid.: 26). Politicians followed common social usage when discussing race, without engaging in explicit efforts to shape it. For example, in the debates over the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, delegates discussed slavery and persons of African descent (or slave and black) as virtually synonymous, and the three-fifths rule was sometimes discussed explicitly in reference to “blacks” and “whites” (e.g., Farrand Reference Farrand1911: I: 83, 594). Blacks were never seen as equals to whites, even by those who opposed slavery (Higginbotham Reference Higginbotham1978: 309). Free individuals of African or mixed descent were rarely discussed because their small numbers did not affect representation or taxation, the main topics at hand. An explicit interest in race developed later and informed subsequent censuses (i.e., starting with the 1850 census).