Though this was an interesting piece, I find it disingenuous for Mr. Bouie to write an article based on the importance of guaranteeing voting rights for all, while at the same time lauding Representative Samuel Shellabarger’s version of the Fifteenth Amendment, which would have banned White southerners from voting.
5
It's getting to be downright depressing to make a few baby steps ahead and then retreating even more backwards than before we started. Trump and his right wing agenda makes this all very, very apparent.
It makes me think that we do not have a snowball's chance in hell to have an uplifting society, caring and helping those who are coming up after us.
If any young person asked me today for any advice for his future, I would have to say try France or England or the northern European states because you won't get a fair chance of success here.
Between being gouged in health care, astronomical student debt, insane child care expenses, out of reach housing you won't be able to succeed here. It's a losing battle. So, I would say give up and get out before you get mired down like I am
14
That’s right. While the “oh so smart” Democrats were wasting their time and our money impeaching Trump (aside - remember the thousands of tax dollars spent on Nancy’s commemorative ball point pens) the Senate continued to move ahead on judiciary appointments - life time appointments by the way. Trump and the Republicans are running rings around a bunch of brain addled Democrats and accomplishing nothing. Oh, expect for re-electing the man they hate most in the world.
8
Imagine if Grant hadn't accepted Lee's surrender at Appamattox and prosecuted the War to the bitter end. Imagine if the The Confederate government had been tried and hung as traitors. Imagine if all the plantations were confiscated and 40 acres and a mule was a reality. Imagine if slave owners had had to spend the rest of their days as indentured servants. One can always dream
16
@Rich
In other words, imagine if the United States had turned into a fascist, totalitarian regime, which relied on mass murder, oppression and theft.
Apparently, you seem unaware that the actions you describe would have destroyed any chance of reuniting the country, instead plunging it into an eternal civil war and transforming an already bitter South into a recalcitrant region, perpetually fighting for its self-determination.
Ask the English how that turned out in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Your dream sounds like most people's nightmares.
5
We would have gotten even further towards equality if every Confederate solider who bore arms against the Republic had been barred from voting, for life. Letting them vote, letting them oppress voting by African Americans... we are still living with the results of that crime against the republic.
16
Confederates and their descendants were and are still Americans. That was the point of preventing secession.
Why speak this way of some family’s dead? This was a war between brothers- it does little good to relitigate it now.
9
Excellent and fascinating article.
9
This column highlights a fact that many of us have not faced in part because we have not been educated to the deficiencies in our democracy. Instead, especially at the high school level, we have been taught that the "American experiment" was somehow complete, fulfilled and, because of that, not to be questioned or analyzed.
The nation's founders gave us a partial, hobbled democracy and, bit by bit, it has been updated and improved over the last 240+ years. We are still not where we need to go. If we neglect this task, if we tell ourselves that "almost" is good enough, we risk the survival of the nation or, at the least, the health of it.
Furthermore, if we understand the factors inhibiting and distorting democratic functioning, we see the current deep divisions as a manifest outcome of this failure. A more fulsome democracy would, first, reflect the will of the people more robustly and would make clear that need for accommodation and compromise rather than the present unending battle driving citizens into hostile, hateful tribal camps.
The column also serves as evidence of the fact that the southern tier of states, those locked into slavery and later gross oppression, were never full functional democracies well into the 20th century.
15
On a host of issues, the current "leadership" in the national government does not reflect the desires of the public. A democratic system need not be perfect to be good but the current distortions, combined with the wrongs of the past, make it abundantly clear that change must come.
15
I don't always agree with Mr. Bouie's positions in his essays but today, he has hit a home run!! Bravo!!
After 244 years of independence, the USA has still not reached (but we are getting closer to) A More Perfect Union.
5
Mr. Bouie loses his moral compass when he carelessly batts away the fact that the Fifteenth Amendment continued to discriminate against more than half of the adult American population.
American women were spectacular losers in the Civil War. Their families and fortunes were destroyed, their homes and land taken from them and their rights of ownership denied even as they were left to find some means of feeding themselves, caring for the elderly, ill, damaged and young.
With the deaths of so many soldiers and the decamping for the West of so many more, women were in the majority in nearly every state yet were not permitted to protect themselves or influence public policy through their vote. It was not until 1896 that Idaho, cynically weaponizing the multiple Mormon wives to fend off the influence of newcomers, extended the franchise to women.
Mr. Bouie is hypocritical in lamenting the failure to expand black male suffrage and completely ignore the continuing subjugation of every American woman.
7
The notion of races is a myth other than that of a human race. Genetic data collected from all over the world conclusively show that all members of the human race, in continents other than Africa, originated from a group of anatomically modern humans who emigrated out of Africa nearly 100,000 years ago and populated the other continents. Racism is the notion of a flat earth of our times.
4
Progress is difficult. Even the 14th Amendment left a hole big enough to run a train through (Plessy v. Ferguson).
2
The minority must supress the vote of the majority to stay in power. It really gets old. Revolution..
5
I think this issue should be cast in terms of soveriegnty & that we should release & promulgate a series of national sovereignty amendments. It should reinforce the following:
1
Sovereignty is vested in the citizens manifested in the vote.
2
Any impediment to a partial sovereign (citizen) exercising their right to vote is treason, per se, and subject to the most draconian punishments, including capital punishment.
3
Public officials at the federal, state & local shall exercise proactive effort to ensure each partial sovereign gets to exercise their right and privilege to vote.
4
Any publishing of knowingly (or should have known) false information meant to affect how sovereigns vote shall be dreamed as an attempt at treason: any attempt at treason shall be seen as treason and subject to the most draconian punishments including capital punishment.
(The last bit is my reaction to Sara Pallin telling the public that the ACA had death panels written into the bill, when it really included end of life counseling. When my father died shortly there after I found myself so distraught that I couldn’t make any decisions regarding him or anything else, for like 18 months. End of life counseling should be encouraged and needs to happen in advance to the event, but thanks to Sara it got stripped from the bill. To my definition, this is a form of treason)
5
A partial sovereign doesn’t lose their sovereignty just because they have been convicted and are serving sentence for conviction.
5
But for the SCOTUS division, there is some advantage to having a lot of nutty conservatives populating the Federal judiciary. They are going to overstep and thereby generate contrary positions, leading to conflicting appeals and ultimately to the SCOTUS.
If we can get rid of Trump and move the Senate toward sanity (i.e., more open minded and liberal to say nothing of seeing more liberal justices placed on the court) then Trump-installed judges elsewhere will find their opinions contradicted, appealed, and ultimately rejected by the SCOTUS.
1
Please stop conflating equality with fairness. We have equality, which is attainable. Fairness, on the other hand, well life isn’t fair, and to live life you will need to develop constructive coping strategies. The constructive coping strategies will vary by the individual and are as much color blind as they are gender blind.
4
@Senator Blutarski, PhD
The constructive coping strategy for fairness is called justice.
If you want piece, this is something you should strive for - to concede to some kind of floating point justice is to plant the seed for the desolation of civilization.
2
Why is it considered "radical" to do the right thing. Is universal suffrage "radical"? Is universal healthcare, provided by ever other developed free-market country in the world "radical"? Is educational opportunity and affordability "radical"? To call a Senator who advocated universal suffrage and the assurances there of "radical" is evidence of the misleading discourse that hinders necessary change.
4
Bouie is using the name the Radical Republicans called themselves. They proudly called themselves "Radicals."
7
For my vote, if I were registered, to carry the same weight as that of Jeff Bezos IS radical. For me to demand that others fund the health insurance I cannot afford absolutely IS radical AND obscenely entitled. As far as education, my parents couldn’t afford college so I didn’t belong there. Period.
3
Had the Shellabarger version become law, no doubt the South would have made minor offenses into felonies. Without sweeping language, but more importantly, sweeping consensus, there will always be loopholes.
Th Constitution is a much-loved and patched-up relic of the 1780s. There are much better versions that have been developed in the last 230 years in effect elsewhere.
5
In the biographical novel “Grant” there is extensive discussion of voting rights and said amendments. Chernow argues that in the early days of Reconstruction black men were voting and winning office in the newly defeated South. His contention is that the failure of Reconstruction wasn’t the wording of the new amendments but instead the fatigue of the American people and it’s elected representatives in fighting a great Civil War and fighting for the rights of the newly freed slaves set forth in these amendments.
The question today is whether the fatigue in fighting Trump and his Republican cronies with regard to gerrymandering, culling voter registration, and oppressive voter I.D. rules will further diminish the rule of law set forth in these amendments. Right now the arc of history is not bending toward justice but instead toward authoritarian rule. November 2020 is the time reckoning for America and only we can get us back on the arc toward justice.
5
II can't help wondering why you call Chernow's exhaustively researcged biography of Grabt a "novel." Is it a critique, asserting Chernow made things up? Can you have read all 900 pages plus detailed notes thinking you were reading fiction?
2
Laws, amendments, constitutions, etc don't really matter unless they can be enforced. When the southern states seceded, Lincoln didn't didn't file a lawsuit. Instead he mobilized the Union Army and fought a war. In a like manner, when President Grant was faced with widespread opposition to Reconstruction in Louisiana in 1873 he wasn't willing to re-start the war. Both presidents knew laws can't solve all the world's problems.
4
@ Joe. Right you are. Ultimately, everything that needs deciding in human affairs is decided by force or the threat thereof. "Force," to be clear, equals violence. Nothing else really matters. That's just reality.
1
This column showcases the unending and relentless efforts of some, few, privileged white men to prevent others from attaining equality with them. That belief was brought to our shores with the first colonists, reinforced in the Continental Congress, enshrined in the Articles of Confederation, cemented into the Constitution. Even a Civil War that ripped the country apart, in the end, could not dislodge it. "Hostility in the South, indifference in the North" followed the expansion of the country across the continent and resides in the souls of our citizens.
Maybe a different 15th amendment could have made a difference. However, the virulence of the opposition of allowing someone else the same opportunities and privileges still dominates our political system today.
Perhaps the flaw is not in our laws but in ourselves. Perhaps the greatness of the idea of the United States lies in the exportation of an idea of equality to other countries, rather than the implementation of that idea within our own borders.
89
@Maureen Steffek Your first paragraph is just one strawman after another. The fact that you had to make all your charges using passive-voice verbs is evidence of that.
I do believe that a better 15th Amendment would have made it harder for the Democrats to disenfranchise black Americans.
According to John Adams, our Constitution created a system for a moral, virtuous people, and would not work for any other. As you suggest in your last paragraph, the flaw is that we have not always been moral and virtuous. Self-government doesn't work very well when "the people" are not virtuous, because they elect leaders like themselves.
The very idea of civic virtue seems laughable in today's environment. It is neither preached nor practiced. And no matter how many powers we grant to our government, our government cannot make us virtuous. All it can do is take our moral choices away from us.
5
@Maureen Steffek
"Perhaps the greatness of the idea of the United States lies in the exportation of an idea of equality to other countries, rather than the implementation of that idea within our own borders."
What a novel, long view of looking at things and, yet, at the same time it seems both realistic and the stuff of science fiction.
Are you a Star Trek fan?
3
My grandmother, daughter of a slave firmly believed that one must stand up and "take" their rights and then exercise them. She also believed that you had to be willing to fight to keep your rights. Grandmom also taught us that we were all unique human beings that God created with his perfect wisdom.
But we also know that what is put on paper and deemed legal and enforceable isn't worth the paper it is written on. How many are dead because the order of protection didn't stop the attacker? And even if we take the Declaration of Independence and Constitution literally that all men are created equal, reality and even the Constitution tells us all men are not considered equal.
Know what your rights are and exercise them. Then be prepared to fight to keep them. We also have to fight the forces that want us divided. Dr. King, Malcom X and many others were assassinated because they were bringing people together and uniting them as human beings. The Revolution won't be Televised, It will be Live (before our eyes in our streets).
64
Thank you Mr. Bouie for the very enlightening treatise on the 15th Amendment and the struggle for Universal Suffrage in our country.
I feel baffled and bitter about the ongoing racial “Dog Whistle” employed by the GOP to subvert the constitutionality of our universal suffrage. Let’s also not forget about “gerrymandering”. I simply can’t comprehend why the GOP is so obsessed with tribalism and chauvinism.
We are all HUMAN BEINGS - it’s NOT a very complicated concept. Ergo restrictions of universal suffrage amount to HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION.
8
Thanks to Mr Bouie for this historical insight and by its example remind us of how inadequate is the teaching of American history in our schools.
Intellectual honesty is not easy in our schools, our media, or governance. At least by witnessing of those entrusted with those institutions, it appears not to be an objective easily accomplished.
Education must be based on objective truth and facts. Interpretations of those facts are likely to be different for different people. Understanding results when the differences are discussed and tested for their honesty and their logic and their implications.
Educating our people about the reality of slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow and today's societal dysfunctions is important and necessary. "We the people" need common understanding of historical and present day reality if change will ever come for our children. That means both the good and the bad.
91
Thank you, Mr. Bouie, for your illuminating piece. Other than the notion that the 14th and 15th Amendments were a cure all, I have no recollection of being taught anything about the struggle for the franchise in grade, middle or high school. Heaven knows, my undergraduate institution (the University of Southern California) certainly had no interest whatsoever in educating its students about anything of the sort. My inexcusable ignorance took a significant hit upon reading The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. Now, you have helped me see the omissions and defects woven into the 15th Amendment itself. No wonder the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were so crucial. Please write more often. The Nation needs your voice.
123
Equal vote means no electoral college. Let’s talk about that.
9
@Christine Feinholz
The Census is used to determine how many Congressional seats are awarded to each state. If the Census counts migrants who are living here without authorization, then the states where most unauthorized migrants reside will be awarded more Congressional seats than is fair.
The Constitution gives the federal government exclusive power over immigration; individual states are not allowed to interfere in this matter of national concern.
Given that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration, the Constitution says that the Census should count every resident to determine how Congressional seats are to be allocated among the states.
Those states that are providing services to unauthorized migrants despite the policies of the federal government are undermining the Constitution. It is ironic that these states use the Constitution to demand that the Census count every resident when the states are conveniently ignoring the fact that the Constitution gives the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over immigration.
When unauthorized migrants are used to pad the number of voters in each state, then every vote is not equal.
2
The Constitution says persons.
4
I always appreciate Mr. Bouie's efforts to educate us on the nuances, and in this case the flagrant opposite, to form a more perfect Union.
150 years later who knows if endemic racism would have been muted or even stopped by having made the changes suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts.
Sadly I feel that the impact of America's original sin will always be with us.
6
I find it very hard to believe that the language of the Wilson Amendment, if adopted, would have produced a materially different outcome in the South. It would have also become, as the original language did, a dead letter until the 1960s. The facts are that the South was prepared to resist democracy by force and the North was not prepared to do anything about it.
7
@NYCVoter
Wait. The Southern states were placed under a, oppressive military dictatorship, denied the franchise and denied representation in Congress, as demanded under the constitution, and you say they were "resisting democracy"?
What is your definition of democracy?
1
The Democrats (Dixiecrats) of old are the mainstream Republicans of today, and the die was cast with the Civil Rights bills of the early 60's.
However, there is still plenty of racism to go around in both parties, some, such as the reactionary judges being appointed up to and including the Supreme Court is explicit. Some is simply indifferent, and therefore one often hears "I'm not racist", while not caring a whit about the problem, or voting for those who would actively deny voting rights, vilify and even cage children.
There's a reason is called the "original sin". It infects everything and everyone.
6
"The Supreme Court agreed, ending federal 'pre-clearance' for new voting laws in several states and allowing new forms of voter suppression."
And still, people like Joy Reid use their TV platforms to insist, "You have to give black women a _reason_ to vote for a Democratic candidate." You know, because in 2010 and 2016, there were insufficient reasons.
2
Republicans reject democracy.
6
Jamelle Bouie presents an especially compelling and convincingly erudite Opinion addressing the envisioned scope and intended extent of the application of the XV Amendment. Brilliantly presented, and highly informative, this intensely detailed discussion about the Radical Republicans' efforts to expand upon the reach of the proposed amendment is significant. I agree with Jamelle's incisive analysis and reasoning. The recent confirmation of two individuals to federal judgeships in Mississippi and Alabama habouring narrow minded, inflexibly conservative beliefs favouring restrictive voter franchise exercise reflects reinforced resistance. Another example of Caucasian males of privilege voicing their position of what individuals of colour should be content with and readily accept as best for them. This, then, is illustrative of yet another form of benign racially motivated efforts to curtail, dissuade, discourage, and frustrate racial minority voter participation. These two individuals, who have not, and will never experience, any form of discrimination, believe they are best suited to offer their warped, myopic perception of what how the XV Amendment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act should be construed, interpreted, and applied. This living hypocrisy is typical of these federal judicial appointees. "They" believe that individuals of colour should "know their place" and remain silent and content, and be grateful. The ludicrousness of this fallacy is appalling. Race matters.
4
In Canada Elections are administered by an arms length non partisan body - Elections Canada. Elections Canada decides where the voting locations will be and hires all the staff to supervise the vote. There is a voters list (updated by checking a box on one's income tax return) but Citizens can register the day of the vote. Those with limited ID can still register on voting day if they are vouched for by someone who knows them and also has ID. (I live near the University of Toronto. I saw this being done by two students at the last election. It took me 5-10 minutes from the time I arrived at the voting location to the time I left after voting.) There are generally no line-ups or manageable line-ups on voting day. By law employees must have 4 clear hours to vote on Election Day - so any busy times (such a right after dinner) can be avoided. There are occasional examples of human error which delay a small number of votes, but in those cases voting hours are usually extended.
Advance polls are held on 5 or 6 days prior to the election.
I have voted in every election - municipal, provincial and federal since I was 18. It is a citizen's basic right and duty to vote.
I am aghast that the self styled "world's greatest democracy" has three hour line-ups, arcane ID laws, strategically closed or moved voting stations and other tactics designed to suppress the basic symbol of freedom - the right to vote.
7
@Michael Greason
Like many Canadians, I am astonished at just how backward the USA is in many ways (health care, elections, and so forth).
America has never really been great.
6
Thank you Mr. Bouie. So important to learn this history. Please write more about these struggles during Reconstruction and the re-imposition of political white supremacy.
If the outcome had been different in the 19th century, arguably we would not be facing the climate catastrophe now.
Black Americans and people of color are far more aware of the impact of climate change than white Americans and could have elected politicians who would have responded in the early 90s to the science that was becoming widely known at that time.
2
First of all, these ARE NOT trump judges. They are Republican judges off the list given to trump by Mitch McConnell. There is no way on earth trump has any clue as to the qualifications of any of the candidates. His twitter feed proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the the only thing he spends any time on is watching TV about himself and tweeting. Congress may have the right to create laws that allow for fair voting rights but when the courts are packed with conservatives all the way up to the Supreme Court it can have the affect of making Congress moot. I say the most egregious quid pro quo currently going on is between donald trump and Mitch McConnell. McConnell allows trump his horrific behavior while trump gives Mitch the cover of darkness he needs to rig the system in this country.
5
This is great piece of history. Thank you.
I propose that voter registration be automatic as soon as one turns 18 years old. Maybe even 16. When a child is born the information is placed in a voter database. Then as the child ages, voter education material is sent to him or her - annually, perhaps. Upon that eligibility date, the person is registered. And it can't be denied no matter what happens to you or where you live.
I also suggest that a public service requirement be applied to the same individuals. Serve upon high school graduation or defer it by enrolling in college. As the child ages, public service information about options will be sent, so a kid can choose and plan.
Public service and voting rights - universal. You can work out the details. Not that hard.
4
New York’s DMV automatically enrolls 16 and 17 year olds to vote upon turning 18 unless they opt out in the Learner/Driver License application. Note that voting IS NOT required by law ( I am 61 and have never registered or voted). Yet NYS does not automatically register such young men for the Selective Service which is required by law of all males 18-26. Transparency: I reported to the local US Army recruiter on my 18th birthday as I had promised the recruiters who roamed the halls of my NYC high school in the mid-70’s.
3
My two cents is Democracy has to be able to function with the material at hand, which is to say the short sighted/violent/criminal/racist and authoritarian; a large percentage of the population fits that description. How could high minded government with unrealistic expectations of the electorate lead to anything but chaos. The government needs to simply work in the first place whether it's a democracy or a dictatorship (and we're only nominally democraric while probably being nominally dictatorial at the same time).
The country would be in a lot worse shape if the so called minorities did not behave by and large with exemplary character. Minority/immigrant reaction to the system's unfairness seems faultless to me and in keeping with behavior that can only be described as long suffering good citizenship.
If a corporation has the same rights as an individual, Citizens United, then couldn't the same thinking be applied to the level of authority of any county government. In other words, there could be merit in extending more of the authority of representative government not to the state but to the county level. Now there's a real laboratory.
1
Where is the Wilson of the modern era? What is the matter with these conservatives that want to deny other human beings that are also citizens of this country all the rights that they deserve and are entitled to as part of the same society as those conservatives. More and more we are becoming so divided and ruled by these minorities that it is becoming unbearable to exist here. Every citizen regardless of gender, race, religion, is entitled to vote, it is our right. We live in 2020 but in many ways we are still fighting the same wars as we were in the 1800’s. What a shame that we are not father along.
2
Anyone who wants to vote and is legally entitled to can vote. This is a false issue and has been for about 50 years, if so one isn’t willing to actively take the steps necessary to vote probably is too lazy to go vote anyway.
A more effective way to get more voter participation would be to hold the election on a Saturday, which would require a Amendment, or make Election Day a holiday which is more practical.
4
An ignored point is that many of us do not belong anywhere near a polling place or ballot. I’m not deeply versed on foreign policy, have only a HS diploma (from a NYC public high school in the bankrupt 1970’s) and as a sub-minimum wage earner, certainly a lesser stake in this country than the majority of the other 320,000,000 in this country, I ave many like me are unqualified to vote.
2
The United States has been steeped in racism (and other forms of discrimination) since its inception. It continues today, with the open support of a president and party whose political fortunes depend on stoking the fires of hatred. And, make no mistake, they are very good at it.
Keeping people from voting is the clearest admission possible that the suppressors cannot win otherwise. It's really no better than election officials deciding ahead of time only to count the votes of those registered with one political party.
It is eerily reminiscent of trends one sees in sports. Fear of not being able to compete leads to unethical behavior. Are you listening, Bill Belichick? Are you listening, New Orleans Saints, who at one time not too long ago gave bonuses to players who knocked the opposing quarterback out of the game? Are you listening, Lance Armstrong, who doped himself for years, all the while denying it?
It's really a simple syllogism that motivates vote suppressors. (1) The party with the most votes wins (except for the Electoral College). (2) We cannot get the most votes with open elections. (3) Therefore, we must keep from voting enough people so that we can win where otherwise we would not have.
It's been going on since the founding, not just according to race and sex, but also according to ownership of property. If there is a way to discriminate, the United States will find it.
2
@WTig3ner I cannot agree with anything in this comment. No every problem is race related, in fact few are. But if you feel this way and think it isn’t going to change why not save your sanity, pa k it in, and move to a place that suits you. Talk is cheap, really, really, cheap.
6
@T Smith What's freedom of speech if you have to move because somebody doesn't agree with you? Could not the same be said to you? Dunning-Kruger explained.
1
A different phrasing of the 15th Amendment would not have prevented the Republican attack on voting rights. Their main argument is simply that discrimination by race no longer exists - that there are now "different conditions" as Brasher put it - so that intervention by Congress is no longer necessary. The radical Republican judges would find some specious argument to justify whatever the politicians do to restrict voting rights.
3
That is not true. If the language of the 15th Amendment were different and more along the line of what Shellabarger offered as the alternative then judge would have had their hands tried and every federal judge would have to rule the attacks on voting rights as unconstitutional. It would have also given more power to Congress to enforce the voting laws.
2
one again I admire the research but disagree with the conclusions. contrary to the various nyt pieces pushing this, in fact the language of the civil war amendments is just fine. it was white prejudice and unwillingness to enforce them that made them dead letters for 100 years. oddly the mistaken position taken here in effect denigrates the work of the NAACP and heroes like Marshall and Houston in breathing new life into judicial understanding of those amendments in keeping with their original purpose. words are important of course but s the current supreme Court shows withe the voting rights act, with determination plain words can be drained of effective meaning.
1
Mr. Bouie touches on the #1 reason I believe Trump has to go. He and Mitch are packing the federal courts with reactionary judges, many unqualified and also youthful.
If Trump is re-elected and the GOP keeps the Senate, it could take half a century to undo the damage long after Trump and McConnell are gone.
12
In truth, while the North won the Civil War, the South has done everything possible to perpetuate slavery under other names and with varying excuses. What a lot of African American problems come from is the fact that almost no politician has bothered to treat them as equals in reality rather than in theory. The same can be applied to women and to children. Slaves were property. Wives belonged to their husbands. Children belong to their parents. It's why we see such lopsided justice in America.
We don't have equality. What we have is grudging tolerance from the ruling political class. Crime is not to be tolerated if one isn't rich, male, and the right color. Ask any African American who's been accused of crimes or any child who has been abused and struck back, or any woman whose husband has beaten her.
4
I thought this article was going to be about the radical Republican proposal to confiscate the property of all who fought for the Confederacy, and give it to the slaves who formerly worked it. That was a real proposal, and would’ve been the most straightforward way of providing reparations for slavery.
2
The "indifferent Republicans" who didn't strongly support black suffrage pretty much shot themselves in the foot.
Pre-Civil War, the representation of Southern whites was boosted by the 3/5ths rule in the Constitution -- reapportionment counted the slaves (mostly) but ceded the voting power to the whites.
When slavery was abolished, those freed slaves counted as 100% human for reapportionment purposes -- but voting power was still ceded to the whites per black voter suppression. Majority-black states like South Carolina could have stayed reliably Republican if those freedmen had been able to keep the franchise.
Instead, they moved north during the 20th century and became Democrats.
3
An engaging and informative article. Thank you. One question, though:
“...still wanted restrictions on other groups, including European immigrants and Chinese laborers.”
Wondering why the distinction? Why not just say European and Chinese immigrants?
2
What about the civil rights act of 1965 calling for racial representation? It allowed districts to favor people that looked like them! Such representation is important for getting women and minorities to represent women and minorities. Unfortunately only one party believes in women in minorities and they may elect a socialist democrat. Sad.
These judges and and everything rotten from this administration is the result of not voting in 2016.
In a world where other democracies have high voter participation, the USA can only strain to get half of its people to vote.
Americans deserve the raggedy government they get and the pain that comes along with it. Trump is delivering the pain that the GOP supporters demand be inflicted on those not looking like them.
No point complaining. The Republicans and their supporters have resentment and hate for their opponents. They will continue to delight in the bashing and dismantling of minorities, women’s rights, LGBT rights until those groups are effectively destroyed and bowed.
Only voting matters. Talk is cheap. Editorials are cheap and comments online are cheap.
3
Final installment (I promise) for Third Founding amendments:
5. The rights enumerated in this Constitution are available only to people under the jurisdiction of the United States of America. No corporation, union, association or any other legally constituted group will have any rights under this document per se; they may be granted specific rights only by the law(s) which allow their foundation.
6. Approve the ERA
7. Repeal the 12th amendment and make the President and Vice President elected by the popular vote (comment: as is true in every other election in the United States)
1
It’s strange to think that there were men in the Republican Party in the 1860s like Senator Wilson and Thaddeus Stevens more committed to a multiracial democracy than some in the same party today
3
Radical Republicans were not saints, not like Gandhi and not not like Jesus and not like Martin Luther King, they were mostly still reacting to the horror and violences of the Civil War and the stubborn contrariness of former Confederates who they wanted to punish. In addition, the former slaves who most expected incapable of living free and prospering as those who had never been slaves, did very well. The former Confederates and probably most other white peoples had thought that racial differences were fundamental and explained why descendants of Africans were slaves and rarely prospered as did whites in similar proportions to their numbers. Change is a very difficult stressor to accept and America could not live up to it’s best reasonings as represented by the new amendments intended to resolve the end of slavery. The Radical Republicans just could not implement the the envisioned.
In the end, Reconstruction was about white Republicans taking vengeance upon white Southerners, and the equality of African Americans becoming the lost promise due to failing to confront the lies about race and rejecting the distorted attitudes which perpetuated illogical stereotypes and racial bigotry.
3
As the pie grows ever increasingly smaller, we should expect more of the same.
4
@Arthur In what way is the pie growing smaller? More jobs, higher incomes, etc. My pie seems to be getting larger.
3
@T Smith
You're one of the lucky few. The fact that you're doing well doesn't mean everyone else is.
Have some compassion for your fellow Americans.
1
It’s a shame how America democracy is loosing a real path for progressive agenda, Specially the Southern states, are going backwards. The Right wing Conservative Republicans ; Lawyers and Judges , and many states leaders are directly abusing and practicing discriminations against everyone and every issues , specially Voters rights, Guns Control , Abortion - How can we end this serious problem? People need to create a National Protest against those imoral republicans and judges. All americans have the right to Vote, and we should not be dictated about this issues.
1
"Through terror and violence, former Confederates toppled Reconstruction governments."
Heritage, not hate, indeed.
3
This is an interesting essay. Yes the 15th amendment could have been broader. But even the broader wording described would not have removed the "nativity" requirement.
That is, even a broader version of the 15th amendment would have required citizenship as a condition of being able to vote. Tourists on a tourist visa would not be given such an opportunity. And neither should illegal immigrants.
Sadly, Democrats oversimplify. They tend to declare any opposition to illegal immigration as "racism" and "bigotry." There seems to be only one admissible position, open borders.
But numbers make such a position untenable. The population of Guatemala grows by about 340,000 per year. Just to deal with that increase, we would have to admit 340,000 immigrants each year. Just from the one country Guatemala.
Strangely, liberal Democrats seem uninformed. Did the NY Times ever mention the carnage that occurred in the Second Congo War (1998-2003)? We were busy thinking about Iraq. Nobody noticed.
The Second Congo War, the genocide in Rwanda, the starvation in South Sudan and now Zimbabwe, the growth of slums in Kinshasa, Lagos, Johannesburg. These have various proximate causes, but the long run cause is population growth. The population of Africa is projected to double (again) by 2050.
We cannot solve these problems by immigration to the US.
Instead, we need to recognize that access to family planning, birth control and abortion is a fundamental human right.
6
The nomination and pushing through of radical judges is a primary agenda for the neo-Birchers of the present G.O.P. and it is a nightmare for anyone who expects or respects civil rights, consumer protection or, for that matter, the Constitution or rule of law.
This criminal administration which now assumes the ability to interfere in the Justice Department should be blocked from putting any more judges on the bench.
Shelby County is a prime candidate for the number two worst decision ever by the Supreme Court. It's full outrageous hypocrisy is made clear in Justice Ginsberg's dissent that tore apart the alleged facts and logic behind the majority 5-4 decision. That decision stands like Wile E Coyote supported by empty space just before the force of gravity sends him plunging downwards.
2
This is more moonlight history. "We" should have listened. Let me point out that "we" were not there. History cannot be perfected by imagining the present can reach back and attain our values somehow in the distant past. Boule's characteristic understatement of the circumstances and interests of the actual people in actual history does a disservice by making it appear they were willfully ignorant or morally deficient. It encourages the same dismissive and cynical attitude toward opponents or even just the unconvinced in today's body politic. That's no help at all.
4
Quality comment.
2
The history of African American in the US is incredibly problematic. The fact is the nation was built on the backs of this community, not NYC bankers’ brilliant double dealing like Bernie Madoff. Better leadership is needed to educate, coalesce and deliver the vote as a group to right all the crimes. While no community is a monolith, it’s difficult to understand why some members of the African American community are coming in favor of Michael Bloomberg who is even blaming the 2008 grand Looting on “red lining” bad mortgages made to African Americans because, even if they qualified to better rate mortgages, they didn’t get it. Bloomberg’s BFS and current Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary Mnuchin made his fortune foreclosing on orphans and widows. Kissinger has been advising Jared Kushner and indirectly Stephen Miller on oppressive policies against the other group responsible for the decline of the country: Central American refugees who’re now referred to “Brown”, thereby creating the other -75 years after the final solution. Lessons learned? Not really. Voting is the only way to fight these dark forces.
1
I am 72 and I grow increasingly pessimistic that America can start moving forward again because those who don't know their own history try to relive it.
I am convinced that if there is ever going to be an American salvation it is because only America's racial minorities and its indigenous populations who refuse to trade their heritage for the white narrative and the lies of the past five centuries.
I have only been around 72 years but what I know and remember is now myth and what is remembered is a past that never was.
Bernie was eight years old when I first started spending summers in Vermont. My father grew up in Europe and had the remarkable fortune to be a middle class Jew with a good Jesuit education and my mother's family were multi-generational Jews who spoke English like Michiganders and understood non-Jewish society.
We called Vermont Mississippi North. We chose Vermont to vacation because it was inexpensive, beautiful and friendly its people were unsophisticated and the Gentiles Only signs did not apply to Jews who did not hint of New York and the other. We spoke of growing gardens and the joys of rural America.
In Montreal my parents were more comfortable with people who didn't share the shtetl ethos and my father preferred chickens and gardening to the clothing factory where he went to work every day.
I don't know when American Jewry forgot its history but I do know that when Bernie first went to Vermont the best epithet he might hear was democratic socialist.
4
“If all sad words of tongue and pen, those saddest are: It might have been.”
2
Rights are, by definition, negations of power. Hence, your use of the phrase “black rights” in meaningless; skin color carries no rights. The post-bellum amendments denied government the power to consider race.
Good.
"Using government to ameliorate economic divides” is profoundly anti-freedom. The instrument designed to protect American freedom cannot be wielded to ensure equality of economic result.
An unshakeable article of leftist religion holds that “voter suppression” actually exists, despite the absence of any supportinr evidence.
The nominees are not so much “conservatives” – that’s a political term – as they are pledged to be actual judges: comporting with the rule of law by following the law as it actually is, not making it up as they go along. And THAT is a great offense against leftism, which charges judging with arriving at the Politically Correct result, the provisions of the law to the contrary notwithstanding.
Of old, almost certainly, the Republican speakers you cite, when speaking of “equality”, were speaking English, not left-speak. When they employed that word, it mean “being treated equally before the law” not, as modern leftists use the word, to mean “enjoying equal economic results”.
Republicans haven’t changed in 150 years; we still regard any official consideration of skin color as anathema. Nor have the Democrats changed: they still consider skin color crucial and endorse blatant racial discrimination.
2
With the abolition of slavery, the rationale for unequal representation of citizens at the federal level evaporated. The injustice is only now coming to a head.
1
I simply don’t know whether to laugh or cry whenever someone of any color or nation earnestly believes in equality be it political, economic, cultural, historical, biological, religious, secular, etc. It is at best utopian and at worst delusional. Nothing has lead to more carnage than such beliefs be it 1776, 1789, 1914, 1917, etc. etc. Fascism and communism were both radically egalitarian.
5
Interesting and informative historical background to how the harsh hostile worse demonic aspects of our white European American Judeo-Christian majority color aka race, ethnicity and national origin nature still prevail.
In the beginning the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Founding Fathers who owned property including their enslaved black African men, women and children and the lands and natural resources stolen from brown aboriginal Indigenous men, women and children only intended that persons like themselves were divinely naturally created equal persons with certain unalienable rights of life,liberty and the pursuit happiness.
And they so feared democracy that they didn't intend to and didn't create one.
America is and always been a very peculiar kind of republic. A divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states where the Senate, Electoral College,Cabinet and Supreme Court of the United States stand as substantial bulwarks against democracy.
2
Pieces like this need to be written and circulated daily - because is is so important to continually remind ourselves of the historical continuities that Trumpism embodies. It is not exceptional. It is, to quote Ta Nehisi Coates, “a return to form.”
1
If ifs and buts were candy nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.
It's interesting that Mr. Bouie is so concerned with possible changes 150 years ago that would have improved a Black mans right to vote, but is not so concerned about giving suffrage to women at that point in time. The amendment at the time was what was politically possible to get adopted, it is what it is.
Meanwhile, in 2020: Yes, many republicans are shamelessly trying to prevent people from voting, primarily Black people. The most disgusting example being in Florida, where republicans are still trying to prevent felons who have done their time from voting. And that is after the voters gave them back the franchise.
This year, this very year, we all need to be blue dog democrats, or yellow dog democrats if it comes to that, and we need to vote!
3
As President Obama, with several other progressives, has often declared, "The arc of history bends toward justice." But it gets smashed to near total annihilation along the way. We must consider ourselves the hard-working welders of America's constitutional collision repair shop.
55
@John LeBaron Quote Investigator gives credit to Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister born in 1810 who advocated for the abolition of slavery. "We cannot understand the moral Universe. The arc is a long one, and our eyes reach but a little way; we cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; but we can divine it by conscience, and we surely know that it bends toward justice." In 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King began using a concise version with quotation marks around it. "Yes, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”"
12
@Deb. Many thanks!
7
@Deb
Thank you for introducing me to Theodore Parker. I just ordered two of his books from the library. I know I'm going to really enjoy his writing. From so long ago he could pierce the future.
Wow!
4
Remember that when the 15th amendment was passed, the country was still reeling from the Civil War and its aftereffects. (Indeed, we still are.) One of those was that, by and large, the proponents of freedom for the slaves wanted them to be free, yes, but not to be equal to whites. None other than Abraham Lincoln struggled with this viewpoint. So, the question was, now that the slaves were freed, what should be done with them? What rights should be accorded to them? The right to own property, or to vote?
We have yet to sort all this out. We are still not at the point where people of color truly have the same rights as whites do. On paper, it might seem that they do. But in practice, with such a prevalent number of people on the right (a misnamed branch of our political system if there ever was one) who so actively work to deny them the rights our Constitutions ostensibly guarantees to them, we still have a long way to go. Installing the legal infrastructure of corruptly biased judges and politicians who perpetuate this inequality shows clearly that America is still mired in the bowels of bigotry and hate.
It is time to renew our democracy. The core of these ills is the Electoral College, which gives the right such a favorable bias in the voting booth. We must institute an electoral system based on the voice of the people, and consign the College to the dustbin of history. We need a direct vote for the Presidency in America, if we want a true democracy.
5
One hundred and fifty years ago -- and counting.
3
Thank you for including the 2013 op-ed in your article. It is breathtaking to read. His contempt for oversight burns hot, while he dismisses actual irregularities as aw-shucks honest mistakes by good people. One ballot box wasn’t sealed, but that’s an honest mistake and it’s all OK because he checked?
This man should be sitting at the end of a bar, not sitting on a bench placing judgement upon citizens he openly professes disgust for. That article is the perfect backup for your thesis.
8
What could have been. If only.
1
What a country where freedom and success has skin colors in 2020!
2
Apart from citizenship, English language fluency should be a voting requirement.
In fact, English language fluency should be a requirement of citizenship. Problem solved....
3
@Susanna
Why? How does English language fluency make one a more productive citizen when true fluency in a new language takes years of study? It doesn’t when immigrants learn enough English to function without being perfectly fluent. We are so arrogant about language in this country, thinking that if you live here, you must speak perfect English and using a second language, especially Spanish, is cause for derogatory comments. In Europe and the rest of the world, speaking multiple languages is expected and highly valued. Why not here?
3
Given what we have seen happen in criminal justice over the past 40 years, Shellabarger‘s proposed language might have opened the United States to another unintended consequence. Instead of poll taxes and all sorts of Jim Crow obstructions to voting, the Shellabarger text would have used prosecution as a means of restricting black suffrage. That would have made disproportionately black convictions in the 1990s look like small potatoes. Never underestimate the racial malevolence of white supremacy.
2
Reading Mr. Bouie's interesting recounting of the history of the 15th amendment, I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said of Americans, in his frustration over our slow response to assisting his fight against the Nazis in World War II. He said (in paraphrase) that "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted."
The right thing to do here is obvious, as it was 150 years ago. That we continue to listen to those who rewrite history to push a narrative to keep themselves in power, or fear-mongering nativists who worry about a de-caucasianing" of America, makes clear that Churchill was, sadly, right.
5
Basically agree with your column. It was not the usual let's play the race card.
History has taught us this imo.
Go slow but sure with advancements ie don't use the all or nothing approach. The radical republicans who started circa 1832 or even their type like B. Franklin in 1787 could not end slavery till 1865. Lincoln did it in a little over four yrs. with slow but sure guidance ie making deals with union slave owners in the border states to win the war and then end slavery. F. Douglass even agreed with it, shafting women with the right to vote because it was not yet time.
Unless a group is clearly denied rights like blacks prior to 1964 or women prior to 1920, be inclusive with advancements not divisive. The republican tricks to make it harder to vote not only affect blacks but immigrants, poor women and men, ex prisoners, workers who can't vote on Election Day etc. etc.
3
We can argue history until pigs can fly: Lincoln should not have chosen Andrew Johnson as his VP, Lincoln should have just let the Southern States to secede and then boycotted them and offered freedom to all slave escapees, found a substitute for cotton or cheaper import cotton and bankrupt the Southern States, black Americans should have organized and asserted their rights immediately despite the war weary Northern States.
In a capitalist society, it’s basically either assert your political and economic rights by powered organizing or accept it in drips and drabs over decades of abuse.
Look around you and see there’s been substantial but resentful progress. Trump is just a symptom of our society’s moral decrepitude.
Seize the power! and/or Get ethically right!
Humans must strive against our individual and collective irrationality and historically tidal meanderings/nigh randomness to evolve morally and live ethically.
2
And not only that, with blacks holding on to the vote, the South would not have become a one-party state, and the Senate would not have become as dominated by Southern Democrats with seniority. The New Deal would not have had to cater to these white southerners elected by a small fraction of their population (but voting their full complement of electoral votes).
It's not far-fetched: a coalition of white and black Populists and Republicans controlled North Carolina until 1898, when they were defeated by Democrats and their terrorist groups, who then promptly adopted a new constitution to stop blacks from voting. See https://www.ncpedia.org/fusion-republicans-and-populists
The Federalist Society is sure to be celebrating these conservative (read Modern Radical Republican-backed) judges' confirmation. Mr Bouie keeps us alert of the latest in a long-line of nullifiers of the 15th Amendment. His telling of its history is the bonus that refocuses our fading interest.
Speaking to the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, Trump said without citing evidence.. "You've got people voting that shouldn't be voting," the president said. "They vote many times. Not just two times, not just three times ... It's a rigged deal."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/administration/454330-trump-renews-unfounded-allegations-of-illegal-voting%3famp
The truth is that the Texas Secretary of State had resigned just a few months earlier for a voter suppression effort.
(State Senator José Rodríguez, the chairman of the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus) added that the effort to purge voter rolls came from state leaders — including Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton — and not from Mr. Whitley alone.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/david-whitley-texas-resigns.amp.html
The Republican Party are unabashed election cheats.
5
Cory Wilson should be rejected for his racist and repressive views. Views he took the pains to write down as legal opinion.
Voting rights are guaranteed. The government Federal, State and Local need to defend, preserve and promote these for all our citizens rights.
Alabama? Mississippi? yup, we got a problem.
2
Seems clear. If you have nothing, if you are nothing but, you are an American citizen. It's enough.
It's what makes America something.
1
It never ceases to amaze me that the US sends Americans around the world to allegedly fight and die for democracy abroad, while some of those same people in power do everything they can to prevent our own citizens from voting. And they don't even try to hide what they are doing.
So much for truth, justice, and the American Way. Or I guess that now is the American Way.
227
@avrds
Allegedly is right. What American troops have been sent at home an abroad for is mainly American hegemony, and how to loot foreign nations for fun and profit. America has never been a force for democracy - by and large - it is the antithesis of it. And America was always a republic designed for the new aristocracy - i.e. the elites. The Constitution is a wonderful piece of poetry, but that's all it is.
17
@avrds: What a racket it is to bill modern war as some kind of heroic exercise. Even chronic exposure to the discharge of artillery damages brains.
12
@avrds In all honesty WHO is being prevented from voting in this country other than MAYBE non citizens. Use facts not feelings.
3
Brilliant piece of historical analysis. Thank you. But you stop short of the obvious course correction (150 years in the making): passing an constitutional amendment to create an affirmative right to vote. This would be the much needed constitutional basis for the federal government to challenge state-based attacks on the franchise that include gerrymandering, restricting felon voting, not having enough voting locations in poor and minority communities, voter ID laws, and much more. Since it would be an affirmative right, the federal government would have the obligation in law to promote voting in federal elections, making it easier to pass efforts like automatic (including same-day) registration, universal voting by mail, requiring auditable paper ballots, moving election day to a weekend (or at least declaring election day a national holiday), allowing multi-day voting and more. Such an amendment could even be the basis for challenging our ridiculous campaign finance laws that are based on the absurd notions that corporations are people, money is speech and unlimited contributions of dark money to political campaigns don't have an inherently corrupting influence on our democracy.
172
@David
A right to vote amendment is, I would suggest, inappropriate.
Neither the United States nor any State shall enact any law with limits the rights or privileges of person on any criteria that is not strictly relevant to the restriction.
Neither shall the United States nor any State grant to Business Entity which is not a Natural Person any rights or privileges not strictly necessary to carry out it's business purpose and nothing in the first ten Amendments to this Constitution shall apply to any such Business Entity except the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and the Fifth Amendment guarantees of due process and only those specific protections.
Congress shall have the power to enforce these protections.
6
... That the very meaning and definition of the continuing existence of our republic requires the federal and states’ governments and all citizens the responsibility and duty to proactively enforce the right and access to vote without exception or hindrance.
Need an absolute and proactive wording. Unfortunately we seem to have transmuted from a nation of laws to a nation of busy, clever, and immoral lawyers.
10
@Eugene I think piecemeal amendments will prove useless. By now the whole thing has been hacked to death. We need to start from scratch.
6
Yes - and we should also take a look at the 14th amendment, which said in its Section 2: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers .... But when the right to vote at any election for the electors ... is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."
That was intended to deter southern states from disenfranchising African American men, BUT they were forced (in order to secure votes for passage and ratification) to include the clause about "or other crime", which was of course a gigantic loophole that encourage the southern states to enact vagrancy laws, round up thousands of African American men, turn them into imprisoned chain-gangs available for hire, and also to disenfranchise them for the rest of their lives.
As for the literacy tests - that's when the southern states came up with the "grandfather clause" which basically said if one's grandfather had been allowed to vote, then one would automatically be eligible to vote. The rest, as they say, is history.
56
@Jackie Coolidge
I'm almost scared of reading more comments because it hurts and frightens me to learn more and more details of these horrible, old white men and the damage they do or did.
5
A moving and discouraging treatise: what if, say, we vote in Democrats, only to have sincere voting rights legislation blocked in the courts by the very conservative judges just appointed by this administration? One can only hope for a rebalancing on the Supreme Court to undue the damage.
69
Would've, could've, should've ... it's over, move on. Other races and ethnicities (e.g. Asian exclusion legislation and practices of the 1920's, Japanese-Americans forced into concentration camps during WW2) have put aside discriminatory treatments and plowed ahead. Innumerable African-Americans have succeeded in life. They should be emulated.
2
In the article, Wison said, '"Let us give to all citizens equal rights, and then protect everybody in the United States in the exercise of those rights...'”
"...Feb. 26, 1869, Congress passed the conference report. The 15th Amendment...was on the books. This was a narrow right to suffrage." The 19th Am. wasn't ratified until Aug. 18, 1920, adopted Aug. 26, 1920. As of Feb. 2020, sure, I get it, equal rights, so long as you're a white man or a man with more melanin in your skin, not a woman. There's more government gender equality in Timor-Leste (2017, women = 38% of parliament) and Zimbabwe (2013, women = 35% of parliament) than the U.S.(House of Reps., women = 23%; Senate, women = 26%). Yea! Gender equality in the U.S.A.! Systemic discrimination, natural subordination, unjustified disenfranchisement prevails and is alive and well.
In absence of lawmaker's integrity, unless inequality affects them, there will be no race and gender equality. To generate race and gender equality: (1) to organize and mobilize, and/or; (2) create incentives for politicians under the derivative voter theorem that prompts them to care about what constituents want.
"Let us give to all citizens equal rights..."
1
Mississippi just ratified - in 1995 - the 13th Amendment which abolishes slavery. Really shows the world how far the Old Confederacy has come, in only 130 years!
“But imagine if - - -“
Thank you Jamelle Bouie!
If climate change or Trumpian corruption are any indication, no, we would not have acted sooner to head off the Great Depression or the Nazis or any other horrible outcome we meekly tolerated until a horrible price was paid.
The appointment of oddly youthful judges who audition by writing divisive and fact-deficient opinions is becoming a trend. There appears to be a great desire to preserve at all costs, even the cost of having a credible democracy, the role of white people as the median voter in as many elections as possible.
First, we fix the problem, and eliminate the obstructions,
Striving for equality, quality and general prosperity is a goal that's red, blue and purple. +
We need to elect a team and stop this nonsense of one person's havoc and narcissistic control.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Ue5F57dZMU
I can't say it better. Every candidate should play this before every speech. We can do better.
Our goal is to...
After the Civil War 1865 Blacks were offered one a mule and acre that didn't last long, sad to say. For the next hundred years, black families had it bad with the KKK on the heal is a worse time in American history's for Blacks Native American Indians their scalp was sold for a $3 dollar and Mexicans one dollar that's ironic when you find out the history. Protestant white settlers Europeans that settled in the United States were more savage than the native Indian counterparts. The Canadians treated the Indians a lot better because they were under British rule. And the Spanish government treated the Mexican Indians a lot better. Was the moral of the story 2 wrongs don't make a right.
The white European settlers were moving to the United States in droves from persecution from the British when they came to the Americas their persecution the native Indians . And Blacks.
The red March of Indians thousands died a brutal America wounded knee, snake River. When the blood of the Indians flow. And the Portuguese sailors came from the eye of the needle in Africa to Jamestown the ship loaded Blacks. America has turned this way from bigotry and hate for races I was born into it. I have a dream that all Americans who one day hold hands that I seen the light on the hilltop shiny down.
The 14th Amendment is the most radical and far reaching political statement in human history.
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall ***deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law [or] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
[It provides for reduction in a state's electors to the extent of voter suppression [never enforced, but it should be]
Excellent article. Tell us more Mr. Bouie.
1
For a country so concerned with equality...so concerned with bragging about being the best democracy in history we fall short... Until every citizen of voting age who is given the opportunity to register with no holds on race..religion..sexual preference we are not doing our job. For some reason POTUS doesn't share our goals. He believes everyone but he is a cheat..In our area we call that " the fox smells his own hole and smells stink".. Let's reach for loftier goals.
This is kind of funny. J.B.'s suggested improvement would have singled out all the hordes of convicted felons that Democrats clamor to give the vote to - to NOT get the vote.
Oh, by the way, what Party did all those ''racist white politicians'' belong to who worked to deny black people the vote?
Your favorite Democratic Party, of course.
The same people did succeed in creating an abortion industry partcularly aimed at reducing black births, of course. Welcome to Planned Parenthood, profiting off half a billion in federal tax money every year.
What a horrible and racist way to make a living.
What if Johann Kuehberger hadn't plucked a child Hitler from a river in Passau?
The story is interesting. However, we're recounting yet another example of America's exceptional moral and political failure. American exceptionalism. There's no use playing "what-if" games with history. The good thing, the smart thing isn't what happened. Here we are now.
1
First, let me join other commentators in thanking Jamelle Bouie for columns that are consistently scholarly as well as carefully argued. No one else among NYT commentators hits his standard. This careful history lesson took me back to my AP American history class in 1973. I remember learning about the Radical Republican proposals and being overwhelmed at the recognition of lost possibility for an alternative America they represented. Or rather, I thought about lost time because I believed that with the Voting Rights Act and other outcomes of the Civil Rights movement the mistake was at last being rectified. I could not have imagined then the condition of the US in 2020.
1
An excellent discussion of the 15th amendment and the possible alternatives to it. But even had Wilson's version triumphed, the white south would still have been able to impose the Jim Crow system. The missing reform that might have truly transformed the south was land redistribution.
Without economic independence, former slaves still lacked the means to resist domination by their old masters. After all, not all states immediately stripped blacks of the right to vote after Reconstruction ended. Some waited until the 1890s to do so, because white economic domination enabled them to control the votes of many African Americans.
From a moral perspective, land reform had ample justification. Through generations of unpaid labor, the former slaves had certainly earned the right to own the land they had worked. But property rights enjoyed almost a sacred status in America, because whites understood very clearly the connection between economic independence and political equality. A constitutional amendment which authorized the federal government to strip all former Confederates of their lands might have created a precedent which a future government could apply to northern property owners.
The south desperately needed an economic revolution as well as a political one. But the requirements of such an upheaval exceeded the empathy northern whites felt for their natural allies in the south, the former slaves. Racism trumped the desire to expand democracy.
4
It is telling that the right to vote reached African Americans, who make up a fraction of the population (and who were explicitly brought to these shore as slaves), long before it reached women (who were viewed implicitly as property), who make up half. Similarly, a black man was elected president, before any woman has. The long arc of history is trending in the right direction. But for now we are caught in a current that is powerfully pushing us backwards on nearly all fronts -- social, environmental, international.
10
Thank you for another scholarly column that eloquently summarizes our history as a nation.
6
I just want to thank Mr. Bouie for the consistent columns, including this one. The reflections on how the past informs the present in your writing is educational and enlightening.
4
It is fascinating to me how the ideas of the Reformation were reflected in arguments for the expansion of individual liberty, and how the Reformation led to the Enlightenment.
A Christian people, Senator Wilson effectively says, would be a free people. All of this derives from the idea at the core of the Reformation: that what matters in salvation is the personal relationship you have with God. Since salvation is personal, restraints on liberty are a barrier to salvation itself.
No, I don't think the modern evangelical understand this.
3
Currently,
1. Half those eligible don’t vote,
2. Private political parties control the selection of candidates for elected office, and
3. Public policy issues and programs are not the focus of most voters OR the media.
We need major changes in our approach to elections in order to build responsible, responsive and capable governance in this nation.
10
The rural economies in the US have formed coalitions. Sub parties. Powerful and understated. Dangerous for the majority.
Continuing my previous note--
Here are the amendments I would like to see in the Third Founding:
1. Congress shall pass no law that Congress and all of its members past and present are not subject to.
2. Congress shall pass no law with more words in it than this Constitution (comment: as George Will once wrote. the founders could create a government for all of the people all of the time in just 23 pages, then why...)
3. The President, Vice President and Members of Congress shall not be paid for any part of a fiscal year when the budgets of all Federal Departments have not been approved for that fiscal year. Continuing resolutions do not qualify as approving a budget.
4. Any bill passed by one chamber of the Congress before August 1 of any year, must be voted on by the other chamber before the end of the year. Failure to do so will constitute unanimous approval by the second house. (Same criteria in a section 2 for presidential nominations).
3
Right, there is a body for which the equality of all Americans is not a precept. 13 states have still not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia (although Virginia is about to, finally). Yes, the ERA is about giving women equal rights, but we would bet that those who have no qualms about restricting women's rights feel similarly about restricting rights based on race, just look at the states listed above. On the subject of plutocracy, we see a fundamental cause: getting elected requires money, thus the wealthy can assure the elected officials favor them, by giving them money. Isn't that, if not bribery, akin to it ? Alas.
4
Mr. Bouie quotes a historian's book title "The Second Founding" relating to the reconstruction amendments. The Civil War was a clear marker of the Constitution's weaknesses 75 years into the republic. They did a good job, for while evidence has been accumulating for a while, the Constitution as they amended it has mostly stood for 150 years now (doubled the time between "foundings").
Remember that the Constitution calls on us to form a "more perfect union", which is ongoing work. Let's get going on a "third Founding".
2
Thank you Mr. Bouie for laying out the history of voter suppression. Unfortunately, understanding the history of voter suppression will do little to free our nation from the grip of lawyers with corrupt intent, in state legislatures, Congress and the courts. The truth is, voter suppression will expand in this country using the law as a cudgel and the 2020 census to refine gerrymandering.
Presidents Clinton and W. Bush oversaw the final steps in our nation's transition to a plutocracy. Now lawyers, like McConnell and Graham, working in Congress, AG Barr in the DOJ, and the partisan Roberts Court are working 24/7 to complete the final stages of the Reagan revolution: no checks and balances on presidential power; and conservative Christian Republicans in control of all three branches of govt.
That said. the 2020 election will determine if Americans can keep their republic.
3
Nice to get a history lesson. We need more if these articles to stand out, every day not just once a year.
3
A Fifteenth Amendment based on Wilson's vision would have definitely changed the US for the better as Mr. Bouie theorizes. The GOP keeps power due to voter suppression. Just think of the many horrific policies that the GOP has unleashed on the US, not to mention the current wars in the Middle East. The GOP keeps power due to voter suppression but the GOP also seeks "law and order" measures against minority groups that make generational poverty worse. Then, the GOP uses that generational poverty to keep itself in power.
The way to change the US for the better is to expand the franchise, not limit it. As we face further attacks on voting rights due to Holder, we should understand that many of our societal fears are based on poverty, crime, and homelessness, which are only increased through voter suppression.
5
"By the end of the 19th century, the 15th Amendment was a dead letter throughout the South."
A very large slice of the South still lives in the 19th Century. By action, by in-action and by tacit acceptance of racism and segregation. A house divided can not stand. We need to repair our house, Now!
2
It would seem axiomatic that every citizen of a certain age should be able to vote, and have that vote count equally. It is simply astounding how many people and forces are determined to prevent that from happening. And there is more than irony that today it is the "radical Republicans" who are foremost among those forces. (I use radical only as synonymous with zealous and determined--not the more traditional meaning as polar opposite to reactionary.)
2
The American Constitution might have died years ago, or recently, or maybe it was never alive at all. I guess it is of some academic interest, but it's not of primary importance. The main thing is that we need to accept the fact that the Constitution is almost completely dysfunctional today. Nostalgia or might-have-beens are beside the point. We need to figure out what should come next.
4
I still don't understand why it should take any amendment to the Constitution to "give" the right to vote to any citizen of the US.
I would think instead that an amendment would be required only to take away this innate and inalienable right.
4
This is a fascinating historical episode, showing how powerful and diverse were both the seized and the missed opportunities of the past. It addresses significant questions about the history of free blacks in the United States while raising a host of others.
One such set of raised questions involves the aspirations and visions of the recently emancipated slaves, and of other citizens (black and white) who sought to assist the newly freed, to protect them, and to improve their future possibilities.
What about states outside the deep south? What restrictions, explicit or indirect, intentional or inadvertent, did they place on black voters? Why didn't more African Americans from the former Confederate states move elsewhere after the Civil War, where their right to vote, and civil rights in general, might have been better secured? There was indeed a "great migration" northward for jobs in the 1920s, which resumed after the Great Depression in the 1940s and '50s. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, most new workers to the industrializing northern states came from Europe, not the southern US. What was the experience of southern blacks who did move north during those early decades? How discouraging was it to those who might have followed that path (and whose children or grandchildren half century in fact did so, en masse)? What happened to the idea of centralizing and nationalizing voting procedures, raised in 1869? Why has it evidently been so neglected ever since?
1
“...the complete achievement of equality and justice...”
does not, can not, tolerate any type, level, quality of a
toxic, infectious, WE-THEY culture. Be it micro or mega
in its dimensions.
NO dehumanization. By words or deeds.
NO stigmatizing. By words or deeds.
NO exclusion. By words or deeds.
NO marginalization. By words or deeds.
NO sacramental based selectivity of...
Needed Ammendments, followed by making needed-Amends.
Unnumbered. Unconstrained. Universal. US, not WE-THEY!
The RIGHT to think,and believe, what one chooses.
NOT the right to intentionally harm.
Neither by words nor deeds.
Neither temporarily nor more permanently.
5
Why is it not possible to have a simple but inclusive federal law that provides a stiff penalty for anyone denying or conspiring to deny the vote to an adult American citizen? (Obviously, I am looking forward to a time different from the current political situation).
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Well it will not do for people to vote more than once, and to assure that leads to the need to confirm who votes are eligible, which can lead to denying people the vote if misapplied.
2
And the number of people who vote more than once is minuscule (less than a dozen a year in a national election). For all the hoopla of voter fraud it is an issue looking for perpetrators and finding none.
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@Jackson. Check out Snopes discussion of this. It wasn’t more votes cast than registered voters. It was more voters counted (ghost votes possibly explained by voters holding onto their ballot as the machine attempted to pull the ballot in) than votes cast. It was audited and no fraud was proven. A bit of research goes a long way.
1
An old but important idea about the law is that a law unenforced is not a law at all. There are people who insist that rights are independent of social contracts and customs but in reality Jim Crow was instituted and respected as the law with the consent of the majority of the people despite the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments which Jim Crow contradicted in spirit and were interpreted with remarkable dishonesty to consider Constitutional.
The 15th Amendment if honored should have compelled the country to abandon racial discrimination in the laws. But the people, the majority would not honor it.
2
The fact remains that deprivation of voting rights to all US citizens is a hit or miss proposition. This should not be the case. Conservatism is a disease of our liberal democracy. Until we can tame this disease, we will have less than a complete democracy.
15
Refreshing to hear of the altruism of Senator Simon Cameron, later Lincoln's Secretary of War. Cameron was more enthusiastic about his own, rather than national wealth.
About Cameron, Lincoln said, "He wouldn't steal a red hot stove."
1
Very eloquent article. I believe that the lessons of the Civil War and especially the politics of the late 1850s show us that moderation would have prevented the war but then also allowed slavery to continue. However, with worldwide opinion firmly abolitionist, I doubt the south could have continued for more than 20-30 years, at which point the radical ideas of the 1860s would be acceptable ideas. There could have been reparations, racial reconciliation, but it would have happened more slowly and deliberately under the moderate Republican agenda.
Instead, the radical Republicans as well as the recalcitrant southerners led the country to war. A war that killed millions and millions of people. Blacks were freed, but the trauma of that war as well as the rushed and compromised manner in which legislation was passed, led to the failure of the project and another 100 years of black disenfranchisement.
In the end, even if it took 80 more years of moderate politics, it would have happened faster and it would have been done right.
I just got my ballot in Colorado, and while I love Sanders and his ideals, I'm torn. I know a Civil War is not likely (the military being a Federal enterprise being the main reason), but I feel that moderation is usually the best plan. Buttigieg is looking really good right now.
2
@Jacqueline
I too have been a long-time supporter of Bernie Sanders and was a state delegate for him in 2016 (he won the state).
But this time out I'm supporting Elizabeth Warren because I think she can get us there with a more concrete plan for the future that more Americans can support. I hope you will consider Warren rather than moving back to the corporate middle.
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@avrds
Warren is "right" of the corporate middle. Check her history. She is no friend of a true liberal.
More importantly, we MUST change the Dem leadership in the Party and in the House and Senate - absolutely M U S T. They have been undermining the economic bottom half of society for more than 40 years now. Pelosi and the Party are why we do not have health care as a right backed up by a Universal/Single Payer system.
Obama won because offered a far left agenda. Pelosi and the Party reigned him in and forced him to support Right Wing policies. Trump won because he offered something radical, acknowledgment of blue collar workers who were dismissed by Dems 40 years ago.
See a pattern yet? St. Ronnie Ray-gun was radical, Clinton offered something radical. The Party reigned these guys in too to some extent. Sanders can get elected, Warren is not resonating with voters in the voting booth. I do not want a president who is a Party lap dog and the Party has groomed, trained, and brought Warren to heel.
@Sierra Morgan
Thanks, but right now I'm sticking with Warren and want to see her stay in the race.
The comments by Jacqueline above suggest that moderation is the best path forward, but for some people, 20 years to implement change is literally a lifetime. For an enslaved person, it could have been even more than a lifetime. I am not willing to support that path.
That said, as someone who worked closely with the Sanders campaign in 2016, and who still admires him personally, I'm not convinced that his way is the only way to get us the change this country needs. I think Warren has a clearer vision of how to get us there.
Right now Bernie is 2nd and Warren is 3rd in delegates. It's a long road ahead. Let's see how they both do.
2
The best drafted amendment possible in the 1860s to secure voting rights would not have withstood the Supreme Court later bowing to political pressure to gut it of any meaning.
9
This article, and the history behind it, should be required reading for Republicans. They never miss a chance to remind us that they are "the party of Lincoln" while ignoring completely the most compelling reasons for its existence in the first place. Today's Republicans share only the name, and none of the history, turning their backs to the premise of the original Republicans.
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I agree with you but it is not likely a legal solution is at hand nor are the persons most adversely affected by this situation likely to read your good thinking and writing and be able to make a change for the better. What is very possible is that all interested persons and those most challenged by unfairness can vote for anyone other than a republican and of course, and persons, like Donald, Mitch and Lindsey. The press is looking for candidates who embody the perfect self in every way. The reality is that there is no perfect self but there surely is a much better choice out there than the three I mentioned above, and without reservation they are Democrats. I urge you to write convincing ad appealing columns that appeal directly to the masses who can vote sensibly in November. This will result in true change for the better in the here and now for all people.
6
The history of African-Americans is the history of America.
An illuminating and informative article, thanks. The Party of Abolition, alas, was not the Party of Immigration. And so we are in the current predicament.
10
Lets make a law that says all laws have to be administered evenly. And it further says it has to be obeyed or else. The bodes that have the power to adjudicate this law is shared by the judiciary, the senate, the house and the president.
All equally. There the problem is solved.
4
We had that, it was called the Constitution. It is unrecognizable after the corporatist simpletons on the Court have had their way.
We have had people of color as President of the United States, Supreme Court Justices, Secretary of State (more than one), National Security Advisors, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, Attorney General of the United States, etc etc etc.
Blacks are well represented in media, comedy, drama, movies, music, advertisements, politics, etc, etc. This is very different than 20, 50, or 70 years ago.
We have come so very far over the last 70 years. Very far indeed.
I have a dream. A nation in which each of us see each other as individual humans, not in color or biased by the color of our skin.
Let's celebrate our successes, and move on. Life is good.
May journalists also drop the lens of seeing everything in identity politics.
22
@Me 2 What exactly does "move on" mean to you? To me, it means having as complete as possible knowledge of what has already transpired, what has been tried and worked or didn't work, and why it didn't work or wasn't accepted.
17
Yes there have been great and necessary strides made in people of color in positions of power, however, the GOP has realized they can not continue to hold power if there are free elections without restricting those same people of color. These particular judges are part of a deliberate attempt to reverse voting rights.
21
@Paul P , I think the myth of voter suppression has been spread around enough that some people believe it.
We need an ID to borrow a library book or board an airplane or receive welfare benefits or open an account. Voters should also be verified. Obviously.
8
Even if Samuel Shellabarger's alternative was implemented, we would still have a massive disenfranchisement of African American voters. Sarah Shannon--a sociologist at the University of Georgia--estimates that a staggering 33 percent of African American men have felony convictions. To restore equal political representation for African Americans, we need to talk about the voting rights of convicted felons. For the first time in American history, a viable candidate is on record to restore the enfranchisement of felons: Bernie Sanders. Yet, this position has been used by his detractors (including recently by James Carville) as a policy position that makes Sanders unequivocally unelectable. So, how serious is Jamelle Bouie when it comes to African Americans and voting? Is this a defining issue for African Americans or not? If so, he owes it to his readers to connect the dots between the disenfranchisement of a third of African American men, the position of Sanders on this issue, and why this is (or is not) the defining political issue of African Americans in this election.
11
@UC Graduate In the limited amount of space permitted in this article Bouie does a good job tracing the "what if" for us. It is well within the bounds of what he sketches to conclude that the one-third felony statistic could be much, much lower in the counter-history he reflects on.
4
Let’s talk about systemic inequality in the criminal justice system, for starters.
Willful ignorance and an extreme lack of empathy are the biggest problems of human society.
We need a new voting rights amendment: "All citizens of the United States age 16 and older, without restriction, have the right to vote in any election for any federal, state, or local office in the place they reside on election day." If the right objects, then add the following: "No other person and no entity not a natural person shall have the right to vote in such elections."
12
@John Graybeard
I agree with your comment. Young adults (14-18) in Europe have rights and freedoms US 14-21 year olds can only dream about.
Good luck with the 16 year old part. People want to move the age for being a legal adult to 21. The age of consent is higher than 16 in some states as is the driving age. The practice of keeping our kids as infants well into their 20s has not been one of society's shining moment. And now faux science is trying to support this infantilization.
2
@John Graybeard
Sixteen year old voters?
Completely absurd.
Why not make it 15?
@John Graybeard does this mean 16 year olds can hold offices and will now serve in the military at that age?
The 15th Amendment and its intent to preserve voting rights for all seems very clear that no one, no government entity shall take away the rights of citizens to vote and yet it seems that interpretations to this amendment by both state and federal courts are doing just that. Does our constitution have any substance to it at all or is it something that can be interpreted out of existence including its intent? Is the constitution only a partisan document that can be used to ignore our rights? is this a country of the people, by the people, and for the people at all?
9
Sadly, the enforcement of section two of the 14th Amendment was never done. States that denied votes to people should have lost seats in the House which would have diminished their numbers and reduced their voting power.
In the final analysis though the real issue is that of dehumanization. That extends far beyond the issue of Americans of African descent and can (and often is) applied to all sorts of groups within American society.
The political problem is that we are unwilling to enforce the rules we have enacted. We could enact the 14th tomorrow and listen to southern Republicans bellow and howl. But, we won't and the suppression of voters continues - wink-wink, nudge-nudge...
15
@Me 2, et al.,
And I disagree with you. Racism is alive and well as well as thriving in the USA and the rest of the planet. Partly because it is a component of how we humans have survived.
To fear "the other" is natural. After all they don't look, sound anything like "us." So, we give them disparaging names and ascribe all kinds and sorts of maligning stereotypes that effectively make us better than them. We, of course, are so vastly superior that "they" are sub-human at best, and non-human animals that can be disposed of without repercussions.
My point was the the 14th Amendment made it clear that denying voting rights to any minority community in any state in the USA would result in a proportionate reduction in that state's representation in the House.
The states that suppress voters has it both-ways. They get full representation counting the suppressed minority but the minority gets no representation in congress. Thus the majority gets to rule without having to listen to the minority.
It is all about power, and the fear that if "they" get to exercise power they will do to "us" what we have, and are still doing, to "them."
The next time you hear that nasty epithet applied to somebody else, that is a way of making that person less than human and therefore, a legitimate target of our fear and rage. FWIW: The current occupant of 1600 Penn. Ave in DC does this every single day to anyone and everyone he doesn't like. That is dehumanization in practice.
@George Orwell,
dehumaniztion? I disagree, sir.
We have had people of color as President of the United States, Supreme Court Justices, Secretary of State (more than one), National Security Advisors, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, Attorney General of the United States, etc etc etc.
Blacks are well represented in media, comedy, drama, movies, music, advertisements, politics, etc, etc. This is very different than 20, 50, or 70 years ago.
We have come so very far over the last 70 years. Very far indeed.
I have a dream. A nation in which each of us see each other as individual humans, not in color or biased by the color of our skin.
Let's celebrate our successes, and move on. Life is good.
May journalists also drop the lens of seeing everything in identity politics.
3
People on the left, Democrats, won't admit it, but what they seek is revolution. They want to overthrow the constitution, nullify the sovereignty of the states, and go to direct democracy. this would concentrate political power in the half-dozen or so biggest cities predominantly on the east and west coasts, the middle of the country would then become a powerless hinterland to be exploited as the political and economic bosses of the big cities see fit. This works perfectly for the Dems because the big coastal cities are their political power base. Never mind that the constitution is not structured to permit that and to do so would have to be overthrown, or more likely, simply ignored to achieve their goal. One way or the other it would be the end of 'The United States of America'.
8
@Ronald B. Duke We are currently governed by a tyranny of a rural minority. And it will get worse with time. When 50% of the population is in 10 states represented by 20 Senators, it is a system that will not be sustained. It will indeed be the "end of America". The current system distorts government to support failing rural economies, at the expense of investment in the future. We have a government that dumps vast sums in underused rural highways to prop up sagging rural economies, but refuses to fund a new rail tunnel across the Hudson River. The failure of one the current tunnels would cause huge losses in the US economy. We have unneeded and wasteful military bases scattered throughout the hinterland (as you call it) again to prop up failing economies, while China now invests more in scientific research than the US, endangering our future.
70
@Ronald B. Duke, I think you're referring to eliminating the electoral college and electing the president via popular vote, which would be a different form of representative democracy, not a direct democracy where the people vote on policy.
The Constitution cannot be overthrown or ignored. Eliminating the electoral college would involve amending the Constitution. Although I would note that there is nothing in the Constitution about how EC votes are allocated so there is nothing preventing states from choosing to distribute their votes proportionately or even based on the popular vote winner, rather than the current winner-take-all system that most states use.
I consider it a moot point, but the 6 largest cities are not on the coasts: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia (followed closely by San Antonio). The people that live in those cities are not all Democrats, but even if they were that's about 20 million out of a country of 350 million people.
I wonder how you feel about the direct election of Senators, which was not in our original Constitution.
9
@Leonard
New York and LA " aren't on the coasts"??
Interesting, but my father always said, I don't care about shudda, coulda, oughta. Doing is what counts.
So, interesting article, but the matter at hand is to have a Congress and President who will do the right (correct that - proper) thing. That means electing Democrats. And, perhaps, incarcerating Republicans.
30
@Eugene ... yeah, Democrats have been great for African- Americans.
@Eugene Shouda woulda coulda is what other people call "history." A lot can be learned from it.
This column provides an occasion to emphasize the fact that Sen. Mitch McConnell refused to let a bill that would restore the Voting Rights Act on to the Senate floor for a vote in 2019. He characterized the bill as "partisan". That's right: The Republican majority leader of the Senate considered a bill that would facilitate the right of everyone to vote as "partisan".
Take a good look, America. Trump has forced Republicans to drop the charade. This is who they are, plain and simple.
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@Alan R Brock
I'm amazed that people of color are not more infuriated and radical than they are, and that they accept such minimal compromise as is offered by mainstream DLC/DNC Democrats.
12
@Alan R Brock - And he made it personal with his refusal to allow a vote of sorts on Barack Obama's choice of Merrick Garland for a seat on SCOTUS.
It is my view that he also made clear the reason for his obstruction was as much racially driven as political.
"One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the and I said 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'"
11
Thank you for this enlightening essay. The words of Senator Wilson are prophetic and tragically rejected in practice by many of today's Republicans, including of course, their "leader." I note his reference to "a truly republican and Christian people" in calling for full voting rights without restrictions (except, at the time women). It is more than ironic that many conservative Christians support a party that continues to support suppression of voting rights and anti-immigrant policies. Welcoming and caring for the "stranger" is rooted in the Torah and Jesus' teachings, foundational Jewish and Christian values.
Senator Cameron's quote, that by embracing immigrants we "can add to our national wealth" is also prophetic and sadly, after all these years, still not realized.
33
@Steven Dunn
One of our oldest Biblical Legends is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In his turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Louis Ginzburg includes it in his masterpiece the Legends of the Bible.
The Torah tells us that Sodom is destroyed because of how it treated strangers, treating strangers badly is why Sodom was destroyed.
Here in Canada our Supreme Court has decreed that the oral history of our Aboriginal peoples carries as much weight as any of our European historical records.
Our Jewish ethos tells us that even as God decrees the destruction of Sodom because of its abuse of strangers it is not enough for God to destroy the evil cities. Over and over again God finds excuses to not destroy Sodom.
Destruction comes to Sodom when during its impeachment trial Sodom tries to justify the unjustifiable.
From the here and now I think I know how Abraham felt when his niece turned into a pillar of salt.
I am like Abraham an old man, when I see my American friends and family look back on the only country they ever knew maybe it would be better if they had as much feelings as a pillar of salt.
2
Judge Cory Wilson's putatively judicial argument, namely that the "The federal government ... might spend less time chasing agendas that aren’t there and more time investigating the voter fraud and other irregularities” is essentially a political argument.
We have now had adequate time to assess the consequences of withdrawing federal oversight of voting rights. It is Jim Crow redux, but this time not only in the South. "Voter fraud," as defined by President Trump's judicial Wehrmacht, doesn't exist in sufficient numbers to make even a tiny dent in election outcomes. Voter suppression does.
75
It is disturbing to see lawyers criticized for positions they take as an advocate for a client. That's what lawyers do. It is not unethical or impractical to advance a reasonably and arguable position in favor of a client. On the contrary, to do otherwise would violate a lawyer's duty to zealously represent his client.
The Supreme Court had previous signaled that the "pre-clearance" requirement of the Voting Rights Act, was of dubious validity because it applied only to some jurisdictions based on disparate voting demographics in 1962. Shelby County v. Holder only eliminated the "pre-clearance" requirement because such old data was no longer valid. It in no way affected provisions of the Voting Rights Act which apply everywhere and which prohibit voting laws that have a disparate impact on voting by race.
10
@Paul
All changes in election laws, and existing laws, should be investigated if certain warning signs are present. If, for example, if it is a pattern that voters in districts that tend to vote one way have to wait on longer lines than voters in districts that tend to vote the other way, some entity should be enjoined by some court into fixing the disparity.
If the Voting Rights act were effective, it would justify injunctions, removing the control of elections from local authorities who have abused it, or at the very least compelling them to equalize the wait to vote by redistributing voting machines. It would allow action not only on laws but on differential enforcement of laws, and on traditions and customs.
Most of our laws are purposefully enacted to be only somewhat effective.
28
Very informative article.
I would like to quote a "political' General from Southern Illinois who fought for the Union .His name was John Logan At the outset of the war he had reluctantly joined the Union cause. As with most men from his area he had no interest in emancipation.
The war changed his outlook. In 1868 in the House of Representatives he spoke these words: "We found slavery had been a cause of War; but we also found that war abolished slavery. We found those who had been slaves, were true; and those who should have been true were false. We gave the slave a musket ,because we found that he was a man; and we gave him a ballot, that he might be a citizen".
The bravery of the former slaves changed many a man's opinion of slavery and of the enslaved. Logan went on after the War to found Memorial Day.
90
John A. Logan remains a hero here in southern Illinois. The local community college is named for him, and there is a museum in Murphysboro built in his honor.
23
@Mark Morrill Thanks for sharing that wonderful and insight quote.
3
Thank you Mr. Bouie, for this deep dive into the history of the voting rights struggle. I do believe, however, the decision of the federal government to pull out of the South in 1876 was the pivotal turning point that has led to the current Blue vs. Red divide.
There are so many what-ifs. Should the South have been allowed to secede? We would certainly have a more progressive North if that had happened. How long would slavery have endured in the independent Confederacy? Would Jim Crow have been less vicious if it hadn't been fueled by resentment over the Lost Cause and if the Confederacy had eventually abolished slavery itself? Could slavery have been contained to the Confederacy or would war still have been necessary to avoid slavery's spread to the West?
11
@Eric great question you noted concerning the possibility of the Confederate states assuming self governance as a nation entity after the civil war. Because cotton was so crucial to the American and European economies I suspect slavery would have continued until the labor of slavery was undermined by competition in India, or the middle (Egypt), for examples.https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-of-cotton/383660/.
The planters would have been chasing cheap labor, or new industries, where cheaper slave labor would be required industry.
And great analysis by the author on what could have been as well!!
3
@Eric great question you noted concerning the possibility of the Confederate states assuming self governance as a nation entity after the civil war. Because cotton was so crucial to the American and European economies I suspect slavery would have continued until the labor of slavery was undermined by competition in India, or the middle (Egypt), for examples.https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-of-cotton/383660/.
The planters would have been chasing cheap labor, or new industries, where cheaper slave labor would be required industry.
And great analysis by the author on what could have been as well!!
@Eric :"We would certainly have a more progressive North if that had happened. "
The North would have also been much more white. Of course states like Vermont (home of everyone's favorite firebrand candidate) are extremely white even with the Civil War having occurred. But maybe no one has noticed.
3
Outstanding history lesson. However can we please stop destroying the meaning of words ? As in
"Like all Trump nominees, they are conservatives."
No No No. They are reactionaries. As in "opposing political or social liberalization or reform." There is a big difference. It destroys the meaning of the word "conservative" to use it this way.
197
Conservatives destroyed the word “conservative” all by themselves. Or rather, like lots of language, have transformed its meaning.
21
They are radical regressives, nothing conservative about them.
17
@True Believer
There is no philosophy more reactionary than what passes for ‘progressive’ thought.
Totalitarianism, combined with warmed over Marxism, have been scourges of society since Marx and Engels and that is exactly what the Left offers today..
1
Thank you for this column. While we learn about the Revolution and the Civil War, I think many of us learned very little in school about reconstruction. It is a big gap in our knowledge.
A few years ago I listened to an absolutely fascinating and illuminating series of lectures called "African American History: From Emancipation to the Present."
It is available online as part of Yale's Open Courses.
https://oyc.yale.edu/african-american-studies/afam-162
I highly recommend it.
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@Bill
Thank you.
5