Somewhat surprisingly, the powerful have periodically acquiesced to expand the limits of the political community. But why would anyone voluntarily share power with others, particularly when it dilutes their own? What does it take, exactly, to claim space in a polity that, for much of its existence, has been defined as the sole domain of wealthy white men? How have social, economic, and political upheavals—wars, depressions, and police violence—created new avenues to engage in democratic action? How have people claimed political citizenship in a democracy that accepted them only grudgingly?

Questions about how we collectively define and refine the American democracy, and who exactly owns the democratic experience have always been a subject of vigorous public discussion, and seem likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The presenters on this panel will discuss how Americans think about the boundaries of citizenship, loyalty, and democracy from the Civil War to the present day.

Laura Free examines what happened after Confederate insurrectionists lost their political citizenship under the 14th Amendment’s third section, and what they said to try and get it back. Their petitions for removal of their political “disabilities” raise timely questions about whether loyalty is an action or a feeling, and whether office-holding is a right of citizenship.

Michael Vorenberg asks how citizens demonstrated their allegiance to the state during and after war. Sailors deposed during the Civil War, men and women seeking to reclaim confiscated property, and African Americans seeking to testify in judicial proceedings all articulated concepts of citizenship and loyalty.

R.B. Tiven looks at how World War I changed the way the American state imagined its citizens. The federal government created a Selective Service system (a military draft) while simultaneously debating the voting rights of Filipinos and Puerto Ricans and the enfranchisement of women in the continental United States. The uneasy relationship among these debates demonstrates ideologies of citizenship in transition.

Deva Woodly observes that more recently, social movements are trying to develop ways of acting democratically that exceed the legal constraints of citizenship and go beyond electoral politics. They talk more in terms of self determination and trans-national solidarity. What do social movements do in and for democracy?

This panel explores these questions and offers insights into the ways Americans have both restricted and wedged open the boundaries of their democracy between the mid-nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries.