Voting Rights, Responsibilities Part 2

Steve Scroggins

Steve Scroggins is a volunteer contributor to the Georgia Heritage Council who lives in Macon.

Voting Rights, Responsibilities (Part 2) – Commentary by Steve Scroggins, 2/19/2010

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual ... but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country." --Samuel Adams

In Part 1, the principle that all rights come with accompanying duties was offered as the justification to require citizens to have voting licenses or pass a minimum civic awareness test in order to qualify to vote. The danger of allowing the ignorant to vote is all too evident. In fact, the citizens of the several states have allowed career politicians in the central government to grab powers far beyond the delegated authority of the Constitution precisely because said citizens are so ignorant of the Constitution's purpose, requirements and limitations. In some cases, derelict citizens prefer the ease of tax slavery and nanny government to the effort and vigilance required to maintain liberty.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." --George Bernard Shaw
"...Liberty cannot exist separate and apart from Responsibility, nor Right from Duty." --Hamilton Abert Long, from The American Ideal of 1776: The Twelve Basic American Principles
"The trouble is... the American people have little interest in liberty. Instead, they want the impossible... and they want somebody else to pay for it." --Robert Higgs, from "Ticking Time Bomb Explodes, Public Is Shocked" 9/10/08

Knowledge As Liberty's Essential Support

In Part 1, I promised next to address Voting Rights in the context of the Constitution and the Framers' intent. The Framers, in addition to affirming the responsibilities and duties of citizens to be informed, emphasized that knowledge and education are essential for any people to maintain their liberties.

"In a country like this... if there cannot be money found to answer the common purposes of eduction...it is evident that there is something amiss in the ruling political power." --George Washinton, to John Armstrong, April 25, 1788
"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people." --John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
"Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal." --Benjamin Rush, Essay 1786
"It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." --James Madison, Second annual message to Congress, December 15, 1810
"It is only when the People become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercizing their sovereignty... The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin...Let us, by all wise and constitutional measures, promote intelligence among the People, as the best means of preserving our liberties." --James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817

Ignorance and Corruption

We, the People, have become "ignorant and corrupt" and we have become the "instruments of our own debasement and ruin." The election of 2008 stands as a terrifying monument to tragedy and farce. Ben Franklin predicted in 1787 that our republic would be lost when the people learn they can vote themselves money from the treasury. That is, when the people are morally corrupt enough to see the government as a means of acquiring money taken from others, they will surrender to the temptation and be led away as slaves.

Candidate Obama promised all manner of programs to solve many of our vexing problems. He promised health care for everyone paid for by someone else. He promised that 95 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut. They clamored for the return of their own property, unjustly taken from them in excess. The people hoped against all logic that Obama could defy the laws of the universe and deliver the impossible. They heard the "fundamental change" he promised, and despite the Big Government failure he's demonstrated his entire public/private career, they thought maybe it would "change" because they "hoped." His campaign was a resounding echo of FDR's New Deal, a promise that Big Government was the only tool to overcome and reverse the economic problems we face.

The ignorant, of course, fail to see that it's Big Government that caused the problems in the first place. They also fail to see that more Big Government will only make the problem worse. The New Deal of the 1930's stands as glaring testimony to these facts. But the ignorant believe that the New Deal would have fixed things had World War II not interrupted. World War II was the most massive enlargement of government power and the most widespread destruction the world had yet seen ... and it brought an end to our economic woes. It did so only because the war destroyed the industrial capacity of most of the rest of the world (England, Germany, much of Europe, Japan, etc.), otherwise known as our competitors.

A century of failure has not deterred the proponents of socialism and central planning from their utopian dreams. The ignorant fail to see the FDR's New Deal and Obama's Newer New Deal expressly violate the Founding principle and purpose of the Constitution: Limited Government. The Supreme Court resisted FDR's New Deal encroachments in the 1930s (e.g., Butler-1936; Carter-1936, et al). Despite Jefferson's admonition that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," the Supreme Court since World War II has done little to resist the encroachments of LBJ and others. [Note: it was actually Benjamin Franklin who suggested as the motto for the U.S. Seal: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." in 1776.]

Candidate Obama promised us "transparency." Millions of Americans evidently believed him. We're still waiting for magician Obama to dispense with the smoke and mirrors and to quit shuffling the shells around. How many unconstitutional Czars have been empowered? Who got the TARP and bailout monies? Why is the DHS promulgating information compiled by leftwing frauds like the SPLC? Who safeguards against abuse of the FBI's "investigative data warehouse" (AKA the "uber-Google")? Where are those bills we were supposed to see on whitehouse.gov five days before the President signs them? Let the Sunshine in!

In the upcoming commentary commemorating Madison's birth (March 16th), we'll review again the Founders' and Madison's contention that governments must be open and that information about their operations must be available to the public. Without informed consent, the people cannot properly guard their liberties against government's encroachment or prevent the waste of their tax dollars. As Madison put it, "popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a tragedy, or a farce, or perhaps both."

All the above arguments aside, it can be fairly argued that Obama's 2008 election was about punishing Republican hypocrisy and white guilt. After all, the Big Government Republican opposing him in that race would not have reduced government's scope and scale any more than Obama will. Granted, McCain may not have expanded government as rapidly as Obama seeks to do. In the end, perhaps the voters saw them as more or less equal evils (no real choice as usual), and they cast their vote for the half black candidate in order to prove to themselves that they are not racists and in order to show that Americans and America have moved beyond its less than perfect history with respect to racial equality. The PC revisionists of history and various race hustlers have certainly done their best to instill and foster this guilt.

In any event, the ignorance and corruption of the People remains well documented over a long period. 2008 stands as but one example among many. Returning to the core of this commentary, we should ask this question: Does widespread ignorance not call for measures to protect our liberties by limiting the damage ignorant voters can inflict? Of course it does. But what, you ask, does the U.S. Constitution say about restricting voting rights with a civics competency test or a voting license?

Constitutional Voting Rights

In short, it says absolutely nothing. As pointed out in Part 1, the Constitution essentially leaves defining the qualification of voters to the states.

There's an important distinction here which needs clarification. John Armor and others contend that the [US] Constitution 'delegates' defining voting qualifications to the states. That's not true. The states had already defined voting qualifications within their own constitutions BEFORE the U.S. Constitution was drafted, much less ratified by the states. It is more correct to say that the states did NOT delegate any authority to the central government to define qualifications for voters. Therefore, the states retain those powers.

"The brevity of the U.S. Constitution and the length of state constitutions are related. The national document can be brief only because it is an incomplete constitution, that depends for its operation on state constitutions that complete and consequently form a part of the national constitution. For example, the original federal Constitution did not need to define voting qualifications because state constitutions had already done so."
--from Constitutions, United States - Federalist Paper, republic, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787

The US Constitution qualifies those powers (defining voter qualifications) in only a few instances; and in each case the states ratified the amendments, thereby agreeing to additional restrictions on their power to define voter qualifications.

Amendment 15: Racial Barriers to Suffrage (ratified 2/3/1870)
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Amendment 19: Women's Suffrage (ratified 8/18/1920)
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
Amendment 24: Bans Poll Taxes (ratified 1/23/1964)
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."
Amendment 26: 18 Years (ratified July 1971)
"The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age."

Amendment 14, as noted in other commentaries, was not properly ratified by the requisite three fourths of the states. The U.S. Secretary of State (Seward) declared it properly ratified; but that was an exercise of raw power trampling the Rule of Law. The Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment has since been used by the courts to usurp all manner of powers and to impose a variety of unauthorized Congressional acts on the several states and their peoples. One example of that is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 discussed in Part 1.

The 14th Amendment only indirectly addresses Voting Rights, but it's used to justify a variety of power grabs that do impact the authority claimed by the U.S. Congress which properly belongs to the states. The 14th Amendment declares that any male over 21 denied citizenship rights (including voting) will be deducted from the census of persons in that state for purposes of apportioning representatives in Congress.

Framers' Intent

Beyond what's actually written in the Constitution, what was the Framers' intent on voting rights? To determine this, we have to look at the documentation of their debates and their correspondence. As noted earlier, the several state constitutions addressed voter qualifications in detail and in a variety of ways. James Madison points out that the Constitutional Convention had the experience and practice of the various state's constitutions from which to draw.

In the end, with the ratification of the Constitution very much in question, the Framers knew that any impositions from the central government on the states' powers with respect to voting would likely be rejected. In order to sell the benefits of the US Constitution to the state conventions, and to assuage their justifiable fears of a central government, the rights (qualifications) of suffrage, and the state powers to regulate them, were not touched.

One of the acknowledged best sources on the debates at the Constitutional Convention are Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention. There are a variety of versions of these notes online in addition to the Yale Law link above. I have a book compiled by editor Ralph Ketchum entitled, The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates (1986 Penguin Putnam; 2003 Signet Classic), which includes additional sources. Madison prepared his Notes on the convention in his old age (the 1820s) for publication only after his death (1836). He added some notes on the subject of suffrage that reflected his "full and matured view on the subject." [See pages 150-151 of the above Ketchum book.]

The notes on the convention that apply most directly to Suffrage can be found on Madison's entries for August 7th, when it was most fully discussed. The subject was taken up again on August 10th (in connection with standards for office holders) and the conclusion reached was expressed by Mr. Ellsworth. The Constitution would not define voter qualifications. Madison thought that the Constitution should define qualifications in order to avoid mischief; but he lost that battle.

Mr. Ellsworth: The different circumstances of different parts of the U. S. and the probable difference between the present and future circumstances of the whole, render it improper to have either uniform or fixed qualifications. Make them so high as to be useful in the Southern States, and they will be inapplicable to the Eastern States. Suit them to the latter, and they will serve no purpose in the former. In like manner what may be accomodated to the existing State of things among us, may be very inconvenient in some future state of them. He thought for these reasons that it was better to leave this matter to the Legislative discretion than to attempt a provision for it in the Constitution.

Proper Balance

In a nutshell, Madison explained that suffrage was a fundamental right in republican constitutions and that any regulation of that right was a matter of "peculiar delicacy." As we saw in Convention debates that the Framers' were always concerned with proper "balance" such as the rights of the majority which had to be tempered with balance to protect the rights of the minority and the individual in order to prevent the "tyranny of the majority." That was a principle demonstrated in their choice of a republic over a democracy. [ See The Perils of Democracy, a five part series]

Likewise, the Framers sought balance in the rights of suffrage. Specifically, they debated the need to balance the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens without property whom they envisioned growing in number relative to property owners in the future. Restricting the right to vote to property owners was an English tradition, but America had already taken bold steps away from that tradition (state constitutions). [ See State Voter Registation requirements: usgovinfo.about.com/blvrbystate.htm ]

Remember that property rights are an essential right necessary to fully enjoy the rest of our unalienable rights. As Alexander Hamilton notes in Federalist #79, "a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will." Man has rights to his property and "property in his rights."

From Madison's Notes on Suffrage #2 (1821-1829 ?)

"The right of suffrage is a fundamental Article in Republican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy. Allow the right exclusively to property, and the rights of persons may be oppressed. The feudal polity alone sufficiently proves it. Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property or the claims of justice may be overruled by a majority without property, or interested in measures of injustice. Of this abundant proof is afforded by other popular Governments and is not without examples in our own, particularly in the laws impairing the obligations of contracts.
...In a just and free Government, therefore, the rights both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded...
...It is neverthess certain, that there are various ways in which the rich may oppress the poor; in which property may oppress liberty; and the world is filled with examples. It is necessary that the poor should have a defence against the danger.
On the other hand, the danger to the holders of property can not be disguised, if they be undefended against a majority without property. Bodies of men are not less swayed by interest than individuals, and are less controlled by dread of reproach and the other motives felt by individuals....
...We must not shut our eyes to the nature of man, nor to the light of experience. Who would rely on a fair decision from three individuals if two had an interest in the case opposed to the rights of the third? Make the number as great as you please, the impartiality will not be increased, nor any further security against injustice be obtained...

As noted in Madison's notes, Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Franklin expressed his dislike of every thing that "tended to debase the spirit of the common people."

Arguing against property qualifications for voting, Benjamin Franklin used the humorous story of a man and his jackass to make a powerful point.
"Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the meantime has become more experienced, his knowledge of the principles of government, and his acquaintance with mankind, are more extensive, and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers----but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now, gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?"
[Source: The Words We Live By --Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution, by Linda R. Monk, 2003, Stonesong Press, page 28]

Conclusions

Obviously, voting rights are important and there are no shortage of strong opinions on the subject. It's notable that Voting Rights receives a prevailing amount of attention in the Amendments to the Constitution (listed above) which demonstrates the ongoing importance Americans place on those rights. And yet, year after year in the most recent decades, we read that fewer and fewer Americans (as a percentage) are participating in the vote. Complacency? Laziness? Surrender to corruption and the Roman Circus?

As unequivocally stated in Part 1, it is NOT right to bar any citizen from voting based on race, gender, religion, etc. However, I maintain that voter "competence" qualifications are as legal, constitutional and proper as they are essential and needed. Not only do we have dangerously ignorant people voting, since the 1990s and the passage of the "Americans with Disabilities Act" (not to be confused with the "Americans with No Abilities Act" ), we have people who want to ensure the rights of "idiots" to vote.

I'm not making this up, see Voting Rights and the ADA.

Kentucky and Mississippi have language in their constitutions that specifically denies the right to vote for "idiots" and "insane persons." Oh the horror! We need idiots and the insane voting now!

Seriously, "legal competence" is a legal concept that can and should be considered. The rationale is that persons who are not legally mentally competent cannot be depended upon to vote intelligently or independently. We should be able to count on their loved ones and all reasonbly compassionate, but competent citizens, to vote in the best interests of the incompetent.

The same argument can be applied to "ignorant" voters as discussed above and in Part 1. Ignorant voters have not performed their duties to be informed and therefore have not earned the right to vote. The ignorant pose the same dangers to the public liberty as do idiots and the insane. They are just as vulnerable to manipulation by slick ad campaigns and the lies of demagogues as the "idiots" and the insane are to be influenced by unheard voices.

Keep in mind that voter competency tests and voter licenses are NOT permanent bars to qualifying. Any persons who find themselves too ignorant to pass the test or get a voter license, but who possess the necessary intelligence, can correct their ignorance. They have only to study the widely available materials, to get informed and pass the necessary tests. Then their voting rights are restored and we have a more informed electorate that is actually capable of defending its remaining liberties.

With the obvious exclusion of politicians, how can stamping out voter ignorance ever be considered a bad thing?

Steve Scroggins is Commander of the Lt. James T. Woodward Camp 1399, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Warner Robins, GA and a frequent GHC contributor of parody and political cartoons and graphics.