It isn't only women and blacks who were rather "disenfranchised" by our Constitution, either. The "Papists" were REALLY looked down on, too, regardless of the "tolerant" language of the Constitution. I hadn't really understood how deeply that was, so I was astonished 1960, when JFK being Catholic was considered such a negative for his election chances, but if you explore the history of our country in early times, you can see that distrust of the Papists has run very deep throughout our history.
The Iraqis are doing very well, in a very short period of time, to have such an reasonable first cut at a constitutional government with quite a bit of equality for all, and this despite the terrorism of the FRAUDcasters and the Islamofascists.
1960, that's when I first got really interested in politics. I was raised Catholic so needless to say we were all for JFK. Actually (as I recall) He put an end to that pretty quick by confronting it.
Interesting tidbit, until the 1960 election JFK and Nixon were pretty good friends.