Why were some groups denied the right to vote in the Founding Era?
About this video
The speaker explains the founding-era reasons for denying some people the vote. One argument was that only property owners had a 'stake' in society; another was that people without property could be manipulated by demagogues. Underneath was a fear that wide voting would lead to laws threatening property owners.
You'll be able to
- explain the 'stake in society' argument for property requirements and its counter-argument.
- explain the demagogue argument against letting people without property vote.
- identify the underlying fear behind restricting voting in the founding era.
Key words
- stake
- A personal interest in how something turns out.
- demagogue
- A leader who wins support by stirring up people's emotions and prejudices rather than using reason.
- enfranchisement
- Giving people the right to vote.
Transcript
There were several logics, and they were not altogether coherent. One was that you should have a stake in the society, you should have a stake in the outcome of public policy decisions. It was believed that if you owned property that you then had that stake. Of course, the counter argument was that there were lots of people who had a stake in the outcomes of policy decisions who did not own property, that was one argument.
There was another argument that was very common inherited from Europe, but strongly voiced in the United States, which was that people who didn't own property would be subject to manipulation by demagogues and the demagogues could manipulate poor people who didn't have the requisite independence to act on their own and that these demagogues would lead them basically to threaten the interests of people with property. I think underlying a lot of this was an anxiety that if there was widespread or universal even male enfranchisement, that laws would be passed that would jeopardize the interests of those with property.
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