2. Ohio 1824 Governor
3. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Brown County
4. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Butler County
5. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Champaign County
6. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Columbiana County
7. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Crawford, Marion, Sandusky and Seneca County
8. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Cuyahoga and Lorain Counties
9. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Darke, Mercer, Preble and Williams County
10. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Delaware County
11. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Franklin County
12. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Gallia, Jackson and Meigs County
13. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Geauga County
14. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Hamilton County
15. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Harrison County
16. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Highland County
17. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Huron County
18. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Lawrence, Pike and Scioto County
19. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Licking County
20. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Medina County
21. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Miami and Shelby Counties
22. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Montgomery County
23. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Morgan County
24. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Perry County
25. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Portage County
26. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Ross County
27. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Stark County
28. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Trumbull County
29. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Warren County
30. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Washington County
31. Ohio 1824 House of Representatives, Wayne County
32. Ohio 1824 Speaker of the House
33. Ohio 1824 Speaker of the House, Ballot 2
34. Ohio 1824 Speaker of the House, Ballot 3
35. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Butler County
36. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Columbiana County
37. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Darke, Mercer, Preble and Williams Counties
38. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Delaware, Marion and Sandusky Counties
39. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Franklin, Madison and Union Counties
40. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Gallia, Jackson and Meigs Counties
41. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Hamilton County
42. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Hamilton County, Special
43. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Harrison County
44. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Lawrence, Pike and Scioto Counties
45. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Licking County
46. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Logan, Miami, Shelby and Wood Counties
47. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Medina and Portage Counties
48. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Morgan and Perry Counties
49. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Stark County
50. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Trumbull County
51. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Warren County
52. Ohio 1824 State Senate, Wayne County
In these years, Ohio changed from a virtually unpeopled frontier area within the Northwest Territory to the fourth most powerful state in federal elections. Its first significant elections were for the lower house of the Territorial Assembly in December 1798. Suffrage was restricted to adult males who owned fifty acres freehold (the most limited franchise in the nation), although Governor Arthur St. Clair extended the vote to those who owned town lots of comparable value. Voting took place viva voce at the county seat, under the supervision of men appointed by the governor, who also determined apportionment and could veto legislation and prorogue (postpone) and dissolve the Assembly. The upper house, the Council, was appointed by the president from a list of names drawn up by the house; Congress appointed the governor on the president's nomination. This authoritarian system was overthrown when Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1802, authorizing the calling of a convention elected virtually on the basis of manhood suffrage.
Ohio became a state in March 1803, operating under the constitution drafted in November 1802. That instrument gave little power or patronage, and no veto, to the governor, who was elected biennially. The all-powerful General Assembly was divided into two chambers: The House was elected annually by county constituencies, and the Senate was elected biennially, half the members each year, in districts made up of one or more counties. There were no property qualifications for membership in the Assembly. Every four years the state took a census of adult males and redistributed legislative seats, and congressional districts were reapportioned each decade immediately after Congress had reapportioned the federal House and electoral college. Beginning with the first presidential election in 1804, the electors were chosen by statewide popular vote. The right to vote was limited to white adult males who had been resident for one year and had paid a tax. However, because the state constitution defined compulsory work on the roads as a tax and all adult males between the ages of 18 and 55 were obliged to work on the roads (or buy a substitute), this amounted to a nearly all-inclusive franchise for white males. From the start, voting was by secret ballot, with ballots deposited in special locked boxes, and whereas under the territory, voters had had to travel to the few county seats to vote, people now voted at a central place in each of the rapidly multiplying townships.
This democratic electoral system produced elections that saw a surprising degree of partisan action and comparatively high—but fluctuating—voter involvement, especially after 1807 when the key elections began to coincide in even years. The Federalist predominance of the territorial period was overthrown in 1802—1803, and the then overwhelmingly dominant Democratic-Republican party soon divided along factional lines, notably over the role of the judiciary. In some parts of the state, the Federalist Party revived after 1807 but suffered a severe decline after 1816. As a consequence, nonpartisan elections became even more common, although old-party considerations operated in some local elections into the 1820s. In 1824 Ohio's first competitive election for the presidency saw turnout surge as voters began giving their allegiance to entirely new political formations.
Bibliography
Annual Report of the Secretary of the State to the Governor of the State of Ohio: including the statistical report to the general assembly for the year 1875. Colombus, OH: Nevins & Myers, State Printers, 1876. (Lists members of the General Assembly and their districts from the formation of the state)- Brown, Jeffrey P. and Andrew R. L. Cayton, eds.
The Pursuit of Public Power: Political Culture in Ohio, 1787–1861. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994. - Cayton, Andrew R. L.
The Frontier State: Ideology and Politics in the Ohio Country. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1986. - Ohio Historical Society, Ohio Fundamental Documents Searchable Database,
http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/database/funddocs.html - Ratcliffe, Donald J.
"Voter Turnout in Early Ohio," Journal of the Early Republic, 7 (1987): 223–251. Reprinted in New Perspectives on the Early Republic, ed. Ralph D. Gray and Michael A. Morrison. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994, pp. 269–297. - ________.
"The Mystery of Ohio's Missing Presidential Election Returns, 1804–1848," Archival Issues: The Journal of the Midwest Archives Conference, 17(2)(1992): 137–144. - ________.
Party Spirit in a Frontier Republic: Democratic Politics in Ohio, 1793–1821. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998. - ________.
The Politics of Long Division: The Birth of the Second Party System in Ohio, 1818–1828. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000. - ________.
"The Changing Political World of Thomas Worthington." inThe Center of a Great Empire: The Ohio Country in the Early Republic , ed. Andrew R. L. Cayton and Stuart D. Hobbs. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005, pp. 36–61. - Utter, William T.
The Frontier State, 1803–1825 , 1943 reprint ed. Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1968), Vol. 2 of Carl Wittke, ed., A History of the State of Ohio, 6 vols. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941–1944.