Some folks shouldn't be voting

If any recent day typifies life in this crazy modern world, it was probably this past Tuesday. World financial markets were in a meltdown and the Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting to cut the interest rate a massive three quarters of a point in an attempt to stave off a precipitous stock market drop.

President Bush was working with congressional leaders on an economic stimulus package to reduce the likelihood of a recession. Meanwhile the U.S. presidential campaign was in full swing with Hillary and Obama having just ripped each other to shreds at a debate, and Fred Thompson announced that he was dropping out of the race on the GOP side.

Overseas Condi Rice was working diplomatic circles in an attempt to put more pressure on Iran and its burgeoning nuclear program. The nation of Israel had just reduced fuel supplies flowing into Palestinian territory in response to rocket attacks against Israel. In turn, Palestinians breached a security wall separating Gaza and Egypt.

It was a normal day in America's newsrooms; then the story broke that Heath Ledger had died. I racked my brain ... who the heck was Heath Ledger? I shouldn't have worried about finding the answer, because for the rest of the afternoon and evening all the important news was swept from the airwaves of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC as we were flooded with wall to wall coverage of yet another celebrity tragedy.

Dave Ramsey and two other prominent financial gurus were scheduled to appear on Larry King for a full 40 minutes to discuss the rapidly worsening financial situation. Sorry, guys ... some Hollywood type was diddling around with drugs and took a dirt nap. CNN will have to reschedule you so that we can bring viewers mind numbing ramblings on the life and times of Heath Ledger.

I hate it for the guy. Ledger was in the prime of his life and his movie career was headed higher. However, what should have been a 30-second news piece turned into a media feeding frenzy with every network trying to create a new angle in order to drag the story out. Is this what we've come to?

Are Republicans really ready to nominate a 72-year-old U.S. senator who has more in common with Democrat John Edwards than Ronald Reagan? Or have we swallowed his marketing mantra of "straight talk"?

Who cares what Barack Hussein Obama believes in? Oprah endorsed him and that's enough for millions of Democrats. Shouldn't we want to understand Hillary Rodham Clinton's socialist dream for America? Nah, the only thing that matters is that she's a woman.

I can't even count how many times a talk show host on our radio station has taken a call from a supporter of Obama or Hillary and then asked the caller to name one policy their candidate espouses. Usually there's dead silence ... and then a rambling answer about how he or she believes their candidate cares about people.

The caller was yet another victim of modern marketing that appeals to how we feel instead of to the facts surrounding an election. The odds are pretty high that the person standing in line behind you at your polling place on Feb. 5th won't have a clue.

Every election we hear the media types pontificate about how pitiful voter turnout is. I've been guilty of it myself. However I've about come to the conclusion we would better off as a nation if we discouraged voting. Do away with motor voter. No more voter registration drives.

It's easy to see why only property owners were allowed to vote in some colonies in the early days of this land. The powers that be understood that those with a vested interest would pay attention and cast their votes accordingly to protect our capitalist way of life.

As evidenced by the new Donkephant economic stimulus plan, here's what we have. Today the majority of Americans are like spoiled children with parents who can't say no. If you'll stop crying then mommy will let you have one more cookie ... OK two more cookies ... all right three cookies, but that's it ... maybe. How else do you explain a stimulus plan that gives tax rebates to people who paid no taxes?

Let's see ... the U.S. dollar is sinking in value against foreign currencies because our government is running massive budget deficits. Additionally our trade deficit continues to skyrocket.

So Bush and the Democrat controlled congress want to take dollars we don't have and will have to borrow from the Chinese... then give the money to Americans so they can spend it buying more stuff made in China, thus increasing the budget and trade deficits. Wouldn't that make the dollar even weaker and our economy worse?

Financial markets don't like uncertainty. The failure of congressional Democrats to make the Bush tax cuts permanent is a contributing cause of our financial jitters. Instead of doling out Oreos, simply making the cuts permanent would increase confidence as businesses make long-range plans. Companies would invest in new projects and create jobs and we all would win without more government borrowing. The problem is that answer is too complicated for most folks ... so just slip us some Chips Ahoy. Heck, a chocolate IV would be nice. Hmmmm.

So to all the folks who don't have a clue ... set your Tivo to record plenty of stuff this week to keep you entertained and then stay home on election day so you can catch up on the latest episodes of "American Awful" or 'Dancing With The Has Beens." To those who truly understand the issues we're facing ... I'll see you at the polls.

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Chuck Shiflett is a past chairman of the Bartow County Board of Education, former Communications Director of the Georgia Republican Party, and is co-owner of NewsTalk AM 1270 WYXC. Contact him at: Column@ChuckShiflett.com

Who Voted in Early America?

Voting Before the Revolution

For the most part, American colonists adopted the voter qualifications that they had known in England. Typically, a voter had to be a free, adult, male resident of his county, a member of the predominant religious group, and a “freeholder.” A freeholder owned land worth a certain amount of money. Colonists believed only freeholders should vote because only they had a permanent stake in the stability of society. Freeholders also paid the bulk of the taxes. Other persons, as the famous English lawyer William Blackstone put it, “are in so mean a situation as to be esteemed to have no will of their own.”

Becoming a freeholder was not difficult for a man in colonial America since land was plentiful and cheap. Thus up to 75 percent of the adult males in most colonies qualified as voters. But this voting group fell far short of a majority of the people then living in the English colonies. After eliminating everyone under the age of 21, all slaves and women, most Jews and Catholics, plus those men too poor to be freeholders, the colonial electorate consisted of perhaps only 10 percent to 20 percent of the total population.

The act of voting in colonial times was quite different from today. In many places, election days were social occasions accompanied by much eating and drinking. When it came time to vote, those qualified would simply gather together and signify their choices by voice or by standing up. As time went on, this form of public voting was gradually abandoned in favor of secret paper ballots. For a while, however, some colonies required published lists showing how each voter cast his ballot.

Voting fraud and abuses were common in the colonies. Sometimes large landowners would grant temporary freeholds to landless men who then handed the deeds back after voting. Individuals were paid to vote a certain way or paid not to vote at all. Corrupt voting officials would allow unqualified persons to vote while denying legitimate voters the right to cast their ballots. Intimidation and threats, even violence, were used to persuade people how to vote. Ballots were faked, purposely miscounted, “lost,” and destroyed.

After declaring independence on July 4, 1776, each former English colony wrote a state constitution. About half the states attempted to reform their voting procedures. The trend in these states was to do away with the freehold requirement in favor of granting all taxpaying, free, adult males the right to vote. Since few men escaped paying taxes of some sort, suffrage (the right to vote) expanded in these states. Vermont’s constitution went even further in 1777 when it became the first state to grant universal manhood suffrage (i.e., all adult males could vote). Some states also abolished religious tests for voting. It was in New Jersey that an apparently accidental phrase in the new state constitution permitted women to vote in substantial numbers for the first time in American history.

“Of Government in Petticoats!!!”

The provision on suffrage in the New Jersey state constitution of 1776 granted the right to vote to “all inhabitants” who were of legal age (21), owned property worth 50 English pounds (not necessarily a freehold), and resided in a county for at least one year. No one is sure what was meant by “all inhabitants” since the New Jersey constitutional convention was held in secret. But it appears that no agitation for woman suffrage occurred at the convention.

After the state constitution was ratified by the voters (presumably only men voted), little comment on the possibility of women voting took place in the state for 20 years. Even so, one state election law passed in 1790 included the words “he or she.” It is unclear how many, or if any, women actually voted during this time.

In 1797, a bitter contest for a seat in the New Jersey state legislature erupted between John Condict, a Jeffersonian Republican from Newark, and William Crane, a Federalist from Elizabeth. Condict won the election, but only by a narrow margin after Federalists from Elizabeth turned out a large number of women to vote for Crane. This was probably the first election in U.S. history in which a substantial group of women went to the polls.

Newspaper coverage of women voting was widespread in the state and included the publication of a new song titled, “The Freedom of Election.” The sarcastic last verse illustrates pretty much what the attitude of most New Jersey men must have been:

Then freedom hail! thy powers prevail
o’er prejudice and error;
No longer shall man tyrannize,
and rule the world in terror:
Now one and all, proclaim the fall
of Tyrants! - Open wide your throats,
And welcome in the peaceful scene,
of government in petticoats!!!

New Jersey newspapers debated whether the state constitution really intended for women to vote. Some argued that the words “all inhabitants” surely did not include children, slaves, and foreigners. If this were the case, they continued, women should not be allowed to vote either because they never had before. Others maintained that perhaps widows and single women who owned property worth 50 pounds should be able to vote. Married women were automatically excluded from voting since at this time all property in a marriage legally belonged to the husband.

One New Jersey opponent of woman suffrage wrote in 1799, “It is evident, that women, generally, are neither, by nature, nor habit, nor education, nor by their necessary condition in society, fitted to perform this duty [of voting] with credit to themselves, or advantage to the public.”

In 1806, Newark and Elizabeth again faced off at the polls, this time over the site of a new county courthouse. During three days of voting, partisans from both towns used every legal and illegal device to gather the most votes. Men and boys, white and black, citizens and aliens, residents and non-residents, voted (often many times). Women and girls, married and single, with and without property, joined the election frenzy. Finally, males dressed up as females and voted one more time.

Newark, with 1,600 qualified voters, counted over 5,000 votes; Elizabeth, with 1,000 legal voters, counted more than 2,200 votes. Although Newark claimed victory, the voting was so blatantly fraudulent that the state legislature canceled the election.

The following year, the state legislature passed a new election law to clear up the confusion over who was qualified to vote in New Jersey. The law declared that since it was “highly necessary to the safety, quiet, good order, and dignity of the state,” no persons were to be allowed to vote except free white men who either owned property worth 50 pounds or were taxpayers. Such voters would also have to be citizens and residents of the county where they voted. The campaign for this new election law was led by John Condict, the legislator who was nearly defeated in 1797 when many women voted for his opponent. Thus, in 1807, with little debate in the all-male state legislature, and no public protest from the state’s female population, the experiment with woman suffrage in New Jersey came to an end.

Expanding the Right to Vote

Although for a time some states like New Jersey wanted to limit suffrage, the trend throughout U.S. history has been to expand the right to vote. At first, the main debate was over property tests. But by the Civil War, most states had replaced the freehold and other property requirements with universal white manhood suffrage or something close to it.

With the end of slavery, reformers turned to securing the right to vote for black freedmen. While this was accomplished constitutionally with the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, another century passed before discrimination against black voters was finally suppressed. Women did not win the right to vote until the adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920, over 100 years after women lost the vote in New Jersey.

In 1964, the 24th Amendment prohibited denying anyone the right to vote in federal elections for failing to pay a voting or any other tax. Finally, in 1971, the 26th Amendment reduced the legal voting age to 18 in all elections.

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