"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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
In my opinion, the nineteenth amendment was an amendment that should have never been passed. Voting rights based on sex should have been included in the fifteenth amendment. If the nation was trying to create equality among it's citizens then there was no reason to leave out women. I am however very grateful that Congress got it right eventually. Without this amendment my life would be significantly different. Without being able to vote I probably wouldn't have pursued my education because I think the point of being educated is to better yourself and the people around you. One of the main ways I can do that is by expressing my opinion through voting.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it gives you a glimpse of some of the important women throughout history. These are the women who fought for the rights of all women. It started before the suffrage movement and is still going on today. For some reason women in American (as well as other places around the world) have been viewed as inferior to men. Without strong, brave women, such as the ones in the video, women today would not have many of the rights they now enjoy. I think it is important to remember them and also to follow in their footsteps always improving things for the next generation.
Millions of Afghan Women Denied the Right to Vote
By: Jerome Starkey and Kim Sengupta
The Independent
September 17, 2009
Millions of Afghan women will be denied their chance to vote in presidential elections this week because there aren't enough female officials to staff the women-only polling stations.
A desperate shortage of female staff is threatening to undermine the legitimacy of the elections, which are the pinnacle of western-led efforts to build a peaceful democracy. Strict cultural norms mean women can't vote in male-run stations.
Women's activists said the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which is organising the polls, still needs to recruit 13,000 women before Thursday's elections.
The IEC refused to comment on recruitment figures, but papers leaked to The Independent suggest the shortfall is much worse, at more than 42,000.
Without female staff to operate the strictly segregated stations, and more importantly, without female searchers to frisk women voters as they arrive at those stations, conservative men across the country will ban their wives and daughters from taking part.
"If half of the population can't participate, the election is illegitimate," said Orzala Ashref, a director of the Afghan Women's Network. "Without women's votes, without women's participation, of course the election is not going to be valid."
Under the Taliban women were banned from working, beaten for laughing, and only allowed outside their homes with a male relative to escort them. Improving women's rights has been a central pillar of the US-led mission, but in many parts of the country medieval customs still prevail and women are treated like property.
Story continues below
"You need female staff," said leading women's rights activist Wazhma Frogh. "Otherwise women won't dare go out. Their families won't let them."
The problem is most acute in the south east, where there are just 2,564 women on the IEC books, less than 20 percent of the 13,400 target. In the south, they have less than half the 10,428 women required.
At Nad-e-Ali in Helmand, an area recently under Taliban control, a lack of policewomen had meant that required searches of female voters cannot be carried out. Local elders have rejected suggestions that female British troops should carry out the task.
Many men in this deeply conservative area are adamant that they will not let women from their families vote in mixed stations. Following a shura - community meeting - at Char-e-Anjir, a nearby town recaptured from the insurgents, a number of heads of families said they may consider letting female relations vote as long as strict controls were applied.
Niamtullah Khan, a 57 year old farmer, said: "We are very concerned about this. Most of my neighbours are against letting women go to these places where anything can happen. I, and a few others, think we should look ahead and have change, but I would not approve of my wife, sister, or daughter going into buildings with a lot of unknown men."
Wali Mohammed, 71, said: " Women voted in the past, so they should vote again. But the government must create the right conditions."
The IEC launched an emergency appeal through women's rights organisations last week to try and fill the staffing gap. But in a sign of growing desperation, officials have suggested hiring old men and boys in their place.
"We are totally against this," Ms Ashref said. "The men will tell women, 'If you go and vote it will be men who search you'. Would women from the UK feel comfortable being searched by a man? It's even more sensitive here. They won't let them go."
The lack of female staff has fuelled fears of proxy voting, where men vote for their entire families. Concerns were first raised in December when The Independent revealed "phantom" women voters were outnumbering men in the registration process. Election officials in Gardez were encouraging men to register wives, mothers and daughters in absentia.
"They said I could just give them a list of the women in my family, and they would give me the registration cards," said one. "I could see lists and lists of women's names on the table. They said they were under pressure from Kabul to register lots of women."
New figures seen by The Independent show women registrants outnumbered men in five provinces, including Logar, Paktia and Khowst. In Paktika women accounted for 49% of new registrants.
What's most alarming is that those places where the female recruitment has been most difficult are the same places where there was over-registration of women," said a senior western diplomat.
Women's registration cards are especially prone to fraud because unlike the men's, they don't include a passport picture of the owner. Photographs of bare faced women are deemed culturally unacceptable.
In Helmand, Hamid Karzai's agents have faced claims they are buying up registration cards in places where people are unlikely to vote. "Ballot stuffing is going to be pretty outrageous," said a Western official involved with the elections.
Britain's Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, said election officials were making "strenuous" efforts to encourage female participation but he admitted: "There will be difficulties in some areas of the country in women casting their vote".
Women's votes are also more susceptible to fraud because even in the places where there are female staff, it's usually impossible for them to stay after dark, when the counting starts.
There are fewer than 500 international observers - nowhere near enough to monitor more than 6,500 polling centres, and up to 30,000 individual voting stations. Supporters of Mr Karzai's main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, have warned of Iran-style protests, "with Kalashnikovs," if Mr Karzai wins in the first round, insisting he could only do it by fraud.
The total cost of the elections is more than $220 million, but most of the money and foreign mentors arrived earlier this year. The IEC was only told it had to hire 28,000 searchers, including 14,000 women, in the middle of last month.
IEC officials refused to give exact figures on female recruitment, but papers seen by The Independent show eight provinces across the south and east, including Helmand and Kandahar, are still critical.
"In total we need 14,000 female searchers," said an IEC official who asked not to be named. "Recruitment is going on, but in some provinces there are problems because there are no women applying for the positions."
My Opinion: I chose this article because it brings up the point of if women aren't allowed to vote then the election will do nothing. Without a nations female population expressing their opinion the result is completely biased. There is no way to gauge what the people really want if you are basing your decisions on a completely male dominated vote. There are many women who do not agree with the political views of their husbands. This is most likely due to the fact that they care about different issues. All religious issues aside the point of a vote is to obtain the opinion of a population. By excluding certain groups the election does not serve its purpose.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Eighteenth Amendment-Prohibition
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
In my opinion, the seventeenth amendment was religious and misguided citizens trying to control the masses. By outlawing intoxicating liquors some thought that the nation would become more family oriented again. This however was not the case. The creation, sale, distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages did not slow but increased during this time. It was already a time of hardship for the people and many had nothing. By taking away a favorite pass time this only made things worse. Prohibition was thought to solve many problems but in fact it created many more. The United States lost a huge amount of tax profits because of prohibition that it could have used to provide services to those who actually had a problem with alcohol. I think the lesson to take from prohibition is that to solve a problem it takes education and cooperation not a pounding fist.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it mentions the economic gain of legalizing marijuana. This gain is similar to the tax revenue generated by alcohol. I feel as though in these situations you have to look past whether you feel it's right or wrong to use the substance and to the benefits it can have on society. I personally do not agree with the use of marijuana but think that if it is regulated like alcohol is it will be more helpful to use than harmful.
Prohibition in the United States
www.1920-1930.com
During Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal. Prohibition was supposed to lower crime and corruption, reduce social problems, lower taxes needed to support prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. Instead, Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; organized crime blossomed; courts and prisons systems became overloaded; and endemic corruption of police and public officials occurred.
In 1919, the requisite number of legislatures of the States ratified The 18th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, enabling national Prohibition within one year of ratification. Many women, notably the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, had been pivotal in bringing about national Prohibition in the United States of America, believing it would protect families, women and children from the effects of abuse of alcohol.
Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. Federal Prohibition agents (police) were given the task of enforcing the law.
Even though the sale of alcohol was illegal, alcoholic drinks were still widely available at "speakeasies" and other underground drinking establishments. Many people also kept private bars to serve their guests. Large quantities of alcohol were smuggled in from Canada, overland and via the Great Lakes.
While the government cracked down on alcohol consumption on land it was a different story on the water where they argued that ships outside the 3 mile limit were exempt. Needless to say, this technicality was exploited by everyone including the State owned shipping line.
Legal and illegal home brewing was popular during Prohibition. Limited amounts of wine and hard cider were permitted to be made at home. Some commercial wine was still produced in the U.S., but was only available through government warehouses for use in religious ceremonies, mainly for communion. "Malt and hop" stores popped up across the country and some former breweries turned to selling malt extract syrup, ostensibly for baking and "beverage" purposes.
Whiskey could be obtained by prescription from medical doctors. The labels clearly warned that it was strictly for medicinal purposes and any other uses were illegal, but even so doctors freely wrote prescriptions and drug-stores filled them without question, so the number of "patients" increased dramatically. No attempt was made to stop this practice, so many people got their booze this way. Over a million gallons were consumed per year through freely given prescriptions.
Because Prohibition banned only the manufacturing, sale, and transport - but not possession or consuming of alcohol, some people and institutions who had bought or made liquor prior to the passage of the 18th Amendment were able to continue to serve it throughout the prohibition period legally.
Even prominent citizens and politicians later admitted to having used alcohol during Prohibition. President Harding kept the White House well stocked with bootleg liquor, though, as a Senator, he had voted for Prohibition. This discrepancy between legality and actual practice led to widespread comtempt for authority. Over time, more people drank illegally and so money ended up in gangsters' pockets.
Prohibition also presented lucrative opportunities for organized crime to take over the importing ("bootlegging"), manufacturing, and distributing of alcoholic drinks. Al Capone, one of the most infamous bootleggers of them all, was able to build his criminal empire largely on profits from illegal alcohol.
The American grape growing industry was largely situated in California where there were about 700 bonded wineries producing table wines. Initially, prohibition forced the closure of most of the wineries when growers pulled up their vines thinking their market had evaporated. This created an enormous shortage of grapes forcing the the price per ton to rise 1000% and more from $20 to over $200. Growers realizing their mistake replanted vineyards but in their greed planted much greater acreages than previously. The increased supply forced the price per ton down to $15 by the end of prohibition.
Every passing year the number of repeal organizations and demand for repeal increased. In 1932, the Democratic Party's platform included a promise to repeal Prohibition, and Franklin Roosevelt ran for President promising to repeal of federal Prohibition laws. By then, an estimated three quarters of American voters, and an estimated forty-six states, favored repeal.
In 1933, the legislatures of the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Amendment XVIII and prohibited only the violations of laws that individual states had in regard to "intoxicating liquors". Federal Prohibitionary laws were then repealed. Some States, however, continued Prohibition within their own jurisdictions. Almost two-thirds of the states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents to vote for or against local Prohibition; therefore, for a time, 38% of Americans still lived in areas with Prohibition. By 1966, however, all states had fully repealed their state-level Prohibition laws.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it describes some of the ways that violations of prohibition were ignored. Some of these included physicians freely writing prescriptions for whiskey, being able to drink on vessels three miles of the coast, and the consumption of alcohol by elected officials that voted for prohibition. By not enforcing prohibition it was a useless piece of legislation. Not even the people who voted for the amendment took it seriously so why would the citizens. If a law is unenforceable then it is no law at all.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
In my opinion, the seventeenth amendment was religious and misguided citizens trying to control the masses. By outlawing intoxicating liquors some thought that the nation would become more family oriented again. This however was not the case. The creation, sale, distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages did not slow but increased during this time. It was already a time of hardship for the people and many had nothing. By taking away a favorite pass time this only made things worse. Prohibition was thought to solve many problems but in fact it created many more. The United States lost a huge amount of tax profits because of prohibition that it could have used to provide services to those who actually had a problem with alcohol. I think the lesson to take from prohibition is that to solve a problem it takes education and cooperation not a pounding fist.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it mentions the economic gain of legalizing marijuana. This gain is similar to the tax revenue generated by alcohol. I feel as though in these situations you have to look past whether you feel it's right or wrong to use the substance and to the benefits it can have on society. I personally do not agree with the use of marijuana but think that if it is regulated like alcohol is it will be more helpful to use than harmful.
Prohibition in the United States
www.1920-1930.com
During Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal. Prohibition was supposed to lower crime and corruption, reduce social problems, lower taxes needed to support prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. Instead, Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; organized crime blossomed; courts and prisons systems became overloaded; and endemic corruption of police and public officials occurred.
In 1919, the requisite number of legislatures of the States ratified The 18th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, enabling national Prohibition within one year of ratification. Many women, notably the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, had been pivotal in bringing about national Prohibition in the United States of America, believing it would protect families, women and children from the effects of abuse of alcohol.
Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. Federal Prohibition agents (police) were given the task of enforcing the law.
Even though the sale of alcohol was illegal, alcoholic drinks were still widely available at "speakeasies" and other underground drinking establishments. Many people also kept private bars to serve their guests. Large quantities of alcohol were smuggled in from Canada, overland and via the Great Lakes.
While the government cracked down on alcohol consumption on land it was a different story on the water where they argued that ships outside the 3 mile limit were exempt. Needless to say, this technicality was exploited by everyone including the State owned shipping line.
Legal and illegal home brewing was popular during Prohibition. Limited amounts of wine and hard cider were permitted to be made at home. Some commercial wine was still produced in the U.S., but was only available through government warehouses for use in religious ceremonies, mainly for communion. "Malt and hop" stores popped up across the country and some former breweries turned to selling malt extract syrup, ostensibly for baking and "beverage" purposes.
Whiskey could be obtained by prescription from medical doctors. The labels clearly warned that it was strictly for medicinal purposes and any other uses were illegal, but even so doctors freely wrote prescriptions and drug-stores filled them without question, so the number of "patients" increased dramatically. No attempt was made to stop this practice, so many people got their booze this way. Over a million gallons were consumed per year through freely given prescriptions.
Because Prohibition banned only the manufacturing, sale, and transport - but not possession or consuming of alcohol, some people and institutions who had bought or made liquor prior to the passage of the 18th Amendment were able to continue to serve it throughout the prohibition period legally.
Even prominent citizens and politicians later admitted to having used alcohol during Prohibition. President Harding kept the White House well stocked with bootleg liquor, though, as a Senator, he had voted for Prohibition. This discrepancy between legality and actual practice led to widespread comtempt for authority. Over time, more people drank illegally and so money ended up in gangsters' pockets.
Prohibition also presented lucrative opportunities for organized crime to take over the importing ("bootlegging"), manufacturing, and distributing of alcoholic drinks. Al Capone, one of the most infamous bootleggers of them all, was able to build his criminal empire largely on profits from illegal alcohol.
The American grape growing industry was largely situated in California where there were about 700 bonded wineries producing table wines. Initially, prohibition forced the closure of most of the wineries when growers pulled up their vines thinking their market had evaporated. This created an enormous shortage of grapes forcing the the price per ton to rise 1000% and more from $20 to over $200. Growers realizing their mistake replanted vineyards but in their greed planted much greater acreages than previously. The increased supply forced the price per ton down to $15 by the end of prohibition.
Every passing year the number of repeal organizations and demand for repeal increased. In 1932, the Democratic Party's platform included a promise to repeal Prohibition, and Franklin Roosevelt ran for President promising to repeal of federal Prohibition laws. By then, an estimated three quarters of American voters, and an estimated forty-six states, favored repeal.
In 1933, the legislatures of the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Amendment XVIII and prohibited only the violations of laws that individual states had in regard to "intoxicating liquors". Federal Prohibitionary laws were then repealed. Some States, however, continued Prohibition within their own jurisdictions. Almost two-thirds of the states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents to vote for or against local Prohibition; therefore, for a time, 38% of Americans still lived in areas with Prohibition. By 1966, however, all states had fully repealed their state-level Prohibition laws.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it describes some of the ways that violations of prohibition were ignored. Some of these included physicians freely writing prescriptions for whiskey, being able to drink on vessels three miles of the coast, and the consumption of alcohol by elected officials that voted for prohibition. By not enforcing prohibition it was a useless piece of legislation. Not even the people who voted for the amendment took it seriously so why would the citizens. If a law is unenforceable then it is no law at all.
Seventeenth Amendment-Senate Selection
"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution."
In my opinion, the composition of the Senate was well constructed. It provided equal representation to all the states and did so in a fair manner. The problem arises when a Senator either resigns or dies during his or her term. People see this as an opportunity. The misfortune of others is seen to be a point of capitalization from others. By having a majority or a minority of parties this creates an unbalance. I am not a political scientist and my opinions are not tested but maybe a means to solving this is to elect one Senator from each party. This would mean that one Democrat and one Republican would be chosen from each state. When a Senator leaves or dies then one of the same party would replace him or her. The problem with this lies in the minority parties such as the Green party and the Libertarians. Which may be the reason why this situation has never been proposed. I will leave the rest to the experts.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it is a perfect example of the power that the seventeenth amendment gives to the states. I think this is justified because Senators are ultimately responsible to the people that reside in the state they represent and not to the federal government. On the subject of Massachusetts and filling Senator Kennedy's seat I feel as though he was not motivated by what was best for the people of his state but rather what was going to further his goals. However, the way the law works allows for this so there is not much to be done. The people of Massachusetts just need to realize that who they vote for in one election could lead to another official being put in office even without their vote.
Paterson's Secretive Senate Selection May Violate State Law
Michael Gormley
January 12, 2009
The Huffington Post
ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. David Paterson's secretive process to select Hillary Rodham Clinton's successor in the U.S. Senate conflicts with his campaign promises to open up government, and New York's top regulator of open government laws says it appears to violate state law.
Just days from announcing his choice, Paterson won't identify "about 10" people who he said are in the running to follow Clinton, President-elect Barack Obama's designated secretary of state. The governor won't release the blank questionnaire he sent to each candidate looking for background information. He won't turn over their completed forms.
"The process is confidential," is the stock answer from his office.
Keeping the questions posed to Senate hopefuls secret appears to violate the state's post-Watergate freedom of information laws, according to Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, the state agency that regulates enforcement of the good-government laws.
"How could it not be public? It's a blank form," said Freeman, a lawyer who since 1976 has been the top state employee advising government and the public on interpretation of the public officers' law.
The names of those under consideration also should be disclosed, Freeman said.
"In my mind, the identities of those seeking one of the highest offices in the land would not rise to the level of unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," Freeman told The Associated Press in an interview.
Freeman, who issues opinions and make recommendations but does not have the authority to sue for the release of public records, said at least some of the answers by candidates in their background checks probably should be public as well.
Story continues below
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo didn't respond to a question of whether he supported the secretive process.
Cuomo has refused to say if he is seeking the Senate seat but is widely considered to be high on the list. The perceived front-runner is Caroline Kennedy, who has sought the job much more publicly than the members of Congress and other elected officials said to be interested in it.
Some case law also would appear to go against Paterson. A court found that not even a village board could legally go into a closed-door executive session to discuss filling a vacant seat. Freeman said state law in some ways recognizes less privacy protection for those in public office or seeking public office compared to private citizens.
"Their personal privacy does not trump the public's right to know who their next senator will be," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Horner said the need is particularly acute in light of accusations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell to the highest bidder his appointment for Obama's vacant Senate seat.
"So why doesn't Governor Paterson get the candidates to pledge they won't raise campaign funds for him, so his appointment is not seen as just in the best of interest of his own political position?" Horner said.
Paterson's spokesmen wouldn't respond to that question Monday.
Paterson said Monday that he hasn't publicly disclosed the information he has received from potential candidates because the request wasn't "a government action. That was a personal request I made of the candidates. Some of the information was rather private."
The job of appointing a senator to serve until 2010 is Paterson's alone. At a news conference, he said he wouldn't release the background information he requested of candidates, which he said is "personal."
"The law is on his side as far as whether he has to do any this with transparency," said Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director of the League of Women Voters. "But good government is not on his side here."
A copy of the questionnaire to applicants, obtained by The New York Times after Paterson's office refused to release it, asks about finances and job history, but not about policy positions.
"I don't think I've heard any public positions," Bartoletti said. She noted that most of the hopefuls are in office and so have a record for the public to judge. The exception is Kennedy, who has never held public office and had long guarded her political opinions and privacy.
In 2005, then-Sen. Paterson relied on sarcasm when some of Albany's notorious secrecy was peeled back after some outrage by himself, voters and good-government groups.
"I'm astounded that I'm here," said Paterson at his first public budget negotiation that included minority party leaders.
Then, as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006, reform was central to his platform shared by Eliot Spitzer, whom Paterson succeeded as governor last year following a prostitution scandal.
"Reform is the biggest joke that the Legislature tries to perpetrate on the public, and the public is not laughing," Paterson said in 2006.
"This governor ran on a ticket whose major thrust was government reform and that's what people thought they would get when they elected that team," Bartoletti said. "I think everybody is watching."
My Opinion: I chose this article because it addresses this issue that the states have the power to change the laws regarding Senate selection. The sixteenth amendment outlines the procedure for ordinary election but gives the states the power to create their own legislation regarding special elections and appointments. This creates issues when the state government is secretive about the process as in the case of New York. Senators are just like any other elected official that are supposed to represent the people they serve and be their voice in government. If the people don't even know who their Senator is going to be then how are their opinions taken into account? I believe that even in special elections that the people should be involved in some way. Leaving the decision up to the governor and him keeping the entire thing private doesn't do the people any good.
In my opinion, the composition of the Senate was well constructed. It provided equal representation to all the states and did so in a fair manner. The problem arises when a Senator either resigns or dies during his or her term. People see this as an opportunity. The misfortune of others is seen to be a point of capitalization from others. By having a majority or a minority of parties this creates an unbalance. I am not a political scientist and my opinions are not tested but maybe a means to solving this is to elect one Senator from each party. This would mean that one Democrat and one Republican would be chosen from each state. When a Senator leaves or dies then one of the same party would replace him or her. The problem with this lies in the minority parties such as the Green party and the Libertarians. Which may be the reason why this situation has never been proposed. I will leave the rest to the experts.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it is a perfect example of the power that the seventeenth amendment gives to the states. I think this is justified because Senators are ultimately responsible to the people that reside in the state they represent and not to the federal government. On the subject of Massachusetts and filling Senator Kennedy's seat I feel as though he was not motivated by what was best for the people of his state but rather what was going to further his goals. However, the way the law works allows for this so there is not much to be done. The people of Massachusetts just need to realize that who they vote for in one election could lead to another official being put in office even without their vote.
Paterson's Secretive Senate Selection May Violate State Law
Michael Gormley
January 12, 2009
The Huffington Post
ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. David Paterson's secretive process to select Hillary Rodham Clinton's successor in the U.S. Senate conflicts with his campaign promises to open up government, and New York's top regulator of open government laws says it appears to violate state law.
Just days from announcing his choice, Paterson won't identify "about 10" people who he said are in the running to follow Clinton, President-elect Barack Obama's designated secretary of state. The governor won't release the blank questionnaire he sent to each candidate looking for background information. He won't turn over their completed forms.
"The process is confidential," is the stock answer from his office.
Keeping the questions posed to Senate hopefuls secret appears to violate the state's post-Watergate freedom of information laws, according to Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, the state agency that regulates enforcement of the good-government laws.
"How could it not be public? It's a blank form," said Freeman, a lawyer who since 1976 has been the top state employee advising government and the public on interpretation of the public officers' law.
The names of those under consideration also should be disclosed, Freeman said.
"In my mind, the identities of those seeking one of the highest offices in the land would not rise to the level of unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," Freeman told The Associated Press in an interview.
Freeman, who issues opinions and make recommendations but does not have the authority to sue for the release of public records, said at least some of the answers by candidates in their background checks probably should be public as well.
Story continues below
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo didn't respond to a question of whether he supported the secretive process.
Cuomo has refused to say if he is seeking the Senate seat but is widely considered to be high on the list. The perceived front-runner is Caroline Kennedy, who has sought the job much more publicly than the members of Congress and other elected officials said to be interested in it.
Some case law also would appear to go against Paterson. A court found that not even a village board could legally go into a closed-door executive session to discuss filling a vacant seat. Freeman said state law in some ways recognizes less privacy protection for those in public office or seeking public office compared to private citizens.
"Their personal privacy does not trump the public's right to know who their next senator will be," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Horner said the need is particularly acute in light of accusations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell to the highest bidder his appointment for Obama's vacant Senate seat.
"So why doesn't Governor Paterson get the candidates to pledge they won't raise campaign funds for him, so his appointment is not seen as just in the best of interest of his own political position?" Horner said.
Paterson's spokesmen wouldn't respond to that question Monday.
Paterson said Monday that he hasn't publicly disclosed the information he has received from potential candidates because the request wasn't "a government action. That was a personal request I made of the candidates. Some of the information was rather private."
The job of appointing a senator to serve until 2010 is Paterson's alone. At a news conference, he said he wouldn't release the background information he requested of candidates, which he said is "personal."
"The law is on his side as far as whether he has to do any this with transparency," said Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director of the League of Women Voters. "But good government is not on his side here."
A copy of the questionnaire to applicants, obtained by The New York Times after Paterson's office refused to release it, asks about finances and job history, but not about policy positions.
"I don't think I've heard any public positions," Bartoletti said. She noted that most of the hopefuls are in office and so have a record for the public to judge. The exception is Kennedy, who has never held public office and had long guarded her political opinions and privacy.
In 2005, then-Sen. Paterson relied on sarcasm when some of Albany's notorious secrecy was peeled back after some outrage by himself, voters and good-government groups.
"I'm astounded that I'm here," said Paterson at his first public budget negotiation that included minority party leaders.
Then, as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006, reform was central to his platform shared by Eliot Spitzer, whom Paterson succeeded as governor last year following a prostitution scandal.
"Reform is the biggest joke that the Legislature tries to perpetrate on the public, and the public is not laughing," Paterson said in 2006.
"This governor ran on a ticket whose major thrust was government reform and that's what people thought they would get when they elected that team," Bartoletti said. "I think everybody is watching."
My Opinion: I chose this article because it addresses this issue that the states have the power to change the laws regarding Senate selection. The sixteenth amendment outlines the procedure for ordinary election but gives the states the power to create their own legislation regarding special elections and appointments. This creates issues when the state government is secretive about the process as in the case of New York. Senators are just like any other elected official that are supposed to represent the people they serve and be their voice in government. If the people don't even know who their Senator is going to be then how are their opinions taken into account? I believe that even in special elections that the people should be involved in some way. Leaving the decision up to the governor and him keeping the entire thing private doesn't do the people any good.
Sixteenth Amendment-Income Taxes
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
In my opinion, the sixteenth amendment was the first sign of a national debt in the United States. After the civil war there was the question of, "Who is going to pay for the damages done?". The government was not yet into the business of making, or in our case today borrowing, money. Therefor it was left to the people to pay for the debt. By using an income tax the government had the ability to tax the people who actually had money rather than making a futile attempt at collecting from the poor. I think this amendment is very broad for a reason. The government had not decided exactly how this would work so they needed the freedom to implement a plan and then change it as issues came up. Today however there is a vast amount of tax code that directly describes how much and when taxes are collected. One small idea turned into one of the most complicated ordeals that Americans have to face every April.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it shows just how little our own government knows about the Constitution. The Commissioner of the IRS is asked a direct question of, "What law requires citizens to pay taxes?", and couldn't even answer. They dodged around the question citing their website and court cases when all they had to do it say, the sixteenth amendment. The sixteenth amendment is not hard to understand. It is very straight forward in its language stating that the federal government has the right to levy taxes on incomes. This means exactly what it says. I could understand if they asked about specific IRS codes or legislation that has to do with the percent you have to pay but this was not the case. To answer the question of the New York Times reporter, who should have known as well, the sixteenth amendment is the law that requires all citizens to pay taxes on their income.
Where Is Freedom in the Income-Tax Debate?
by Jacob G. Hornberger, September 2000
The debate over income-tax cuts between George W. Bush and Al Gore reflects how far Americans have plunged in their understanding of what it means to be free. If elected president, Bush proposes to cut income taxes by $1.3 trillion. Gore is calling the plan "a tax cut for the rich" and has proposed his own $500 million tax cut that purports to target the American middle class. The squabble over the details obscures the real issue that the American people should be reflecting upon-the meaning of human freedom.
When the Constitution called the federal government into existence in 1787, it failed to provide it with the power to levy taxes on income. This was not an oversight. It was commonly understood that freedom entailed the absolute right to keep everything you earned. If government had the power to take the fruits of your earnings, Americans once believed, then your position was no different than that of a slave.
That notion had been implicitly expressed 11 years before in the Declaration of Independence when Thomas Jefferson wrote that people were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Each individual is born with certain talents, qualities, characteristics, and handicaps. In order to sustain his life, he uses his own personal abilities to either produce the necessities of life himself or acquire them by entering into mutually beneficial exchanges with others. The product of these exchanges constitutes income to the people engaging in them. Thus, income rightfully belongs to the person who has earned it because it is a direct result of the value that others place on the abilities that he brings to market.
For example, consider an opera singer who doesn't know anything about growing food. She offers her particular talents in the marketplace-singing in operas-and people pay to listen to her. That money rightfully belongs to her because her voice belongs to her. She takes that money-her income-and enters into exchanges with those whose talents lie in producing and selling food, clothing, and the like.
What's important to note is the revolutionary nature of American society that lived and prospered without income taxation for more than 125 years. Throughout history, governments had claimed the authority to tax or confiscate any and all of a person's income. Historically, people didn't question this power because the common belief among the citizenry was that government was supreme and the citizen was subordinate.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution inverted that historical relationship between government and citizen. For the first time in history, people restrained the power of government to seize any or all of their income. Thus, for more than 125 years, the American people, unlike all other people in history, were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and there was nothing their government could do about it.
Therefore, it is impossible to overstate the revolutionary significance of the Sixteenth Amendment, which was enacted in 1913 and which granted the federal government the power to levy taxes on income. From that point on, the relationship between government and citizen was inverted back to the age-old model of government as sovereign and citizen as servant. Because what mattered was not whether the particular percentage of the tax was high or low but rather that government had the power to set the percentage.
For example, let's assume that I have the power to force you to work for me and that I exercise that power by requiring you to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for me. You would acknowledge that our relationship would be one of master and slave.
But suppose I decide to be nice and force you to work only two hours a day for me, four months a year. Has our relationship been changed? Not in the least. You are still my slave because I have the authority to determine the amount of time you are required to serve me.
And this is the situation in which the American people are now mired. By having the power to set the percentage of tax to be levied on income, the federal government is now in the position of master and the American people are in the position of servant. Everyone's income is now effectively owned by the government and, because the government has the power to adjust the percentage of tax to be paid, what people are permitted to retain is actually just an allowance that the master provides the servants.
The tragedy is compounded by misconceptions about the nature of freedom. As the great German thinker Johann Goethe once pointed out, no person is more enslaved than one who falsely believes he is free.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it brings up the debate on whether income taxes inhibit the freedom of the American people. I agree with the author on his stance that they do but I also acknowledge the fact that it takes money to run a nation. In the beginning income taxes were used to pay off the debt of the Civil War and then for decades after to provide services to the citizens. With the growth of the national debt it now seems as though they go towards nothing. I don't think the debate is whether we should have income taxes I think the debate is on how they are spent and how the finances of the nation are managed. If the United States was not under a pile of debt and the people were taken care of, I don't think people would complain about giving part of their income to the government. It's when things are in turmoil and the people do not see the fruits of their labor that conflict ensues.
In my opinion, the sixteenth amendment was the first sign of a national debt in the United States. After the civil war there was the question of, "Who is going to pay for the damages done?". The government was not yet into the business of making, or in our case today borrowing, money. Therefor it was left to the people to pay for the debt. By using an income tax the government had the ability to tax the people who actually had money rather than making a futile attempt at collecting from the poor. I think this amendment is very broad for a reason. The government had not decided exactly how this would work so they needed the freedom to implement a plan and then change it as issues came up. Today however there is a vast amount of tax code that directly describes how much and when taxes are collected. One small idea turned into one of the most complicated ordeals that Americans have to face every April.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it shows just how little our own government knows about the Constitution. The Commissioner of the IRS is asked a direct question of, "What law requires citizens to pay taxes?", and couldn't even answer. They dodged around the question citing their website and court cases when all they had to do it say, the sixteenth amendment. The sixteenth amendment is not hard to understand. It is very straight forward in its language stating that the federal government has the right to levy taxes on incomes. This means exactly what it says. I could understand if they asked about specific IRS codes or legislation that has to do with the percent you have to pay but this was not the case. To answer the question of the New York Times reporter, who should have known as well, the sixteenth amendment is the law that requires all citizens to pay taxes on their income.
Where Is Freedom in the Income-Tax Debate?
by Jacob G. Hornberger, September 2000
The debate over income-tax cuts between George W. Bush and Al Gore reflects how far Americans have plunged in their understanding of what it means to be free. If elected president, Bush proposes to cut income taxes by $1.3 trillion. Gore is calling the plan "a tax cut for the rich" and has proposed his own $500 million tax cut that purports to target the American middle class. The squabble over the details obscures the real issue that the American people should be reflecting upon-the meaning of human freedom.
When the Constitution called the federal government into existence in 1787, it failed to provide it with the power to levy taxes on income. This was not an oversight. It was commonly understood that freedom entailed the absolute right to keep everything you earned. If government had the power to take the fruits of your earnings, Americans once believed, then your position was no different than that of a slave.
That notion had been implicitly expressed 11 years before in the Declaration of Independence when Thomas Jefferson wrote that people were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Each individual is born with certain talents, qualities, characteristics, and handicaps. In order to sustain his life, he uses his own personal abilities to either produce the necessities of life himself or acquire them by entering into mutually beneficial exchanges with others. The product of these exchanges constitutes income to the people engaging in them. Thus, income rightfully belongs to the person who has earned it because it is a direct result of the value that others place on the abilities that he brings to market.
For example, consider an opera singer who doesn't know anything about growing food. She offers her particular talents in the marketplace-singing in operas-and people pay to listen to her. That money rightfully belongs to her because her voice belongs to her. She takes that money-her income-and enters into exchanges with those whose talents lie in producing and selling food, clothing, and the like.
What's important to note is the revolutionary nature of American society that lived and prospered without income taxation for more than 125 years. Throughout history, governments had claimed the authority to tax or confiscate any and all of a person's income. Historically, people didn't question this power because the common belief among the citizenry was that government was supreme and the citizen was subordinate.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution inverted that historical relationship between government and citizen. For the first time in history, people restrained the power of government to seize any or all of their income. Thus, for more than 125 years, the American people, unlike all other people in history, were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and there was nothing their government could do about it.
Therefore, it is impossible to overstate the revolutionary significance of the Sixteenth Amendment, which was enacted in 1913 and which granted the federal government the power to levy taxes on income. From that point on, the relationship between government and citizen was inverted back to the age-old model of government as sovereign and citizen as servant. Because what mattered was not whether the particular percentage of the tax was high or low but rather that government had the power to set the percentage.
For example, let's assume that I have the power to force you to work for me and that I exercise that power by requiring you to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for me. You would acknowledge that our relationship would be one of master and slave.
But suppose I decide to be nice and force you to work only two hours a day for me, four months a year. Has our relationship been changed? Not in the least. You are still my slave because I have the authority to determine the amount of time you are required to serve me.
And this is the situation in which the American people are now mired. By having the power to set the percentage of tax to be levied on income, the federal government is now in the position of master and the American people are in the position of servant. Everyone's income is now effectively owned by the government and, because the government has the power to adjust the percentage of tax to be paid, what people are permitted to retain is actually just an allowance that the master provides the servants.
The tragedy is compounded by misconceptions about the nature of freedom. As the great German thinker Johann Goethe once pointed out, no person is more enslaved than one who falsely believes he is free.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it brings up the debate on whether income taxes inhibit the freedom of the American people. I agree with the author on his stance that they do but I also acknowledge the fact that it takes money to run a nation. In the beginning income taxes were used to pay off the debt of the Civil War and then for decades after to provide services to the citizens. With the growth of the national debt it now seems as though they go towards nothing. I don't think the debate is whether we should have income taxes I think the debate is on how they are spent and how the finances of the nation are managed. If the United States was not under a pile of debt and the people were taken care of, I don't think people would complain about giving part of their income to the government. It's when things are in turmoil and the people do not see the fruits of their labor that conflict ensues.
Fifteenth Amendment-Voting rights based on race, color and previous condition of servitude
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
In my opinion, the fifteenth amendment cleared up the loop hole of voter discrimination that the fourteenth amendment left open. In the fourteenth amendment blacks were given the right to vote. But it became clear that there was still animosity towards African Americans and they were being discriminated against at the polls. The fifteenth amendment allowed Congress to use legislation to prevent these acts. Without it some states would have continued pass laws that only allowed whites to vote. The fifteenth amendment put this power in Congress's hands.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it shows that voter intimidation is still going on in the United States today. This is from the most recent presidential election. In the video they mention that legally they can be within ten feet of the entrance to the polling station and this is true. The problem with the Black Panther standing outside of the polling place is that some may feel as though they are being intimated not to vote by his presence. I for one would feel very apprehensive about walking into an establishment that was being watched by a Black Panther who has a night stick and is saying things about ending white supremacy. I think the authorities did the right thing by removing the man holding the night stick but should have removed the other as well. Even if he was not carrying a weapon, his presence is still intimidating. They mention that he is there for security reasons which I find to be a joke. Whoever hired him should have made sure that he was not going to show up wearing a Black Panther uniform. That in itself is intimating.
Amendment Fifteen to the US Constitution
By: William Gillette and Elliot Ward
The framers of the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, intended that it would enfranchise most black American males. Actually, African‐Americans had voted in several states in the North for almost a century. After the American Revolution, some free blacks met the property and other restrictive suffrage qualifications. As these requirements were gradually abolished, blacks did not share the widening franchise because whites distrusted blacks and Democratic politicians wanted to prevent blacks from voting for their opponents. So in several northern states blacks lost the right to vote as more whites gained it. For example, in 1846 New York under its new constitution retained property qualifications for blacks while eliminating them for whites.
By the end of the Civil War in 1865 slavery was virtually abolished. The right of blacks to vote became a controversial question. In March 1867, under the First Military Reconstruction Act, the Thirty‐Ninth Congress enfranchised black males in ten southern states as a requirement for readmission of those states. But elsewhere in the former slave states, Democratic state governments blocked Negro enfranchisement. The only exception was Tennessee, which Republicans controlled. In most of the North, especially the lower North where most blacks lived, blacks could not vote and whites rejected any change. Blacks, however, voted in New England (except Connecticut) and in four midwestern states.
The stimulus for the Fifteenth Amendment came from the election returns of 1868. Although Republican presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant won 73 percent of the electoral vote, he won only 52 percent of the popular vote. Without the southern black voter, Grant would have lost the popular, though not the electoral, vote. In state after state Grant and the Republicans won by precarious margins. Democrats also gained seats in Congress. And in the South during 1868, white Democrats resorted to violence and intimidation in order to prevent black Republicans from voting. Such disfranchisement of blacks in the South, defeats in state referenda on suffrage throughout the North, and close calls in many elections convinced Republicans that something had to be done by the Fortieth Congress before Democrats arrived in force in the new Congress and in the statehouses.
Republican congressmen in early 1869 believed it was necessary to enfranchise adult black males as a counterweight against a resurgent Democratic party. Just as political need impelled Congress to mandate black voting for the South by federal law two years earlier, so now Congress found it expedient to inaugurate African‐American voting in the northern and border states by means of a constitutional amendment. Republicans in Congress also wished to advance the cause of equal rights and impartial justice. The idealistic motive reinforced the pragmatic one. In addition, Republicans had an important secondary objective. They sought an unrepealable amendment to the Constitution to safeguard black voting in the South by banning racial discrimination in the exercise of the franchise. Though Republican congressmen agreed on these goals, they were divided over details in framing the Fifteenth Amendment and anxious about its chances for ratification. They abandoned a guarantee of officeholding by blacks as well as abolition of state literacy, property, and nativity tests for suffrage because they deemed such far‐reaching reform politically impossible. Thus the amendment reflected more the limited pragmatic instincts of moderate Republicans and practical radicals than the idealistic views of some radical Republicans.
The struggle for ratification during 1869 and early 1870 followed party lines: Republicans supported the amendment and Democrats opposed it. The fight for ratification was fiercest in the lower North, where party division was closest and where the press and politicians regarded the potential African‐American voter as the balance of power. Despite Republican control of most state legislatures, the struggle for ratification was intense and the outcome remained uncertain until almost the very end. But national party pressure, congressional and presidential intervention, hard work, and good timing paid off. The amendment was formally ratified on 30 March 1870. Since the Military Reconstruction Act had made the franchise a reality in the South, and because some northern states permitted black voting, the practical effect of the amendment was to open the ballot in seventeen northern and border states.
Republicans regarded the Fifteenth Amendment as the crowning achievement of Reconstruction. Northern blacks retained the franchise permanently. But blacks in the border states during the 1870s and later gradually lost the vote by force and fraud. As retreat from Reconstruction gained momentum throughout the nation during the 1870s and the three decades that followed, most southern blacks also lost the vote. Meanwhile, northern whites became apathetic about the fate of the freedmen in the South. The federal government, necessarily the ultimate guarantor of the Fifteenth Amendment, failed to enforce the right to vote at the ballot box and in the courts. With repression in the South, indifference in the North, and inaction in Washington, the Fifteenth Amendment went unenforced.
The Fifteenth Amendment became much less significant than the Fourteenth Amendment in its constitutional meaning and practical importance. Often federal courts interpreted the Fifteenth Amendment narrowly. The United States Supreme Court put state and local elections off limits to federal election enforcement in United States v. Reese (1876); literacy tests and poll taxes, designed to disenfranchise blacks, were upheld in Williams v. Mississippi (1898). The amendment reached its nadir in James v. Bowman (1903) when the Court emasculated the amendment by denying federal authority under it to prosecute a nonofficial who by bribery prevented some Kentucky blacks from voting in a congressional election. Even later, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Nixon v. Herndon (1927) found authority to invalidate a white primary of the Democratic party, he based his decision not on the Fifteenth Amendment but on the Fourteenth.
The Court, however, poured new meaning into the virtually empty vessel of the Fifteenth Amendment in Smith v. Allwright (1944) by reaching the same result as in Nixon, but on the basis of the Fifteenth, not the Fourteenth, Amendment. Although the Fourteenth Amendment continued to be of supreme importance in laying the constitutional foundation of the Second Reconstruction, the Supreme Court no longer treated the Fifteenth Amendment as a historical curiosity and constitutional irrelevancy. When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, it revolutionized the politics of the South by spurring enfranchisement of black southerners. Thus, the most durable achievement of the Second Reconstruction owed its constitutional underpinning to the Fifteenth Amendment of the First Reconstruction. After almost a century, the Fifteenth Amendment was once again bearing fruit.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it mentions the political motives for the fifteenth amendment. For some Republican's at the time this was not a way to empower blacks through giving them the right to vote, it was a way to counter act the ever growing Democratic vote. Republicans knew that the Democrats were gaining in numbers and had to come up with a way to put more votes on their own side. By protecting black voters they thought they could gain more votes and would look like they were doing something to benefit someone else rather than themselves. Whatever the motive the fifteenth amendment was one that was needed. I just find it sad to use others to benefit yourself.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
In my opinion, the fifteenth amendment cleared up the loop hole of voter discrimination that the fourteenth amendment left open. In the fourteenth amendment blacks were given the right to vote. But it became clear that there was still animosity towards African Americans and they were being discriminated against at the polls. The fifteenth amendment allowed Congress to use legislation to prevent these acts. Without it some states would have continued pass laws that only allowed whites to vote. The fifteenth amendment put this power in Congress's hands.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it shows that voter intimidation is still going on in the United States today. This is from the most recent presidential election. In the video they mention that legally they can be within ten feet of the entrance to the polling station and this is true. The problem with the Black Panther standing outside of the polling place is that some may feel as though they are being intimated not to vote by his presence. I for one would feel very apprehensive about walking into an establishment that was being watched by a Black Panther who has a night stick and is saying things about ending white supremacy. I think the authorities did the right thing by removing the man holding the night stick but should have removed the other as well. Even if he was not carrying a weapon, his presence is still intimidating. They mention that he is there for security reasons which I find to be a joke. Whoever hired him should have made sure that he was not going to show up wearing a Black Panther uniform. That in itself is intimating.
Amendment Fifteen to the US Constitution
By: William Gillette and Elliot Ward
The framers of the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, intended that it would enfranchise most black American males. Actually, African‐Americans had voted in several states in the North for almost a century. After the American Revolution, some free blacks met the property and other restrictive suffrage qualifications. As these requirements were gradually abolished, blacks did not share the widening franchise because whites distrusted blacks and Democratic politicians wanted to prevent blacks from voting for their opponents. So in several northern states blacks lost the right to vote as more whites gained it. For example, in 1846 New York under its new constitution retained property qualifications for blacks while eliminating them for whites.
By the end of the Civil War in 1865 slavery was virtually abolished. The right of blacks to vote became a controversial question. In March 1867, under the First Military Reconstruction Act, the Thirty‐Ninth Congress enfranchised black males in ten southern states as a requirement for readmission of those states. But elsewhere in the former slave states, Democratic state governments blocked Negro enfranchisement. The only exception was Tennessee, which Republicans controlled. In most of the North, especially the lower North where most blacks lived, blacks could not vote and whites rejected any change. Blacks, however, voted in New England (except Connecticut) and in four midwestern states.
The stimulus for the Fifteenth Amendment came from the election returns of 1868. Although Republican presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant won 73 percent of the electoral vote, he won only 52 percent of the popular vote. Without the southern black voter, Grant would have lost the popular, though not the electoral, vote. In state after state Grant and the Republicans won by precarious margins. Democrats also gained seats in Congress. And in the South during 1868, white Democrats resorted to violence and intimidation in order to prevent black Republicans from voting. Such disfranchisement of blacks in the South, defeats in state referenda on suffrage throughout the North, and close calls in many elections convinced Republicans that something had to be done by the Fortieth Congress before Democrats arrived in force in the new Congress and in the statehouses.
Republican congressmen in early 1869 believed it was necessary to enfranchise adult black males as a counterweight against a resurgent Democratic party. Just as political need impelled Congress to mandate black voting for the South by federal law two years earlier, so now Congress found it expedient to inaugurate African‐American voting in the northern and border states by means of a constitutional amendment. Republicans in Congress also wished to advance the cause of equal rights and impartial justice. The idealistic motive reinforced the pragmatic one. In addition, Republicans had an important secondary objective. They sought an unrepealable amendment to the Constitution to safeguard black voting in the South by banning racial discrimination in the exercise of the franchise. Though Republican congressmen agreed on these goals, they were divided over details in framing the Fifteenth Amendment and anxious about its chances for ratification. They abandoned a guarantee of officeholding by blacks as well as abolition of state literacy, property, and nativity tests for suffrage because they deemed such far‐reaching reform politically impossible. Thus the amendment reflected more the limited pragmatic instincts of moderate Republicans and practical radicals than the idealistic views of some radical Republicans.
The struggle for ratification during 1869 and early 1870 followed party lines: Republicans supported the amendment and Democrats opposed it. The fight for ratification was fiercest in the lower North, where party division was closest and where the press and politicians regarded the potential African‐American voter as the balance of power. Despite Republican control of most state legislatures, the struggle for ratification was intense and the outcome remained uncertain until almost the very end. But national party pressure, congressional and presidential intervention, hard work, and good timing paid off. The amendment was formally ratified on 30 March 1870. Since the Military Reconstruction Act had made the franchise a reality in the South, and because some northern states permitted black voting, the practical effect of the amendment was to open the ballot in seventeen northern and border states.
Republicans regarded the Fifteenth Amendment as the crowning achievement of Reconstruction. Northern blacks retained the franchise permanently. But blacks in the border states during the 1870s and later gradually lost the vote by force and fraud. As retreat from Reconstruction gained momentum throughout the nation during the 1870s and the three decades that followed, most southern blacks also lost the vote. Meanwhile, northern whites became apathetic about the fate of the freedmen in the South. The federal government, necessarily the ultimate guarantor of the Fifteenth Amendment, failed to enforce the right to vote at the ballot box and in the courts. With repression in the South, indifference in the North, and inaction in Washington, the Fifteenth Amendment went unenforced.
The Fifteenth Amendment became much less significant than the Fourteenth Amendment in its constitutional meaning and practical importance. Often federal courts interpreted the Fifteenth Amendment narrowly. The United States Supreme Court put state and local elections off limits to federal election enforcement in United States v. Reese (1876); literacy tests and poll taxes, designed to disenfranchise blacks, were upheld in Williams v. Mississippi (1898). The amendment reached its nadir in James v. Bowman (1903) when the Court emasculated the amendment by denying federal authority under it to prosecute a nonofficial who by bribery prevented some Kentucky blacks from voting in a congressional election. Even later, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Nixon v. Herndon (1927) found authority to invalidate a white primary of the Democratic party, he based his decision not on the Fifteenth Amendment but on the Fourteenth.
The Court, however, poured new meaning into the virtually empty vessel of the Fifteenth Amendment in Smith v. Allwright (1944) by reaching the same result as in Nixon, but on the basis of the Fifteenth, not the Fourteenth, Amendment. Although the Fourteenth Amendment continued to be of supreme importance in laying the constitutional foundation of the Second Reconstruction, the Supreme Court no longer treated the Fifteenth Amendment as a historical curiosity and constitutional irrelevancy. When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, it revolutionized the politics of the South by spurring enfranchisement of black southerners. Thus, the most durable achievement of the Second Reconstruction owed its constitutional underpinning to the Fifteenth Amendment of the First Reconstruction. After almost a century, the Fifteenth Amendment was once again bearing fruit.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it mentions the political motives for the fifteenth amendment. For some Republican's at the time this was not a way to empower blacks through giving them the right to vote, it was a way to counter act the ever growing Democratic vote. Republicans knew that the Democrats were gaining in numbers and had to come up with a way to put more votes on their own side. By protecting black voters they thought they could gain more votes and would look like they were doing something to benefit someone else rather than themselves. Whatever the motive the fifteenth amendment was one that was needed. I just find it sad to use others to benefit yourself.
Fourteenth Amendment-Citizenship and Due Process
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, 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.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
In my opinion, the fourteenth amendment does a wide array of things. First of all, it gives citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States. This gave citizenship to former slaves, women and even Native Americans. It also protects from the denial of their freedoms with out due process. Secondly, it states that the number of Senators each state receives is based on the number of citizens of the state but excluding Native Americans who are not taxed. This means that Native Americans are citizens but they are not a factor when it comes to Congressional representation. This section also gives the right to vote only to males 21 years and older. Notice that this is all males, both black and white, but not women. Thirdly, it denies the right to hold office to those who have committed acts of treason against the United States. Finally, the fourteenth amendment states that they debit created by the North in the civil war is not to be questioned and is to be paid but the debt of the South will not be paid by the federal government. The fourteenth amendment basically ties up some of the loose ends of the civil war era. However, there are many more to be addressed later.
My Opinion: I chose this video partially because it is funny and partially because I think many American citizens should try and answer these couple of questions. I doubt that many of them could pass with 100% like he did. I know that when I was watching I missed a few. I think people, including myself, who are born in the United States take advantage of the gift they have been given. There are people all over the world who dream of being American citizens and then there are American citizens who have no idea what their country stands for. Its a sad thing, but it is one that can be changed very easily.
Tampa Argues 1861 Debt Can't Be Repaid
TAMPA, Fla., April 9, 2008 (UPI)
Tampa officials have asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit seeking $22 million in payment of a debt incurred during the Civil War.
In legal papers, the city contends Joan Kennedy Biddle is way too late to try to collect, The Tampa Tribune reported.
"We don't even know that the note hadn't been paid," City Attorney David Smith said. "We don't have evidence either way. It's one of the reasons the statute of limitations is a reasonable defense."
Biddle and other family members are attempting to collect on a promissory note
for $299.58 issued in 1861 to a business partnership, Kennedy and Darling. They claim that with interest the total is now more than $22 million.
In addition to the fact that the Kennedy's are trying to collect 147 years after the fact, the city has argued that it is barred by law from repaying the debt -- if it is in fact still unpaid. The 14th Amendment, the city notes, bans payment of "any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States" and the original law was used to purchase ammunition.
My Opinion: In my opinion this is just a silly ploy to get some free money. I can't believe that someone would spend the money on lawyers to fight this case. I am sure there are laws that have to do with the length of time you have to collect a debt. Even without those it is almost a certainty that the government will not honor the debt due to the clear wording of the fourteenth amendment. Before reading this article I didn't think that the Civil War debt section of this amendment was still relevant but apparently there are still people in the United States digging up IOU's from the time period. Thankfully we do have the fourteenth amendment and people aren't able to substantiate these absurd claims.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, 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.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
In my opinion, the fourteenth amendment does a wide array of things. First of all, it gives citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States. This gave citizenship to former slaves, women and even Native Americans. It also protects from the denial of their freedoms with out due process. Secondly, it states that the number of Senators each state receives is based on the number of citizens of the state but excluding Native Americans who are not taxed. This means that Native Americans are citizens but they are not a factor when it comes to Congressional representation. This section also gives the right to vote only to males 21 years and older. Notice that this is all males, both black and white, but not women. Thirdly, it denies the right to hold office to those who have committed acts of treason against the United States. Finally, the fourteenth amendment states that they debit created by the North in the civil war is not to be questioned and is to be paid but the debt of the South will not be paid by the federal government. The fourteenth amendment basically ties up some of the loose ends of the civil war era. However, there are many more to be addressed later.
My Opinion: I chose this video partially because it is funny and partially because I think many American citizens should try and answer these couple of questions. I doubt that many of them could pass with 100% like he did. I know that when I was watching I missed a few. I think people, including myself, who are born in the United States take advantage of the gift they have been given. There are people all over the world who dream of being American citizens and then there are American citizens who have no idea what their country stands for. Its a sad thing, but it is one that can be changed very easily.
Tampa Argues 1861 Debt Can't Be Repaid
TAMPA, Fla., April 9, 2008 (UPI)
Tampa officials have asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit seeking $22 million in payment of a debt incurred during the Civil War.
In legal papers, the city contends Joan Kennedy Biddle is way too late to try to collect, The Tampa Tribune reported.
"We don't even know that the note hadn't been paid," City Attorney David Smith said. "We don't have evidence either way. It's one of the reasons the statute of limitations is a reasonable defense."
Biddle and other family members are attempting to collect on a promissory note
for $299.58 issued in 1861 to a business partnership, Kennedy and Darling. They claim that with interest the total is now more than $22 million.
In addition to the fact that the Kennedy's are trying to collect 147 years after the fact, the city has argued that it is barred by law from repaying the debt -- if it is in fact still unpaid. The 14th Amendment, the city notes, bans payment of "any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States" and the original law was used to purchase ammunition.
My Opinion: In my opinion this is just a silly ploy to get some free money. I can't believe that someone would spend the money on lawyers to fight this case. I am sure there are laws that have to do with the length of time you have to collect a debt. Even without those it is almost a certainty that the government will not honor the debt due to the clear wording of the fourteenth amendment. Before reading this article I didn't think that the Civil War debt section of this amendment was still relevant but apparently there are still people in the United States digging up IOU's from the time period. Thankfully we do have the fourteenth amendment and people aren't able to substantiate these absurd claims.
Thirteenth Amendment-Abolishment of Slavery
Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation".
In my opinion, the thirteenth amendment was one of the most nation changing pieces of legislation in the history of the United States. Without this amendment our nation would still be in complete turmoil. By freeing the slaves the United States was on its way to making all of it's citizens equal. There are still inequalities to this day but this laid the ground work for many events. The thirteenth amendment also was a way to right previous wrongs. The ideal situation would have been to never have allowed slavery in the first place but that is not the way it happened. People realized this and wanted to do something to fix it. The thirteenth amendment was the thing that achieved this.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it is a good representation of how slavery is still affecting society many many years after it has been abolished. Some thought it was correct for Congress to apologize while others did not. I am somewhat neutral on the situation. I am not mad that they did and I would not be mad if they didn't. I don't think an apology does much good in this situation. However, my point of view is somewhat skewed and I realize that. I just think that it was an extremely bad time in our history and we have already done the most important thing by getting rid of it. I feel as though any other attempt to make things right will not have a profound impact. Our nation's decision to abolish slavery was the correct one and the only thing that did African Americans justice. This is a very sensitive subject so please take my opinion for what its worth and you are always entitled to your own.
Freedom's Martyr
By: David S. Reynolds
Published: December 1, 2009
New York Times
It’s important for Americans to recognize our national heroes, even those who have been despised by history. Take John Brown.
Today is the 150th anniversary of Brown’s hanging — the grim punishment for his raid weeks earlier on Harpers Ferry, Va. With a small band of abolitionists, Brown had seized the federal arsenal there and freed slaves in the area. His plan was to flee with them to nearby mountains and provoke rebellions in the South. But he stalled too long in the arsenal and was captured. He was brought to trial in a Virginia court, convicted of treason, murder and inciting an insurrection, and hanged on Dec. 2, 1859.
It’s a date we should hold in reverence. Yes, I know the response: Why remember a misguided fanatic and his absurd plan for destroying slavery?
There are compelling reasons. First, the plan was not absurd. Brown reasonably saw the Appalachians, which stretch deep into the South, as an ideal base for a guerrilla war. He had studied the Maroon rebels of the West Indies, black fugitives who had used mountain camps to battle colonial powers on their islands. His plan was to create panic by arousing fears of a slave rebellion, leading Southerners to view slavery as dangerous and impractical.
Second, he was held in high esteem by many great men of his day. Ralph Waldo Emerson compared him to Jesus, declaring that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” Henry David Thoreau placed Brown above the freedom fighters of the American Revolution. Frederick Douglass said that while he had lived for black people, John Brown had died for them. A later black reformer, W. E. B. Du Bois, called Brown the white American who had “come nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.”
Du Bois was right. Unlike nearly all other Americans of his era, John Brown did not have a shred of racism. He had long lived among African-Americans, trying to help them make a living, and he wanted blacks to be quickly integrated into American society. When Brown was told he could have a clergyman to accompany him to the gallows, he refused, saying he would be more honored to go with a slave woman and her children.
By the time of his hanging, John Brown was so respected in the North that bells tolled in many cities and towns in his honor. Within two years, the Union troops marched southward singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul keeps marching on.” Brown remained a hero to the North right up through Reconstruction.
However, he fell from grace during the long, dark period of Jim Crow. The attitude was, who cares about his progressive racial views, except a few blacks? His reputation improved a bit with the civil rights movement, but he is still widely dismissed as a deranged cultist. This is an injustice to a forward-thinking man dedicated to the freedom and political participation of African-Americans.
O.K., some might say, but how about the blotches on his record, especially the murders and bloody skirmishes in Kansas in the 1850s? Brown considered himself a soldier at war. His attacks on pro-slavery forces were part of an escalating cycle of pre-emptive and retaliatory violence that most historians now agree were in essence the first engagements of the Civil War.
Besides, none of the heroes from that period is unblemished. Lincoln was the Great Emancipator, but he shared the era’s racial prejudices, and even after the war started thought that blacks should be shipped out of the country once they were freed. Andrew Jackson was the man of his age, but in addition to being a slaveholder, he has the extra infamy of his callous treatment of Native Americans, for which some hold him guilty of genocide. John Brown comes with “buts” — but in that he has plenty of company. He deserves to be honored today.
For starters, he should be pardoned. Technically, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia would have to do this, since Brown was tried on state charges and executed there. Such a posthumous pardon by a state occurred just this October, when South Carolina pardoned two black men who were executed 94 years ago for murdering a Confederate veteran.
A presidential pardon, however, would be more meaningful. Posthumous pardons are by definition symbolic. They’re intended to remove stigma or correct injustice. While the president cannot grant pardons for state crimes, a strong argument can be made for a symbolic exception in Brown’s case.
By today’s standards, his crime was arguably of a federal nature, as his attack was on a federal arsenal in what is now West Virginia. His actions were prompted by federal slavery rulings he considered despicable, especially the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. Brown was captured by federal troops under Robert E. Lee. And the Virginia court convicted him of treason against Virginia even though he was not a resident. (He was tried in Virginia at the orders of its governor, probably to avert Northern political pressure on the federal government.)
There is precedent for presidential pardons of the deceased; in 1999, Bill Clinton pardoned Henry O. Flipper, an African-American lieutenant who was court-martialed in 1881 for misconduct. Last year, George W. Bush gave a posthumous pardon to Charles Winters, an American punished for supplying B-17 bombers to Israel in the late 1940s. In October, Senator John McCain and Representative Peter King petitioned President Obama to pardon Jack Johnson, the black boxing champion, who was convicted a century ago of transporting a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes.
Justice would be served, belatedly, if President Obama and Governor Kaine found a way to pardon a man whose heroic effort to free four million enslaved blacks helped start the war that ended slavery. Once and for all, rescue John Brown from the loony bin of history.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it shows how the aftermath of the abolishment of slavery is still going on today. The author brings of the topic of pardoning people who fought for the freedom of slaves but were persecuted, and even killed, for doing so. I think that if this process of pardoning people is begun then it will never end. There are so many situations exactly like this one that if the federal government begins pardoning people posthumously then it will become an everyday thing. If you do it for one person then people will expect it for everyone. This could become a time consuming event that distracts from the issues today. I think that the government could recognize these people in some other way. I am not sure if there is a monument for the ending of slavery or not but that would be a good way to honor these people but keep the accolades fair for everyone.
Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation".
In my opinion, the thirteenth amendment was one of the most nation changing pieces of legislation in the history of the United States. Without this amendment our nation would still be in complete turmoil. By freeing the slaves the United States was on its way to making all of it's citizens equal. There are still inequalities to this day but this laid the ground work for many events. The thirteenth amendment also was a way to right previous wrongs. The ideal situation would have been to never have allowed slavery in the first place but that is not the way it happened. People realized this and wanted to do something to fix it. The thirteenth amendment was the thing that achieved this.
My Opinion: I chose this video because it is a good representation of how slavery is still affecting society many many years after it has been abolished. Some thought it was correct for Congress to apologize while others did not. I am somewhat neutral on the situation. I am not mad that they did and I would not be mad if they didn't. I don't think an apology does much good in this situation. However, my point of view is somewhat skewed and I realize that. I just think that it was an extremely bad time in our history and we have already done the most important thing by getting rid of it. I feel as though any other attempt to make things right will not have a profound impact. Our nation's decision to abolish slavery was the correct one and the only thing that did African Americans justice. This is a very sensitive subject so please take my opinion for what its worth and you are always entitled to your own.
Freedom's Martyr
By: David S. Reynolds
Published: December 1, 2009
New York Times
It’s important for Americans to recognize our national heroes, even those who have been despised by history. Take John Brown.
Today is the 150th anniversary of Brown’s hanging — the grim punishment for his raid weeks earlier on Harpers Ferry, Va. With a small band of abolitionists, Brown had seized the federal arsenal there and freed slaves in the area. His plan was to flee with them to nearby mountains and provoke rebellions in the South. But he stalled too long in the arsenal and was captured. He was brought to trial in a Virginia court, convicted of treason, murder and inciting an insurrection, and hanged on Dec. 2, 1859.
It’s a date we should hold in reverence. Yes, I know the response: Why remember a misguided fanatic and his absurd plan for destroying slavery?
There are compelling reasons. First, the plan was not absurd. Brown reasonably saw the Appalachians, which stretch deep into the South, as an ideal base for a guerrilla war. He had studied the Maroon rebels of the West Indies, black fugitives who had used mountain camps to battle colonial powers on their islands. His plan was to create panic by arousing fears of a slave rebellion, leading Southerners to view slavery as dangerous and impractical.
Second, he was held in high esteem by many great men of his day. Ralph Waldo Emerson compared him to Jesus, declaring that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” Henry David Thoreau placed Brown above the freedom fighters of the American Revolution. Frederick Douglass said that while he had lived for black people, John Brown had died for them. A later black reformer, W. E. B. Du Bois, called Brown the white American who had “come nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.”
Du Bois was right. Unlike nearly all other Americans of his era, John Brown did not have a shred of racism. He had long lived among African-Americans, trying to help them make a living, and he wanted blacks to be quickly integrated into American society. When Brown was told he could have a clergyman to accompany him to the gallows, he refused, saying he would be more honored to go with a slave woman and her children.
By the time of his hanging, John Brown was so respected in the North that bells tolled in many cities and towns in his honor. Within two years, the Union troops marched southward singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul keeps marching on.” Brown remained a hero to the North right up through Reconstruction.
However, he fell from grace during the long, dark period of Jim Crow. The attitude was, who cares about his progressive racial views, except a few blacks? His reputation improved a bit with the civil rights movement, but he is still widely dismissed as a deranged cultist. This is an injustice to a forward-thinking man dedicated to the freedom and political participation of African-Americans.
O.K., some might say, but how about the blotches on his record, especially the murders and bloody skirmishes in Kansas in the 1850s? Brown considered himself a soldier at war. His attacks on pro-slavery forces were part of an escalating cycle of pre-emptive and retaliatory violence that most historians now agree were in essence the first engagements of the Civil War.
Besides, none of the heroes from that period is unblemished. Lincoln was the Great Emancipator, but he shared the era’s racial prejudices, and even after the war started thought that blacks should be shipped out of the country once they were freed. Andrew Jackson was the man of his age, but in addition to being a slaveholder, he has the extra infamy of his callous treatment of Native Americans, for which some hold him guilty of genocide. John Brown comes with “buts” — but in that he has plenty of company. He deserves to be honored today.
For starters, he should be pardoned. Technically, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia would have to do this, since Brown was tried on state charges and executed there. Such a posthumous pardon by a state occurred just this October, when South Carolina pardoned two black men who were executed 94 years ago for murdering a Confederate veteran.
A presidential pardon, however, would be more meaningful. Posthumous pardons are by definition symbolic. They’re intended to remove stigma or correct injustice. While the president cannot grant pardons for state crimes, a strong argument can be made for a symbolic exception in Brown’s case.
By today’s standards, his crime was arguably of a federal nature, as his attack was on a federal arsenal in what is now West Virginia. His actions were prompted by federal slavery rulings he considered despicable, especially the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. Brown was captured by federal troops under Robert E. Lee. And the Virginia court convicted him of treason against Virginia even though he was not a resident. (He was tried in Virginia at the orders of its governor, probably to avert Northern political pressure on the federal government.)
There is precedent for presidential pardons of the deceased; in 1999, Bill Clinton pardoned Henry O. Flipper, an African-American lieutenant who was court-martialed in 1881 for misconduct. Last year, George W. Bush gave a posthumous pardon to Charles Winters, an American punished for supplying B-17 bombers to Israel in the late 1940s. In October, Senator John McCain and Representative Peter King petitioned President Obama to pardon Jack Johnson, the black boxing champion, who was convicted a century ago of transporting a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes.
Justice would be served, belatedly, if President Obama and Governor Kaine found a way to pardon a man whose heroic effort to free four million enslaved blacks helped start the war that ended slavery. Once and for all, rescue John Brown from the loony bin of history.
My Opinion: I chose this article because it shows how the aftermath of the abolishment of slavery is still going on today. The author brings of the topic of pardoning people who fought for the freedom of slaves but were persecuted, and even killed, for doing so. I think that if this process of pardoning people is begun then it will never end. There are so many situations exactly like this one that if the federal government begins pardoning people posthumously then it will become an everyday thing. If you do it for one person then people will expect it for everyone. This could become a time consuming event that distracts from the issues today. I think that the government could recognize these people in some other way. I am not sure if there is a monument for the ending of slavery or not but that would be a good way to honor these people but keep the accolades fair for everyone.
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