Dorr Rebellion The Dorr Rebellion ( 1841 – 1842 ) was a short - lived armed insurrection in the U . S . state of Rhode Island led by Thomas Wilson Dorr , who was agitating for changes to the state ' s electoral system . Precursors . Under Rhode Island ' s colonial charter , originally received in 1663 , only landowners could vote . At the time , when most of the citizens of the colonies were farmers , this was considered fairly democratic . By the 1840s , landed property worth at least $ 134 was required in order to vote . However , as the Industrial Revolution reached North America and people moved to the cities , large numbers of people could no longer vote . By 1829 , 60 % of the state ' s free white men were ineligible to vote ( as were all women and most non - white men ) . Many were recent Irish Catholic immigrants or other Roman Catholics . Some argued that an electorate made up of only 40 % of the state ' s white men , and based on a colonial charter signed by the British monarch , was un - republican and violated the United States Constitution ' s Guarantee Clause , Art . IV : Sec . 4 ( " The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government [ . . . ] " ) . Before the 1840s , there were several attempts to replace the colonial charter with a new state constitution that provided broader voting rights , but all failed . The Charter lacked a procedure for amendment . The Rhode Island General Assembly had consistently failed to liberalize the constitution by extending voting rights , enacting a bill of rights , or reapportioning the legislature . By 1841 , most states of the United States had removed property requirements and other restrictions on voting ( see Jacksonian democracy ) , leaving Rhode Island as almost the only state falling significantly short of universal white manhood suffrage . Rebellion . In 1841 , suffrage supporters led by Dorr gave up on attempts to change the system from within . In October they held an extralegal People ' s Convention and drafted a new constitution which granted the vote to all white men with one year ' s residence . Dorr had originally supported granting voting rights to blacks , but he changed his position in 1840 because of pressure from white immigrants . At the same time , the state ' s General Assembly formed a rival convention and drafted the Freemen ' s Constitution with some concessions to democratic demands . Late in that year , the two constitutions were voted on , and the Freemen ' s Constitution was defeated in the legislature , largely by Dorr supporters , while the People ' s Convention version was overwhelmingly supported in a referendum in December . Although much of the support for the People ' s Convention constitution was from the newly eligible voters , Dorr claimed that most of those eligible under the old constitution had also supported it , making it legal . In early 1842 , both groups organized elections of their own , leading in April to the selections of both Dorr and Samuel Ward King as Governor of Rhode Island . King showed no signs of introducing the new constitution ; when matters came to a head , he declared martial law . On May 4 , the state legislature requested the dispatch of federal troops to suppress the " lawless assemblages " . President John Tyler sent an observer , then decided not to send soldiers , because " the danger of domestic violence is hourly diminishing " . Nevertheless , Tyler , citing the U . S . Constitution , added that If resistance is made to the execution of the laws of Rhode - Island , by such force as the civil peace shall be unable to overcome , it will be the duty of this Government to enforce the constitutional guarantee — a guarantee given and adopted mutually by all the original States . Most of the state militiamen were Irishmen newly enfranchised by the referendum and supported Dorr . The " Dorrites " led an unsuccessful attack against the arsenal in Providence , Rhode Island on May 19 , 1842 . Defenders of the arsenal on the " Charterite " side ( those who supported the original charter ) included Dorr ' s father , Sullivan Dorr , and his uncle , Crawford Allen . At the time , these men owned the Bernon Mill Village in Woonsocket , Rhode Island . In addition , among the defenders of Providence were many black men who had supported Dorr before he dropped them from his call for suffrage . After his defeat , Thomas Dorr and his supporters retreated to Chepachet , where they hoped to reconvene the People ' s Convention . Charterite forces were sent to Woonsocket to defend the village and to cut off the Dorrite forces ' retreat . The Charterites fortified a house in preparation for an attack ; but it never came , and the Dorr Rebellion soon fell apart . Governor King issued a warrant for Dorr ' s arrest , with a reward of $ 5 , 000 . Dorr fled the state . Aftermath . The Charterites , finally convinced of the strength of the suffrage cause , called another convention . In September 1842 , a session of the Rhode Island General Assembly met at Newport , Rhode Island , and framed a new state constitution , which was ratified by the old , limited electorate , was proclaimed by Governor King on January 23 , 1843 , and took effect in May . The new constitution greatly liberalized voting requirements by extending suffrage to any free man , regardless of race , who could pay a poll tax of $ 1 . In " Luther v . Borden " ( 1849 ) , the Supreme Court of the United States sidestepped the question of which state government was legitimate , finding it to be a political question best left to the other branches of the federal government . Dorr ' s fate . Dorr returned later in 1843 , was found guilty of treason against the state , and was sentenced in 1844 to solitary confinement and hard labor for life . The harshness of the sentence was widely condemned , and in 1845 Dorr , his health now broken , was released . His civil rights were restored in 1851 . In 1854 , the court judgment against him was set aside . He died later that year . Interpretations . Historians have long debated the meaning and nature of the rebellion . Mowry ( 1901 ) denounced it , while Gettleman ( 1973 ) hailed it as an early working - class attempt to overthrow an elitist government . Dennison ( 1976 ) saw it as a legitimate expression of Republicanism in the United States , but concluded that politics changed little for Rhode Islanders after 1842 because the same groups ruled the state . However , in 1854 , the state supreme court wrote " The union of all the powers of government in the same hands is but the definition of despotism " ; thus , the same court that , in 1844 , convicted Dorr of treason against the charter did rule , ten years later , that the charter had improperly authorized a despotic , non - republican , un - American form of government ( Dennison , p . 196 ) .