The Role of Voting in America

THE VIEW FROM HERE - Most have heard the phrase “Free, white, and 21" as the qualifications to vote in colonial America around the time of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. The first thing Americans need to realize is that voting like equality was not and is not an inalienable right. Neither document sets forth voting requirements, leaving that matter to the states. 

“Free White and 21" is Misleading Meme 

The voting requirements varied from state to state, but all required voters to be male and 21 years old which was the age of majority in England.  When the Declaration and the US Constitution were written, the general consensus was that only people with  a direct stake in a good government should vote.  Thus, land owners and men who paid taxes were permitted to vote.  In some states, free Black men, who owned property and/or paid taxes, could vote.  The number of voting Blacks was so small that they did not constitute a “faction” about which the Federalist Papers fretted. See Papers, ##9, 10, 51, and 85. 

[As an aside, in the early 1880's, however, Blacks overwhelmingly supported the Federalist Party which was pro-abolition, while the opposition party, Democratic-Republicans, were aligned with the South.  In order to reduce the power of the Federalist Party, the Dem-Republicans systematically disenfranchised Northern Blacks similar to how Trump’s GOP is now trying to curtail the Black vote.  People fail to notice that Trump’s anti-Black racism is far less destructive to the GOP election prospects in November 2026 than Stephen Miller’s anti-Mexican racism which has driven away several million Mexican voters, thereby tipping the scales against the GOP in November 2026 elections.] 

New Amsterdam’s Remonstrance of 1653

In 1653 the Dutch West India Company controlled New Amsterdam. Tomys Swartwout (Zwartwoode) and others signed the Remonstrance of 1653, demanding "a right of voice in the government" for the taxed colonists.  They argued that it was against natural law for a government to pass laws and impose taxes without the consent of the people being taxed. By 1657, the Jews in New Amsterdam won the right to vote when they were granted Burgher Rights (municipal citizenship).  More than one hundred years later in 1773, Boston hosted its famous tea party to protest taxation without representation. As Declaration noted three years later, in order to be legitimate, a government needed the consent of the governed, which made some form of voting inevitable.  Dutch and English colonies had the same voting philosophy, i.e. those men who had contributed to the community, such as land owners and/or tax payers, had the natural right to both vote and serve in the government.   

The Declaration and the US Constitution, however, primarily focused on  individual inalienable rights which all men had whether or not their government acknowledged “these self-evident truths.”    Despite its crucial role in ascertaining the consent of the governed, voting was not an inherent inalienable right, but a privilege which the government granted or withheld. 

When Jefferson wrote in 1816,  "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be," only 7% to 11% of the population could vote.  As Jefferson anticipated voting to expand to a vast number of people, his statement about ignorance and freedom applied not only to the small percent who could vote, but also to future generations when the voting would have greatly expanded.  Jefferson foresaw that the whole nation needed to be educated for the government to have the wisdom to protect inalienable rights.  For this reason, his 1779 education bill funded elementary schools for all free children (boys and girls).  Unless the general public understood how the government functioned, they could be fooled into abandoning freedom and unwittingly subject themselves to tyranny.  De Tocqueville recognized an ignorant public’s passion for equality.  They preferred equality in servitude over inequality in liberty.  Equality in servitude is a necessary feature of Wokeism’s equality of outcome.  (Once again, equality is not an inalienable right and America is not a democracy.)

As will be discussed in future articles, the federal government has used its financial leverage over universities such as Obama-era’s NSF and NIH grants to nearly eradicate the teaching of constitutional principles underlying the Declaration and the Constitution so that people fail to comprehend why Liberty correctly results in inequality of outcome. Under Woke ideology, however,  there must be equality of outcome for all groups. Wokeism holds that the sole cause of group discrepancies is White and Jewish racism, as elaborated in the Democrats’ mandatory diversity statements and equity plans.  Individual inalienable rights are recast as racist plots to keep Blacks poor. 

Most people, who argue today about what the Declaration or the US Constitution say, are ignorant of not only what each document actually provides, but they are also abysmally unaware of the context which gave rise to America’s foundational values.  Jefferson and other founders wanted to protect the government and hence inalienable rights by limiting government to educated and honorable people.  Although Lord Acton did not write, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” until 1878, the founding fathers were aware of this dynamic.  They also knew that ignorant people would allow  power-mad men to infiltrate and corrupt the government. 

The Founding Fathers recognized that ignorance would result in eviscerating the Constitution’s Checks and Balances, thus, allowing governments to trample on inalienable rights. The GOP Unitary Executive Theory dispenses with the rule of law; Trump vs the United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), immunizes the criminal actions of the President, making him above the law, so that he may murder and imprison Americans whom he declares obstruct his core duties.   The Dem’s Wokeism is a racist, anti-Semitic and anti-individual rights ideology patterned after German Nazism.

An uncritical, ignorant electorate is susceptible to memes, grand promises, and a polarized media which distorts its coverage according to its chosen Narrative. As a result, voting incentivizes dishonorable politicians to pander to the uneducated so they can secure power despite their lack of honor and constitutional illiteracy.  Stephen Miller explains Unity Executive Theory’s and Wokeism’s devotion to power over individual inalienable rights. “ . . . The real world is governed by strength, . . . is governed by force, . . .  is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”