edwinland, the two you got wrong shows you really need a steep refresher course in History and Civics. I hope you are not a teacher or mentoring young Americans at this point. 1. The idea of Human Rights did not exist in the United States prior to the Civil War. In fact it did not for a very, very long time afterwards. That is evidenced by the fact that the Northerns did not want the blacks in the North taking jobs from whites up there already employeed. Even the folks against Slavery had no plans for after the Slaves were freed. They had no interest in actually assisting the freed blackman/woman/child. Their only interest was in stopping them from being owned. It was definitely an issue about economics because slavery helped the Southern side of the nation keep prices low, comparatively speaking.
2. Serving on a jury isn’t participating in democracy; it’s involvement in the Judicial Process. I wouldn’t call joining a political party participating in a democracy because the person hasn’t actually done anything. Speaking in the United Nations. The United Nations has no interest in aiding Democracies; from it’s inception it was about controlling Democracies under a Global Plan. I can see voteing as participating in a person’s democracy. Volunteering as a Social Worker..just reads all wrong because those working as Social Workers often have their own agenda and it’s not usually in line with what is good for a Democracy.
Joining a civic group, I can see. Those are usually (usually, not always) are aligned with a nation’s well being. And letters to newspapers have always been viewed as a way for polite discourse. Today’s low-level minded voters do not have discourse in mind on any level. It’s blackmail, violence, and smear campaigns.
Just my opinion. 2 cents worth, and with inflation, it may not be viewed as 2 cents worth. LOL
As to point 1. you are simply incorrect. I could choose many documents from the 18th and 19th Centuries to disprove your contention that the very idea of human rights did not exist until after the Civil War.
1. The declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
I suppose it’s obvious but “all men” are human and therefore the “rights” of “all men” are human rights.
Add to that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which refers alternately to the “rights of mankind” and the “natural rights of mankind”. Mankind being human, mostly:
“Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind and of the FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.”
As for your argument that Slavery was seen only as an economic issue and not an issue of human rights, I give you an excerpt from the 1860 Republican Platform:
9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic
I think it would be hard to have a “crime against humanity” without even having a concept of the natural rights of humans, but in case it were not entirely clear, I give you the preceding provision:
“8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom: That, as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that “no persons should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,”
As to the Jury, I also disagree. The three branches of our government are all components of our democracy and serving in any one of them is participating in our democracy.
By the way, as for the intersection of “rights” thinking and the War of Independence I highly recommend “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution” by Bernard Bailyn.