Virgins, booze and politics

oung people just don’t vote.” This has been America’s shrugging cliché for a century. Though Bernie Sanders has engaged millions, like Barack Obama before him, conventional wisdom holds that young voters are inherently unreliable.

But tell that to J.J. McCarthy, the young cowboy galloping across the Nebraska plain to cast his “virgin vote” in 1884. Or George Washington Albright, the 15-year-old slave tiptoeing from cabin to cabin, spreading news of emancipation and beginning his climb to the Mississippi state Senate. Or Mattie Thomas, living a half-century before women won the ballot, but using all of her 23-year-old influence to get her beau to vote for her preferred party on Election Day, 1868.

Young people used to vote. And march, and speechify, and riot, in wild elections from the 1830s to 1900. Children, teenagers and young adults found personal meaning in public life. Politicians recruited “warm, fresh blood,” as one organizer recalled, seeking new votes, as well as skills with brickbats and bowie knives (for when rallies turned rough). There was a time when young people were the most coveted demographic in politics.

From Manhattan newsboys to Arizona miners, young people fueled American politics at their loudest. Millions joined in boozy elections, often driving turnouts over 80 percent. Even the quietest presidential contest, in 1852, drew far more voters than the election of 2008, the largest in recent memory. Americans viewed politics with what the humorist Donn Piatt called “all the fanaticism of religion and all the fascination of gambling.”

Spectacular campaigns dominated American entertainment, overwhelming the senses. Democracy smelled like oil-torches flickering at midnight parades. It tasted like barbecue straight from the hog and whiskey straight from the barrel. It sounded like boys building bonfires, girls practicing serenades and stump speakers shouting over one another.

And those boys and girls needed politics. Though America’s average age hovered around 18 (younger than Egypt or India today), the path to maturity was unclear. The upheavals of the 19th century destroyed traditional ways of life, but provided few stable alternatives. Youths bounced from job to job, moved back in with their parents, and delayed marriage – similar to millennials today.

Many found identity and stability, not to mention adventure and romance, in politics. Young men joined uniformed political clubs, eager to impress adults and young women. During Reconstruction, former slaves enrolled in secret Republican organizations; in Northern cities, Irish immigrants found their footing in Democratic clubs. In the words of one 19-year-old “boy orator,” the attention of a rapt town square would “rouse the ambition of anyone my age.”

It all peaked with a young man’s “virgin vote.” In a society with few rites of passage, political first-timers celebrated their initiation into citizenship and masculinity. Many grew out scraggly muttonchops or goatees, trying to look manly on Election Day. After a 21-year-old fought his way to the front of the line (literally) and voted, he “ranted and cheered,” making sure everyone knew that he was now a man.

Young women refused to sit on the sidelines. Some marched in political processions, costumed as goddesses, others flirted at midnight rallies, most devoured the fiery partisan newspapers of the era. There were women who turned down marriage proposals because of the man’s politics, and a few who demanded to vote like their brothers. Victorian America’s wild campaigns offered a pretext for restrained young ladies to enjoy public fun and influence their government.

Campaigners enlisted youths to hand out ballots, round up drunks and mob rival demonstrations. In an era of close elections and few independents, “virgin voters” became decisive, lifelong partisans. Though they condescendingly treated youths as political tools, many followed Lincoln’s advice to “gather up all the shrewd, wild boys about town, whether just of age or a little under age.”

Politicians needed young people, and vice versa – together they fueled an enormous system that blurred the line between the political and the personal. When Americans think about 19th-century democracy, we imagine earnest statesmen or cigar-chomping bosses. But the real force driving this experiment in popular government was often a gawky, anxious, ambitious 21-year-old.

But something went wrong after 1900. Turnout crumbled, from roughly 80 percent in 1896 to 48.9 percent by 1924, as new voters stopped joining. With a stable school system and a welcoming teenage culture, youths needed politics less. At the same time, elite campaigners abandoned working-class young people, preferring hotel banquet halls to public barbecues. There were, to be fair, fewer stabbings on Election Day, but also fewer bonfires on election night

Youth politics never recovered. Even after the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971, turnout tumbled further. And efforts to get young people involved mostly failed. Lectures on civic duty did not connect to young people’s intimate lives. As one Tammany Hall leader asked, as youths turned from politics after 1900, “What is there in it for them?”

So what does work? Did those 19th-century organizers know any tricks that could get more young people involved today – without the whiskey and the rioting? Though this was certainly no golden age, three principles remain useful.

First: Democracy is social. Each voter acts on decades of political education, starting in childhood. In the 19th century, adults talked politics with kids at home, in schools and in saloons. Political scientists have confirmed what those barroom electioneers knew: Young people will vote if they are exposed to democratic life. Instead of scolding young people for not voting – a self-fulfilling prophecy – just talk with them about politics.

Second, focus on sustainability, not disruption. We encourage young people to devote themselves to “game changing” campaigns, like Sanders’ or Obama’s in 2008. But such commitments crumble after each race, taking enthusiasm with them. In the 19th century, virgin voters cared more about their own sustained participation than any political personality. The behaviors they established in youth lasted a lifetime, no matter the candidate.

And finally, the political is personal. Voters cared about issues, but they participated because they needed politics in their own lives. Reading 16-year-olds’ diaries, you can see the way they bundled political involvement with their latest romance, their search for work and the acne on their forehead. Public participation soothed private anxiety. Youth politics worked because it was so messy, blending ideology with identity, the fate of the country with “fun and frolic.”

Young people once voted in droves. Here’s how we get them back

This blend of political culture and youth culture might help again today. Millennials could brighten a democracy hijacked by doom-and-gloom baby boomers and readjust the priorities that devote the bulk of federal funds to the 13 percent of the population over 65. Political involvement might help anchor millennials, as we search for lifelong work, love and stability. And we should consider the political socialization of the next generation, preparing to cast its first votes in 2020. The greatest thing we can do to encourage young voters is to think beyond this current campaign.

But more important than any possible utility, the forgotten story of the virgin vote teaches history’s most beautiful lesson: The world we know is not our only option. One of our political system’s weakest links used to be the strongest. Young people did vote. They could do so again.

Jon Grinspan, a historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, is the author of the forthcoming book ‘The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century.’