Ocean State Libraries

"In 1840s Rhode Island, the state's seventeenth-century colonial charter remained in force and restricted suffrage to property owners, effectively disenfranchising 60 percent of potential voters. Thomas Wilson Dorr's failed attempt to rectify that situation through constitutional reform ultimately led to an armed insurrection that was quickly quashed--and to a stiff sentence for Dorr himself. Nevertheless, as Erik Chaput shows, the Dorr Rebellion...