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To: Empire_of_Liberty
The Founders also didn’t have women voting.

They also didn't not have women voting. They left control of who was allowed to vote to the States. Which, it still is today, outside of two restrictions: States can't deny women in general, and they can't set an age restriction over 18.
Back in the day, most States limited eligibility to white, landed males over a certain age. Some places allowed women to vote if they owned land, this was just a rare occurrence as the only women who might have land would be a widow whose husband had no one else to leave the properties, or a daughter with no brothers or other male family for her dying dad to leave it to.
50 posted on 02/10/2020 6:41:59 PM PST by Svartalfiar
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To: Svartalfiar

I have to admit that you are more correct than I, as far as the US Constitution indicating the Founders thoughts on the vote. I had remembered a reference to males, 21 years of age, in terms of voting, but this is only in the 14th Amendment from 1868, so, not the Founders writing.

You made me find the Constitution and read it again, which is not bad. There is, of course, a lot that is not said in such a brief document, such as what is considered the generally obvious. There appears careful use the noun, “person”, preserving sex neutrality, interspersed with “he”, which does not. From what is there, I would need to see other writing to believe that they were not thinking exclusively of men, in these instances.

I would find it hard to believe that the 1868 reference is more restrictive than earlier norms, but this is not the clear reference to the Founder’s intentions that I thought it was.


51 posted on 02/10/2020 8:16:29 PM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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