Quote:
Quote by: underbear1  In 1807, the state's legislature ignored the constitution and restricted suffrage to white male citizens who paid taxes."
Single women worth more than fifty pounds, I bet that was damn few women.
Wealth was either held by a woman's father or husband, and there was no mention of non-white voters. |
LOL -- that was a FAST response! Were you waiting in the shadows to attack or just hit the first link on Google? LOL.
Yes, of course, it was a racist and sexist world by
today's standards.
I agree. The US Constitution is silent on the issue, however -- it was left to the states. Therefore, the founders themselves were not particularly racist nor sexist. The entire society was that way -- an inheritence from Western Europe.
Would you expect someone to snap their fingers and magically everyone adopts 21st Century thinking in 1787? These guys were not particularly racist nor sexist. They could have made sure no woman would vote or hold public office but did not. They could have ensured slavery would exist forever, but did not.
None of that is of any importance to the larger issues, though. These guys were moving human history forward, not backward, with their thinking. That is the real point. It would take many decades more to continue the advance regarding blacks and women, but that does not mean that these guys were a bunch of tyrants moving things back. Slavery existed for thousands of years. Women were considered chattel for thousands of years. The founders were progressing human history forward. That's the real point.
Too many people want to blame these guys for ills/evils that they inherited and that had existed for thousands of years. Thinking that way, one tends to lose perspective on what they accomplished and how they set the stage for later and further advancement in human history, as well.
If you can adopt 24th Century thinking right now, let me know what it's like. If you cannot, then you cannot expect that 18th Century humans could have done likewise. These guys were not trying to secure a cozy spot for the rich, white guy. On the contrary, they were taking a large step away from that thinking, which is what had dominated Western societies for centuries.
You do see the point, right?
~ zynner