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To: Rome2000

But the gist of your post was the mythical “Founders were bigots” belief that they all banned this, that and the other from voting.

There is nothing the Constitution about that.

That many enacted these qualifications locally is not the point. Some did not. Thus, it is NOT universal that the Founding generation enacted univeral rules because they “had a reason for keeping poor, women, blacks, etc from voting”.


68 posted on 04/09/2016 8:13:12 PM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
The Same Reasoning, which will induce you to admit all Men, who have no Property, to vote, with those who have, for those Laws, which affect the Person will prove that you ought to admit Women and Children: for generally Speaking, Women and Children, have as good Judgment, and as independent Minds as those Men who are wholly destitute of Property: these last being to all Intents and Purposes as much dependent upon others, who will please to feed, cloath, and employ them, as Women are upon their Husbands, or Children on their Parents.

Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open So fruitfull a Source of Controversy and Altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the Qualifications of Voters. There will be no End of it. New Claims will arise. Women will demand a Vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their Rights not enough attended to, and every Man, who has not a Farthing, will demand an equal Voice with any other in all Acts of State. It tends to confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Level.

-John Adams

Here is what Adams wrote when talk of expanding the franchise came soon after ratification, which by the way would not have happened if the Constitution granted voting rights to women, children, and the poor.

70 posted on 04/09/2016 8:28:36 PM PDT by Rome2000 (SMASH THE CPUSA-SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS-CLOSE ALL MOSQUES)
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